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Last updated on July 27th, 2017 at 12:15 pm
Something is rotten, or at least a little weird, in Denmark. And things ain’t right in Adelaide, either, where Tim Dunlop is offended for reasons not exactly clear:
Bush’s stated aim is fight them over there so he doesn’t have to fight them in the US. He considers this a worthwhile goal. The obvious implication of that is it is better to see foreigners die overseas than Americans die at home, that, as long as atrocities like this are happening elsewhere, they are not happening in America and that that is a good thing. It has to count as one of the most offensive things he has ever said.
Strange city, Adelaide. It’s like the inanimate source of evil in a Stephen King novel, warping all who fall under her spell.
(Via Evil Pundit)
- I believe the phrase for which Mr. Dunlop gropes is, “Well, duh.”Posted by richard mcenroe on 11/13 at 03:19 PM • permalink
- Yes, Mr. Dunlop, damn President Bush for expecting foreigners to look after their own countries.Posted by richard mcenroe on 11/13 at 03:21 PM • permalink
- In leftist circles there is always this focus on econimic disparity. They always like to point out that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing, while ignoring the fact that the poor are also getting richer, even if it isn’t at the same pace as the rich. So, their solution is to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. I’ve always pointed out how absurd this reasoning is by looking at life expectancies. In the West, life expectancies are around 75-80 years. In the poorer nations, it’s around 30. So, by leftist reasoning, if we could only cut the life expectancy of the Western nations, we could increase the life expectancy of the poor nations. I thought people would realize how rediculous the logic was, but here is Dunlop essentially seriously making that arguement.
- So I guess next time foreigners declare their intentions to wage war against us, we should just commit mass suicide and maybe level a couple of our own cities. That way, no foreigners will get hurt or foreign countries have their shrubbery mussed. Is that it?Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 11/13 at 04:54 PM • permalink
- Of course I’d rather they died “over there” than that we died over here if that is the only choice. I can’t imagine anyone seriously saying, no, I’d rather we were dying here as long as they’re safe. It’s classic liberal hypocrisy. Nonetheless, we do do that, we send our troops there to die for their chance to build a democracy and to be, ultimately, a free people. What we want is that neither they nor we die as the result of terrorism. That is the goal.
- I’m pretty sure the thrust of Bush’s argument is it is better for foreign terrorists to die overseas than for foreign terrorists to kill Americans at home.
Maybe the notion that the US isn’t roaming around slaughtering random Brazilians or Swedes to mystically ward off American civilian casualties is a bit nuanced for Mr. Dunlop.
- “The obvious implication of that is it is better to see foreigners die overseas than Americans die at home ..”
Well, yeah. I would add ‘Australians’ to that list. And doesnt Pres. Bush mean ‘terrorists’ when he says its better to fight them over there? Where would Dunlop prefer we fight them? Here?
“ … as long as atrocities like this are happening elsewhere, they are not happening in America ..”
Hmm. Was 7/11 not an ‘atrocity’? Oh thats right, America deserved it.
- As a fellow Adelaidean I think I should put up a defence here.
I’m pretty sure Dunlop is talking about the so-called “flypaper strategy” which has always seemed like a ridiculous post-hoc rationalisation to me. What’s Dunlop’s problem with it? Here it is put somewhat more lucidly by a conservative blogger:
But has anyone thought about why we’re justified in using another nation as flypaper in the first place, even if it was a viable, effective strategy? What gives us the right to use a sovereign nation as a catch basin for carnage so we can go on blissfully consuming and merrily flipping real estate here? Instead of flypaper, this should be called the “Night of the Living Dead Nation” strategy—using the undead, zombie-like carcass of a failed state for our own benefit. Beyond the sheer selfish immorality of it, has anyone thought about the potential for blowback? How would you feel if we were invaded by the Chinese on a false pretense, and they stated openly that their strategy was to attract and fight the scum of the earth in the streets of New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago so they did not have to fight in Beijing?
Food for thought.
- Andrea — Level our own cities? Where are we, Paris?Posted by richard mcenroe on 11/13 at 11:25 PM • permalink
I’m pretty sure Dunlop is talking about the so-called “flypaper strategy” which has always seemed like a ridiculous post-hoc rationalisation to me
Utter. Bollocks. Just because you didn’t think of it at the time, doesn’t mean others hadn’t.
