Our Failed, Multi-Culti Approach To Islamic Totalitarianism
Very interesting article on "'Just War Theory' vs. American Self-Defense" by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein in The Objective Standard, on how America has failed to understand the nature of our enemy and respond accordingly, and appropriately -- which would be with crushing force, and against soldiers and civilians, as did William Tecumseh Sherman on his march on Atlanta during the American Civil War. Moreover, our problem is not just Al Qaeda, but the states behind the terrorism. (And no, Iraq should not have been our focus.) An excerpt:
Of course, America has done something militarily in response to 9/11; it has taken military action against two regimes: the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But in addition to these not having been the two most important regimes to target, our military campaigns in each case have drastically departed from the successful wars of the past in their logic, aims, methods--and in their results. In Afghanistan, we gave the Taliban advance notice of military action, refused to bomb many top leaders out of their hideouts for fear of civilian casualties, and allowed many key leaders to escape in the Battle of Tora Borah. And in Iraq, we have done far worse. While we have taken Saddam Hussein out of power, we have neither eradicated the remnants of his Baathist regime, nor defeated the insurgency that has arisen, nor taken any serious precaution against the rise of a Shiite theocracy that would be a far more effective abettor of Islamic Totalitarianism than Saddam Hussein ever was.In terms of ending the (limited) threat posed to America by the respective countries, the "war" in Afghanistan was a partial failure, and the "war" in Iraq is a total failure. Our leadership, however, evaluates these endeavors not primarily in terms of whether they end threats and dissuade other hostile regimes from continuing aggression, but in terms of whether they bestow the "good life" on the Middle Eastern peoples by ridding them of unpopular dictators and allowing them to vote-in whatever government they choose (no matter how anti-American). This objective is presently consuming endless resources and thousands of American lives in Iraq, where we are sustaining a hostile Iraqi population until they can independently run their new nation--in which Islam is constitutionally the basic law of the land.
How is all of this supposed to fulfill our leaders' pledge to defend America? The democratically elected Iraqi government, we are told, will somehow lead to a renaissance of "freedom" in the Middle East, which will somehow stop terrorism in some distant future. In the meantime, we are told, we should show "resolve," take off our shoes at the airport, and pay attention to the color-coded terror alerts so we can know how likely we are to be slaughtered.
Empty talk of "complete victory" notwithstanding, our official foreign policy regarding America's security against Islamic terrorism is: accepted defeat. We have not been willing to take military action against the most important threats against us, and the type of military action we have been willing to take has not succeeded in making us safer. And most disturbing of all, despite our travesty of a foreign policy, the vast majority of once-enraged Americans has not demanded anything better. Most Americans acknowledge that Iraq is a debacle, that we will not be safe anytime soon, and that we have no plans to deal effectively with threats such as Iran's nuclear weapons program--yet there is widespread resignation that this is the best we can do. This--in response to a threat caused by pip-squeak nations, against the most powerful military in history.
Why? What explains the defeatism of the leaders and citizens of the most powerful nation on earth?
One crucial factor is the failure of our intellectual and political leadership to clearly identify the nature of our enemy, to recognize that terrorism stems from a religious ideological movement that seeks our destruction and that that movement is widely supported by Muslim peoples and states.
One intellectual motivation for this evasion is the doctrine of Multiculturalism, which holds that all cultures are equal, and thus that it is immoral for Western Culture to declare itself superior to any other. Having swallowed this doctrine, most of our intellectuals and politicians are reluctant to identify a clearly evil, militant ideological movement as an aspect of Arab-Islamic culture or to acknowledge its widespread support in that culture.
There's much more of this at the link above. Long, but worth reading.
"Force not an argument"
Except when it comes to foreign muslims.
The war was won a long-time ago. But we now re-address the question, and in turn, have lost civil liberty and subjected ourselves to financial and economic devastation.
I have always had high regards for Epstein and Brook. But I cannot respect such a lack for intellectual dishonesty to the principles of Objectivism. They merely seek to make exceptions where none need to be made.
j.d. at April 17, 2008 7:41 AM
It's not just American intellectuals and politicians who believe this...it's across the spectrum of Western Culture so even if the US got its shit together, there's the whole peer pressure thing from your buddies.
I also wonder if there is fear to point to religion as the nasty catalyst for muslim terror as we seem so hung up on our own religion these days. If we question their religion, maybe we'd have to think about our own. Drives me crazy how everyone thanks God for everything these days. No wonder we're so fucked up...so many people are unwilling to take credit for their own damn accomplishments anymore!
moreta at April 17, 2008 7:44 AM
Yaron and Brook have made a huge intellectual error.
The prosecution of COIN, like War, has nothing to do with ideology or religion. It has its own rules.
We must make common cause with the most rational of actors in an anti-intellectual society in order to control it and guide it. Freedom and reason do not spring forth overnight.
austin at April 17, 2008 8:12 AM
Yaron and Brook are shooting bullseyes. The US government is shooting dud rounds.
Jeff at April 17, 2008 11:41 AM
Yes and I have seen many articles that say the same stuff pulled from archives of newspapers right after world war 2. Go back and look at the state of Germany for a long while after the war ended. And these societies were devastated. Iraq was bloodless and still is in comparison of the carnage we visited upon Germany and Japan. Same with Korea.
It still may fail, but it is worth the effort.
I am holding oout for when the Maliki government loses an election and steps down peacefully. And the effect that has on its neighbors and people.
One nice result already. Never again can the left use the argument that our government just deals with thug leaders while the poor masses are left to rot under dictatorship. So now we acted and did not blow away millions in the process, then invested our own blood and treasure to nursemaid a new democracy. Even if it fails, the next time we go after a nation, no one can demand we try this again, for humanitarian reasons. So the Left can thank themselves for the return of total war, when it comes. ironic.
Jim at April 17, 2008 3:01 PM
Fascinating stuff, but the United States has NEVER been the kind of country Brook and Epstein advocate here. If it was, it wouldn't have fought Germany in either world war. Both wars were fought under the banner of making the world safe for democracy and Wilson's justifications for WWI were particularly sweeping in their idealism. The same could be said of the civil war, at least from the Union side. When Lincoln said "that the gov't by the people, etc. shall not perish from the earth", he was not just talking about self-defense. And were there ever such ambitious (and verbose) pro-democracy idealists as the patriots of the American Revolution? These have always been the kinds of justifications American leaders used for going to war, and the kinds the public has responded to.
Finally, the type of war B&E are advocating, if actually practiced in Iraq or Afghanistan (or Iran or Saudi Arabia, which seem to be the countries they would prefer we invade) would resemble what Russia has done in Chechnya, but on an even greater scale. Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd bet few Americans would support being involved in such a war, no matter how many times America had been attacked. For better or worse, history shows that Americans like to believe they are fighting for a greater cause, which is to say a greater good.
It's open to debate whether these religious and intellectual traits are really as suicidal as the authors claim. What is more certain is that they are not recent devolopments or due to "multiculturalism". For better or worse, they are at the heart of American character going back to the founders and have been evident in all of America's wars, most of which, amazingly, turned out pretty well.
Naif Mabat at April 17, 2008 5:50 PM
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