Embolden This

Matthew Yglesias makes an interesting observation about this new charge of “emboldening” the enemy by criticising the war in Iraq. As he notes:

Does anyone really believe, after all, that our enemies currently lack for boldness of all things? One can say accurately various nasty things about Osama, his hardened core of terrorists-cum-special-forces, his more conventional guerilla fighters, Zarqawi, al-Sadr, their followers, etc., but one thing they certainly aren’t is some kind of chickenshit force that would be really scary if only they got bolder.

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The notion that the USA could possibly impress these guys with grand displays of machismo is silly. The bad guys here are hard core and that’s just the way it is. A strategy to beat them has to be smart and has to use the many advantages America really does have. Worrying about the other side’s boldness isn’t going to get us anywhere.

And anyway, doesn’t it seem a bit, well…girlie-manish…for our swaggering Crusdader Codpiece to be tremulously waving his hands and shushing his opponents because it might make the nasty terrorists even bolder than they already are? Surely, superheroes such as he are much too strong and manly to care whether the bad guys are emboldened by talk of any kind. Real men say “bring it on,” right?

Clearly, people who are willing to blow themselves up aren’t suffering from a lack of physical courage. That is not the problem. Indeed, until we create a corps of suicide bombers they have the advantage in willing human cannon fodder material. Our military superiority isn’t supposed to be our “courage” and “boldness” it is our international leadership, advanced technology and smart strategy, none of which Junior has employed worth a busted fuck.

This has been part of the fallacy driving Junior’s misbegotten strategy from day one. While it’s obvious that a fair amount of his ridiculous Hopalong Cassidy bullshit was calculated to thrill the rubes here at home, there is ample evidence that many of the starry-eyed neocons truly believed that a thrilling show of Big American Power would snap some of those Ay-rabs out of their little dreamworld and bring them around right quick to the knowledge that they can never win against us, the Ubermenschen.

As Richard Perle memorably said back in October of 2001:

Having destroyed the Taliban, having destroyed Saddam’s regime, the message to the others is, “You’re next.” Two words. Very efficient diplomacy. ” You’re next, and if you don’t shut down the terrorist networks on your territory, we’ll take you down, too. Is it worth it?” Of course it isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth it for any of them.

You can almost smell the testosterone, can’t you? These guys really believed this Neverneverland nonsense. I’m afraid our Boy King still does.

He’s just being his typical two-faced self bellowing “bring ’em on” one day and then falling over with the vapors the next because Kerry’s words might make the badguys mad. Nothing new there.