But has anyone thought about why we’re justified in using another nation as flypaper in the first place, even if it was a viable, effective strategy?
Does anybody seriously give a flying fuck; since it was a fascist hell hole and the only people who’d consider Ba’athist Iraq as a nation are dickhead statists and fascists?
What gives us the right to use a sovereign nation as a catch basin for carnage so we can go on blissfully consuming and merrily flipping real estate here?
Yeah. Bugger fighting the Japs in PNG, Bougainville and Guadalcanal. We should have waited until they turned up at the Brekky Creek Hotel and interrupted a massive piss up, just so no Fuzzy Wuzzys got hurt. Fucking. Idiot.
Instead of flypaper, this should be called the “Night of the Living Dead Nation” strategy—using the undead, zombie-like carcass of a failed state for our own benefit.
That’s right. When the Italian fascist government of Italy collapsed in 1943, the Yanks and Poms shoud have backed off for fear of using the undead, zombie-like carcass of a failed state for our own benefit.
Beyond the sheer selfish immorality of it, has anyone thought about the potential for blowback?
Gutless.
How would you feel if we were invaded by the Chinese on a false pretense
I dunno since I’m not a goose-stepping Arab shitbag.
and they stated openly that their strategy was to attract and fight the scum of the earth in the streets of New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago so they did not have to fight in Beijing?
Ridiculous. Childish. Shite. Not even worth rebutting.
ChrisV,
That has GOT to be the biggest pile of manure you have EVER posted. The sooner Yobbo gives you the arse, the better.
- Chris,
We were already fighting a low-level war with Saddam’s Iraq to try to enforce the sanctions and prevent him from murdering more thousands of the Iraqis. The only humane way to end that was to overthrow the murderous Saddam and liberate the Iraqis.Perhaps you are also hung up on WMDs? Saddam is so reckless a man, so greedy for power and wealth, that he started two wars to seize other peoples’ oil, even without having any nukes. What would he, or his psychotic spawn, have down once they got nukes? Thanks to the Coalition victory, we will never have to worry about that.
Fighting the jihadis in Iraq allow the US to fight them on our terms rather than on theirs. Geographically we fight them in the MIddle East rather than New York. Strategically we force them to react to our moves, not we to theirs. In milspeak this is called seizing the initiative. We cannot win by defensive measures alone, we must seize the initiative and take the war to our enemies. Tactically it forces the jihadis to fight skilled American soldiers and Marines, not unarmed civilians, airline passengers, and stewardesses, as is their preference. Ideologically it allows us to pit a vision of modern, prosperous, liberated Arabs against the jihadis’ vision of a reactionary, totalitarian religious dictatorship.
An American army in Iraq is also in the central position (Napoleon’s favorite strategy) between the three most important terrorist-supporting states in the world, Iran, Syria, and the Wahhabist Entity.
Finalyy the terrorism we are at war with grows out of the dysfunctional Arab/Muslim political culture. To destroy terrorism that political culture must be reformed to something halfway decent, as Germany’s was after WWII. The best place to start this is Iraq, since its people give the best chance among Arabs of catalyzing such a reform. That is the long term reason for the Iraq Campaign.
Oh, and people who want to give the terrorists free run of the world don’t have any standing to blather on about morality.
Herewith endeth the short lesson in politco-military strategy. I’m sorry that the Bush Administration’s strategy is too farsighted, subtle, and sophisticated for its dim-witted critics like Dunlop to understand, but it will pay you to try to comprehend it.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 11/14 at 12:42 AM • permalink
- #21 murph:
Utter. Bollocks. Just because you didn’t think of it at the time, doesn’t mean others hadn’t
Right. So you’ll no doubt be able to provide me with the name of a single person who mentioned such a strategy before the war took place.
Does anybody seriously give a flying fuck; since it was a fascist hell hole and the only people who’d consider Ba’athist Iraq as a nation are dickhead statists and fascists?
It’s not Baathist Iraq. It’s Iraq now, the new nation, the one we’re supposed to be helping construct.
I’d remind you that I didn’t write the quoted text. I haven’t read the rest of the guy’s site (I was sent to that post via Belgravia Dispatch) but I imagine from the tone of the piece that the guy is anti-war, which is not my position. But the argument about whether it is or isn’t moral for us to be high-fiving each other about the success of the “flypaper strategy” is completely separate from the anti-war arguments you’re getting so worked up over.
To put it simply, does this sound like a moral or tasteful thing to say? “You know what’s awesome about the jihadis blowing up Iraqi civilians? It means they’re not blowing us up!”.
To break it down even simpler, imagine the United States had the option of flicking a switch and making all future terror attacks take place in, say, Canada, instead of the United States. Is it moral for them to do so, and would you be expecting to read commentary about how awesome a strategy it is?
The United States can’t be blamed for terrorist attacks in Iraq, but identifying their occurrence as an actual policy aim is distasteful at best.
#22 Michael Lonie:
I feel like I just got sent a form letter. I never mounted an anti-war argument, but thanks for the essay all the same.
- Hey, ChrisV
murph actually wrote:
…it was a fascist hell hole and the only people who’d consider Ba’athist Iraq as a nation are dickhead statists and fascist…[emphasis added]
He is speaking – in the past tense – of a land which was governed by the fascist Ba’ath Party, not the country we are trying to help become a democracy.
you write:
imagine the United States had the option of flicking a switch and making all future terror attacks take place in, say, Canada, instead of the United States. Is it moral for them to do so, and would you be expecting to read commentary about how awesome a strategy it is?
The thing is, it’s not a switch-flicking thing. It is far better that the jihadis fight in Iraq, not Canada, because Canada is not in the ME and is not a state harboring terrorists. So, besides the fact that Canada is right on our border which obviates the entire reason for having a distant battlefield, the point has never been to simply use any state for those purposes, we are trying to democratise a state from which we have removed the fascist maniac who controlled it. That does not describe Canada. Your argument seems to be that we, willy-nilly, just decided to make everyone go over to Iraq to fight when, in fact, that is a side-effect of having rid that country of said dictator. Your argument presents a logical fallacy, and you are making a false analogy. By sounding like what murph wrote (but not quite what he wrote) you criticise your version of it, but you have made us pick from false choices which you have fashioned, not from what murph wrote however much you might deplore it.
Furthermore, the “occurrence” of terrorist attacks in Iraq is not a policy choice but a state of reality. Freeing Iraq was not done in order that we could have terrorist attacks there, though it almost certainly was factored in (as it should have been), but since these attacks are, in fact, occurring, well, it is better that they occur there than here. That’s just common sense.
- Thanks ekw.
ChrisV
1. The term “Flypaper strategy” is almost certainly a product of the Iraq conflict. However, the idea of choosing a battleground which is not in the vicinity of one’s civilian population is as old as the hills.
2.
To put it simply, does this sound like a moral or tasteful thing to say? “You know what’s awesome about the jihadis blowing up Iraqi civilians? It means they’re not blowing us up!”.
Nobody has ever said that. You’re building a strawman.
3. The idea of the flypaper strategy is not to encourage terrorist attacks. It is to lay bait in order to attract and defeat an enemy. Terrorist attacks are an unfortunate side effect which is the doing of the enemy.
4.
It’s not Baathist Iraq. It’s Iraq now, the new nation, the one we’re supposed to be helping construct.
Would it help the construction if the coalition were to pull out?
5. I did not say that the author was an anti-war lefty-pinko-poofo. I would say that he/she is misguided and an old school Brent Snowcroft-type realist/statist.
Can I assume that you concede on all the other points?
- The obvious implication of that is it is better to see foreigners die overseas than Americans die at home, that, as long as atrocities like this are happening elsewhere, they are not happening in America and that that is a good thing. It has to count as one of the most offensive things he has ever said.
I hope that Tim Dunlop will offer to have himself get killed next time some terrorists are planning an attack on Australian soil. I mean, as long as we’re supplying willing victims like him we won’t have to do anything about the sources of terrorism abroad, and hence no dead foreigners. Great, yes?
Oh, wait, this kind of thing only ever applies in theory and to other people, doesn’t it? And Bush is the one who’s offensive and callous here…yeah, right.
- #27 ekw:
The Flypaper theory and the terrorism in Iraq are related to present day Iraq, so I don’t see how the Baathists are relevant.
