The Truth @ The Spin Factor

Tancredo threatens 1.5 billion if U.S. is attacked.

Tancredo suggested we bomb Muslim holy sites in retaliation for a future terrorist attack. Perhaps Tancredo wants to punish 99.9% of Muslims for a crime they did not commit. Perhaps Tancredo, like Rudy Giuliani, needs to learn about blowback.

I suppose Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina among other majority Muslim countries are going to applaud Tancredo and the United States for turning Mecca into a glass crater. I’m sure bombing Mecca will have no negative consequences in regard to our political and economic situation.

Of course, this is not the first time such a ridiculous strategy has been suggested. You may recall when President Bush allegedly expressed his desire to bomb Al-Jazeera in 2004; while this story may not be true, two British journalists were charged with disclosing secret information.

It is curious that when it is done to us it constitutes terrorism. But when we terrorize others, somehow it is not classified as terrorism. I think threatening 1.5 billion people and a symbol of their religion constitutes terrorism; but maybe the modern definition of terrorism doesn’t have anything to do with terror anymore.

For a psychological perspective on this phenomenon read the following article by Shankar Vedantam: Disagree About Iraq? You’re Not Just Wrong — You’re Evil.

Partisans within ideological groups tended to view themselves as atypical vis-a-vis their group: atypical in their moderation, in their freedom from bias, and in their capacity to ’see things as they are in reality’ even when that reality proves to be ideologically inconvenient or ‘politically incorrect’. –Harvard Business School researcher Robert J. Robinson

Related:

Terrorism
Majority Muslim Countries
Blowback
Bias

August 5th, 2007 Posted by VoiceOfReason | Politics, Commentary, Blowback, Analysis, 2008 Election, Terrorism | one comment