They really are, despite the political hyping and election timing of our government it's true. I doubt very many of us are pleased that this is so, it is somehow unappealing to mind your own business and yet be a target. The really unfortunate side of this is the unthinking responses.
The President and his lackies would have us believe that people want to kill us because they hate our freedom. Ummm... I find this concept a little hard to make rational, not that I find people willing to blow themselves and others up to make a point particularly rational, it just seems pretty farfetched as a hatred generator. To work oneself up to this point takes a little more than a abstract object. They certainly hate something, but I have an idea that it is much more concrete than our freedom. If someone does something to you or your family or nation, that's concrete.
In the West, our experience of tribalism is pretty distant history, excepting the American Indians, and we forget how tribes work. Tribalism is pretty recent history for the Middle East so it might be instructive to consider it. Tribes work because of a very narrow social structure, family, religion, and tribal members are very closely linked, those relationships are of extreme importance and marked out by rigid codes. Violation of those codes is met with extreme reaction, whether within or without the tribal unit. Anybody want to take the time to count the number of ways and times the US government has transgressed those codes and for what reasons?
Do the policy makers in our government really believe we're hated for our freedoms? If they do, they're stupider than they seem to think we are. Now with people actually trying to kill us, it's not a good idea to be led by stupid people, or, people who lie to you because they think you're stupid. Reality is a wonderful approach to use in potentially deadly situations.
Sure, it's pretty easy for me to be distinctly unafraid of terrorists, I hardly ever fly and Baker City, OR is pretty far down the terrorist target list, but I do give a damn if my fellow citizens are threatened. But trying to scare people out of their civil liberties and into voting against their own interests does nothing to secure them, and neither do military adventures with constantly changing justifications (lies). Finding out Who and Why is crucial, and then addressing the Whys and smaking the shit out of the Whos makes sense. Regarding the Whys, some are subject to negotiation and change, some are plain un-negotiable, figure it out and do it. The Whos sure aren't easily found, and it's a lot harder if you manufacture them at a hellbent pace with a stupid war instead of looking for them. There is no nation on earth with more power and resources than the US, we can't find these people? Well, there is oil in Iraq and we can make plenty more terrorists for the President to play politics with.
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