Daniel Henninger has a column up today in the WSJ that links the movie United 93 together with the Moussaoui decision in a way that ought to have been obvious, but escaped me until I read it.
Some will say, as has already been said to me: “I know all that. I don’t need to see it.”
But perhaps you no longer know September 11 as well as you think. In this week of the Moussaoui life sentence, it is pertinent to ask whether the days and seasons we’ve traveled from the time of September 11 have returned the people of America to a routine that feels more normal than perhaps it should.
I saw the movie with the Hobbit a couple weekends ago, and pondered writing about it before putting the idea away – the story is just too big for me, frankly. Other people have written about how very well acted and directed it was, and I wholeheartedly agree. But in my mind, the movie’s most dazzling feature is that it puts the viewer in the moment, enabled him to participate again as “everyman,” to experience the shared desperation and bravery of those knew that they were faced with a fight or die decision against people who so twisted the tenets of their faith as to become depraved beasts, brutal, uncaring, murderous.
Those who fought back had to know that the outcome was very much in doubt, and we now know that they were no better off for fighting than had they gone passively to their deaths. But no one today can say the struggle was not worth the attempt. Sometimes it isn’t about us. Sometimes you have to face the beast, because the beast has chosen to face you. Sometimes you fight and die. Because of the sacrifice of “everyman” aboard United 93, untold hundreds more lives were spared, and a country was encouraged – in that word’s most precise meaning – by their example.
So in viewing United 93 we are now witnesses to both a crime and to a transendence, rather than stunned and unwilling participants in a national disaster. Because we know how it will end, our eyes focus on in-the-moment details we were at the time too appalled to put a handle on.
This act of bearing witness is emotionally heavy, as is the almost mind-numbing realization that in the director has only captured some 50-100 facets of a 2700 piece mosaic of barbarity, tragedy, and yes – we must insist upon remembering – bravery. United 93 serves as a nearly indigestible proxy for the entirely incomprehensible whole.
As, in a rather different way, does the Moussaoui trial itself. Henninger is unsparing:
We arrive at the end of these interminable trial circuses of procedural delay and then claim “the system works” and “justice” has been done. No, it has done damage to the normal idea of justice. He saw the game early on and made a mockery of it. Moussaoui achieved a two-year delay in his trial by demanding to interview al Qaeda detainees. But our moral betters insist that the whole lot of Guantanamo detainees be given access to this same system of justice. They would diminish and crush it.
The odds were strong, as Moussaoui’s lawyers knew and the government’s should have known, that 9 of 12 jurors would vote that Moussaoui’s childhood was “dysfunctional” and “mitigating.” This is the therapeutic vocabulary that the West has developed to explain anything in the years from the postwar period to, say, September 11.
The movie and the trial forge an unlikely alliance to remind us that the war is not yet over, no matter how much we might wish it to be. No matter how the daily news of more murdered civilians and fallen soldiers becomes background noise, the rainfall patter that most of us, thankfully, only hear once we focus our attention on it.
We are cursed now to live in interesting times, the stories being written around us far too large to get a handle on. And so we narrow our field of view down to the comprehensible, a scale we can get our minds around. To this soda straw reality we apply our imported cognitive lenses, and some of us, as Henninger concludes, for reasons of custom or convenience, frame the tale in merely domestic political terms:
For quite awhile after September 11, we were a people united in the war on terror. By now we have let the adrenal pleasures of political fighting over the presidency dissipate the difficult emotions of staying united against a real enemy.
We must have courage to face the world as we find it, and not the way that we would wish it to be. We must be willing to call evil by its name.
We must be willing to face the beast.
Lex,
You write “. . . and we now know that they were no better off for fighting than had they gone passively to their deaths. . . ”
I don’t know any such thing. I believe that they were better off for fighting. Dying on their feet, rather than in their seats, distinguished them as free people rather than sheep, or slaves.
The RoP seems to require its adherents to follow as sheep, or obey as slaves. In fact, the name means “submittted”.
Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees – even for a little while.
Mike
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history… No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation…We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1862
Thanks for bringing this linkage between the two to my attention.
Reinforces the reality that the unthinkable will have to happen again to galvanize the sheep to take and sustain action….
B2
You’ve got a good point, BMG Mike – and if it’s true that it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees, how much more true it must be than to die on your knees.
