Linker feels that Americans need to hear “a little less about how important it is for us to blow other people to bits and a little more about what it’s like to live in a world in which a single nation has the power to strike a deadly blow wherever it wishes, anywhere on the planet”:
How would we feel, I wonder, if we lived in a world in which another country was so powerful that it could inflict military pain on any nation, including us, with impunity? Without an act of imagination, we can’t even begin to answer that question — because we are the only nation in that position, or even close to it. Russia, our nearest rival, may be flexing its muscles in Ukraine. But as with all of Russia’s post-Soviet military adventures, this one is taking place right next door. The United States, by contrast, hasn’t fought a war with a neighboring power since the mid-19th century, and it regularly (as in: every few years) starts wars many thousands of miles from its territory. In this sense at least, America truly is an exceptional nation.
I will never write a word in defense of ISIS and its bloodthirsty, homicidal ambitions. But if we wanted to understand some of what motivates people from around the world to join its seemingly suicidal cause, we might start with the very fact of America’s incontestable military supremacy and the cavalier way we wield it on battlefields across the globe.
The Dish 