Mark Steyn: The war Bush is losing

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 08/24/2002 | Mark Steyn

[the bottle let me down]

bump for later

[What Is Ain't]

Just tune in to any Arab TV station for Friday prayers: ‘O God, destroy the Jews and their supporters. O God, destroy the Christians and their supporters and followers, shake the ground under them, instil fear in their hearts, and freeze the blood in their veins.’

That’s Sheikh Akram Abd-al-Razzaq al-Ruqayhi, some hotshot imam live from the Grand Mosque in Sanaa on 9 August on Yemeni state TV. It’s the local equivalent of ‘Thought for the Day’, and even more predictable. Here’s the same dude a week earlier: ‘O God, deal with Jews and their supporters and Christians and their supporters and lackeys,’ he prayed. ‘O God, count them one by one, kill them all, and don’t leave anyone.’

Another state TV channel, another mosque, another imam, same script: ‘O God, deal with the occupier Jews for they are within your power,’ said Sheikh Anwar al-Badawi on 2 August live from the Umar Bin-Al-Khattab Mosque in Doha on Qatar Television. ‘O God, count them one by one, kill them, and don’t leave any one of them.’

Same sheikh a week later: ‘O God, destroy the usurper Jews and the vile Christians.’

What a rube that Steyn is. Doesn't he recognize Muslim hyperbole when he sees it?

[Sabertooth]

It is not necessary to point out the defects of the other side, merely to promote ours as the best, which is what he has done. Those who want to hear the President ranting about the defects of Islam (evident to anyone with an IQ above turnip stage) are going to be waiting a long time.

There are salient reasons why the President shouldn't rant about Islam, and I've never suggested he should. There's no point in him inflaming and uniting the entire Islamic world against us. We want to take out the terror states one at a time.

I have stated that I believe this is ultimately a Clash of Civilizations between Islam and the West, and I'm rather certain the President doesn't share that view. However, my disagreement here is moot for the foreseeable future, because I'd largely pursue the same strategy as the President in the near-term, and what I percieve to be the mid-term (I'd handle "palestine" a little differently, still recognizing the need to keep a lid on that powder-keg). My endgame would be different, but we're quite a ways away from that... and much could change in the interim that would affect either my views or the President's.

OTH, can we not agree that having President Bush pose for photo ops with known terrorist sympathizers, saying "Islam means peace," was perhaps, imprudent?

[iconoclast]

According to Steyn:

But words matter, too. You win wars not just by bombing but by argument. Churchill understood this; he characterised the enemy as evil, not only because they were but also because the British people needed to be convinced of the fact if they were to muster the will to see the war through

[Reagan Man]

Well stated, Miss Marple.

President Bush is one man and he can't be all things, to all people at the same time. The President can't please everyone. He isn't a confrontationist, but understands the immense power he wields as President and leader of the free world. In that regard, Bush is very "Reaganesque" in his pragmatic approach to leadership. Time and again, President Reagan was underestimated and it appears there are some folks who are making the same mistake with President Bush. They do so at their own risk.

[WarrenC]

Thank God for Mark Steyn and thanks Pokey, for the ping.

[WarrenC]

In that regard, Bush is very "Reaganesque" in his pragmatic approach to leadership.

Reagan never failed to understand the importance of clarity of purpose. He described the USSR as the 'evil empire' in 1983, when it was absolutely unfashionable to do so. He challenged Mr. Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall' and was ridiculed for it. IMHO, Mr. Bush hasn't yet shown that he fully appreciates the importance of that component of leadership.

[elephantlips]

You note that most people in America feel as the President does and I agree. There is no way he has sustained his level of "popularity" without agreement on a wide scale. I don't understand some of the things President Bush does but I'm not privy to his knowledge or tactics. I do believe that he serves at the behest of an Almighty God and I trust the Lord is doing through him, what needs to be done.

[Dog Gone]

OTH, can we not agree that having President Bush pose for photo ops with known terrorist sympathizers, saying "Islam means peace," was perhaps, imprudent?

I'm wouldn't call it "imprudent." I'd call it "wishful thinking."

