Ted Rall for February 06, 2015
Transcript:
We were shocked by the ISIS video showing them burning a Jordanian pilot alive. But when U.S. troops dropped white phosphorus on civilians, including many women and children, in Iraq in 2004, no one cared when they melted. Why the different reactions? For one thing, we care more about one guy than thousands. It's scarier if the killers dress foreign and there's weird foreign music playing. You can't be shocked by something you don't see- and the media ignored white phosphorus. When it's "your" country doing it, there must be a good reason.
“We can do what it takes to eradicate them now, which is no less that what they’re trying to do to us.”Lines like this drive me nuts. How can you say that? ISIS is cra-cra, but when have they attacked the US? Never. When have they ordered an attack outside of their own territory? Never. Americans’ false sense of victimhood – “what they’re trying to do to us” – makes it impossible to act rationally. They haven’t tried to do ANYTHING to us. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attack them. Maybe we should. But let’s be clear: in the war against ISIS, we are the aggressors, not them.