guardian | When it comes to justifying the killing of civilians, the only
difference between the Joe Kleins of the world and Osama bin Laden is
that they're on different sides. To the extent one wanted to distinguish
them, one could say that the violence and aggression brought by the US
to the Muslim world vastly exceeds - vastly - the violence and
aggression brought by the Muslim world to the US. That's just a fact.
(2) Leaving aside the sociopathic, morally grotesque defense of killing
4-year-olds with a "joystick from California", Klein's claims are
completely false on pragmatic grounds. Slaughtering Muslim children does
not protect American children from terrorism. The opposite is true.
That is precisely what causes the anti-American hatred that fuels and sustains terrorism aimed at Americans in the first place, as even a study commissioned by the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon recognized almost a decade ago.
The
reason American 4-year-olds are in danger from terrorism - to the very
limited extent they are - is precisely because those empowered in US
government and media circles think like Joe Klein does. Soulless
cheerleaders for indiscriminate killing like Joe Klein - who once went
on national television and advocated that the US should preserve the right to launch a first-strike nuclear attack
on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program, prompting host George
Stephanopoulos to label that statement "insane" - are the reason there
is a terrorism risk to Americans, not the solution for that risk.
If
you want to understand why there is such a widespread desire to engage
in violence against the US, look at Joe Klein's face and listen to his
words. Every Muslim who has ever engaged in violence against the US will
make that as clear as can be.
(3) This exchange
is a perfectly vivid expression of the Obama legacy. Here we have a
standard Democratic/progressive pundit who is one of the media's most
stalwart Obama fanatics defending indiscriminate slaughter of Muslim
children. Meanwhile, it's left to a former right-wing, Gingrich-era
congressman to raise objections, call for more public scrutiny, and cite
the moral and strategic dangers, one of the very few commentators on
MSNBC - the progressive network - who has ever voiced such passionate
criticism of Obama's ongoing killings.
Obama has led all sorts of progressives and other Democrats to be the most vocal supporters of unrestrained aggression, secret assassinations, and "crippling" the Iranian people with sanctions.
It is completely unsurprising that the most sociopathic defense of
drones comes from one of the most committed Obama supporters, and that
it's now left to a former GOP Congressman to raise objections. As much
as anything, that is the Obama legacy.
(4)
One of the primary reasons war - especially protracted war - is so
destructive is not merely that it kills the populations at whom it is
aimed, but it also radically degrades the character of the citizenry
that wages it. That's what enables one of America's most celebrated
pundits to go on the most mainstream of TV programs and coldly justify
the killing of 4-year-olds, without so much as batting an eyelash or
even paying lip service to the heinous tragedy of that, and have it be
barely noticed. Joe Klein is the face not only of the Obama legacy, but
also mainstream US political culture.