I understand that the instability in Iraq is a side effect of Hussein’s removal and, as I said, I don’t think the US should be held culpable for this. However, to quote from the original “Flypaper” article by David Warren:
President Bush has also, quite consciously to my information, created a new playground for the enemy, away from Israel, and even farther away from the United States itself. By the very act of proving this lower ground, he drains terrorist resources from other swamps…
In other words, if you endorse this theory, creating the conditions for terrorism in Iraq is not a regrettable side effect of the demolition of the Hussein regime, but one of the points. This theory says it really was done, in part, so that there would be terrorists congregating in Iraq. That’s what I think is amoral.
since these attacks are, in fact, occurring, well, it is better that they occur there than here. That’s just common sense.
Why? Because American civilians are worth more than Iraqi civilians?
Of course the US should be more concerned with its own citizens than with those of other nations, but that doesn’t extend to stationing its troops in another country purely so terrorists will blow people up there instead. (And before you jump, I know the US is there for other reasons. I’m just following the logic of the Flypaper theory, which remember says that “President Bush has also, quite consciously to my information, created a new playground for the enemy”.
It’s unclear to me whether Bush actually endorses this thinking, but Dunlop’s opinion is that he does and I think what he wrote isn’t unreasonable.
- Of course life in Iraq is worth less.
Life under Baathist’s = At government or saddams will.
Life there now = depending on the whims of a few nutbag terrorists.
The difference is Iraqi and coalition troops and police restoring value to the civillian populations lives.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 11/14 at 05:02 AM • permalink
- but that doesn’t extend to stationing its troops in another country purely so terrorists will blow people up there instead
Ridiculous. Nobody EVER suggested that the aim was to compel attacks on civilians. The aim is to fight the enemy on a battleground OTHER than the homeland.
And how the hell does stationing troops in Iraq compel pious Muslims to blow up civilians?
What you are saying is tantamount to suggesting the Australia should not have conducted advance action in PNG against Japan because some of the natives who welcomed, and collaborated with, the Australian army were tortured and executed by the Japanese army.
You are a cretinous, gutless fool.
- No, you’re not following the logic of the flypaper strategy. You’re setting up a strawman (killing Iraqi civilians vs American civilians) and claiming it’s the flypaper strategy and waxing melodramatically about how awful it is.
Oh, and I’d hardly call Iraq a “playground” for the enemy. More like “final resting place” for quite a few of them. Why do you think it’s called the flypaper strategy?
Posted by Patrick Chester on 11/14 at 05:13 AM • permalink
- Chris V
…if you endorse this theory, creating the conditions for terrorism in Iraq is not a regrettable side effect of the demolition of the Hussein regime but one of its points. This theory says it really was done, in part, so that there would be terrorists congregating in Iraq. That’s what I think is amoral.[emphasis added]
That’s the problem: I don’t endorse the theory. I think Dunlop is wrong. W did not, insofar as I am aware, choose Iraq in order to create a fever swamp of terrorists so that we could catch and kill them there.
As to the morality: the morality of the situation is quite similar to the morality of removing Milosevic from power. Both were engaged in ethnic cleansing, both engaged in acts of mass murder and torture. If a moral argument was made for bombing innocent civilians in Kosovo in order to destroy Milosevich’s army and infrastructure and to remove him from power, then that morality is operational in Iraq.
Why? Because American civilians are worth more than Iraqi civilians?
I can only say what I said before, in order to remove a despot who murdered hundreds of thousands – perhaps as many as one million – of his own citizens, ethnically cleansed Kurds (the Anfal), Assyrian Christians, Jews, the Marsh Arabs and other minorities and waged jihad against Shi’a Muslims who were citizens of Iraq, a situation now exists wherein groups of terrorists have come into the region and are engaging in the slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians. Some of these same civilians have been killed by coalition troops, but they are never the target any more than innocent Muslim Croats were the target in Kosovo. The morality is, to me, self-evident.
I think that Dunlop’s theory is unreasonable. I think that the only reason that exists for this theory is hatred of Bush. I do not know of any proof whatever that this is the hidden and undeclared purpose of the war.
- I dunno. I think ChrisV makes a good point.
