In my earlier article on misjudging the American character, I argued that the world needs to give up this notion of demanding that we become introspective about 9/11. They need to stop trying to get us to ask "Why do they hate us?".  It ain't gonna happen.  Americans, as history has shown, will do whatever it takes to overcome an enemy. Whatever it takes. I pointed out that in 1945 the majority of Americans, according to polls at the time, supported the elimination of the Japanese as a people.  I wasn't arguing that this was a good thing. I merely pointed this out. My argument focused on trying to get people to start looking at things realistically. The Middle East needs to worry more about the "American Street". It needs to stop expecting that the west and the United States in particular, live to a standard of behavior that they themselves seem unable or incapable of living up to. It is the Islamic world that needs to stop its terrorists. Not to help us. But to help themselves. Because if push comes to shove and it's a choice between us and them, we'll choose us in a nanosecond.

The response to my article was predictable. It boiled down to two basic responses: Either the standard "shoot the messenger" response in which I was the bad guy for pointing out these facts or that my article was "proof" of how blood thirsty Americans are.

Both responses show a certain...naiveté about the world and about its history.  Perhaps I should have renamed my article to this: "Americans are humans".  About 60 years ago the Europeans exterminated about 12 million of its own citizens. Of course, ask a European and they'll blame the Germans. Ask a German and they'll blame the Nazi's. Ask a former Nazi and they'll blame the SS. And so on.  But any student of history of World War II will tell you that it was a team effort by many different people across many different European countries.

Meanwhile Russia, China, Japan have also exterminated millions of other people. Not in battle. Just good old fashion mass murder.  Rwanda saw the same thing not that long ago.  In other words, no matter where you go, people have amply demonstrated that large segments of a given population, for reasons we don't understand, can commit genocide of various levels.

But apparently, this fact is lost on some people. You can almost imagine them with their hands over their ears, eyes closed, yelling "La la la! I can't hear you! La la la!". And for these people, they pretend that Americans are somehow magically different. At the same time they say we're a bunch of blood thirsty war mongers, they also fully expect that these same ignorant, blood thirsty, simplistic, gun toting, death penalty loving, CO2 producing Saurons will always show amazing restraint no matter the cause.  Sure, good chunks of the European countries might exterminate huge swaths of their own population based on some racial theory and certainly the Japanese can't help but to think of Koreans as sub-human and those who aren't Islamic really don't deserve to live in the first place, but the Americans must take whatever is dished out to them. Because they deserve it.

But Americans are human. Simply because, thus far, the US has shown a great deal of restraint in its response to 9/11 (and if you don't think it has, you're kidding yourself) doesn't mean that restraint is infinite.  That was what I was trying to get across in my previous article.

It is futile to try to argue that Americans somehow deserved 9/11. It does more harm than good to shrilly yell "Ask yourselves why they hate you!". No matter where in the world you go, people are people. And when one group of humans feels threatened by another group, the response has always been the same - eliminate or subjugate the other group.

The American people are a remarkably tolerant people who are slow to anger. And like other democracies, its system is designed to blunt the rash passions of the majority. But at the end of the day, the Americans are just as human as anyone else.  I suggest those who see the United States as the villain take a fresher perspective.  There are great masses of the Arab Islamic world that are filled with murderous rage against the west and the United States in particular. And some of those people endeavor to get weapons that could do the American people great harm believing that they can somehow win. They can't. Their best case scenario is peaceful co-existence with the west and the United States.  Their worst case scenario is their complete annihilation. Don't pretend it couldn't happen because it's happened before thousands upon thousands of times in history and it'll probably continue to happen thousands of times in the future at various scales.

It is time for those who oppose American policies to become a little more even handed in their thinking. They need to stop treating Islamic Arabs as children and make those countries and those cultures live by the same civilized standard that one expects of the United States and its friends.  And they need to pressure these countries to stop inciting violence against westerners. Because if they don't, at some point they may prove that Americans are just as human as anyone else and do what humans have always done throughout history when they feel threatened.

Don't shoot the messenger.