While we slept, Taliban gunmen stormed an elementary
school in Pakistan killing 126 innocent children before blowing themselves up.
A caller from the Taliban took responsibility for the attack, explaining that
it was revenge for the earlier deaths of several Taliban fighters at the hands
of the Pakistani army.
And therein lies the fundamental difference between
conventional war and the war on terror. The telephone.
I don’t recall George Patton ever having to ring up
The Berlin Bugle to take credit for kicking their backsides in Lorraine. I don’t
recall him having to contact someone at the news desk in Rome to inform them
that it was his Seventh Army that had just run roughshod across Sicily and
beaten Montgomery to Messina. See, in traditional war army A. engages army B.
in battle on hill C. Army A. prevails.
Army B. withdraws to lick their wounds and plots revenge. Later, on hill D.
army B. exacts revenge…and so on until one army runs out of either men,
ammunition or both.
Not so with modern terrorism where ragtag band of
jihadists A. declares a fatwa of some sort against government B. with the
intent of overthrowing said government and instituting sharia law. Government
B. fights back and sends several jihadists to their seventy virgins. Ragtag
band of jihadists A. attacks elementary school C., kills 126 children, then
notifies the local press that they are responsible[Ma1] .
Our bettors from academia to the New York Times constantly
preach the doctrine of moral equivalence lest we Americans get on our high
horse about these barbarians. “Sure”, they preach, “terrorists are brutal but
no worse than what Christians did during the Crusades! Oh, and don’t forget how
awful we were to Native Americans…and what about slavery!!??” Ok.
I’ll remember that the next time I am awakened with a
story of a band of angry Methodists storming a school bus full of Jewish school
kids. I’ll read all about moral equivalence the next time I learn that a half
dozen Baptist deacons massacred 17 innocent Unitarians on a picnic. The next
time an election doesn’t go my way I will note with irony the violent protests
and looting of Muslim businesses by a bloodthirsty band of local Rotarians.
I am fully aware of the manifold failings of the West
in general and America in particular. We have our fair share of problems and inconsistencies.
But for those who are fond of always declaring us “no better” than our enemies
I have a response after reading of the massacre in Pakistan.
Go to hell.
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