Two must reads at NRO:

Hue Again (and Again), by James S. Robbins. Excerpt:

By rights these incidents should demonstrate that we are better than our enemies. We are civilized, they are barbarians. What we are fighting for is objectively superior to what they are fighting for. Our struggle is legitimate, theirs is not. There is no room for moral relativism in this war. Certainly those who view torture and beheading as acts of piety have no problem seeing it as a black and white conflict. And when faced with extremism of this sort, we should take it at face value.
Those who say that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter should be asked how they define freedom. Those who compare terrorist or guerrilla leaders to George Washington or other Founding Fathers should explain when it was exactly that they ordered the killing of innocents as a method, or even as a matter of expediency. And especially when they ever sought to invoke God’s approval for inflicting agonizing deaths on helpless captives.

Geneva and Savagery, by Andrew C. McCarthy. Excerpt:

So exactly how are Islamic terrorists faring on Geneva’s “Do unto others” scorecard?
Well, the treaty’s provisions call for protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure. Al Qaeda targets civilians for mass murder and intentionally destroys civilian infrastructure.
The provisions call for membership in a regular military force which carries its arms openly. Al Qaeda’s idea of a weapon in open view is a hijacked jumbo jet in the seconds before it crashes into a building. Otherwise, it favors roadside bombs or high explosives concealed in vans burrowed in underground garages beneath bustling civilian skyscrapers.
The provisions call for wearing uniforms in order to distinguish members as authentic soldiers. Al Qaeda’s jihadists dress and conduct themselves ostensibly as civilians — the better to hide from real armies and lull actual civilians to their deaths.
The provisions call for treating captured enemy soldiers with the dignity and respect accorded to honorable prisoners of war: accounting for them, keeping them safe, allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross access to ensure their proper treatment.
Al Qaeda tortures and slaughters them.

War critics who use any form of moral equivalency to suggest the US “asked” for Al Qaeda or its brutal and monstrous behavior, I’m sorry, are imbeciles. Morons. Or morally bankrupt themselves. Take your pick.

Moral equivalency is as oxymoronic a term as I can identify. It would be bad enough if critics who think this way actually tried to perform two way comparisons, suggesting “AQ did this because the US did this, the US did this because AQ did that.”

But they don’t even try to do so, because they are all about the US being bad and wrong, and our enemies being poor unfortunates who can’t help themselves in reacting the way they do. Rather than evil men who are lower than scum, who deserve neither sympathy nor quarter.

(Cross-posted at Milblogs)