Trope a dope

I posted below that it was being reported that the US had napalmed Falluja. In an ironically titled repsponse, Saint Paul at Fraters Libertas gives us the same old trope in Meet the New Trope, Same As the Old Trope.

Saint Paul employs the time honored conservative tactic of crying "Socialist" when presented with a set of ideologically contrary facts. When confronted with a very uncomfortable moral dillema - That it is obviously wrong to use napalm in civilian populations - he accuses the neutral observer with false moral clarity.

As much as St. Paul would assign the qualities of self-righteousness and cynicism to me I ask in return: When is the right going to get real? Although it is a war crime to drop napalm on civilian populations (it is, of course, endlessly arguable whether or not Falluja is a civilian population so let's agree to disagree), that's not the only thing that bothers me about it. Number two on the list is that the use of a weapon like that it is so unbelievably, tragically stupid. It is particularly stupid to use it in pursuit of an asinine war, ineptly run.

See, St. Paul, the thing is, I want to win the war on terror. This isn't about right and left. It's about winning a war. In order to win it, we have to come to grips with the fact that the war in Iraq and the way we are waging it is not making us safer. We are selling the soul of our nation to make our enemy stronger.

Here's some socialist propaganda that supports my argument, not that you or this administration would ever listen (two bits if you can guess the source):

American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies. Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that “freedom is the future of the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World — but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.

Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self determination.Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack — to broad public support.

What was a marginal network is now an Ummah-wide movement of fighting groups. Not only has there been a proliferation of “terrorist” groups: the unifying context of a shared cause creates a sense of affiliation across the many cultural and sectarian boundaries that divide Islam.

Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic — namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is — for Americans — really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves. Thus the critical problem in American public diplomacy directed toward the Muslim World is not one of “dissemination of information,” or even one of crafting and delivering the “right” message. Rather, it is a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none — the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam. Inevitably therefore, whatever Americans do and say only serves the party that has both the message and the “loud and clear” channel: the enemy.

Source: September 2004, Department of Defense, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication