When Hawks Run

New York Post ^ | March 14, 2006 | John Podhoretz

[Puzzleman]

CAN the War on Terror be won? America's inability to secure a victory in Iraq against the insurgency suggests to many people of good will and good sense that it really can't be. They believe the enemies of the United States are motivated by a force more powerful than we reckoned - by a religious ideology that has seduced hundreds of millions of people who prefer its stark certainties to the ambiguities and confusions of Western bourgeois life.

We can't beat it, they say, and we can't join it. So what is left for us? Just to say "the hell with them."

[Puzzleman]

Very thoughtful article on our most important subject.

[Dog]

ex-neocon Francis Fukuyama, who states plainly that Bush & Co. overestimated the threat from terrorism.

Fukuyama basically believes 9/11 was a fluke

I wonder if Fukuyama really believes this nonsense....or is he that naive.

[jocon307]

He probably really does believe it, because he is willing to overlook the embassy bombings, the assassination of RFK, the bali bombings, Munich, the bombing of the Cole, the regular abuse of non-Muslims in africa, the phillipines, Madrid, 7/7, etc., etc., etc.,

Sadly, he may not have the option of overlooking the next thing that happens stateside. Imagine if that little Jihadi slime in NC had actually killed 9 students, instead of just banging them up? What would the reaction have been then? What if the guy in OK had blown up the stadium? Would "lone actor" have been an acceptable explanation at that point? These things aren't crimes, every single one of them is an act of war against all non-Muslims.

My kid goes to school in the DC area, on top of all the usual worries I have about her, I know she is surrounded by potential jihadis, there with the blessings of our gov't, as is the Taliban at Yale.

I dismissed the "it will happen again" crowd after 9/11 as either being doom mongers or just people engaging in CYA. However, events in the meantime have convinced me that while nothing like 9/11 will ever happen again, other, probably increasingly bad attackes will continue to waged until Islamfacism is crushed world-wide.

And in terms of that: Iraq, schmiraq, we've not yet begun to fight.

[John Valentine]

Podhoretz has it right on the money. It is the only way from here to there that actually has a "there" at the other end of the road.

Every other road forward offers nothing more than nine-hundred million miles of IEDs and worse.

[rhombus]

I think many are just tired of war. The news media will not deny us a boat load of bad news ever day. In their frustration, the-hell-with-them hawks who always derided nation building find themselves in bed with the hate-America moonbats. What strange bedfellows. The problem for the rest of us is that no one EXCEPT Bush has offered any sort of strategy to deal with Islaminc fundamentalists who want to kill us. We spent 40 years ignoring them and that didn't work. We propped up fascists and dictators and that didn't work. So Bush tried democracy. The problem of course is that our "remote control sit-com" culture expects every problem to either be fixed or go away in 90 days or less. Our impatience is our undoing and history shows that many throughout the world have suffered because we Americans get bored, distracted and lose our focus. Still there are some examples where we did hang in there... post WWII Germany and Japan, Reagan's persistence in the Cold war, etc. Iran may force us to keep our eye on the ball with Islamic fundamentalism as well. No matter who is elected President in 08.

[ARCADIA]

"They believe the enemies of the United States are motivated by a force more powerful than we reckoned - by a religious ideology that has seduced hundreds of millions of people who prefer its stark certainties to the ambiguities and confusions of Western bourgeois life.

Before, you can impose your will on the enemy, you must make them surrender; and, as long as we are fighting a PC war we will fail to do that.

The concept is simple:

1) message: we believe that you should be governed by a secular state based on constitutional law

Response: We are Islamic and should be governed by Islamic law.

2) Message 2: Reduce the population by 10% then repeat "we believe that you should be governed by a secular state based on constitutional law"

Response: We are Islamic and should be governed by Islamic law.

3) Message 3: Reduce the population by another 20% then repeat: "we believe that you should be governed by a secular state based on constitutional law"

Response: We surrender, do whatever you want, just stop killing us.

4) Now raise every mosque, burn every Islamic text, and kill or inprison every radical religious leader.

That is the only way to win a war based on religious ideology. If that sounds too harsh then we are not ready for war and would be better off playing pinochle then pretending to war.

[teldon30]

In the long run...you are probably right.

[hershey]

Much to chew on in this piece, but common sense and our porous borders indicate that at some point, Jihadists will strike the US again, hard, and what do we do then? In other words, how many of our citizens have to die before we go to Plan B.. Also, polling indicates the fifth column MSM and dems have been remarkably effective in convincing the public that Iraq is a lost cause, that they're wallowing in civil war and the sooner we leave them to it, the better. If republicans do badly in '06 and lose in '08, we'll really be in for it.

[wgflyer]

Good article.

I would add that the war on terror is only the actual combat portion of the battle we fight these days. The media, dominated by a broad collection of maniacal leftists are our real concern. To put any Democrat senatorial speech, or media rant into perspective, simply transpose their words from the present era to 1939 and see how they sound. A good portion of our government individuals and bureaucracies and mass communications individuals and outlets are solidly hoping that we bog down in this war. The left, liberals, progressives, whatever they wish to call themselves these days, look at terrorism and Islamofacism the same way they look at poverty, or racism, or hunger, or any human condition. They see it as something to prolong for political gain. They see it as something they can use to demagogue their way into power or prominence. In their minds, solving any problem removes a step in the ladder to the top. That's why Korea was a stalemate and is still a problem, the Viet Nam war failed, education has deteriorated and America's poor feel that they have no hope. It is why the uneducated who listen to liberals are filled with so much hatred. In fact, wherever liberalism is strongest, you'll find negative emotions also strongest.

