Posted on 07/22/2003 7:21:19 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
"Since the events of 9/11," observes Lee Harris, America's reigning philosopher of 9/11, "the policy debate in the United States has been primarily focused on a set of problems -- radical Islam and the War on Terrorism, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
We sense that these three problems are related, Harris notes in an article at TechCentralStation.com, but we can't quite figure out how. He proposes a subtle link between these seemingly disparate issues -- and it's not specifically their common Muslim identity. Rather, it has to do with their unearned power.
"All previous threats in the history of mankind have had one element in common. They were posed by historical groups that had created the weapons -- both physical and cultural -- that they used to threaten their enemies." States achieved their military power through their own labor and sacrifice, developing their own economies, organizing their societies, training their own troops, and building their own arsenals.
But the same cannot be said of the threats emanating from the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda destroys airplanes and buildings that it itself could not possibly build. The Palestinian Authority has failed in every field of endeavor except killing Israelis. Saddam Hussein's Iraq grew dangerous thanks to money showered on it by the West to purchase petroleum Iraqis themselves had neither located nor extracted.
How, despite their general incompetence, has this trio managed to guide the course of events as if they were Powers in the traditional sense?
The cause of this anomaly, Harris replies, is that the West plays by a strict set of rules while permitting Al-Qaeda, the Palestinians, and Saddam Hussein to play without rules. We restrain ourselves according to the standards of civilized conduct as refined over the centuries; they engage in maximal ruthlessness.
Had the United States retaliated in kind for 9/11, Harris tells me, the Islamic holy places would have been destroyed. Had Israelis followed the Arafat model of murderousness, the West Bank and Gaza would now be devoid of Palestinians. Had the West done toward Iraq as Iraq did toward Kuwait, the Iraqi polity would long ago have been annexed and its oil resources confiscated.
While morally commendable, Harris argues, the West's not responding to Muslim ruthlessness with like ruthlessness carries a high and rising price. It allows Muslim political extremists of various stripes to fantasize that they earned their power, when in fact that power derives entirely from the West's arch-civilized restraint.
This confusion prompts Muslim extremists to indulge in the error that their successes betoken a superior virtue, or even God's support. Conversely, they perceive the West''s restraint as a sign of its decadence. Such fantasies, Harris contends, feed on themselves, leading to ever-more demented and dangerous behavior.
Westerners worry about the security of electricity grids, computer bugs, and water reservoirs; can a nuclear attack on a Western metropolis be that remote? Western restraint, in other words, insulates its enemies from the deserved consequences of their actions, and so unintentionally encourages their bad behavior.
For the West to reverse this process requires much rougher means than it prefers to use. Harris, author of a big-think book on this general subject coming out from the Free Press in early 2004, contends that Old Europe and most analysts have failed to fathom the imperative for a change. The Bush administration, however, has figured it out and in several ways (all of which surfaced during the Iraq campaign) has begun implementing an unapologetic and momentous break with past restraints:
- Preempt: Knock out fantasist leaders (the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat) before they can do more damage.
- Rehabilitate: Dismantle their polities, then reconstruct these along civilized lines.
- Impose a double standard: 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."
In brief, until those Harris calls "Islamic fantasists" play by the rules, Washington must be prepared to act like them, without rules.
This appeal for America to act less civilized will offend some; but it does offer a convincing explanation for the inner logic of America''s tough new foreign policy.
The Arab culture understands one thing and one thing only: strength. Given our technology and wealth, could you just imagine what they'd do to us?????
It's time for new rules. We're off to a good start with Afghanistan and Iraq.......but I fear we haven't gone far enough.
Let me explain it to you as simply as I can, so you can follow the thought.
Goering thought that (1) people were no better than sheep and that (2) communism, fascism and representative republics were identical.
Therefore, according to Goering's line of thinking, no one ever thinks of war as necessary or serving a larger good and that people, as sheep, have to be herded into war through propaganda and groupthink. The idea of intelligent discussion and informed consent never enters his mind.
Your analysis of our current situation is identical to Goering's: the American people are sheep, none of them would ever have thought of the Iraq intervention as necessary and that support for intervention is purely a result of propaganda and groupthink pushed by an elite indistinguishable from communists or fascists.
My analysis is quite different: a large percentage of the American public were of the informed and considered opinion that it was unwise to have stopped our 1991 campaign at the Kuwait border. The American people have a participatory government and the majority of their elected representatives voted for intervention - knowing full well that if their vote upset their constituents many of them could be voted out of office in a matter of months. The American military, unlike the military of your hero Goering's experience, is a volunteer force and does not consist of mindless, dragooned peasants but professionals.
Therefore I am, as always, in utter disagreement with Goering's repulsive worldview, the worldview which you have adopted as your prism for the Iraq intervention.
You just hate being thought of as a sheep so you aggressively challenge anyone who calls you on it.
To the contrary, I am delighted to be called a sheep by people who view Goering as a deep and important thinker. I would hate to be admired or applauded by such people.
Truth is very rare in life, so most of settle for the things we know: our family, our ancestors, and for some of us, accepting Christ.
