Quote of the Day

Digby, on the conservative mind:

Of course, the neocons barely mentioned terrorism prior to 9/11, obsessed as they were with Israeli politics, China, Iraq and North Korea, but after the attacks they suddenly discovered that this had been the animating feature of global politics for decades.

But I don't think we are talking about policy at all. We are talking about psychology. And it isn't confined to the neocons, although they gave this psychology an intellectual veneer. The conservatives generally, evidently including members of the top military brass, seem to be driven by a primitive fear not of attack or physical violence, but of humiliation. This is what makes them tick and it's the essence of what's gone wrong since 9/11.

Terrorism is a tactic for spreading fear, to be sure, but because it is an elusive, nettlesome sort of warfare, it's also quite effective at tweaking the massive egos of these manly western warriors who seem to have extreme difficulty dealing with the juvenile taunts and sophomoric trash talk that characterizes so much of the Islamic extremist rhetoric. I get why the extremists do it --- chest pounding rhetoric is all they have. But it is unworthy and counterproductive for a great nation to play their game. Yet from the moment George W. Bush stood on that rubble and shouted puerile threats into the bullhorn like the high school cheerleader he was, that's exactly the game we've been playing. The invasion of Iraq was just a massive exercise in preening, unctuous, muscle flexing.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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