Weapon of War (TROP™ using our own sense of decency to defeat us)

FrontPage Magazine ^ | May 17, 2004 | Olavo de Carvalho

[quidnunc]

Since the Algerian war (1954-1962), the idea of an “asymmetric war” became the guiding principle of the anti-West strategy.  Inspired on the “indirect combat” of Sun-Tzu — whose “The Art of War” already circulated in official editions in the USSR and its satellites in the 1950s — the concept is essentially that of a fight in which one of the contending parties does not admit any kind of constraints to its actions. It may do whatever it pleases and still use as a weapon: the moral, legal and social commitments that tie the hands of its adversary. It is the military expression of the adage formulated in 1792 by delegate Collot d'Herbois at the French Convention: “Everything is permitted to those who act in favor of the revolution.

A strategic analyst, Canadian navy commander Hugues Letourneau, remarks that the Algerian National Liberation Front usually resorted to: “general strikes, ambush, terrorism against its own population and against other Algerian organizations of liberation, assassination, torture, mutilation, appropriation of great amounts of money from the civil population, industrial and agricultural sabotage, destruction of public goods, intimidation and assassination of presumed collaborationists, disinformation campaigns, etc.” Meanwhile, the slightest illegal act on the part of occupation forces was used, by activist intellectuals in Paris, as an instrument of moral blackmail designed to keep the French government paralyzed by fear of a scandal.

In order to achieve its goal, the asymmetry must impregnate itself deeply in the judgment habits of people, so that public opinion does not detect the intrinsic immorality of the supposedly moral demands that it exacts from one of the disputing parties, while granting to the other the benefit of an indifferent or complicit silence. One example is the unevenness in the treatment given to the occupations in Iraq and Tibet, directed in a way to instill the public with the impression that a temporary military operation — calculated as no other before in history to avoid damages to the civilian population — is a more serious crime than the continuous occupation, the premeditated destruction of a 1000-year-old culture, and the permanent genocide that has already made one million victims.  The asymmetry, in this case, has become so normal and obligatory that the simple suggestion of comparing the American behavior to the Chinese already sounds not only extemporaneous, but also in bad taste and suspect of some questionable connection with “shady interests”, invariably “paid for by Wall Street” (this very article obviously falling under this category!).  Likewise, half a dozen bloody abuses committed by American soldiers in Iraq — which are inevitable in any war, even under a strict oversight of the troops — appear in the media as more heinous cruelties than the routine practice of torture and the political assassination in time of peace, common in communist and Islamic countries, not to mention the religious persecution (which is never reported in Brazil), that has already killed over two million Christians in the past few decades.

-snip-

[Jerrybob]

Ever since Nick Berg lost his head, I've been saying the following: unless we WIPE OUT these barbarians who mean to topple us, they will succeed. Ask the Romans. If I had to bet on barbarians or civilized people, I'd bet on barbarians any day.

[cvq3842]

Sad but true.

[HAL9000]

(TROP™ using our own sense of decency to defeat us)

This is a typical loser mentality statement. No thanks.

[quidnunc]

HAL9000 wrote: (TROP™ using our own sense of decency to defeat us) This is a typical loser mentality statement. No thanks.

Since my statement is incontrovertable, then you objection must be to my wellingness to buck the PC zitgeist to state the obvious.

[rj45mis]

"I'd bet on barbarians any day.

Heck, look at their allies here in America. We are fighting a losing battle because we are not united within. We would have to kill off about 10% of the U.S. population to get this anarchy under control. I believe the other 30% would then probably fall in step. However, these clowns that are destroying America are protected by the lawyers who get fat off writing laws to insure that they will always have a steady stream of revenue with which to give to dem causes. It stinks, doesn't it?

[swilhelm73]

Good article!

Likewise, half a dozen bloody abuses committed by American soldiers in Iraq − which are inevitable in any war, even under a strict oversight of the troops – appear in the media as more heinous cruelties than the routine practice of torture and the political assassination in time of peace, common in communist and Islamic countries, not to mention the religious persecution (which is never reported in Brazil), that has already killed over two million Christians in the past few decades.

Another point I would like to raise, that I've yet to see much addressed; we've had a hundred thousand troops in Iraq for a year, and the media, doing its damnest has only been able to find a handful of legitimate crimes by our troops.

