Let me start this post with a confession. Just about everything that Fareed Zakaria (or Tom Friedman for that matter) writes nettles me. Given that confession, I have a question about Mr. Zakaria’s most recent column:
The many recent acts of terror committed in Europe don’t have behind them a coherent strategy. But they could make European governments and people treat all Muslims in Europe as suspicious and dangerous — and then the jihadis and terrorists will have achieved an important goal.
He’s warning against overreaction.
Here’s my question: where do you draw the line between reaction and overreaction? There is an English language adage that’s at least a half millennium old with which Mr. Zakaria may not be familiar: give him an inch and he’ll take an ell. Under-reaction promotes further aggression.
I have made no secret of my opinion that we reacted wrongly in response to the attacks on 9/11. However, it was not an overreaction. An overreaction would have been, as I heard asserted in the aftermath of the attacks, that we should nuke every Arab capitol.
If anything invading Afghanistan and Iraq and taking the measures towards security at home and stopping the financing of terrorism abroad were an underreaction in that they did not accomplish the objectives they were purportedly intended to accomplish. So here’s my reaction: how you draw the line between a reaction and an overreaction?
Fareed Zakaria is not concerned about overreacting, but if he can stop all overreaction, he can stop most action. It is not that he wants no action, but he wants only the action that he believes is correct. This may not be a conscious thought process by him, but it is what he is doing.
He does not want the US to get more involved. The piece is a mishmash of strung together incidents from 200 years to make his case. It is a pathetic attempt to throw crap at the wall. A high school sophomore could have supported his thesis better than he did.
how you draw the line between a reaction and an overreaction?
A reaction is the action you deem correct. An over reaction is an action you deem incorrect and too harsh, and an underreaction is an action you deem incorrect and too soft.
It is really simple. Either, you are with me, or you are against me. Do you want to be right or wrong, good or evil. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.
You should have kept your opinion a secret, even now.
The average Arab or Muslim here and worldwide might get the impression you have no problem with destroying an unthreatening Arab country, and causing hundreds of thousands of innocent casualities in the process, rather than making a polite Ron Paul-Pat Buchanan -advocated withdrawal from the Mideast–and they would be right.
In that these Arabs and Muslims understand your opinion is shared by substantial numbers of Americans who are prepared to vote for a Rubio, a Jeb Bush, a Hillary in continuance of an ultimately
self-destructive policy, but not a Nader, Buchanan or Kucinich, they might just be tempted to stiffen their resolve and hasten the process.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/02/09/rand-paul-cant-have-the-best-of-both-worlds-libertarian-iow-terrorisma/
Actually Rand Paul has earned the contempt of most of his dad’s fans. And I hope they understand why they now hold him in such.
You cannot tackle the problem of so-called Islamic terrorism with out first tackling the problem of the Commentary crowd’s grip
on foreign policy. And this crowd of dual loyalists did not even pause to thank Rand for approving of the settlements.