Perhaps you live in a world of shifting fantasies detached from verity, but in the real world truth is not "rare" it is easily accessible through logic and rational analysis. I love my family, I'm proud of ancestors and I serve the Lord - but none of these natural sentiments conflict with the application of right reason to political and military exigencies. If this were so people "burdened" by familial, filial and religious piety would never have succeeded in building an enduring polity or waging a successful military campaign. Such a conclusion is demonstrably false.
To pretend that Mssr.Harris and Mssr.Pipes have insight into the 'real forces' that move the world and the tactics, which include destroying civilizations, that should be employed is anti-Western.
If your tortured syntax is deciphered correctly, you're telling me that Daniel Pipes' opinion is "anti-Western." A case could be made that it is contrary to the principles of the Voltairian Enlightenment, but it's hardly anti-Western. Actually, I'm reminded of the recommendation by certain constitutional theorists of Weimar Germany that both the Nazi and Communist parties be banned. They argued that since both parties' stated intent was to destroy the existing constitutional order, they should not be admitted into the constitutional process. Their opponents argued that it was "anti-constitutional" to disallow German citizens from trying to destroy the constitution. The Enlightenment ideal of perfect neutrality won out, and your buddy Goering strode onto the national scene.
Pipes rightly recognized that one cannot offer a place in the international order to a group that wants to destroy the international order. Just as the National Socialists, with their totalizing and murderous ideology were a cancer on the national body politic which should have been marginalized and punished, Islam as an ideology is a similar cancer on the community of nations.
Self-defense is an eminently rational response to reality.
He is just another Ivy League geek willing to make history on the backs of kids from Wisconsin and Iowa.
Here's a newsflash for you: my brother is an Ivy League-caliber "geek" (translation: someone far too intelligent to accept Goering into his pantheon of political idols) who chose a military career instead and who is now risking his life every day along with men (not "kids") from every state in the Union serving under his command.
He and they all know why they're there, many of them know who Daniel Pipes is and they agree with his analysis wholeheartedly.
It disgusts them that one of the byproducts of their self-sacrifice is keeping cowards like you safe from harm, but they are happy to fight for their families and for Americans who know the difference between good and evil (hint: Goering was not a good guy in their estimation).
You cited his facile self-justification as some kind of worthwhile contribution to the debate.
So said Karl Marx and the French revolutionaries, but I addressed that a little later.
Marx began with the assumption that all human endeavor is reducible to economic motives and the Revolutionaries began with the assumption that social inequalities of any kind are the result of malice.
Both those base assumptions are easily refuted by ten minutes observation of actual human interaction.
People can appeal to reason, but when their analysis crumbles immediately on empirical grounds we know they have made a logical misstep.
"community of nations" ????
Nations, like individuals, often have common goals and interests. A common goal of many nations is to avoid being overrun by maniacal Islamic terrorists, and they can certainly form a community of interest around that goal. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Just know I have friends on the frontline, too, and I hope they come home safe.
Yet you feel comfortable undermining domestic confidence in their mission. That's not very conducive to their safety.
Other factions of the Right wish to close the borders to all, remove the Akbars in the intelligence and military services, and punish the incompetents who allowed 9/11 to happen.
I agree with this. That is part that must be done too. The fact that its not, is wrong.
Our argument with you is more on the scope of US engagement in the world. In my turn, I believe that you misinterpret Pipes, Harris and Co (I'd include there at least Victor Davis Hanson and Mark Steyn). Again, the fact that actions you listed are not getting done inside of US, do not negate the fact that outside actions are finally (!!) getting handled better (at least from my point of view). The Framers did an unbelievable job of setting up this country. They combined idealism (all men are created equal...) with pragmatism. I think its an unrealistic to suspect that Founders, the most talented group of politicians ever combined together with single purpose, would not apply their wisdom to the world as it is now. The world today is much smaller thanks to advances in communications, transportation and so on. Weapons exist that can do in small quantities damage unthinkable 200+ years ago. I can't pretend to know what exactly they would proscribe, but I can't believe they would not see the dangers that do exist outside of our borders, that must be dealt with, well, outside of our borders.
Allow rogue states to continue developing nasty weapons is dangerous.
Not realizing that such rogue states are supporting fanatical groups willing to do previously unthinkable deeds (and quite possible without leaving a trace of responsibility) is dangerous.
Not realizing that current technologies combined with openness that is essential for democracies function provides these fanatical groups with means to do unthinkable harm is dangerous.
Not projecting strength is dangerous.
Allow the vacuum of power in the world to be grabbed by hostile forces is dangerous.
So, what is your solution in dealing with these dangers, or do you think I cooked them up just for the argument's sake?
Not particularly. You had your chance to oppose the intervention during the months in which it was debated ad nauseam.
Express your opinion all you want, but I will not join your pretense that you are expressing it in a vacuum.
why they continue to wholeheartedly support a failing immigration system
Not a very deft change of subject.
before he goes on espousing Genghis Kahn dogma as official foreign policy.
The hyperbole in this comment is too ridiculous to address, and the leap in logic is dizzying. Pipes has been quite open in his denunciation of our cozy relationship with the Saudis.
Pipes was also denouncing the flow of Saudi Wahhabist money and personnel into this country before 9/11.
Could it be that perhaps Pipes disagrees with certain individuals' stance on immigration while agreeing with their stance on foreign policy? Probably not reductive enough for you.
BTW, why the constant use of "Mssr."? Is this ignorance or affectation on your part?
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