Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

It is clear that there are two distinct perspectives on the “cause” of the recent U.K. bombings. The one view, thankfully one that appears to be held by most responsible leaders, is that this is part of the larger war that militant Islam has been waging against the West for over a decade now. The terrorists wage a war of terror because they wish to destroy our way of life and impose taliban style rule, at least throughout the Middle East, much of Asia, and perhaps now even Europe.

The other view, which most certainly will lead to defeat if adopted by our world leaders, is one premised on the terrorists really being victims of Western policies. They are merely responding to our transgressions. It’s really our fault. We should leave them alone and they won’t continue to attack. In the old days this policy used to be called appeasement – do as they wish, and hopefully they won’t take their radical agenda too far. We saw the results of this in the 1930’s. It’s easy to look back at the isolationists and pro-appeasement lobby of the 1930’s and label them as an ignorant minority, but then, as now, the tendancy towards appeasement is a powerful one, shared by many in society.

What exists today that we did not see in the 1930’s are the faux hawks that are really appeasers. Sheep in wolves’ clothing. They won’t come out and directly say that the U.S. is to blame. Instead they’ll proclaim outrage against the terrorists in one breath, while chastising the West’s policies in the next. They dance around directly justifying the terrorists actions because they know taking that position is repugnant, yet they take that position nonetheless, believing in the terrorists’ cause -make that their naive, ethnocentric interpretation of the terrorists’ cause.

Beware of the sheep in wolves’ clothing.