Nuisances
: Tom Friedman derails this morning.
He’s agreeing with Kerry’s absurd longing for a day when terrorism is a “nuisance.”
Excuse me, I don’t know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives.
Terrorism will never be a nuisance to the people who are still killed and terrorized by these criminals. Is murder just a “nuisance” when the numbers decline? Is tyranny just a “nuisance” when it rules strange little countries instead of big Europe and Russia? Is there an acceptable level of terrorism? Of course not.
And if you long for the days when terrorism was just a nuisance to us then — according to the besainted 9/11 Commission — you long for a day when we were stupid, when we could and should have gone after terrorists and because we didn’t, we made ourselves vulnerable to attack.
Friedman then accuses Bush of politicizing 9/11 and changing America. But he has that reversed, of course.
9/11 changed America, Mr. Friedman. By saying that Bush changed America, you are in essence blaming 9/11 and its aftermath on him. That’s offensive. That is just the kind of divisive behavior you now accuse Bush of. That is politicizing 9/11.
Friedman supported the war in Iraq — hell, created a doctrine to support it, a doctrine he convinced me to support. But now he tries to slink away from that. He doesn’t quite deny it; he just conveniently ignores his active role in this policy. But you can’t back away, Mr. Friedman; the fact that you, in The New York Times, gave liberal justification for getting rid of Saddam and creating a beachhead for Democracy in the Middle East surely was a factor in the White House’s decision to go ahead: Hell, they said, if even a Times liberal agrees….
Kerry and Friedman are both wrong to long for the day when terrorism is merely a “nuisance.” Friedman is wrong to long for a day when terrorism no longer inconveniences him, as he whines in this column. They’re in essence wishing it had never happened so we had never changed. Well, dream on. I, too, wish that Hitler had never happened and that those six million Jews had lived and that Israel were not the excuse for terrorism in the Middle East. I, too, wish that Communism had never taken over the other half of the world and changed our lives and relationships for my generation. I, too, wish that AIDS had never occurred and made sex dangerous. Oh, I could continue this litany forever, couldn’t you? But it won’t change a thing, will it?
9/11 happened. Life changed. To wish it weren’t so will accomplish nothing. Or worse, it will accomplish something: This thinking will make us complacent and vulnerable.
No, I don’t long for the day when terrosim is a nuisance.
I long for the day when terrorism is history.