CAPT J – you have a the heart of a warrior-poet. I admire that.
B2 – I’m afraid the Moussaoui decision shows the possibility that having another “unthinkable” event will only cause the same hoarse critics to say it’s all our fault, or W’s fault. Anyone’s but their own. After all, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Except of course, for all the others.
Sir, you do me great honor. My humble thanks.
I wondered what, if anything, useful I could add regarding SNO’s upcoming NROTC summer cruise. There’s already been plenty of sage advice here on practical matters ashore in Thailand. I also have a son that age, and fathers who know, know.
I sense your concern is rightly more than that. Yes, it’s a friendly show-the-flag cruise, good for tall tales and happy memories. And it most likely will be. But in the blink of a madman’s eye, it could all become much grimmer, and if and when that happens, you will be here and he will be On the Far Side of the World, facing down the Beast.
You well know the price of Admiralty.
I think in time you and SNO will come to remember the same Chapel, the bows of a grey ship with a bone in her teeth, moving into a WestPac dawn:
Clifton Chapel, by Sir Henry Newbolt
This is the Chapel: here, my son,
Your father thought the thoughts of youth,
And heard the words that one by one
The touch of Life has turn?
Sir, you do me great honor. My humble thanks.
I wondered what, if anything, useful I could add regarding SNO’s upcoming NROTC summer cruise. There’s already been plenty of sage advice here on practical matters ashore in Thailand. I also have a son that age, and fathers who know, know.
I sense your concern is rightly more than that. Yes, it’s a friendly show-the-flag cruise, good for tall tales and happy memories. And it most likely will be. But in the blink of a madman’s eye, it could all become much grimmer, and if and when that happens, you will be here and he will be On the Far Side of the World, facing down the Beast.
You well know the price of Admiralty.
I think in time you and SNO will come to remember the same Chapel, the bows of a grey ship with a bone in her teeth, moving into a WestPac dawn:
Clifton Chapel, by Sir Henry Newbolt
This is the Chapel: here, my son,
Your father thought the thoughts of youth,
And heard the words that one by one
The touch of Life has turn’d to truth.
Here in a day that is not far,
You too may speak with noble ghosts
Of manhood and the vows of war
You made before the Lord of Hosts.
To set the cause above renown,
To love the game beyond the prize,
To honour, while you strike him down,
The foe that comes with fearless eyes;
To count the life of battle good,
And dear the land that gave you birth,
And dearer yet the brotherhood
That binds the brave of all the earth.
-My son, the oath is yours: the end
Is His, Who built the world of strife,
Who gave His children Pain for friend,
And Death for surest hope of life.
To-day and here the fight’s begun,
Of the great fellowship you’re free;
Henceforth the School and you are one,
And what You are, the race shall be.
God send you fortune: yet be sure,
Among the lights that gleam and pass,
You’ll live to follow none more pure
Than that which glows on yonder brass:
‘Qui procul hinc,’ the legend’s writ,—
The frontier-grave is far away—
‘Qui ante diem periit:
Sed miles, sed pro patria.’
You can count on older hands keeping a watchful eye out for SNO and the other Young Gentlemen, as they learn, among other things,how to bring the orb down to the horizon. You did it for other’s sons, now someone else will return the favor.
‘Scratch a stay
Spin three times
May the Lord God save us all’
Did anyone read yesterday that Moussaoui has now asked to recall his guilty plea? It was in my local paper yesterday – the judge told him he gave up the right to appeal when he offered the guilty plea. He claims he can get a fair trial now…
I must confess I don’t understand it, I really don’t.
OK, just cruised over to SMASH and found this:
http://www.indepundit.com/archive2/2006/05/moussaoui_asks.html#
CAPT Lex, only one small quibble–”people who so twisted the tenets of their faith as to become depraved beasts, brutal, uncaring, murderous.”
Please find a Koran, any translation will do, and read Surah 9 three times. If you still have the stomach, follow it with Surah 2. Once you have understod these two Surah, you will understand why I “quibble” at your line above. They were only doing what their god ordered them to do, no twisting required.
So I think it’s safe to say we can formally turn down the French request to have him serve his life sentence in France, hien?
Lex, did the French REALLY ask for that? So much for “being with us in the heart”, as they said just after 9/11.
Kris, I wouldn’t lie to you cherie. An almost breathtaking degree of assumed moral superiority went behind it, too. I positively despair of them, sometimes…
Zane – read it three times? I’m surprised that anyone coud spend the time reading it even once.
As you know well, that book was written over the course of a long and disputatious life, and is in many places internally inconsistent, hence the need for the hadith, to put it all in some sort of perspective. There are also many strains of the Islamic faith, and most of its adherent lead lives whose values we would recognize as not dissimilar to our own. The zealous outliers are exceptionally well known of course, and it is the most extreme of them that cause us all so much trouble.
It is as fair to note that the Christian bible (and its predecessor) have areas of inconsistence, and anyone willing to cherry-pick to find a reason in support of their own preference will probably be rewarded – nothing written by a man can fail in some regard to be imperfect, no matter how divinely inspired.
Lex, my dear, can you please re-post the link above? It got to Fox News, but then says the page can’t be found. I tried searching the Fox site, but came up empty. I’d love the read it.
And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the French – their hubris knows no limits clearly. But this is a new low, even for them. I don’t despair of them, I hardly think of them, they annoy me that much.
And would never dream of implying you would lie to any of us, fair scribe. If such implication was taken, I am prostrate with apologies.
Okay, just read them once. Really, I don’t want to be the proverbial toad in the punchbowl, but before we can attack our enemy, we have to know who he is and what he believes.
The reference to the Bible is a red herring, and not relevant. No one has hijacked airliners in the name of Jesus, not that I’m aware of. As for ?
Okay, just read them once. Really, I don’t want to be the proverbial toad in the punchbowl, but before we can attack our enemy, we have to know who he is and what he believes.
The reference to the Bible is a red herring, and not relevant. No one has hijacked airliners in the name of Jesus, not that I’m aware of. As for “most of its adherent lead(ing) lives whose values we would recognize as not dissimilar to our own,” I’m afraid that’s more a conclusion of wishful thinking than careful observation.
Your comments on the Koran are correct, but regardless there is a standard interpretation of the Koran, and the basics of Sharia are agreed upon by all four of the Madhabs. I recommended Surah 9 for one major reason. As the final Surah (chronologically), it is Allah’s final word through his prophet Mohammed. Through the Islamic principal of naskh, rendered in English as abrogation, Allah’s later directives supercede his earlier ones. All four Madhabs agree on this. With that in mind, the meaning of Surah 9 becomes terribly clear–the believer is compelled to wage jihad in the name of Allah unceasingly against the infidel, who is not worthy of any mercy, and the believer who fails to wage jihad with his life or his wealth, or whatever means he has, is grossly inferior to the mujahid, and is in grave risk of eternal fire. This is the final message from Allah to his people. With that in mind, I find it hard to accede to the line that the hijackers somehow “twisted” the command of Allah.
Here is a link to someone who says it much better than I do: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/011347.php#c212436
“disputatious life”- gotta love that Lex.
On the other hand, I am starting to get disputatious myself over this oft repeated statement since 9-11:
“and most of its adherent lead lives whose values we would recognize as not dissimilar to our own.”
By that do you mean because they eat, drink, procreate and die? Beyond that I’m not sure there is much left to compare with us in the west…at least those I know, and regardless of what we would “like to believe”. No, I cast a jaundiced eye on that assumption and also the “Islam is a religion of peace” B.S. I say if you are a religion of peace- Show Me.
I understand the cherry picking argument but it’s the implementation that bothers me. For the most part we of Christian orientation have “outgrown” those interpretations over the last 1000 years…
On the other hand those interpretations we calmly discuss, are implemented in Islam every day- worldwide. As I said before: show me. Until then I will be on guard.
B2
Kris – since you at least aren’t beating me up for a woolly-headed optimist, I’ll provide you with a whole other link to same topic.
Lex – Must confess, did not know what “disputatious” meant, so I looked it up – “feeling or displaying eagerness to fight”. You couldn’t have chosen a better word in this discussion.
B2 – I’m wondering if Lex meant, by saying “…not dissimilar to our own” he meant the strong faith some Americans possess. Let’s face it, jihadists are the ultimate fundamentalist. Not unlike some Fundamental groups in the U.S., in the context of strict adherence to a specific set of beliefs. Just my thoughts…
But I totally agree with everyone else you said – especially about the “religion of peace” – I’m with you there, show me. Cuz everything we’ve seen (and certainly Zane has offered powerful evidence above) shows otherwise.
