Eugene Robinson and Juan Cole have wickedly good rebuttals to Cheney’s nonsensical attack on Obama from Tuesday, showing how Cheney is acting like a raving lunatic. Go read them.
But one thing that Cole mentions in passing really caught my eye, and deserves further attention. Cole points out that according to anti-terrorism experts, Al Qaida is suddenly having problems recruiting new jihadi. Indeed, it is very significant that the father of the man who tried to blow up an airplane on Christmas day actually went to an American Embassy to warn us. Think about that. If all Muslims hated America, would one of them march down to the US embassy and turn his son in?
And yet, Cheney seems hell bent on convincing Muslims that America is their enemy. He’s been doing that for the last eight years, and look what that has done for us. Ironically, his time and energy would have been better spent straightening out the lack of interagency communication in our massive “intelligence” organizations. After all, we not only had tips about this latest act of terrorism, we had plenty of tips about 9/11.
That is, if Cheney’s goal is to make America safer.
Ironically, this black man who has lived in a Muslim country, just by being elected president, has done more harm to Al Qaida than all of the torture, bluster, and sabre rattling of the last administration. And it actually helps that Obama has given speeches to Muslims in Egypt. And treated other countries with respect. Muslims now realize that America is not their enemy. Maybe that’s why he got the Nobel prize.
So, why do some Americans keep acting like all Muslims are our enemy?
