Imperial Hubris - finally something that makes sense...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279743/

Have you all heard about this new book? I haven't read it yet, but have been following reviews and opinion sections in local newspapers. Finally someone has tried to make sense of the situation we find ourselves in - that a large part of Islam is making war against the US, and that we'd better start to treat it as such rather than respond with these silly "police actions" and thinking that to crack down on terrorists and their allies is somehow an aspect of "racism".

On the other hand, the author completely and totally condemns the war in Iraq as a silly and destructive sidetracking of our main effort, which has resulted in a worsening of the overall problem of fighting radical Islam as the main enemy.

 

Yes - I've followed the roll out...

Yes Carl-

I've recommended this to my antiwar friends (eg, Liberty and Power blog http://hnn.us/blogs/4.html).

But having read some of it at the bookstore, and having read the Senate Intelligence Committee report, I'm convinced that the author isn't with CIA Counter-terrorism group - rather, the much more compromised Middle East Section.

Why do I say "compromised?" Because blaming America first is the stance of ME academics who did nothing to address Islamism and Jihadism even after the first attack on the World Trade Center. To them, "Islams" virtue cannot be questioned.

Counter-factually speaking, this stance cannot explain the further fact that those adpoting it gain no immuniy to Jihadist terror. As Victor Davis Hansen explains. they "[can]not adduce a simple explanation as to why French and Germans are busy rooting out plots to blow up their own citizens - despite billions of EU money sent to terrorist organizations like Hamas, support for Arafat, and cheap slurs leveled at America in Iraq. Why do Muslim radicals hate Europe when Europeans have no military power, no real presence abroad, give billions away to the Middle East, despise Israel, will sell anything to anyone anywhere at anytime, and have let millions of Arabs onto their shores? Are daily threats to Europeans earned because of what Europe does - or is the cause who they are?"

Therefore, while I agree that isolationism would have lowered the US past threats, it would have gained us no immunity to terrorism - and thus "Anonymous'" thesis fails.

The reason the US and the world has interests in the Middle East is because of oil; the reason Jihadists hate us is because modernism challenges their religion to adapt - and they've failed: therefore, it's easier to blame "outsiders" than to reform one's religion, culture, and civilization. We're both doing what's economical - but that does not mean these opposite sides are equally rational. Arabs want irreconcilables (eg, democracy without an open civil society to maintain it). Once it was "the West won't give us democracy!" After Iraq, they won't be able to use that excuse anymore.

After Iraq, despite the censorship of their governments, the debate over their civilization looms larger and closer than ever - it's staring them in the face! This is the ultimate good Bush has visited upon them, and the necessary good "Anonymous" can't recognize.

--Orson

 

That was an interesting and thought-provoking response Orson....

I guess my take on it is that Americans, because we have been too culturally isolationist already, are not aware of the long history of warfare and strife between Islam and Western nations. Or if they are, it is in reference to some long ago events (e.g., the Crusades) or is confined to Israeli conflicts.

My point is that I believe the book says "wake up" - war is here. Not a nice little political war with minimal casualties (at least for us), but a long-drawn out war of survival that will go on for years, if not centuries, until one side or the other is defeated. May we be on God's side in this one....

On the other hand, it would do us some good to re-examine our policies towards Islamic nations because a lot of the reason why there is an emerging war against the West has to do with our application of policies that irritate the situation.

As the author suggests, it will take a blended approach (strong military responses with no expectation of "quick TV wars" of short duration combined with changes in policy to defuse the situation).

 

Thank you, Carl.

But when it comes to war between cultures of the West and Islam, first, the latter's conquering tradition looms far larger in historical terms than any pissant rear-guard responses from Christendom.

Secondly, as for the "good" re-examining our policies toward Islam would do, the example of the appeasing French ought to be instructive to any isolationists. Thus far, however, I've found these adherents to be unresponsive if not amazingly unaware (including my friend professor David T. Beito - 20th Century US historian at Alabama - also at Liberty & Power blog above).

Third, the reality of Islam's inability to get along with non-western peoples throughout the world teaches that it isn't Western (or even US) policies that "cause" anything for them: it's the religion. Muslim - non-Muslim conflicts in East Timor, the Philipines, Kashmir, India, Thailand, Sudan, Chechniya - and soon South Africa - do not suggest any failings by the West!