I would agree Chris that arbitrarily choosing a completely innocent country to serve as a battlefield would be immoral. (Think Belgium in WWI). For this reason, Bush did not choose Jordan or Kuwait to pursue the War Against Terrorism. I will also say that if Saddam had come off his intransigent stance and actually complied with all the UN orders, the Coalition would not have invaded. That is why John Howard stated that compliance would have staved off the invasion. But Iraq did not comply and the Coalition was within its rights to choose Iraq as the ME country in which to begin a reformation of the region.
It also should be noted that the Coalition isn’t working on making the country an example of Hitler’s scorched earth. We are making great strides in reconstructing the country and making it better than before. We want a democratic Iraq to be successful and to become an example of a better path for its fellow Arab and Muslim countries.
Posted by wronwright on 11/14 at 02:08 PM • permalink
- Just a note, not addressed to anyone in particular. o/t
PARIS, Dec 21 (AFP) – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has committed ethnic cleansing since coming to power in 1968, a report by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) charges in a report released Saturday.
Saddam has committed “continuous and silent ethnic cleansing” against Kurds and Shiite Muslims, as well as forced assimilation of other minorities, and elimination of all forms of opposition, according to the report of the Paris-based organization.
The above quote was from back in 2002, but the argument for deposing Saddam has been made many times by many governments and NGOs, and even a bill passed in Congress during the Clinton Administration (the Iraqi Freedom Bill?) in, I think, 1998, which allows for the forceful overthrow of his regime. The fact that this overthrow brought with it much more resistance by radical Muslim groups than had been prepared for doesn’t negate the rightness of the action.
Also, I think that the world of showboating politicians who wanted to make look-good statements, and other groups wanting to stand up and be counted as being on the side (theoretically) of democracy, was stunned that we would act on the thoughts they, and others, had uttered. It was all for show, to them. They never meant it to actually come about.
P.S. The irony of the FIDH being a Paris-based group is duly noted.
- ChrisV:
The Flypaper theory and the terrorism in Iraq are related to present day Iraq, so I don’t see how the Baathists are relevant.
Ahem….former Iraqi Ba’athist party members are funding and encouraging the terrorist attacks. That makes them highly “relevant”. Try to keep up on current events if you are going to argue about current events.
And you did provide food for thought, but what you miss here (or so it seems to me) is that what Dunlop disses is in fact an old and well established military axiom: the best place to defend your nation is on someone else’s soil. But it’s being read wrong by Dunlop (no surprise there), the conservative dude you quoted, and perhaps yourself.
Military strategy can be broadly classified as either “defensive” or “offensive”. The difference may be obvious to most, but this is what the entire Iraqi campaign arguments hinge on.
In general, the anti-war elements support a defensive strategy because it bests fits their philosophy, regardless just what portion of the political spectrum the anti-war element comes from. There are multiple rationalizations for this, ranging from “Everything is the fault of the West, and so we shouldn’t do anything” to “American troops should stay in America to defend America, period.” The exact tactics in applying a defensive strategy vary immensely amongst the anti-war, ranging from cultural/national suicide to isolationism.
A defensive strategy is a very convervative one, economically anyway. In terms of risk, it is lower, at least in the short term; long term I’ll discuss in a minute. It’s major set back is that you are a stationary target, but the advantage is that you can select your position, and the enemy must come to you.
An offensive strategy, on the other hand, takes the war to the enemy, where you can destroy their ability to wage war. The major advantage is that you have the initiative, and tend to be a moving target (please note that I am discussing strategic, not tactical, operations. There’s a difference). The enemy has to react to you, and defend their people and resources. The primary disadvantage is that the enemy has the option of selecting their defensive positions. The risk is higher, but the potential payoff is much higher than the defensive strategy.
What people like Dunlop fail to realize (or perhaps just deny in order to stay in their own little comfort zone) is that when Bush went on the offensive, it was to disrupt or destroy the Al Quaeda support network, and force the terrorists to go on the defensive (again, in a strategic sense). It was not to kill innocent people.
That’s the strawman that Dunlop built. The terrorists are deliberately killing innocent people, not Bush or the Coalition forces. I admit, it’s very nice of the terrorists to put themselves within small arms range of Coalition forces, but that axiom I mentioned remains valid. The offensive strategy pushed by President Bush remains valid, in spite of the casualties.
