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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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What this does say is, Qatar has joined the ranks of countries that have no true sovereignty, and can be bombed at will by capable powers.

They already were. Maybe before now they could put on airs and pretend it wasn't so.

Under what circumstances would you feel that a foreign drone strike targeting a terrorist living or operating in the United States was justified and acceptable?

In what sense would I be mad that a foreign terrorist that was operating on our soil is disintegrated? That we didn't get the pull the trigger first? What national interest of mine does that foreigner serve?

In an even larger sense, terrorists from country A operating against country B while hiding out in country C are putting the citizens of C in danger to further their own ends in the A/B conflict. Unless C has a specific interest in that conflict, they only lose by their presence.

[ Of course, if the target(s) were factually innocent of terrorism or were too unimportant to be really culpable, that would be a different matter. But that obviously doesn't apply to this situation in which we all know with certainty that Hamas are culpable here. ]

In what sense would I be mad that a foreign terrorist that was operating on our soil is disintegrated? That we didn't get the pull the trigger first? What national interest of mine does that foreigner serve?

You should be mad that your government and armed forces proved incapable of predicting and preventing an attack on your country's territory. You should be mad that they did not kill or extradite the terrorist first. And finally yes, you should be mad that a foreign government carried out an attack within your country's borders instead of politely asking for your government to kill or extradite that terrorist.

Territorial sovereignty is, to my knowledge, not yet a dead concept. And poking holes in it is a bad idea, RE: "refugee" crisis.

Right, so this boils down too: I should be mad that we didn’t pull the trigger first.

Implicit in being mad that we didn’t pull the trigger first is the judgment that the action was good in itself.