The fact is that Islam can co-exist peacefully with other religions. So, ideally, that's what Bush and everyone else should want. But the reality is that in most places on this planet, Islam is anything but peaceful, and it is completely intolerant of other religions. Hell, even within Islam we can see where Sunnis kill Shi'ites, and the Taliban killed everyone who didn't adopt their particular brand of Islam.

I understand what Bush was trying to do. He was trying to characterize the struggle as America versus people who engage in bad behavior. And certainly not every moslem is a terrorist.

Islam could be a peaceful religion theoretically, but it wasn't a theoretical plane that flew into the World Trade Center.

[jpl]

It is not necessary to point out the defects of the other side, merely to promote ours as the best, which is what he has done.

With all due respect, this simply isn't true when you're at war, especially if you're planning something like a large-scale invasion of another country which will result in a signifcant number of casualties.

Steyn is correct, wars are almost always won or lost before the first shot is even fired. Most sane people simply will not voluntarily go out of their way to kill another human unless they are convinced that their intended victim is the face of evil. This requires intensive training, and yes, even propaganda, for the civilians as well as the soldiers. Mothers and fathers don't like sacrificing their sons unless they're damn well sure that it's for a worthy cause.

[rockfish59]

Springsteen: Boy, how he hated it when Reagan used 'Born In The USA'.
He's a lefty/geek and his music sucks!

At least Ozzy is pro America!

[USMMA_83]

American's are thirsting for a leader of RR's stature. It's precisely his stand against the Soviet Union that rallied the country. He was eloquent in defining our civilizations enemy. Bush, has the same opportunity. However, he spends his time cajoling the Arabs. The Arabs and Islamists have been on a rampage for 1000+ years. Their "spots" will not change. They are who they are. We on the other hand are continuously surprised when they behave like they always have.

If Bush would come out and say that Militant Islam is our enemy, and we will defeat it. The Public will rally around our president, and so will the non-islamofascist world.

[Free State Four]

Ramadan-a-ding-dong BUMP! fsf

[Miss Marple]

Well, you are going to have to live with it, because I do not think that you are going to transform the President into Reagan, or Churchill. He sometimes has elements of each, but is, after all, a unique person, just as they were.

I think that the President will make the case when the time is right. No one except political junkies like us is paying attention to anything now. Even the press is off chasing their tails ignoring the gradual build-up that we have been undtertaking for months in the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, last night one of the Indianapolis stations did a "man on the street" interview with average folks, and not the intelligentsia, may I say. Not one person was confused about why we need to go to war with Iraq, and many favored the use of nuclear weapons if necessary.

Why some people think that the enemy has not been portrayed as evil I do not know. I can only conclude that they are not listening to what the President says.

From this President you are not going to get daily speeches. On the other hand, when he does give a speech, it is payed attention to by everyone, including the non-political citizens.

So Mr. Steyn needs patience and to pay a little more attention to things, and also to realize there is more than one way to skin a cat.

And those who pine for Reagan need to quit living in the past. A Ronald Reagan comes along once in a generation, if we are lucky. He was a unique person born of the times in which he matured. Appreciate what we have now, while being grateful that we had President Reagan when we did.

[Michael2001]

Real live Arab intolerance is not a problem except insofar as it risks inflaming yet more mythical American intolerance.

Imams say kill the Jews and Christians and no one says a word. Franklin Graham calls them evil, and he's condemned.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***George W. Bush had a rare opportunity after 11 September. He could have attempted to reverse the most toxic tide in the Western world: the sappy multiculturalism that insists all cultures are equally valid, even as they're trying to kill us. He could have argued that Western self-loathing is a psychosis we can no longer afford.***

The Perils of Designer Tribalism***The universalization-which is to say the utter trivialization-of compassion is one side of Third Worldism. Another side is the inversion of traditional moral and intellectual values. Europe once sought to bring enlightenment-literacy, civil society, modern technology-to benighted parts of the world. It did so in the name of progress and civilization. The ethic of Third Worldism dictates that yesterday's enlightenment be rebaptized as today's imperialistic oppression. For the committed Third Worldist, Bruckner points out,

salvation consists not only in a futile exchange of influences, but in the recognition of the superiority of foreign thought, in the study of their doctrines, and in conversion to their dogma. We must take on our former slaves as our models. . . . It is the duty and in the interest of the West to be made prisoner by its own barbarians.

