It Ain't Just a River in Egypt

Lee Harris of Tech Central Station, which is going on the link sheet, has an interesting piece on 9/11 denial. He even goes so far as to suggest that those who refuse to see the Islamofascists as an enemy are doing them a disservice:

To insist that your enemy is not your enemy when he insists on being one is to rob him of his humanity, and to endanger your own existence -- and all for the sake of preserving an unsustainable illusion. To recognize an enemy, and to treat him as one, is not to dehumanize him -- on the contrary, it is to treat him as your equal. It is to take him seriously. It is to meet him on his own terms.


But that is just what liberal Democrats cannot bring themselves to do. They insist on pretending that 9/11 was just a kind of glitch, instead of seeing it as an act of devotion carried out by men who were motivated by the highest ethical purpose that they could comprehend.

He goes on to apply a fair criticism to the Iraq war: that the terrorists that planned it were international insurgents, not the forces of one state. This is, to my mind, the only criticism of the Iraq war worth listening to, the argument that it will not prevent terrorist attacks. It is entirely just and reasonable to criticize the administrations strategy for dealing with terrorism on the grounds of ineffectiveness. To do so is not treason, it is the reason we have free speech. I happen to think that the Iraq war is a far more effective means of fighting terrorism than Harris does, because I think it moves the battlefield away from us while planting a cultural counter-narrative in the Middle East. But others are free to disagree. However, most of the loudest criticism of the war has been to treat it as an imperialist enterprise utterly divorced from 9/11. And, once again, the Dems have yet to say how they would do it. To criticize without offering alternatives is simply whining, and I don't think that will eventually prove to be good politics.