Not Getting It Department

I hate to do this, because I’ve always respected Zbigniew Brzezinski – but I have to call “Bullcrap!” on his Sunday WaPo column. Read:

By asserting that Islamic extremism, “like the ideology of communism . . . is the great challenge of our new century,” Bush is implicitly elevating Osama bin Laden’s stature and historic significance to the level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal significance. Underlying the president’s analogy is the proposition that bin Laden’s “jihad” has the potential for dominating the minds and hearts of hundreds of millions of people across national and even religious boundaries. That is quite a compliment to bin Laden, but it isn’t justified. The “Islamic” jihad is, at best, a fragmented and limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.

Back in the Bad Old Days, it took a nation-state to fight a nation-state. Japan built aircraft carriers to attack us at Pearl Harbor. Germany made tanks to slice up France. The Soviet Union produced missiles in about the same quantity (although with probably lower quality) that Charmin makes toilet paper.

But the Bad Old Days were also the Good Old Days. You could depend on the Soviets not to do anything really, really stupid