The nihilism of David Brooks

They're still victims of the delusion that Paul Berman diagnosed after Sept. 11: "It was the belief that, in the modern world, even the enemies of reason cannot be the enemies of reason. Even the unreasonable must be, in some fashion, reasonable."

This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don't want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate.

David Brooks' latest missive, excoriating those who "turn away" from horrors such as the massacre of children in Russia, for being unable to confront "the truth."

Yes, what happened in Beslan, Russia was a horror, and those who perpetrate the slaughter of innocents are barbaric. And yes, there is a kind of "cult of death" that seems to drive more and more frequent suicide attacks.

But Brooks thesis seems to be that we can't do anything about these attacks. Maybe not, but arguing that those of us trying to comprehend what's going on and how to confront this evil are simply trying to "avert our eyes" and "divert our attention" is a falsehood.

I don't know what Brooks' answer to this is? Destroy the muslim world from which this "cult of death" emerges? Over a quarter million Chechnyans have died during their war of secession with Russia. It has been a brutal war, and continues to be.

Does saying that make me an apologist for the thugs who murdered those children? Not in my mind. It makes me someone who asks, maybe Putin's approach is wrong; maybe crushing the Chechens isn't working.

No, the ones really averting their eyes and diverting our attention are those, like Putin, who, faced with a real threat, ignore it by saying that there were "al Qaeda elements" behind the attacks in Beslan, despite the evidence. And now Putin is going further, saying we should support the brutal suppression of Chechnya as a way to keep the entire Caucuses from exploding. "Remember, there are nuclear weapons in Russia," he says, ominously, to westerners.

We are engaged is a similar sleight of hand in Iraq and when real al Qaeda elements hit us again, should we simply throw up our hands and declare war on Iran?

The freeway blogger is right. Again.