Ah, well. Judge not lest ye be judged, says I. While keeping your powder dry, of course.
Thanks for the link to Dean Esmay’s site. I’ll gladly fisk it, for it’s as full of half-truths and distortions as he claims that email is. But I wouldn’t want to be… disputatious.
Well Lex, you can feel free to judge me…I have never advocated violence against another human being and certainly not in the name of God. I have never attended a religious service where violence was advocated (and that includes going to Catholic mass at USNA every time I am there on a Sunday).
No, this is a unique element of the Islamic faith in the 21st century, and wishing it not so will not make it be.
“Show me”, “remain on guard”, or even “keep powder dry” all mean the same thing in my simple mind Lex. Also, I didn’t really “cast a stone”, I am reporting unfiltered facts based on observations of reality. At least, my reality.
The prophets last sermon, distilled down ,NON-JUDGEMENTALLY of course, at:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/prophet/asblessing/
“By the perfection of this religion, it means that there’s no need for humanity, and for the Muslims in particular, to look for another alternative way of life. As long as one holds fast to the two things left behind by the Prophet (the Qur’an and the Sunnah), one will never go astray.”
There’s been a lot of advances since those “books” were penned…
B2
Lex – I would never beat you up about anything (you called me cherie, after all…). And sadly the link you provided didn’t work, but I can see where it goes so I’ll try to navigate Captain’s Quarters to find what you reference.
I hear what you are saying on this, but I think I’m more on the side of B2…skeptical and looking at it all with a jaundiced eye and the filter of being personally touched by the 9/11 terrorists. It’s a vastly different perspective than most, but not too far off.
For the record, I don’t deny that there are elements inside the written Islamic record which permits those who 1) can’t find honest work, and 2) get and hold a girlfriend they can respect as a person to conduct themselves as though they were somehow god’s chosen vessels on earth. Notwithstanding being losers.
In our culture, people like that end up doing menial drudge work, but with found wealth and/or a sense of aggrieved entitlement, these few, these miserable few, these bands of “brothers,” have recognition well outside their worth.
But neither do I believe that every bit of the bloody-mindedness which adheres to much of the prophet’s written work is literally adhered to by those who are nominally muslim. If all of them believed as the worst of them evidently do, it’d be quite obvious, not subject to differences of interpretation.
We’re talking a quarter of the world’s population, after all. 1.2 billion people. I decline to believe myself at war with all of them.
Lex is right. Your average muslim is no different than your average.. well, anyone else.
They want to grow up, marry, have children, work, socialize with others, and in general just live good lives.
If anything other than the above were true, then the world would be in a constant state of bloody, destructive, global war. If every Muslim were truly as disputatious (there, I used it!) as some of you say, then there would be violence everywhere, everyday. They aren’t an so.. well.. there isn’t.
CAPT Lex,
“I decline to believe myself at war with all of them. ”
That’s fine, but do they decline to believe themselves at war with you?
I spend my days playing whack-a-mole with terrorists and their networks. There’s nothing wrong with killing those who would kill Americans and our allies, so I consider it honest work. But it’s whack-a-mole. There are always more. And why? We know full well that our gun-totin’ carton knife slingin’ C-4 packin’ terrorists normally come from homes and families that are, to our superficial eyes, perfectly like ours, middle- to upper-middle class, stable, upwardly mobile and well-educated. So what is the difference that the American doesn’t see, or want to see (after all, there are a billion of them)? There is a lot of talk in counter-terror circles about “drying up the sea the terrorists swim in,” but then it reduces to crippling comms nodes, tracking websites better, etc. The sea the terrorists swim in is invisible to us, and it is Islam. Just as our own humanist, liberal principles are so ingrained in us as to be practically invisible to us, so do we project them onto Muslims. Couple that with our nearly complete ignorance of Islam and its teachings (or worse, blinded by the Esposito/Armstrong lies, and they are lies, that nearly everyone in an American leadership position has been steeped in), and we are left dangerously blind to the threat we are facing.
I didn’t willingly choose to be this Cassandra. There are a lot of personal factors involved which I think would be better discussed over a single-malt and a cigar, face-to-face. On such a genteel site as yours, such a discussion can’t help but sound screechy and harsh. However, on a martial note, let me quote this from a 1943 Army document on training intelligence personnel:
“In the training of intelligence personnel, this psychological factor is of greatest importance. Intelligence personnel [...] must realize that their job will be to know and outwit the enemy.