Fourth, the only serious alternative to a blended strategy that includes military interventions is a differently blended strategy that does not include a "pre-emptive" military option. Kerry, as of yet, has not offered one - but I'm sure, either before or after another attack on US soil, Democrats will come up with one. Watching closely for signs (as I am), I'm not betting on sooner.

Finally, I agree it will be a long intergenerational war, alright. Normally, I am an optimist about humanity: people do tend towards the good. Fanatical religion, however, tests that faith - and Islamic Jihadism more especially than others.

It wasn't Buddhist's, or Hindu's, or Christian's that attacked New York and Washington, D.C. on 2001. It was Muslims. The only optimistic alternative is to re-invigorate enlightenment values in the face of human evil.

--Orson

 

I have not yet read the book, but people whose astuteness I respect (all across the political spectrum) have called it a must-read, and so again here. Gotta get it.

 

War of Civilizations

I agree that we should defend ourselves. We should strive both to reduce our vulnerabilities at home and to eliminate groups plotting attacks against us anywhere on earth.

But we shouldn't let the "war" rhetoric drive us to madness. It's not our job to start a great jihad against Islam itself, determined either to exterminate it from the earth or to transform it into our favorite image.

While we may think that the latter is a very attractive goal, it has very little chance of succeeding by force. Wholesale violence would only harden our enemies against us. Osama bin Ladin knew that when he flew planes into the Towers. He hoped to halt the Western rot corrupting the Islamic world by creating unbridgeable enmity between us.

Instead, we should utilize our strengths. We should encourage trade and media contacts with the Muslim world. We should try to keep our relations with them as normal as possible, allowing our way of life to be attractive to as many Muslims as possible.

We will only "win", in the sense of Islam gradually accomodating to the new world of 21'st century globalization, if we win them over individually, hearts and minds. We can only do that by making our way of life as attractive to them as we can.

Their kids will wear American T-shirts and enjoy music videos. They will watch satellite TV and surf the net. Young girls will want something more from life. Muslims will grasp hungrily at science and technology, while the rationalistic and empirical worldview that makes science possible subverts their culture's traditional authorities.

But those "modern" changes will collide with all the Islamic "reform" movements that have risen in reaction to the West, movements that reject Sufi mysticism and saint-worship, that seek to cleanse their societies of Western corruption and grasp eagerly at the perceived purity of Shariah law. Saudi Wahabism, the Ayatollahs in Shiite Iran and the Taliban are a few out of many examples.

But while that collision is happening, Islam is going to be unstable and dangerous.

The choice for us is pretty clear: Do we want to promote the forces of change or do we want to join the forces of Islamic reaction by obligingly playing the role of their Satan?

 

Re: War of Civilizations

Wow. We all are pretty philosophical about our challenges - aren't we?

Bill writes: "We should...allow our way of life to be attractive to as many Muslims as possible.

"We will only 'win', in the sense of Islam gradually accomodating to the new world of 21'st century globalization, if we win them over individually, hearts and minds. We can only do that by making our way of life as attractive to them as we can."

But I'm sure we are and have. How do I know? Because Muslims move to western nations by the millions and westerners do not return the favor by moving to Muslim, or especially Arab, nations.

Bill concludes: "The choice for us is pretty clear: Do we want to promote the forces of change or do we want to join the forces of Islamic reaction by obligingly playing the role of their Satan?"

Yet to Sayid Qtub or Ibn Taymiyya it isn't what we do - merely by existing like we do as vulgar materialists, we besmirch and insult Allah. That's why we deserve to die; that's why martyrs are willing to die to bring our deaths about. We have no real choice about "Playing" Satan - we are already that without trying!

Dinesh D'souza, however, usefully suggests that what the West might convey and teach Islam the lessons that Kant taught: that the moral choice is in fact a choice between good and evil - that it becomes moral not because necessary or imposed but because it is freely chosen. Without real choice there is no morality

However, this is the sum and substance of the difference between the West and Islam and encapsulates our civilizational clash: individuals are at the center of our moral, political, and scientific universe; for Muslims, by contrast, God is. To them, individualism is idolatry - an insult to Allah. (And so is democracy because it enshrines individual will - and thus post-Saddam Iraq is a fraught terror-prone place.)

And so we do indeed have irreconcilable differences. Refusing to "play" the Devil as Bill suggests is not a live option - it is not something we can choose: we already are. And the Koran is clear on this point: it is not good for the faithful to live among the Infidel. And therefore more martyrs arise among us.

--Orson

PS Check out "The Terror Web," a lengthy article concerning post-3/11 terrorism" in The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040802fa_fact