Arthur Chrenkoff reported an interesting quote:

"[t]he U.S. is not going to invade Sudan. That's not a plausible option. But we can pass a tough U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing troops, as well as more support for African peacekeepers. If Germany, France and Spain don't want to send troops to Iraq, then let them deploy in Darfur." (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

It's rather tough to blame Americans for Muslim genocide, but I suppose that sooner or later somebody will. Lots of antiwar people blame the U.S. for Saddam Hussein, yet they oppose lifting a finger to do anything about him.

There's also a distinct but growing tendency (on the left for the most part) to blame Americans for being killed.

I offer an idea; a modest proposal, I guess....

Why not apply the same standard to the rest of the world? That way, whenever people anywhere are killed, we can just sit back and say that they deserved it, that they shouldn't have been there, that they provoked their attackers, or that they were obviously acting like cowboys!

If it's their fault, then they got what they deserved, just like the slaughtered hostages, or even the victims of September 11. And if people got what they deserved, it makes it far easier to deal with, for justice has prevailed.

End of story!

UPDATE: I didn't realize how thoroughly this kind of blame-the-victim thinking has become a national trend -- even to the point of infecting the upper levels of American leadership. But now I see John Kerry blaming repressed Cuban dissidents for their own repression! According to Pejman Yousefzadeh

In discussing whether he would support the Varela Project, which is designed to bring about peaceful democratic reform in Cuba, Kerry remarked that he found the Project "counterproductive." Why? Because the Project "has gotten a lot of people in trouble . . . and it brought down the hammer" of the Castro regime on dissidents who are now being persecuted as a result of their participation in the Project. ....

.....[Kerry] is essentially saying that those who decided -- of their own free will -- to participate in the Varela Project and further its goals of peaceful democratic change in Cuba (a goal endorsed by former President Jimmy Carter, among others) -- brought persecution on to themselves. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Perhaps this is the kind of thing that voters should keep in mind come this November.