But if I shout "Muhammed was a clown" in the Middle East I'll be killed--probably on the spot.
The Taliban bombed a women's market in Peshawar, Pakistan, murdering 114 poor women and children. And many if not most Pakistanis--even middle class ones--blamed it on the Jews, or the Indians, or the Americans, as part of a Western plot to destroy Pakistan in particular and Islam in general. They refuse to believe that a fellow Muslim could be so evil. And until they do, they're a tribe fighting our civilization.
We all remember what happened when an obscure Danish newspaper published a group of cartoons depicting/satirizing Islam/Muhammed, of which the one shown here is about as harsh as it gets (Danish imams poured gasoline on the fire when they went to the Middle East armed with the Danish cartoons--plus some far worse ones they cooked up themselves and added to the Danish ones).There were violent riots throughout Muslim countries. Millions took to the streets. People died in the riots. The cartoonists and their publishers had to go into hiding after getting credible death threats in Denmark.
On the other hand, after the October bombing of that women's market? Nada. If a drone kills three civilians and a Taliban general, there are demonstrations and pop songs written against America.
Pakistani pop music is full of denuciations and videos that are anti-American, anti-drone, anti-India, anti-Mossad. Not one word mentioning the Taliban. Of course anyone who did so would be murdered by the Taliban.
So our drone attacks are met with fury over American interference in Pakistani sovereignty, while the Talibans' murdering civilians and, for example, destroying 200 girls' schools are all blamed on outsiders--us, Jews, India.
So yes, the drone attacks make Pakistanis furious. I'd rather they didn't. But as long as we target them carefully, they may represent our best option among a bunch of options that are all bad, but among which we must choose.
Last note on this: frequently the criticisms of what we do there take the form of pointing out that whatever choice has been made will have terrible consequences.
The problem is that every single option we have--including precipitous withdrawl--has terrible consequences. So such criticisms are shallow and unproductive. The question is always, which terrible consequence is the least terrible.
But that's rarely asked.
If you want to read someone who doesn't agree with Obama about Middle East policy, yet who isn't a ranting idiot, check out NYTimes centrist columnist Tom Friedman. A debate between him and the president would be far more illuminating than the potshots the Republican leadership keeps taking.
