Tuesday, September 12, 2006
A Just War
Bret Stephens writes a piece entitled "The Liberals War" in today's Wall Street Journal ($). It deserves your attention.
Stephens begins by quoting another writer, who assembled her essay in the aftermath of 9/11.
Then Stephens continues with a question that has plagued me as well, and posits a core answer:
Stephens is certainly on to something, but even then, it only goes part way to explaining this profound conundrum. How is it that a repulsive, radical islamic, fascistic culture that rejects all that makes American society exceptional in its tolerance, its moderation, its modernity, its success still acquires support and in some western quarters even admiration as it extends its bloody, nihilistic vision? To quote my eight year old, "what's up with that?"
Several of the radical "clerics", militants, leaders and footsoldiers have repeated a mantra which they use as a fuel to build their morale: "we will defeat the enemy because they love life, while we love death." Their rallying cry is that death is the entree to paradise, while Americans and westerners generally are cowardly, decadent, comfortable in life and therefore unwilling to fight.
This Islamic jihadist claim has a long historical trail, well documented in Middle Age battles for Malta and Vienna. Islamic military leaders used this same claim to rally their troops then and demoralize European Christians at war with the Muslim Turks. It fuels the quest for martyrdom which underlies the military tactic of suicide bombing. It is an entirely cynical form of molding cannon fodder -- and it will fail as it always has throughout history. It can do great damage and harm, but it is tactically doomed to failure.
Still, Stephens' question is replied by the Islamic rallying cry. Are the Islamic Jihadists right?
I think they make a good point about a minority of American society, which is ruthlessly secularist, consumerist, decadent and unwilling to put itself in harm's way. This is not a partisan commentary, though Stephens' makes it so. Just as Bush's approach to the Middle East has been opposed by members of the left, there are also significant opponents on the right -- led by many of his father's advisers, most notably Brent Scowcroft.
The Jihadists, however, make the natural mistake of concluding that the American media speak for the majority of American society. Their sense of America is a function of what they have been exposed to through television and print. They have little sense for the underlying spiritualism that was there at the formation of the nation and that informs the values of most Americans.
America is about may things, but its backbone is actually about tolerating, even loving your brother, no matter how different. It is exactly as Rachel Newman instinctively understood. It is about people sacrificing on behalf of their sibling, their child, their neighbor. That is why people come here. It is about Rick Rescorla and Welles Crowther and Ilario Pantano and countless people -- not all people -- but so many people who run to the war, not away from it. They do it because they lead, they lead from the front, and they inspire others to be better than what they might otherwise be.
A culture of death - that glorifies bloodletting -- that boasts of its desire for martyrdom to go to paradise is fundamentally arrogant, selfish and in the end self limiting and thus self defeating. It can do great harm and injury as it is unchecked by any rules of engagement, and therefore it must be aggressively confronted by the use of overwhelming force and violence. The Jihadists have Americans wrong, and they are learning it firsthand from our Marines and our Army. We love freedom, and we love our brother. On 9/11, they learned it from our firemen, our policemen and other nameless, countless Americans who gave of themselves to help others. To kill oneself to kill others, a culture of death, is not to sacrifice. To offer one's life to save others, that is sacrifice, that is love, and that is why America will of course defeat radical Islamism.
I think that is the remembrance of 9/11, D-Day, Memorial Day or Veterans Day that I hope my children absorb and carry with them.
Stephens begins by quoting another writer, who assembled her essay in the aftermath of 9/11.
"When I was 19, I moved to New York City. . . . If you had asked me to describe myself then, I would have told you I was a musician, an artist and, on a somewhat political level, a woman, a lesbian and a Jew. Being an American wouldn't have made my list. On Sept. 11, all that changed. I realized that I had been taking the freedoms I have here for granted. Now I have an American flag on my backpack, I cheer at the fighter jets as they pass overhead and I am calling myself a patriot."
-- Rachel Newman, "My Turn" in Newsweek, Oct. 21, 2001
Then Stephens continues with a question that has plagued me as well, and posits a core answer:
Here's a puzzle: Why is it so frequently the case that the people who have the most at stake in the battle against Islamic extremism and the most to lose when Islamism gains -- namely, liberals -- are typically the most reluctant to fight it?.