“As an example we could mention the numerous casualties suffered due to Arab espionage. Our men trusted the Arabs, made friends with them, tolerated them near positions. Then the bombs and shells came and fell right into those positions where the Arabs had previously been. Dead men didn’t need to hate anymore, but the survivors learned their lessons.
“Intelligence personnel must be trained not to trust anybody, to suspect lies in firm assurances of friendship. They cannot afford to make fine distinctions between good and bad in native populations. They must understand that the lives of other fellows depend on them. The boys in the foxholes like to live too, and hate to die just because some intelligence men had big hearts and could not understand that spies and agents are ostensibly friendly people.”
Rather than burn your trons, here is a link to Robert Spencer’s website, where he has already fisked the Dean Esmay piece, saving me the effort!
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2006/05/011364print.html
I think it’s fairly safe to say that there are fanatics in ANY religion – Muslim, Christian or others. And it’s sad but the fanatics tend to brand the entire faith, or at least a particular sub-group within a faith. They grab the most headlines, do the most “newsworthy” activities (if it bleeds it leads, as they say).
You are right Lex – not all Muslims are bad. We would never tolerate allowing someone to brand all fundamental Christians as bad (for example), so why do we tolerate the broad brushstrokes that seem to be applied to Muslims?
Probably because a radical Christian group hasn’t slaughtered nearly 3,000 innocent people. But be that as it may, I’m also trying not to tar all Muslims with the same brush. But with my own personal perspective on 9/11, perhaps I’m not the best judge of this. My opinion is clouded obviously – I loathe over-generalizations as a rule, but somehow I just can’t help myself on this one.
Lex,
I agree with your asssertion that all Muslims are not terrorists but if one follows and IMPLEMENTS the verses which are the tenets of their faith and accept them as the word of God…literally then it is a REQUIREMENT for them to war on others. This is the paradox.
No amount of talking sideways or forwards can change that set of facts. To those Muslims who have relegated the violence and religious imperialism of Islam to the ash heap of history I applaud and respect. But my head tells me that group is but a tiny minority- at least worldwide (maybe 80-100 million). I have been to Karachi, Cairo, Bahrain, Oman, Malasia and Tunisia and have seen firsthand. I know you did not mean to imply this, but my views have not been derived since 9-11, nor derived from mean-spirited and innaccurate chain emails.
This discussion needs to take place more often. Not less.
B2
/tentatively raising hand from the back of the class
A big part of our paradox is that we see and think as individuals. Many of us commenting here have widely traveled the world. And we’ve found,fortunately, that most people as we’ve met them as individuals are pretty decent folks. In groups, not so nice, as B2 warns.
A tribal religion whose tenets demand that all non-muslims be treated as the enemy, to be subverted and conquered, doesn’t want or tolerate individuals of any kind. Individuals are either apostates or infidels. Individuals are ostracized from the tribe. The tribe owns you. You exist only for its purposes. You have no life, dreams, or hopes that are uniquely your own. Bad enough if your are male, complete subjugation if you are female.
In Iraq and Afganistan, Average Abdul [if he or she works with Americans] is treated as an individual. Probably not because we like them but simply because we don’t known how to relate to people up close any other way. This is both liberating and terrifying, because the pull of the tribe demands one allegiance, and Abdul’s heart–experiencing freedom as an individual for perhaps the first time– hears another.
In a BLACKFIVE article about Ramadi,CWO Jason Forgash, USMCR says it best:
‘In the morgue, I was able to spend a few minutes alone with Brian. I fought the tears but they too won their battle this night. As I held his head in my hands, I felt rage toward God and hatred toward Iraqis that I was unable to dispel. Standing up, I walked into the next room where Marines and soldiers were waiting quietly to carry Brian’s body to the helicopter. I walked to the back of the room, the anger still seething. I stopped. There on the wall hung two flags, one American, one Iraqi. I paused. In addition to the American casualties, an Iraqi soldier was killed and several others were wounded during the day’s battle. I glanced to my right. There, standing next to me was one of our Iraqi translators, mourning for Brian with tears streaming down his face. My hatred and rage melted away.
