We are supposed to be the Good Guys. That means:
We shouldn't torture.
We shouldn't weasel about it when we have been torturing.
We shouldn't have secret prisons.
We shouldn't hold prisoners without charges or trials.
We shouldn't put prisoners in forbidden military bases to keep lawyers from helping them.
We shouldn't declare American citizens "enemy combatants" in order to strip their rights.
We shouldn't make a "pre-emptive" war on a country that is not even close to attacking us.
We shouldn't overthrow a government without a plan for installing a new government.
We shouldn't scorn our allies to make elective wars.
After 9/11, 2001 the world supported us and opposed the terrorists. Today, we have lost most of that support, and created more terrorists, because we did all of the above. It will take decades to undo the damage.
Today would be a good day to start being the Good Guys again.
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3 comments:
I was reading the Wall Street Journal's "best of the Web" column on line Wednesday, and they pretty thoroughly debunked the "the US had all the good will until the US misbehaved" theory. As early as September 12, European commentators were beginning to make the case that the attacks were simply America's sins coming home to roost.
It rather oversimplifies things to say the US has "lost most of that support, and created more terrorists, because we did all of the above. It will take decades to undo the damage." I'm betting support for Israel and lingering reflexes from the cold war era have much more to do with the loss of support...
(slightly corrected from an earlier version...)
Yes, we had critics on September 12, 2001. Still, I am less inclined to take some European pundits as representative of public opinion, than the outpouring of support at our embassies all over the world that day.
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