There’s a common belief that the rest of the world doesn’t love us as much as we’d like them to because we’re heavy-handed and brutal. They don’t like that we send our armies to their lands and waterboard their people and stand around checkpoints with automatic weapons. That’s bunk. The rest of the world doesn’t love us because we’re not them. That’s the issue.

I believe that no matter what we do, the rest of the world will never love us and put little pictures of us on their mantles. When we’re weak, we just invite attack. When we attack them, and then display weakness, we invite justifiable (at least in their minds) attack.

The solution? I think we need to make it clear to the rest of the world that we might just be crazy enough to get really medieval if need be. Let’s face it, there was the thought in the 80s that Ronald Reagan was a crazy-enough anti-Communist that he might let some nukes fly if someone looked at him funny. So they didn’t. Did we get the same fear-based respect when the ever-reasonable, obviously fair and humanitarian Jimmy Carter was in charge? Hardly.

If anything, the attacks of 9/11 were attacks on a seemingly weak-willed nation. Never forget that the George W. Bush who looks like an uncaring invader today, in the beginning days of September 2001 was a recently elected, not very successful (on his own) guy who mostly avoided military service. Who could blame Islamic militant whackos for assuming he’d be a weak-willed adversary?

As Dennis Miller said on the Tonight Show (and elsewhere) in 2002:

“I don’t even understand why we’ve taken nuclear weapons off the table. I mean we treat them like our mother’s good china. We never use them. I think you’ve got to pick a day where there’s no wind, in a desolate part of the Earth, just blow off a bomb just to let them know we’re sitting on a nice hold card, okay?”

He’s right. When there’s a guy in the bar who has a crazy look in his eye and you just know is spoiling for a fight, you don’t flip him off, go outside and tip over his motorcycle.

You try hard not to attract his notice. We need to buy a motorcycle, get a tattoo and when we need to, work up a good “crazy” look.