Whatever the current object of adulation- the wisdom of the East, tribal Africa, Aboriginal Australia, pre-Columbian America -the message is the same: the absolute superiority of Otherness. The Third Worldist looks to the orient, to the tribal, to the primitive not for what they really are but for their evocative distance from the reality of modern European society and values.***

Mark Steyn: Multiculturalists are the real racists***Once upon a time we knew what to do. A British district officer, coming upon a scene of suttee, was told by the locals that in Hindu culture it was the custom to cremate a widow on her husband's funeral pyre. He replied that in British culture it was the custom to hang chaps who did that sort of thing. There are many great things about India -- curry, pyjamas, sitars, software engineers -- but suttee was not one of them. What a pity we're no longer capable of being "judgmental" and "discriminating." We're told the old-school imperialists were racists, that they thought of the wogs as inferior. But, if so, they at least considered them capable of improvement. The multiculturalists are just as racist. The only difference is that they think the wogs can never reform: Good heavens, you can't expect a Muslim in Norway not to go about raping the womenfolk! Much better just to get used to it.

As one is always obliged to explain when tiptoeing around this territory, I'm not a racist, only a culturist. I believe Western culture -- rule of law, universal suffrage, etc. -- is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation. Without it, like a Hindu widow, we're slowly climbing on the funeral pyre of our lost empires. You see it in European foreign policy already: they're scared of their mysterious, swelling, unstoppable Muslim populations.***

[xJones]

...a kind of enervating cult of tolerance in which you demonstrate your sensitivity to other cultures by being almost totally insensitive to your own.

Thank you, Mark Steyn. I am so tired of hearing that "we" (we always being white of European ancestry) must bear the sins and guilts of everyone else's failures. Is it wrong (I would have said sin, but Christianity is out) to say that I'm proud to be white? In today's *culture*, it is. We may be in danger of suiciding ourselves, due to white left-wing BS.

[blackie]

Hang 'em High !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

[knighthawk]

Ping

[philosofy123]

Islam, the religion teaches hostility to non-Moslem is no different from any other religion teaching of superiority of their way of thinking or believing. The difference are 1) most other religions started to deemphasize the hate to others, and Islam failed to do so, and 2)most religions do not have the luxury of state support with billions of dollars budgeted to teach hate as well as networking of militants to force that religion down the throat of others. Now these two fundamental reasons are why the Islamists became a world-wide terror to be contended with.

If the US fails to recognize that, and starts to waste time and effort on changing dictatorship in Iraq, then we have people in charge who fail to understand the big picture.

First, we must recognize that all the Moslem fanatic nations are authoritarian dictatorship of one sort or another. For Example Mr. Mubarak of Egypt can sear all day that he has democracy, but he has been in office for more than 20 years, and keep getting 99% of the votes during the charade game they call election. Therefore, all these dictators who are able to govern with an iron fist, and forbid criticism of their government should also be able to FORBID CRITISM OF THE US, AND ISRAEL! Second, We should disregard the concept of “interfering in internal affairs of other nations”, if the internal affairs of these nations is to incite hate against us.

To conclude, the US was given a tremendous sympathy, and sense of support from most of the world after 9/11. We needed that to help close the flow of funds that support the terrorist Islamic cells. Less than a year later, with the cells still operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Philippine, as well as the marathon fundraising in Saudi Arabia, we are disregarding our main mission, and focusing on “changing the government of Iraq”. The world that was 100% behind us in combating the terrorists is now 100% against us! How inept can you get in wasting worldwide goodwill into a worldwide hate?

Again, the US should focus on Islamic terrorist groups and the venomous hate from the Moslem clerics. We must dictate to these dictators: “You employ these clerics, you are responsible for their hate preaching”--- if that continue, we will make you pay! JUST AS SIMPLE AS THAT!!