I reflected. This wasn’t about Americans and Iraqis. This was about a noble man dying for a cause he believed in. I don’t care about the reasons this war began, I cannot change the mistakes that have been made in its prosecution, and I have little stomach for the negative banter about the war that goes on back home in the U.S. In my simple way of thinking, we are allowing the Iraqi people the opportunity to experience freedoms they would otherwise never know. On an individual human level, life does not get much more meaningful than that. I put my arm around my interpreter’s shoulder and pointed at the two flags. I looked into his eyes as tears welled yet again in mine. “We are brothers,” I stated softly. His gaze met mine. He nodded and replied, “yes, brothers.”‘
Were Americans. We don’t fight for tribes or empires. We fight for individuals, their freedom, and their children’s future. The multiculti, hereditary, or tribal elites of the world don’t understand that, and never will. That’s why these elites hate us–not because we’re powerful. They love power. We’re hated because our power won’t bow down to their self-appointed entitlement, nor serve their sordid ends.
The evil ‘miserable few’ who use terror to impose Sharia tyranny are desperate. Their world view is crumbling around them. They only thing they fear more than a Forever War with us is this:
Average Abdul, a sovereign individual.
Cpt J says: “…We’re Americans. We don?
Cpt J says: “…We’re Americans. We don’t fight for tribes or empires. We fight for individuals, their freedom, and their children’s future…”
I’ve said it before – being American isn’t just about WHERE we live. It’s a state of mind, a philosophy, a set of ideals. It’s not easy being an American, but I wouldn’t want to be anything else. We are unique in the world in our government and our people – we are about as multi-cultural as you can get, since most of our citizens originally came from someplace else. We aren’t perfect and don’t pretend to be, despite perceptions to the contrary. We are the most tolerant, most accepting and yes, strongest country. Period. Can you tell I’m proud to call myself an American? You bet I am.
And CPT J, I agree with you 100%. It’s the 1:1 that I’m OK with, the groups scare me to death. And it’s in that the true problem lies. I’m sure the power of “the virgins” is tough to ignore when you live in a sub-standard condition.
Hmmm. For the passengers on the first planes, things weren’t clear. There was plenty of of leeway, until it was just too late, to cling to the hope it was a simple hijack.
For the passengers of United 93, they knew what they were a part of.
And they had the mettle to undertake the forlorn hope. Without the benefit of all the acculturation and reinforcement we warriors steep in.
Man in the Arena, indeed.
If Valhalla exists, and is not-culturally specific, the warriors of United 93 drink with the likes of Leonidas of Sparta and the Tin Can sailors of Leyte Gulf.
John of Argghhh! – actually the passengers of Flight 11 had no idea what was happening. Only one flight attendant was able to make any calls anywhere, and she told the Boston Tower that the passengers in coach and business classes didn’t know what was going on. Flight 175 knew they were hijacked, but not for what purpose. However the passengers on Flight 77 did know what was happening.
And while I do agree with your assessment about the passengers on Flight 93, I have conflicting emotions about singling them out. I don’t mean to diminish their personal courage and yes, heroism. But does the ignorance of the passengers on the other flights diminish their sacrifice? I believe they all would have acted with similar courage and heroism if knowledge had been theirs.
And while I have changed my opinion about the film – it’s not too soon – I question why just that flight. I know there is a World Trade Center film coming out this summer, with a deserved focus on the heroics and courage of the rescue personnel. But what about the rest of the victims? Don’t their stories deserve to be told?
(Please don’t take this as a personal “attack” on your comments; it’s an observation and musing only.)
re: John’s attempt to get us back on thread – Nice try
B2, I don’t mean to mischaracterize the depths or validity of your well-earned and considered point of view. Perhaps it’s just the eternal optimist in me (for cynicsm, you know where to go) and too, I want to make sure we’re very careful about what we’re saying:
The West is at war with a violent extremism fueled by a strict interpretation – and radical in effect – reading of a religion’s sacred text: A whole, complete and perfect “Truth.” These radical forces in turn are at war against modernity as defined by the us, the hated/envied West.
In the near term, these extremist forces want to radicalize a population grown discontent with the misery of their daily existence, uncomprehending at their reduced status on the world stage and looking for alternatives to the failed socialist/fascist ideologies of the past, as well as faux Arab nationalism. If the Islamists win them over, all will fall into place – that’s why you hear all that Zarqawi rhetoric about “awaking the lions of al Anbar.”
