The pattern is sickeningly familiar: After every atrocity committed in the name of Islam, left-wing intellectuals and celebrities, scarcely bothering to conceal their schadenfreude, start lecturing us on the West’s moral failings.
So it was this week, when a young British soldier was butchered in broad daylight in the streets of London by men of Nigerian descent claiming to avenge Western violence against Muslims. Before a decent interval could pass, the moral equivocators rushed in to validate the attackers’ claim and say, in effect, it’s all our fault.
Most egregious, as usual, was Michael Moore, whose anti-American agitprop has made him rich and famous. He offered this sarcastic tweet: “I am outraged that we can’t kill people in other countries without them trying to kill us.”
Glenn Greenwald, another American acolyte of the “blowback” thesis, used his column in The Guardian to take British leaders to task for calling the attack an act of terrorism. In Greenwald’s logic-chopping estimation, that’s the wrong word because the victim was a soldier, not a civilian, and since America has declared the whole world the battleground in its fight against terrorism, well, you can’t apply the T-word to this particular “horrific act of violence,” which should instead be properly regarded as an act of war.
This distinction seems unlikely to console the family of 25-year-old Lee Rigby, a drummer in the Royal Fusiliers. And it course it rests on an assumption of moral equivalence in the conflict between Islamist terrorists and the United States and its allies.
“Basic human nature simply does not allow you to cheer on your government as it carries out massive violence in multiple countries around the world and then have you be completely immune from having that violence returned,” says Greenwald.
Well, it’s also basic human nature to take account of the causes of violence. There is a moral difference between aggressors and victims; between those who fight to impose an ideology or religious view on others and those who fight in self-defense; and, between those who try to minimize civilian casualties when they fight, and those whose who draw no distinction between military and civilian targets.
Greenwald and like-minded critics give President Obama no credit for narrowing the scope of violence by shifting from large-scale ground operations to highly targeted strikes by drones and special forces. On the contrary, that any civilians are killed by U.S. forces is seen as evidence of our moral callousness if not criminal depravity. Since there’s never been and never will be a way of waging war that doesn’t cause civilian casualties, the logical inference of the critics’ stance is that America cannot use force to defend itself.
Now, I think Americans do need to be reminded of our moral failings from time to time. We need a responsible left (and right for that matter) to keep close watch on how Republicans and Democrats wield America’s enormous military power. But to equate America’s misdeeds to those committed by Islamist fanatics is a slur; to issue apologias for murder as “retaliation” against U.S. or Western aggression is downright indecent.
In contrast to his ultra-left critics, Obama yesterday presented a morally lucid defense of his counterterrorism policies. He reminded his antiwar critics of some home truths they gloss over in casting America as the aggressor in the conflict:
“Moreover, America’s actions are legal. We were attacked on 9/11. Within a week, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of force. Under domestic law, and international law, the United States is at war with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces. We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war — a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.”
Obama went on to say that his administration will work to strengthen the “framework that governs our use of force against terrorists” by weighing the strategic value of drone strikes against their undoubted political costs; revisiting the use of force resolution Congress passed after 9/11; and renewing efforts to end indefinite detention and close Gitmo.
Lending credence to our enemies’ claims that America is at war with Muslims is the wrong way to minimize blowback. Aligning our counterterrorism campaign with America’s values and international law, as the president proposes, is the right way.
The piece appeared on RealClearPolitics.