Really, all Dunlop is doing is revising the old “Omigawd, people are getting killed!” whinge from the left, only accusing Bush of doing so deliberately, while continuing to ignore the hundreds of thousands who died in Iraq, the United States, and other places, before the 2003 invasion. Not to mention Dunlop’s really lame attempt to treat the terrorists as victims, at least indirectly.
Once again, Dunlop delves into the realm of idiocy.
PS to PW: I think Dunlop went back to Australia. Too bad—by his reasoning, he could have volunteered into standing in front of some Washington DC landmark to keep the terrorists at bay with his life….and nothing else.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 11/14 at 06:21 PM • permalink
- #41 The_Real_JeffS:
Ahem….former Iraqi Ba’athist party members are funding and encouraging the terrorist attacks. That makes them highly “relevant”. Try to keep up on current events if you are going to argue about current events.
I’m well aware of the Baathist role in the insurgency, but the discussion was in the context of the Flypaper theory which involves the use of Iraq as a stage for battling foreign jihadis. The insurgency can be 20% Baathist, or 80% Baathist, or whatever – it doesn’t affect the argument.
#37 ekw, #39 wronwright:
My reason for commenting originally was to answer Blair’s charge that “Tim Dunlop is offended for reasons not exactly clear”. To me the reason was clear: the Flypaper strategy, which I think is insane. If you guys also think it’s insane, then great, I agree. As I said, I don’t agree with Dunlop that Bush is obviously supporting the theory but it is an article of faith among many conservative bloggers and I thought it was fairly clear what Dunlop was annoyed about.
The problem really is one of rhetoric. For instance, there’s a school of thought that says that 9/11 was in some ways a good thing, because it awoke the US to the threat of Islamism before a truly devastating attack (such as a nuclear detonation) could be launched. But if anyone had said that in New York the day after the attacks, they would have been lynched. Similarly, there’s a certain callousness in praising the benefits of a strategy of attracting jihadis to Iraq, when something like 20 civilians are being killed in terror attacks there every day. I can see what annoys Dunlop although (surprise!) I think he’s getting way too overexcited about it.
- Actually, the oil argument isn’t one that we need be ashamed of. It’s completely legitimate. It is in our national interest to disallow a fascist dictator nutter to have his hand on the lever of 14% of the world’s proven oil reserves. Not good for anyone. So, hell yes, it’s at least part of the reason for overthrowing him, and it’s a damn good one.
When the greenies sell all their vehicles which run on fossil fuels, give up everything which contains the slightest amount of plastic in it, and otherwise eliminate all the derivatives of oil from their lives (something virtually impossible to do in the modern world) they still can’t lecture us about how “immoral” a war about oil is because the whole rest of the world needs oil to live (has anyone done a study of how many people would die if oil suddenly became unavailable?). So, sod off, Swampies.
(I have one of the original t-shirts from that landmark dust-up, and no one where I live has the slightest idea what it refers to.)
- ChrisV:
[snip]To me the reason was clear: the Flypaper strategy, which I think is insane.
The problem really is one of rhetoric.
ChrisV, you miss the point, or perhaps Dunlop misses the point, and you are just commenting on Dunlop’s miss. It is NOT a “Flypaper strategy” in the first place. Granted, it’s mighty convenient that the terrorists oblige us by coming into small arms range. But that’s a secondary effect of an offensive strategy, possible only because terrorists are so obliging.
I completely disagree that this is a problem of “rhetoric”; rhetoric is useless. The problem is one of intent. Dunlop thinks Bush wants to kill poor widdle terrorists by the truckload. But that’s just turning the terrorists into victims, in order to fit his strawman argument. The terrorists could go home, or go into politics. Instead, they choose to be butchers, and get killed in the process. Dunlop whines, and I say “Boo hoo!”
The real intent (rather, the objective, in militaryspeak) is too stand up Iraq as a free nation. In the process, people are getting killed, regrettable but necessary. That the terrorists stand up and shout “Shoot me!” is their problem, something that Dunlop conveniently ignores.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 11/17 at 08:28 PM • permalink
Ummmm… all things being equal, yes.
I assume Aussies feel the same way about Aussies, French feel the same way about French, Eskimos feel the same way about Eskimos, etc.
Really, would any Americans be offended to find out that John Howard, if pressed for the choice, would prefer that Americans die in America rather than Australians die in Australia? Especially if the source of said killing was grown in America’s neighborhood and supported by a large number of Americans?