Not Just Bret

State is filled with people whose goal is endless carnage in the Middle East, followed by retirement at a no show Think Tank "job."

A year ago, as soon as news coverage began to grasp the scale of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the idea took hold that October 7 was Israel's 9/11. Every cliche is an invitation to stop thinking, but even so, it's hard to grasp the stupefying effect that particular insta-cliche had on the Israel—United States alliance. What was America's 9/11, originally? It was a sneak attack by a weaker power, inflicting savage horrors on helpless civilians.

What else was 9/11? A shocking failure of intelligence and security, an event that should easily have been cut short before it could begin.

And what else? An excuse for lashing out at whatever targets the military could hit, with no regard for whether or not it would punish the perpetrators. A brief moment of accumulation of global sympathy and moral credit as the victim of the attacks, to be squandered on unchecked violence and war crimes. A pretext for a second-front war of choice meant to settle old grudges, dressed up in the language of writing history and reshaping the geopolitical landscape. Slaughter, slaughter, and more slaughter for two decades, a cascade of strategic failure measured overwhelmingly in other people's lives.

I'm sure there are some good people at State. They should have been reporting their coworkers to the FBI for their interest in terrorism.