It is often said, particularly in the "progressive" precincts of the democratic left, that by aiming at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and perhaps the Capitol, Mohammed Atta and his cohorts were registering a broader Muslim objection to what those buildings supposedly represented: capitalism and globalization, U.S. military power, support for Israel, oppression of the Palestinians and so on.
But maybe Ms. Newman intuited that Atta's real targets weren't the symbols of American mightiness, but of what that mightiness protected: people like her, bohemian, sexually unorthodox, a minority within a minority. Maybe she understood that those F-16s overhead -- likely manned by pilots who went to church on Sunday and voted the straight GOP ticket -- were being flown above all for her defense, at the outer cultural perimeter of everything that America's political order permits
Stephens is certainly on to something, but even then, it only goes part way to explaining this profound conundrum. How is it that a repulsive, radical islamic, fascistic culture that rejects all that makes American society exceptional in its tolerance, its moderation, its modernity, its success still acquires support and in some western quarters even admiration as it extends its bloody, nihilistic vision? To quote my eight year old, "what's up with that?"
Several of the radical "clerics", militants, leaders and footsoldiers have repeated a mantra which they use as a fuel to build their morale: "we will defeat the enemy because they love life, while we love death." Their rallying cry is that death is the entree to paradise, while Americans and westerners generally are cowardly, decadent, comfortable in life and therefore unwilling to fight.
This Islamic jihadist claim has a long historical trail, well documented in Middle Age battles for Malta and Vienna. Islamic military leaders used this same claim to rally their troops then and demoralize European Christians at war with the Muslim Turks. It fuels the quest for martyrdom which underlies the military tactic of suicide bombing. It is an entirely cynical form of molding cannon fodder -- and it will fail as it always has throughout history. It can do great damage and harm, but it is tactically doomed to failure.
Still, Stephens' question is replied by the Islamic rallying cry. Are the Islamic Jihadists right?
I think they make a good point about a minority of American society, which is ruthlessly secularist, consumerist, decadent and unwilling to put itself in harm's way. This is not a partisan commentary, though Stephens' makes it so. Just as Bush's approach to the Middle East has been opposed by members of the left, there are also significant opponents on the right -- led by many of his father's advisers, most notably Brent Scowcroft.
The Jihadists, however, make the natural mistake of concluding that the American media speak for the majority of American society. Their sense of America is a function of what they have been exposed to through television and print. They have little sense for the underlying spiritualism that was there at the formation of the nation and that informs the values of most Americans.
America is about may things, but its backbone is actually about tolerating, even loving your brother, no matter how different. It is exactly as Rachel Newman instinctively understood. It is about people sacrificing on behalf of their sibling, their child, their neighbor. That is why people come here. It is about Rick Rescorla and Welles Crowther and Ilario Pantano and countless people -- not all people -- but so many people who run to the war, not away from it. They do it because they lead, they lead from the front, and they inspire others to be better than what they might otherwise be.
A culture of death - that glorifies bloodletting -- that boasts of its desire for martyrdom to go to paradise is fundamentally arrogant, selfish and in the end self limiting and thus self defeating. It can do great harm and injury as it is unchecked by any rules of engagement, and therefore it must be aggressively confronted by the use of overwhelming force and violence. The Jihadists have Americans wrong, and they are learning it firsthand from our Marines and our Army. We love freedom, and we love our brother. On 9/11, they learned it from our firemen, our policemen and other nameless, countless Americans who gave of themselves to help others. To kill oneself to kill others, a culture of death, is not to sacrifice. To offer one's life to save others, that is sacrifice, that is love, and that is why America will of course defeat radical Islamism.
I think that is the remembrance of 9/11, D-Day, Memorial Day or Veterans Day that I hope my children absorb and carry with them.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Sep 12, 01:31:00 PM:
The 9-11 guys were protesting the ambition of women to get on top. Simple as that. They grew apart from monkey style in favor of missionary and absolutely are mind blown by female superior. Liberty is Muslim for decadence and anarchy. How to fix this? I dunno but it's not getting better until a billion people can read "See Spot run".
By , at
Tue Sep 12, 01:33:00 PM:
Not sure about the glorification of bloodletting. I tend to think it's more primitive. Like a tiger baring it's teeth. Or an electric eel shocking something that touches it. It's their defense mechanism, their venom.
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Fri Sep 15, 12:55:00 AM:
It does make them uncomfortable... rather like when some foreigner rubs Abu Gharib in our faces.