It’s only in the distant reaches of the Islamists’ fevered imaginations that they get to thinking of retaking al-andalus, far less a world-wide caliphate. Their near term enabling objective, and the one we need to keep in view, is getting the umma to look upon the West as an existential, anti-Islamic threat.
Our countervailing goal is simple – prevent this from happening. If we treat all of Islam as though it was the enemy, it might treat us as though we were right. In such a clash of civilizations I fear that we will reap a whirlwind of dreadful consequence. It is not that we’d face a war that we might lose – we are still far too powerful, and with our backs against an existential wall, too dreadful – but one in which we might lose ourselves. Forced to it at hammers and tongs, we might become what we had beheld.
Democracy is the radical notion in Arabia, a viral Western import that fits nowhere within the tightly wrapped bonds of sharia, a comprehensive law covering both the religious and civil spheres. In fact, a true Islamist might deny that there is any separation of spheres whatsoever – God’s law is the highest, etc. Get the people invested in their own lives, remove from them the yoke of civil and religious tyranny and then gradually engage them – better yet, let them engage themselves – in a serious dialogue: We know that your faith teaches you that you will be ascendant through sacrifice – but what if it’s wrong?
It cannot be! It is perfect, whole and true!
But what if it isn’t?
Lex says: “We know that your faith teaches you that you will be ascendant through sacrifice – but what if it?
Lex says: “We know that your faith teaches you that you will be ascendant through sacrifice – but what if it’s wrong?
It cannot be! It is perfect, whole and true!
But what if it isn’t? ”
Exactly.
Islamists can handle centuries of defeat and stagnation. One lost cause after another. But they cannot survive doubt. Or what we in the West call inquiry.
Truely, they’d rather die–and take the whole world with them.
Lex,
I truly appreciate your optimism because I value it from an individual like you who will work towards that optimistic goal while at the same time remaining vigilant because of your sheepdog, IE- warrior ethos. Sort of like that “hooker with a heart of gold”. Is that the right analogy?
However, what you say here:
“Get the people invested in their own lives, remove from them the yoke of civil and religious tyranny and then gradually engage them – better yet, let them engage themselves – in a serious dialogue: We know that your faith teaches you that you will be ascendant through sacrifice – but what if it?
Lex,
I truly appreciate your optimism because I value it from an individual like you who will work towards that optimistic goal while at the same time remaining vigilant because of your sheepdog, IE- warrior ethos. Sort of like that “hooker with a heart of gold”. Is that the right analogy?
However, what you say here:
“Get the people invested in their own lives, remove from them the yoke of civil and religious tyranny and then gradually engage them – better yet, let them engage themselves – in a serious dialogue: We know that your faith teaches you that you will be ascendant through sacrifice – but what if it’s wrong?”
A pipe dream brother. IMO, strategically this state is unattainable through our present COA(s). Crossing ones fingers is not a strategy. On the other hand doing nothing and withdrawing into ourselves is not an option either. I just don’t see that dialogue happening unless, and unfortunetly…. a helluva lot more force is used. History bears me out. We all know that the Islamic world is incapable of producing any one or group of pope/bishop-like figures to guide the doctrine or get an “update” from Mohammed. Theology throughout 90% of the Muslim world is stuck at the Maddrassa level…..
And that’s a dam shame for both us, and them….
B2
“No matter how the daily news of more murdered civilians and fallen soldiers becomes background noise, the rainfall patter that most of us, thankfully, only hear once we focus our attention on it.”
Such things should only be background noise inasmuch as the sound of heavy automatic weapons fire increasing to your flank is background noise, serving to focus your attention on an incipient attack on your own position. We trust our higher-ups to provide increased support to those flanks as needed and continue to prepare to assault or be assaulted.
We should hear it continuously, because if it ceases for the wrong reason, it means that we’re the next immediate target. And we’d better be ready to fight for our lives.
Sir:
I don’t think we know we are in a war. Even after 9/11. As I go to work every day most (90%+) are oblivious to the events going on around them and, further more, they do not wish those events to intrude. Wars are fought with populations as well as armies, navies, etc. I think something very bad is going to have to happen to us to wake us up.
My experience is much like Richard’s. People just refuse to be bothered or reminded that we’re at war. It’s frightening to me how ignorant and seemingly uncaring most people are on the subject.
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