Oliver Kamm on America's 'Contribution' to 9/11

Oliver Kamm manages to say everything I wanted to say about actress Maggie 'America's responsible in some way' Gyllenhall. I'm going to quote at length, because it's so on target, but you should really read the whole thing:

What can you say of a young lady for whom history has never happened, and who mistakes amorality and ignorance for personal bravery? The notion that we - the western democracies allied to the United States - might have knowingly provoked the murder of 3000 civilians is beyond everyday categories of stupidity. The amount we contributed to this 'conflict' unknowingly is moreover a matter on which it is unnecessary to speculate, for we already know the answer: it is zero. The theocratic totalitarians who attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did not leave a suicide note, but their leader has made no secret of his ambitions. As he explained to the BBC in an interview in 1998, he regarded "holy war against Jews and Christians" as a duty. We could adopt every single policy laid out in the 2004 election manifesto of Ralph Nader and still be the target of holy war by our declared Islamist enemies. There is no negotiated solution possible in such a conflict - only military victory for our side or theirs. And to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, this is just as well, because what their side objects to about us is everything - everything - that distinguishes our societies from the clerical barbarism that they represent: democracy, pluralism, liberal political rights, sexual equality, religious liberty, homosexual rights and so on.

Right on, Oliver...