However, if you look at the statistics, one can expect far worse not just among our enemies and the leadership of the UN Human Rights Committee - but even among American civilians at peace.

If one looks at domestic crimes statistics per 100K Americans (as of 2002) we find 6 murders, 33 rapes, 310 aggravated assaults, and overall 4,119 serious felonies.

So, while the media portrays Abu Ghirab as the worst crime against humanity since the Holocaust (in some cases literaly), the fact of the matter is that the good conduct of American soldiers is a testiment to their basic goodness.

[livius]

the asymmetry must impregnate itself deeply in the judgment habits of people, so that public opinion does not detect the intrinsic immorality of the supposedly moral demands that it exacts from one of the disputing parties, while granting to the other the benefit of an indifferent or complicit silence.

A truly excellent and perceptive article. The description of the behavior of French intellectuals regarding the Algerian conflict (which I think was the source of the behavior of American intellectuals regarding Vietnam) was particularly accurate.

[spyone]

What is TROP again?

[quidnunc]

spyone wrote: What is TROP again?

TROP™ = The Religion Of Peace™

[spyone]

Ha! Love it!

[livius]

Here's another great observation from the article:

In Brazil, for example, access to the opinion of American conservatives has been banished. Their books – thousands of titles, many of them classics of political thought – are never translated and cannot be found in any university library. Their ideas are only available to public knowledge distorted as a caricature in the official communist version, created in 1971 by Soviet historian V. Nikitin in the book “The Ultras in the USA”. It is still submissively passed on today, from generation to generation, in schools and in newspapers, by a bunch of knowing sly militants and by a multitude of useful fools who do not have the least clue as to the origin of their own opinions.

Who, raised in this environment, can suspect that there is anything wrong with the media onslaught that turns George W. Bush into a sort of right-wing Stalin?

I think this goes a long ways to explain the peculiar hatred and ignorance that goes into European/LatAm conceptions of Americans.

[expatpat]

One of these days, they will probably do enough damage to us to get the soccer moms screamimg for blood, and to force us to take the gloves off. Let's just hope that it won't be too late by then.

[WOSG]

This article is a good antidote to a recent Leonard Pitts column, where Leonard played the 'useful idiot' and advocated the need for a double-standard ""how dae we hold ourselves to the same moral standard as terrorists, we have to be better than that!"

Ahem. No.

we must hold to the SAME moral standard, for all people in all cases. We should NEVER give our enemy any benefit of the doubt. THEY WANT US DEAD. Why do we shirk our duty to kill them, a duty we have for the sake of our civilization and our children?

[swilhelm73]

I think this goes a long ways to explain the peculiar hatred and ignorance that goes into European/LatAm conceptions of Americans.

A while back I was talking with a reasonably well educated Belgian. He was busy blaming the US for the Rwandan massacre, not surprisingly.

I asked him if he was aware what Belgium did in the region when it was there colony. He was only vaguely aware, and was rather shocked to find his country had killed somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million. Then I pointed him to the origina of the Tutusi-Hutu conflict which were the colonial divide and conquer tactics of the Belgian government.

Then he shut up.

Now one can argue the US should have done more (though most who do wanted us to leave Hussein alone, go figure). But one cannot deny that Belgians have no right to complain about American policy in the region.

There is no question the Left spends much of its efforts to remove both thought and historical fact that does not agree with its current groupthink, and abroad they are much more successful then at home.

It truly is sad, if you talk with these people, to see the sheer level of propaganda they are exposed to. They watch the government controlled TV stations, listen to the government controlled radio stations, only read the government approved texts in school, and then criticize Americans for our supposed ignorance in disagreeing with whatever their government's line on the issues of the day is.

I think the current anti-American hate rampant in Europe is developing very much like that of the Middle East. Corrupt governments facing an angry populace have to funnel that anger somewhere or deal with its underlying causes. So in the Middle East the source of all problems is the Great and Little Satans. And in Europe and much of Latin Am the source of all problems is the anti-enviromental American Empire.

[Indie]

It truly is sad, if you talk with these people, to see the sheer level of propaganda they are exposed to.

The ones over here don't. What's their excuse?