Warblogging degenerates into self parody The "most bloodthirsty warblogger" competition used to be mildly amusing when it was merely a joke at Tom Coates' expense. Though he seems to be a generally fair-minded writer [1], Coates recently made the ill-advised move of criticizing the "MOST HAWKISH AND BLOODY-HUNGRY" warblog while refusing to name exactly which blog that might be. This blog was most likely LGF, which has attracted quite a bit of criticism (some deserved, some not [2]) as of late, but Coates' reticence prompted a bit of a pissing match among the more frenzied of the warbloggers, who began competing to see who could be the most bloodthirsty. At first I thought this was satire, and that the point was that warbloggers were NOT bloodthirsty, but rather were choosing the war on terror as the least-bad choice from a set of undesirable options. While this is still likely the view of many of the "contestants", the competition has now been hijacked by those who think that any and all violence deployed in the name of fighting the war on terror is inherently justifiable. Witness comments like this from Cato the Youngest:

Who calls for the destruction of an entire city in every post, and most comments and e-mails? Who has wished, in the pages of his blog, that he could be the bombadier-navigator on a B-1B, loaded with 38 200-kT AGM-69 missiles, with orders to scour the Middle East with thermonuclear fire? Who has suggested that the Israelis could annihilate Egypt by breaking the Aswan dams, in order to drive people to high ground, then nuking them? Cato the Youngest.

and this from Laurence Simon:

Bill, this isn't going to be close. I'm the most evil bloodthirsty fuck in the Blogosphere, period. Let me prove it to you: I've let my 4 cats torture a mouse for two days and then killed it myself. I mock triple-amputees serving in public office. I've sung a ditty making light of the death of over 100 humans to the tune of "Puttin on the Ritz." I've called for the ritual execution of baseball players to boost the ratings of the World Series. I've mocked a BMW driver who got stoned to death for killing 6 bystanders. [Emphasis mine]

I doubt Mr. Simon would be so chipper if those gassed were his coreligionists. Not to be outdone, Misha (who used to be more reasonable) posted this:

Palestine: Why the Hell are we still debating this issue? There shouldn't BE a West Bank or Gaza by now if the Emperor had his will. All there'd be would be a glow-in-the-dark sheet of glass by now. Give the splodeydopes 24 more hours to comply, then unleash Hell. ... Americans abroad: Any attack upon an American abroad is an act of war against the United States. The country in which the attack took place will be held directly responsible if the perpetrators have not been apprehended and extradited within a 72 hour period of time. After this, use outlines for "nations supporting terrorism" to ensure compliance.

I'm not sure to what extent he's serious about the latter (3 days, even for a good faith effort?), but I fear he's all too serious about the former. I mean, maybe it's obvious, but I don't think that threatening mass murder on a genocidal scale is a reasonable way to resolve the conflict. Now, the annoying thing about all this is that I actually agree with some of the more reasonable warbloggers (Instapundit, Volokh, and Den Beste) on most "war-on-terror" issues[4], and I don't like having the waters muddied by calls for indiscriminate bloodshed. Our goals in the war of terror are twofold: to end state sponsored terrorism and prevent a recurrence of 9/11. The more bloodthirsty of the warbloggers would do well to realize that we can achieve these aims without advocating genocide. [1] Disclaimer - I'm not a regular reader, and I didn't spend the time to trawl through his archives. [2] I think that Charles Johnson should ban some of the people who leave comments on his blog, particularly the nontrivial fraction who fail to make reasonable distinctions between all Muslims and Muslims sympathetic to/engaged in terrorism. It's clear that Mr. Johnson monitors the content of his blog and bans the occasional rabid anti-American/anti-Israel troll, so it's not as if he has a policy of allowing unfettered non-profane discussion. The selective censure of commenters indicates (to me at least) that Charles is at least somewhat sympathetic to the extreme views voiced on his site. I am loath to say it because I am more sympathetic to Johnson than I am to his critics, but I think that Johnson feels that there are no enemies on the right. That said, I don't think that Johnson himself has ever voiced anything I'd consider "over the line". And I do think that Johnson does some excellent original reporting, particularly in his weekly roundup of sermons delivered by fanatical imams. As I said once on LGF:

Guys - Are all Muslims bad guys? No, and when we say that, we look just as ridiculous as the guys who say "Islam is a religion of peace." The quantifier "all" is just as useless as the quantifier "none" when referring to the number of insanely violent Muslims. The truth is that a nontrivial fraction of Muslims are sympathetic to violent, radical Islam. And this fraction is far larger than the fraction of Hindus who sympathize with the Shiv Sena, and it's far larger than the fraction of Christians who sympathize with abortion bombers, and it's far larger than the fraction of Jews who sympathize with the Kahanists. How large is this fraction? I don't know. But it's large enough to make crackdowns on radical Muslims a dicey proposition in Muslim countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. So if you believe the people in these countries have *any* pull with the government, it's fair to say that the inhabitants of these countries are sympathetic to terrorism - because their governments either support it or look the other way for fear of popular uprising. However, I think the situation of Muslims in western countries is somewhat different. No doubt there are also western Muslims (e.g. CAIR, many of the "divestment" idiots, the guys celebrating 9/11 in Britain, the Lackawanna cell, the rapists in Europe) who are sympathetic to the cause of radical Islam. But I think that many (most?) western Muslims - at least the ones born in the States or with US citizenship - aren't down with Islamofascism. I know that Iranian expatriates, at least, are very much opposed to Khomeini et. al. It's important to recognize this, or else guys like Warbloggerwatch or Anil Dash will try to score points when you say "all Muslims are bad guys".

Johnson himself does an excellent job of keeping this balance in his public blogging. It's the deafening silence on the subject of the extremists on his site that provides the opening for critics like Anil. Note that Anil et. al. are farther from the truth on fundamentalist Islam (see above quote for my take on what the "truth" is) than Johnson is, so do not take this as an endorsement of Anil. [3] In fact, I actually agree with Misha himself on many - but by no means all - of the points in this manifesto, so I think it's doubly unfortunate that he's competing - even in jest - for this dubious honor. Update: However, as Jason Soon points out, I had not read his post on Paul Wellstone. It's more than a bit inconsistent to declare "the Children" off limits in this manifesto, and then use them as Misha did to push the Iraq Attaq. And it's also pretty inconsistent to pour scorn on the Democrats for not obeying societal decency after a man died, when flouting said conventions himself...