All of this makes our own and the rest of the world's leftists allies with Islamofacism, in a similar way that we were allies with our communist foes in until European fascism was crushed. And this is an incredible incentive to the Bin Ladens of the world and their ilk. They know that if the USA can be beaten, leftism will be a piece of cake for Sharia-minded muslims.

So this is quite a fight we face and a little perspective goes a long way. Thanks for the post.

[hershey]

Every attack by Muslims in the US is white-washed or air-brushed away as random violence with no motivating focus. I wonder what young Muslim women/girls murdered by brothers and fathers (honor killings), would say about this. It's all part of the same beast.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I'm all for the fight, but it's hard to see how we can confront terrorism until we've defeated the enemy to our rear.

[Sam the Sham]

Why? Because there is no way to stop the delivery of such a weapon if the delivery system is a single person willing to die to get it done. The only way to prevent it is to change the terms under which such people live, to offer them something to hope for besides virgins in paradise.

The fundamental wisdom of the 'to hell with them argument' is seen in the above quote. Podhoretz and opponents of it buy into the 'poverty is the root cause of terrorism' argument. It isn't. The Muslim is sitting on top of the richest cash cow on this planet. If his problems could be solved by money he wouldn't have any problems.

The Europeans offer the Muslim socialized medicine, the dole, a libertarian culture, and multiculturalist 'tolerance'. Is that enough to buy their loyalty ? No, it isn't. Has it bought their love and respect ? No, it hasn't. The Europeans have completely failed to inculcate any respect for democracy in Muslims who grew up among them. What makes you think we can do so in the Middle East ?

People talk about Bush having a 'strategy'. Well, a strategy based upon false assumptions is no strategy at all. The neocons seemed to think that all we had to do was create 'democracy' and all would be well. That of course assumes that the Arab man in the street loves America and Israel and will vote in Chalabi types. Wrong. He will vote in Hamas and al-Sadr types because he hates 'crusaders and zionists'. AND WE CANNOT REWRITE THE DOCTRINES OF A MAJOR RELIGION.

The problem is Islam itself. And we can't change that. Certainly not in any time frame acceptable to the American people.

[Alberta's Child]

CAN the War on Terror be won?

No, it can't -- and people like John Podhoretz are a major reason why it can't. There's no way in hell a country can win a "war" if it can't even bring itself to name the freakin' enemy. A "war on terror" is bound to be no more successful than any other "war" against abstractions or physical objects instead of enemies. And I cite this country's abysmal failure in wars against poverty, drugs, illiteracy, etc. as perfect examples of this.

For heaven's sake -- this country may as well wage a War on Ammunition if this is what we call "warfare" these days.

[rhombus]

The neocons seemed to think that all we had to do was create 'democracy' and all would be well.

Nope, the neocons or anyone else supporting this war never made it that simple. Only the critics made it simplistic with statements such as yours as a way to discredit a long-term stragegy.

The problem is Islam itself. And we can't change that. Certainly not in any time frame acceptable to the American people.

The problem was Nazism itself. The problem was Communism itself. No one in charge ever said the "poverty was the root cause" - the "Palestinian plight" is the typical Democrat line. What those in charge said was the lack of freedom was the root cause... whether that be political freedom, religious freedom or economic freedom.

[Sam the Sham]

What those in charge said was the lack of freedom was the root cause... whether that be political freedom, religious freedom or economic freedom.

Again, the Europeans have not been able to make their Muslims into Europeans. Is it not obvious that Muslims want glory, revenge, unity, and power more than 'freedom' ?

[rhombus]

Again, the Europeans have not been able to make their Muslims into Europeans. Is it not obvious that Muslims want glory, revenge, unity, and power more than 'freedom' ?

No it's very obvious that the Muzzies do not respect freedom of religion. They have used political freedoms to try and subvert religious freedom.

[MikeHu]

You can only give people a decent chance; you can't guarantee a particular outcome -- that's liberal/leftist thinking -- that they can control every aspect of human behavior, or should, to get their preplanned outcome.

And so the results always do not match the expectations, or their good "intentions," which they then have no problem forgetting or denying At that point, thoughtful people accept the outcome satisfied -- that they have done their best -- and that is all one can expect of oneself and others.

Demagogues insist, on the other hand, if they were given full charge, the world would be perfect -- according to their plan, which is aggrandizing evermore power. It's not meant to produce better results but only to place themselves in power -- or consolidate their own power.

That's why there is so much of this talk by the demagogues of the world that nothing goes perfectly as they would, if they were in charge of the world, as though that was all the world needed to be a perfect place.

[oldtimer2]

#4 should be raze every mosque

[bkepley]

The problem is that the policies advocated by the "hell hawks" and by defeatist Democrats offer no real possibility of an end to the war against Islamic radicalism. It will go on forever.

And if it does, it seems certain that at some point in the next few decades, millions of people are going to die in a successful terrorist assault using weapons of mass destruction.

This is the way I've seen it from the git go.

[nonsporting]

...4) Now raise every mosque, burn every Islamic text, and kill or inprison every radical religious leader.

You forgot, "give them a new [religious] ideology."

Ann Coulter had it right. She wrote in a syndicated column on September 12 [2001] that in responding to terrorists "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."