They Attacked Us
And lo, suddenly the world changed. Within the entire glass menagerie of specious right-wing counter-arguments made whenever some boorish, wrong-headed, dubious, illegal or insane Bush/neocon policy is challenged by their opponents, "they attacked us" and its rhetorical cousins are the most annoying retort I commonly hear. "What do you suggest? Therapy? Hugs for the terrorists?" the argument goes, "they attacked us, we have to fight back. " First of all, who are "they"? Well, if you are talking about 9/11, "they" were largely Saudi Arabian middle-class college students. "They" were goaded into the operation by the son of a Saudi construction magnate of Yemeni decent and an Egyptian doctor, who were in turn disciples (at least in spirit) of an Egyptian dissident named Sayyid Qutb. In America, the "they attacked us" crowd likes to throw around terms like "jihad" and "fatwah" and "sha'ria...