Lawrence: No guts, no willingness to fight, too
timid by far, Osama says. And true to his
assessment we anguish over the fact that we are
human, that a small percentage (as occurs in every
fighting force) is going to misbehave. We say
never mind about the enemy, what about those of us
who misbehave? We say never mind about the people
trying to blow us up, what about the use of
excessive force in trying to find out whom our
enemy is.
Eric: People don't really think we're at war. They
think it's a bad dream that will go away if they
can only pin it all on Bush. It's a creepy kind of
nihilism, and I think it comes from the feeling of
being betrayed by the government too many times.
Remember around the time Nixon resigned, the
government WAS the enemy for many people. We
believed our own Cold War propaganda too much
perhaps, and Vietnam/Watergate showed us up as
suckers. The nihilism is also fashionable since it
gives a sort of glamor to alienation.
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