VDH: "Waging The War on “Terror,” Vichy-style."

A few hours before the catastrophic attack in Paris, President Obama had announced that ISIS was now “contained,” a recalibration of his earlier assessments of “on the run” and “Jayvees” from a few years back. In the hours following the attack of jihadist suicide bombers and mass murderers in Paris, the Western press talked of the “scourge of terrorism” and “extremist violence”. Who were these terrorists and generic extremists who slaughtered the innocent in Paris — anti-abortionists, Klansmen, Tea-party zealots?

. . . Our premodern enemies have certainly got our postmodern number. Newsmen compete to warn us not of more jihadists to come or the nature of the Islamist hatred that fuels these murderers, but instead fret about Western “backlash” on the horizon, about how nativists and right-wingers may now “scapegoat” immigrants. Being blown apart may be one thing, but appearing illiberal over the flying body parts is quite another. Let’s hurry up and close Guantanamo Bay so that it will stop “breeding” terrorists; and let’s hurry up even more to restart the “peace talks” to remind ISIS that we are nice to the Palestinians.