No Moral Equivalence

Mr. President:

UN Ambassador Bolton, while still not making any sense in his public utterances, is at least becoming a little more interesting. He seems to be fixated on the concept of moral equivalence and finds that there is none between the various groups of the slain, whose subsets make up the butchers bill for the "Global War on Terror". For example, take the groups of the dead on our side, about 3,000 each 9/11 victims and American servicemen. According to him there is no moral equivalence between them and any Iraqi dead, whether combatant or noncombatant and whether the combatants were engaged in jihadi or factional violence. Likewise, he finds there is no moral equivalence between Israeli casualties and Lebanese casualties, whether civilian, military or Hezbollah. The main significance of the dead, is, according to Mr. Bolton, that they are dead.

Let us leave aside for now the Israeli/Lebanese conflict and focus on our own "War on Terror". One of the main "Truths" about this war, that we hear over and over again from you and your various surrogate apologists, is that it's better to fight the "Axis of Evil" over there, than over here. Given the absence of moral equivalence, why? It's better to kill Muslims here in America. It's cheaper, easier, more fun, less dangerous and more effective than going to Iraq to do it. Let's face facts, no Iraqi ever carried out an act of terrorism against the US. Most of the terrorists involved in 9/11 were more or less permanent residents of the US. Admittedly, they weren't citizens, but these days, who is. Besides, the country they did come from, Saudi Arabia, is one of your most valued "allies". I tell you what. If we had been keeping a close eye on the Arabs in this country over the last couple of years and had killed 30,000 of them who were engaged in "suspicious activities", and had several thousand more locked up, it seems to me we'd be a lot safer than we are. The Arabs that were left would be a lot less surly and better behaved.

The more I think about it, the more I think this no moral equivalence thing might be the key to winning the war on terror.