Shifting reactions to torture...and shoes

Eric Martin has two important posts at Obsidian Wings. In the first, he gathers the response to the bipartisan report on torture, the Bush administration's frequent lies about it, and the unsurprising shift in attitudes by the Right.

In the second, he ridicules the Right side of the -osphere again, this time for their reactions to the shoe-throwing incident in which they take ungrateful Iraqis to task for not showing enough love for the man who has left Iraq with hundreds of thousands dead, tortured, or turned to refugees.

Both are too important and insightful to reduce to pull quotes, but one thing did strike me:

Whether or not the flypaper theory was part of the calculus before the invasion, or just a convenient ex post facto rationalization, war supporters from the President and Vice President down have repeated the argument that by virtue of the invasion, and maintenance of troops in Iraq, we can attract al-Qaeda and other extremists to Iraq and "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here." Just today Bush reiterated this point:

Bush: There have been no attacks since I have been president, since 9/11. One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take ...

Raddatz: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

Bush: Yeah, that's right. So what?

So what? Really? I imagine some Iraqis might, you know, care that their country was turned into bait to lure combatants.

I imagine so, too; it's why the shoe thrower is now a national hero in Iraq. But what especially struck me is that as the Bush administration begins its slow fade, we're hearing more and more from them and their dead-enders a common theme: that al Qaeda hasn't attacked us on our soil since 9/11 (forgetting the guy who tried to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow-torch, but for sake of argument, let's agree that what they say is true).

So, okay, al Qaeda hasn't attacked us on our soil since 9/11. In the words of Bush, "So what?" More precisely, why would they? Bin Liden didn't, as Bush and the Right claim, "Hate us for our freedoms." As I've long understood it, he hated America primarily for a few very specific reasons, most especially because American troops were stationed in the land of Mecca and Medina, a grave humiliation in B.L.'s eyes. Those troops are gone, removed in response to the attack of 9/11. In other words, Bin Laden's grievances at the time were answered.

Fresh reasons to hate us have surely replaced that one, and new ones are always right around the corner, no doubt. For instance, American troops are now stationed in Iraq, a place with its own sites holy to Sunni Muslims. For now, though, it seems al Qaeda is content to attack the fly paper, such as it is.