Last week I posted this graphic on Facebook — I try to post an anti-war graphic once a week on both my musician page and my personal page, in part to spread the word about the anti-war video for my song “If I Was You.” With all the ridiculous comments coming out of the Republican presidential debate earlier in the week, it took some time to decide which one to choose.
In the FB post, I added a comment about how, to be fair to Senator Cruz, I had to admit that targeted bombing and carpet bombing do have a similar sound. In response to a humorous comment from a friend, I replied, “Imagine the press conference: ‘When I told the generals to “carpet bomb Morocco” I really meant “target bomb Raqqa” but hey, what’s the big deal? They’re all just Muslims, right?’”
In reality, though, I actually think Ted Cruz does know the difference between carpet bombing and target bombing. When he draws the applause for talking about carpet bombing, he’s telling his audience what they want to hear: “Yes, I won’t hesitate to kill them all, women and children included — I’m just as scared of them as you are, and just like you, I won’t feel safer until they’re all dead.” When the designated member of the liberal media (and I would hardly characterize Mr. Blitzer as liberal) asks him to explain the details, Cruz comes back with semi-coherent phrases seeming to indicate that he actually only wants to strike at military objectives in a targeted way. Why? He’s giving his garbled version of a reasonable answer, which he knows the liberal media, and all those infidel liberals who follow that liberal media, might possibly find acceptable on some level, and it could even fool some of them enough that they might vote for him.
Ted Cruz, having already occupied a senate seat, understands that when he speaks with those pesky liberal media types that always want to ask questions and talk about facts, he might have to give some version of an expected reasonable answer, although his rival Mr. Trump seems to do quite well without resorting to reason in any way. Making references to the 1991 Persian Gulf bombing campaign, Cruz reached for that reasonable space, although, facts being stubborn things, that 1991 adventure did not ever employ the tactic of carpet bombing, as members of the liberal media reminded everyone soon after the debate. Apparently Mr. Cruz doesn’t recall, but I still remember HW reassuring the American public that his campaign used smart bomb technology to ensure that no civilians died unnecessarily. Those of us paying attention at the time also remember that more than once, some of those smart bombs weren’t so smart, and civilians did die, but then we had to hear all about collateral damage.
Senator Cruz doesn’t seem to like the term smart bomb very much, though, since he rarely if ever speaks that phrase in front of an audience. Perhaps he has a visceral aversion to the word smart, but when Ted Cruz says he wants to carpet bomb, I take him at his word, no matter how he tries to weasel out when asked by the liberal media to tell us what he really means. I think he really does mean to kill all of them, whoever they are — y’know, the different ones, the ones who aren’t like us — and he really is just as scared of them as the crowds who applaud him for saying it.