Cowboys and bad guys

More terrorism. This time in Israel. Let's get 'em. Let's smoke 'em out. Saddle up, cowboys. \nOf course, this one is trickier ... it's a bit more difficult not to look for a reason for the suicide bombings in Haifa. You don't have to go much further than the Christmas capital of the world, Bethlehem.\nThere, Israeli tanks and bulldozers have been hard at work, busy in the 50-year-old campaign to remind Palestinians that they aren't welcome in a land that used to be their home. It's a campaign that has been in full throttle since the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania made it cool to go after anyone named "Abdul." \nBut none of that matters, does it? Let's just find someone to "git." Shoot the bad guy. You know, the one who's wearing black. Never mind that this problem, like all problems, has a history. Never mind that complex social, political, economic and psychological ingredients are what make the Israeli situation so complex. Never mind that arguments could be made to call Israel both an illegal occupation and a much-needed haven for persecuted people. And that both of the arguments would have their own legitimacy.\nJust round up a posse, find a John Wayne type to lead it, and make sure they're equipped with weaponry that is "Spy Game" cool and Afghanistan deadly. Give them a name. Maybe the "We're Always Right Team" (WAR Team, for short). Back here on the homefront, we'll support the WAR Team with unyielding (and un-thinking) patriotism and a watershed loss of our civil liberties. \nThink this game plan is outrageous? It's no less outrageous than the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which published a report called "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It." \nThe Council is one of those organizations that moans and groans about the erosion of core curriculum at the university level, worries that we're all reading Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou instead of Shakespeare and Milton, and generally hearkens back to the good old days, when studying American history made you feel all warm and happy. This particular organization claims Lynne Cheney, the wife of our vice president, as its founder and chairman emeritus.\nThese groups usually go quietly about their McCarthyism, discreetly funding initiatives that encourage the teaching of American history (which usually means teaching their own version of American history, to the exclusion of versions that account for all the scars and blemishes on our record). But the Defending Civilization report is anything but quiet. And I quote:\n"While America's elected officials from both parties and media commentators from across the spectrum condemned the attacks and followed the president in calling evil by its rightful name, many faculty demurred. Some refused to make judgements. Many invoked tolerance and diversity as antidotes to evil. Some even pointed accusatory fingers, not at the terrorists, but at America itself."\nThe report cites 115 egregious statements made on college campuses, including the sentiments of a speaker at the Harvard Law School, whose crime was saying that "(We should) build bridges and relationships, not simply bombs and walls." Also cited for outlandish anti-patriotism was a Pamona College faculty member, who stunned the ACTA by suggesting that America should "break the cycle of violence."\nThis report reeks of insistence on viewing the world in terms of black and white, American and un-American, good and bad.\nIn other words, an insistence on a cowboy patriotism at the expense of rational, well formulated reasoning. It gets us in trouble at every turn.\nIsrael, Afghanistan and even Los Angeles. The subtleties of race, history, geography, culture and reason are all sacrificed to that we saddle up and ride the evil ones out of town.