Is the West Too Civilized?

CNSNews.com ^ | July 22, 2003 | Daniel Pipes

[Tailgunner Joe]

My point is that Pipes favors controlling our borders and ousting the "Akhbars" from our intelligence community as well as destroying our enemies abroad.

Those who want our borders open and intelligence agencies infiltrated are Pipes' enemies.

[JohnGalt]

Sure was lucky that the CIA had some fellow travelers in the administration who were willing to blame the whole thing on Saddam, no? That whole 'hegemon' thing; the CIA boys must have laughing their heads off that the Ivy League geeks thought they could play with the big boys.

They probably cannot believe their luck!

Now the CIA has the administration by the throat and can do enough damage to embarrass the President and turn an election. They'll live to play another day.

[JohnGalt]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

I can live with that.

That's a far more conservative defense of Pipes than arguing 'we should become more like them.'

[Tailgunner Joe]

What is it exactly that you object to?

The idea that we should "assassinate" the leaders of terror groups?

Charlie Wrangel was just bemoaning the "assassination" of Uday and Qusay the other night.

Do you think we should adhere to "international law" when waging war on our enemies?

Should we give civilian trials to Al Qaeda members?

Pipes suggests that we "act on the premise that the U.S. government alone 'is permitted to use force against other agents who are not permitted to use force.'"

That sounds good to me.

[JohnGalt]

This is the danger; the philosphical underpinning of Daniel Pipes is that 'we should become more like them.'

That logic is stupid.

As a tactic, we can debate the merits of such a policy, but the theme of his bouquet of flowers for Mssr.Harris is stupid and anti-Conservative.

[Publius6961]

So I take it you'd rather pre-empt the dialog than defend or attack ideas?

If you consider Herr Pipes and fascist "ideas", knock yourself out, Einstein.

I don't.

[Tailgunner Joe]

The claim that we should be more brutal in dealing with our enemies is not philosophical, but tactical. Pipes goes on to say that we should "Dismantle their polities, then reconstruct these along civilized lines."

He is not suggesting that we adopt the "fantasist" ideas of our enemies.

[Publius6961]

This is the danger; the philosphical underpinning of Daniel Pipes is that 'we should become more like them.'
That may be your inference of the his statements, but not mine.

That logic is stupid.
No it's not

As a tactic, we can debate the merits of such a policy, but the theme of his bouquet of flowers for Mssr.Harris is stupid and anti-Conservative.
No it's not.

I can trade assertions and opinions with the best of them, but it's not terribly useful.

This ``nonsense," he says, reflects ``the difficulty intellectuals habitually have in distinguishing between the state of their minds and the state of the world." And it reflects what has been called ``the parochialism of the present," which Harries says is ``a condition resulting from a combination of ignorance of history and an egotistical insistence on exaggerating the importance of events that more or less directly involve oneself. Owen Harries, editor emeritus of The National Interest quarterly, as quoted by George Will, Dec. 24, 2001

[JohnGalt]

What's funny is so few of the posters actually disagreed with my reductionist assessment, they just fretted that I failed to see Mr.Pipes brilliance.

You do the same with the first half of your response.

That is great that Mr.Harris is the toast of ex-college liberals like Will and whatever Pipes is since no one is claiming he is 'of' the conservatives, I wish him the best of luck at his Manhattan cocktail parties.

[JohnGalt]

"Dismantle their polities, then reconstruct these along civilized lines."

This looks awfully close to Michael Ledeen's theory of 'creative destruction'? Do you know where Ledeen lifted that phrase from?

It was the New Testament and it was not American conservatism.

[JohnGalt]

excuse me, 'It was not the New Testament and it was not American conservatism.'

[Tailgunner Joe]

Chapter and verse?

[JohnGalt]

See 111.

[Tailgunner Joe]

You guys have to read this: Poohbah is quoting Nietzsche on a repost of this article and he's serious!

LOL!

[JohnGalt]

Thanks for the heads-up.

Too funny.

The hawks need to work at keeping their stories straight rather than air their ideological dirty laundry in public for all to see.

[JohnGalt]

Forgive, I am fond of quotes, but Dostoevsky seemed to think all of Western civilization rested on the question he posed.

"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that," said Ivan earnestly. "One can hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."


Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov

Pipes speaks of a West that is timid, but he fails to understand the ideal that is being protected in its humanistic and its Christian tradition.

[philosofy123]

Mr. Pipes is a fantastic scholar of Islam; however, this militant approach does not work. Smart people like the Neo-cons get it wrong all the time. Israel has been using force to combat militant Islamists for a decade. It did not even slow them down. These are fanatics who are obsessed with religion dogma. WE MUST CHANGE THIS RELIGION DOGMA!!

Thinkers must think outside the box. Outside the militant Neocon shoot them all attitude.

Yes the west is too civilized, however, the way to improve that attitude is to 1)-Ignore the concept of respecting other people's religion. 2)-We must interfere in other people beliefs and faith. 3) We must use the leverage of cooperation with the UN, and the civilized world to make it illegal for any religion to preach violence. 4)-We must use our economic power, and leverage our friends to impose our demand to REFORM militant Islamic dogmas. 5) We must impose through economic leverage, and even mafia type death squads to IMPOSE cultural shifts through Arabic writers of modern thinking. Backward Islamists writers must be KILLED or reformed. Nasser, and Saddam managed to control these fanatics by the brut force to impose modern thinking. If these two leaders did not get over their heads with combating Israel, they would have been considered reasonable dictators.

In a democracy like Germany, IT IS ILLEGAL TO BE A NAZI! Where is the freedom? No freaking freedom when it comes to hate dogma. PERIOD

[Tailgunner Joe]

After going toe to toe with you on the Buchanan thread about dropping the bomb on Japan, Pube ought to be humiliated for basically agreeing with you now. I'll just let him lumber on in his ignorance.

[LibTeeth]

Re:"If you consider Herr Pipes and fascist "ideas", knock yourself out, Einstein. "

I think you have mis-attributed that to me, when it was Mssr. Galt who drew that analogy. My beef with Pipes article is his "A becomes non-A to defeat non-A" dialectic treachery. I suspect he doesn't really mean it, but that doesn't make it acceptable or laudable. It's like when Clinton says to the dependency class "I feel your pain" while he gets $200 haircuts on the runway. They know the fatcat doesn't really empathize but they accept the lie because they expect some supporting crumbs. For conservatives to accept this illogic because it supports their desires to take serious vengeance or retalliatory action conditions us into giving up principles when it feels good. It is never an uplifting position for conservatives to think, act, or justify as liberals do. We're supposed to be better than that.

[philosofy123]

Mr. Pipes is a fantastic scholar of Islam; however, this militant approach does not work. Smart people like the Neo-cons get it wrong all the time. Israel has been using force to combat militant Islamists for a decade. It did not even slow them down. These are fanatics who are obsessed with religion dogma. WE MUST CHANGE THIS RELIGION DOGMA!! Thinkers must think outside the box. Outside the militant Neocon shoot them all attitude.

Yes the west is too civilized, however, the way to improve that attitude is to 1)-Ignore the concept of respecting other people's religion. 2)-We must interfere in other people beliefs and faith. 3) We must use the leverage of cooperation with the UN, and the civilized world to make it illegal for any religion to preach violence. 4)-We must use our economic power, and leverage our friends to impose our demand to REFORM militant Islamic dogmas. 5) We must impose through economic leverage, and even mafia type death squads to IMPOSE cultural shifts through Arabic writers of modern thinking. Backward Islamists writers must be KILLED or reformed. Nasser, and Saddam managed to control these fanatics by the brut force to impose modern thinking. If these two leaders did not get over their heads with combating Israel, they would have been considered reasonable dictators.

In a democracy like Germany, IT IS ILLEGAL TO BE A NAZI! Where is the freedom? No freaking freedom when it comes to hate dogma. PERIOD