[Dean's World] Aziz P: wanting the terrorists to win?

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Posted by Aziz P:
wanting the terrorists to win?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1187095732.shtml


   today at RedState I saw this [1]fairly odious piece of conservative
   conventional wisdom again rear its head: that Democrats actively
   desire failure in Iraq. I know a fair number of DWers here believe
   much the same thing, and it's vile.

   I don't believe for a second that anyone in the political class, or
   the pundit class, genuinely believes or wants us as a nation to fail.
   It's a little thing called Benefit of the Doubt; in a civilized
   society with free speech and democratic process, its our
   responsibility to extend this basic courtesy to our opponents. The
   problem in modern discourse is that this basic civility has been
   sacrificed on the altar of immediate, short term political gain.

   That benefit of the doubt is why I refuse to castigate Stu Bykofsky
   for his provocative column titled "[2]To save America, we need another
   9/11". His thesis is that

     ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I'm thinking another 9/11 would
     help America.

     What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?

     A bastard so sick of how splintered we are politically - thanks
     mainly to our ineptitude in Iraq - that we have forgotten who the
     enemy is.

   This is a provocative piece. Something for everyone, it seems, though
   curiously it's been [3]embraced by conservatives and [4]denounced by
   liberals (I'd have predicted the opposite, based on his analysis of
   the Iraq war as an unmitigated failure).

   But I take substantive issue with his analysis on the merits. We are
   splintered politically, true - but that was long before Iraq and even
   before 9-11, and the reason, the sole reason, is because of that
   abandoned principle of benefit of the doubt. You can't just disagree
   anymore; you have to paint your opponent as the scum of the earth.
   That's the true way in which we have forgotten who our enemy is; but
   it long predates the true enemies we have today.

   Would another 9-11 really help? Bykofsky argues,

     It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering
     of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular
     purpose to prevail.

     The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

     The first 9/11 proved that.

   true, which is why another 9-11 will again serve as only a temporary
   distraction from the much more important pursuit of each other. If the
   result of 9-11, past or future, is a transient unity, then it comes at
   too high a price.

   Still, Bykofsky dared to write something genuinely provocative about
   9-11, that makes us really think. Or at least, pause for a moment.

   cross-posted [5]at Nation Building and [6]at Daily Kos.

References

   1. http://redstate.com/stories/war/nancy_boyda_wont_want_to_read_usa_today
   2. http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20070809_Stu_Bykofsky___To_save_America__we_need_another_9_11.html
   3. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/11/bykofsky-right-wing/
   4. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/016480.php
   5. http://dean2004.blogspot.com/2007/08/pining-for-9-11.html
   6. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/14/84449/5125