Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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John Kirby said it just right.
The Pentagon’s able press secretary appeared before the media Thursday to discuss the successful U.S. military operation that ended with the death of ISIS leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.
Kirby said that, my words not his, decent people should be thrilled that the man who led the murderous, treacherous and craven attacks in the name of the Islamic State for many years is no longer walking on the earth. In short, good riddance.
I agree.
I know that sounds harsh today but there was a time not too long ago when Americans had no trouble telling the good guys from the bad — whether it was a leader of a group like ISIS who routinely killed innocents to make some broader political statement, or terrorist groups like Hamas who hid behind women and children in Gaza while they attacked innocent Israelis with deadly missiles.
That time has come and gone and is replaced with questions by far too many who do not understand what murderous intentions really are and what this new reality means to the health and safety of Americans and their friends and allies around the world.
Today, and not without some merit, the questions that surround these successful missions by our very brave American military are heavily weighted toward the body counts — not of the bad guys — but of those women and children behind whom the cowardly attackers hide.
There is no question, at least under President Joe Biden’s watch, that our military operations are conducted with the necessity of limited civilian casualties a top priority. That is one reason why our SEAL and Delta teams take much longer to perform their missions than they should, thereby putting themselves at much greater risk.
But that is what America does. What we also do is get “our man.”
No matter how long it takes and how much it costs, the idea that justice will be done on earth is one that should drive U.S. policy — no matter who is in the White House.
So when Kirby admitted — after trying to explain all that went into the monthslong operation to hold the ISIS bad guy accountable — that the world is just a better place with ISIS murderers no longer among the living, what he was really saying is that the concept of right and wrong is alive and well in America.
As it should be.
Is it sad that children were also killed? Of course. But the evidence indicates that they were the victims of an ISIS suicide bomb detonated by their father, not the deliberate efforts of our elite military.
We live in an increasingly dangerous world. In the past, what was a clear-eyed demarcation between good and evil is a line often blurred today by ideological disputes and moral relativity, which can make our eyes glaze over and our minds numb trying to understand the nuances designed to confuse.
That’s why Kirby’s cleareyed expression was so welcome. It left no room for any discussion about what was right and who was wrong.
Unfortunately, I believe what is so easy for most of us to understand on the world’s increasingly violent stage is more difficult when we try to apply the same logic and moral suasion to our challenges on the domestic front.
We expect the bad guys around the world to lie, cheat, and steal when they can — meaning when the U.S. lets them. What we aren’t used to, even though we have had ample time to understand the problem, is bad guys right here at home — who look, talk and act like the rest of us — doing the same thing.
I am not suggesting that we take them out with our superb military and never consider them a second thought — the way we did with that ISIS thug — but I do believe we should steel ourselves to the concept that lying and cheating come far too naturally to many politicians and their cultlike followers these days.
And tolerating that behavior — which is murdering our democracy and blowing up our American sensibilities when it comes to living the idea of e pluribus unum — is at least as dangerous as a terrorist attack from without.
In fact, it is far more dangerous. And so far, we act like we don’t understand the concept. We do so to our own peril.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun
