"Take this seriously!" bellowed the overweight TSA stormtrooper as I smiled mildly at nothing in particular, my mind far away as she brandished her metal detector at my crotch.

"I'm sorry, that's not my job," I responded.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" she bellowed in that way that only the underpaid and over-uniformed do when the charade that maintains their "authority" threatens to come crashing down.

"I said it isn't my job, taking it seriously. Taking it seriously is YOUR job. My job is simply to stand here and try to forget that this gratuitous waste of my time and my money is happening. My blood pressure. You understand." I delivered all of this in a calm, soft voice that she had to lean closer to hear.

"You're JOKING!" she said. "Joking is not allowed!"

"No, sadly, I'm neither joking," I responded, "nor have I threatened you, wasted your time, or otherwise interfered with your duties. I merely smiled." I smiled again.

"Now, you certainly have it in your power to waste more of my time," I continued, "you can make me miss my flight. You can physically and mentally degrade me further than you already have. But if you do any of that because I smiled at nothing what does that make you? I think that kind of deliberate evil goes a long way beyond doing your job, don't you?"

She stood silently enraged for several seconds, replaying what I'd said in her mind. Then she nodded, and then jerked her head, indicating that I should leave.

I left.

Once upon a time a man suggested that people stop a war by "walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out". He was right, in a way.

Maybe we can end this madness by smiling.

There was a terrorism bubble.

It began when the current world champion of state sponsored terrorism -- The United States of America -- began soon after WWII to fund despots, tyrants, and religious fanatics of all stripes, and intervene militarily, in persuit of a world that was "closer" to the US than the USSR. A pity you can't destroy the village to save it; or give up the high ground to gain it.

Indeed, flush from the unexpected triumph of creating the UN, the US eschewed the fundamental principles of that organisation, and began an unprecedented and yet-unending campaign of global terror.

Highlights, of course, include events in Iran, South East Asia, and Latin America, but an extended highlights reel would of course include Africa and parts of Europe. Everywhere, in effect.

In that bubble, the American lessons of "how to project power" were clear and often repeated:

*It's ok to fund the overthrow of a democratically elected government

*It's ok to perform vile, dispicable war crimes (the end justifies the means)

*It's ok to collectively punish

*It's ok to kill civilians as long as you call it "collateral damage" and periodically "regret" it in news conferences

I'd like to hope that this "terrorism bubble" was indeed burst on 9/11, when, on US soil, US citizens got but a small taste of the terror their government has, and is, visiting on citizens of other countries in their name.

What a despicable act 9/11 was. How utterly unjustifiable. How murderously callous. How cowardly in planning (if not in execution). No "lesson" -- no matter how salutory -- can ever change any of that.

And yet what a perfect mirror it was to the thousands of despicable, unjustifiable, murderously callous and cowardly acts of terrorism the US has engaged in worldwide.

So Friedman is right. There was a bubble. And it was burst on 9/11. But he, like all who spout his brand of US exceptionalism and triumphalism, is not even wrong about everything else.

Quoting from the article:

By shifting emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan, would a President Obama be jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

Perhaps. But he'd also be going after the organization that attacked America on 9/11 and, crucially, he'd have world and domestic support for doing so.

Russian officers caution that Afghans cannot be conquered, as the Soviets attempted to do in the 1980s...

Who (I mean, really, who?!) is trying to "conquer" the Afghans?! This is a total straw man, and a dangerous and deliberate one.

In pursuing the policy he's laid out, Obama is seeking to destroy the organization most directly responsible for 9/11, force Pakistan to deal with its own issues with the same organization inside (and just outside) its borders (rather than the double-dealing they have been engaged in since the 80s), all alongside a dramatic increase in the rebuilding effort and its funding -- reversing two decades of bad US policy.

This is not to say that there are not legitimate criticisms of an overall policy that could use some fine-tuning.

But deliberately misstating the issues, misrepresenting the policy being discussed, and indulging in wild hyperbole -- all things Juan Cole does in this article -- are not useful parts of the debate.

The Qantas spot runs: "...that's been flying longer, continuously, than any other..."

Maybe it's the second adverb if KLM didn't (as I suspect but don't know) fly through WWII?

I'm sure someone out there (maybe even you Patrick!) can settle this.