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| VDH: The Subtexts of War |
| 2006-07-07 |
| Culture, oil, and reckless dissent. By Victor Davis Hanson Throughout this war there are various truths generally recognized, but rarely voiced. First, before 9/11 the Western hard right-wing allowed radical Islam a pass — and then afterwards the Left did worse. That fact helps to explain the strange exemption given radical Islam in the West even today. In the 1980s some conservatives saw the jihadists in Afghanistan or the Wahhabis in the Gulf as valuable bulwarks against global Communism. On the Western domestic front, even extremist Muslims — in their embrace of family values and resentment against modernism — were considered bedrock conservatives. Supposedly, they shared the same understandable concern about Western “decadence,” such as promiscuity, homosexuality, crass popular culture, and family dissolution. So, despite clear evidence that many conservative mosques in the West were promulgators of a sick backward extremism, many social reactionaries hardly wished to upset their fellow travelers. Add in common distrust of Israel, and no surprise that the pages of The American Conservative will still sometimes resemble those of the Nation. But with the fall of Communism, and the subsequent revelation that Islamists did not worry about the unfortunate direction of contemporary Western culture so much as they wished to destroy it, culpability then mostly fell to the Left. Multiculturalism (no culture is worse than the West’s) and its twin of cultural relativism (those with power have no right or ability to judge others) gave a wide pass to radical Islam and its 7th-century primitivism. Apparently most Leftists thought the dearth of women in the clubhouse at the Masters Tournament at Augusta National was far worse than the Arab world’s honor killings, burqas, and coerced female circumcision. Indeed, a radical Leftist always faces a dilemma when a fellow anti-American sounds fascistic. The usual course, as we have seen since September 11, is either to keep silent about such embarrassing kindred spirits, or to weasel out by suggesting our own hegemonic tendencies pushed a once reasonable “Other” in lamentable directions. The result? Killers and terrorists have been able to operate openly in European capitals. Here in North America, in the 58 months after the Twin Towers fell, numerous cadres of terrorists still continue to be rounded up — without a peep of condemnation from mainstream Muslim groups, who have instead crafted an ingenious cult of victimization, predicated on sympathy from the Left. Ask yourself: In the fifth year since September 11, is it more likely that Islamic associations in Canada or the United States will condemn global Islamic extremism or complain about purported Islamophobia and the sins of “Zionism”? Another undercurrent to this war is the abject failure to do anything about imported petroleum — the hundreds of billions that accrued to the Middle East and Gulf when petroleum skyrocketed from $30 to $70 a barrel. . . . . . . Finally, there are a number of influential Americans — let us be frank — who want us to forfeit this effort in Iraq. For some prominent Democrats, like a Sen. Kennedy or Sen. Durbin, who compares our wartime military on occasion to Saddam’s Baathists or Nazis, it is an issue of simple partisanship. If Iraq blows up in the face of the United States, and we can still avoid another September 11, then they wager that Bush and his cohorts, in the manner of a wrecked Johnson or Nixon administration, might alone suffer the political consequences. For them, collateral damage to America is worth the risk incurred by their own sleazy rhetoric. Others of the Michael Moore / Cindy Sheehan brand are far more unbalanced, of course. They have either praised the enemy outright (jihadists as “Minutemen”) or slurred the present administration (Bush as “world’s greatest terrorist”) as consistently as any al Qaedist mouthpiece. Still, we can’t call these folk exactly fringe-types — not when the Democratic elite queue up for Moore’s premiers or praise Sheehan’s madness. Just as mainstream Muslim organizations don’t rush to condemn Islamic radicalism, so too liberal Democrats rarely denounce the rhetoric of their own fanatical Left. There is a final unspoken truth as well. Al Qaeda might not go away soon. The Europeans, as in the Clinton years, will always triangulate. North Korea and Iran, both of whom started nuclear programs in the 1990s, will still issue unhinged threats. Barring its discovery of some clandestine government effort to monitor radical Christian fundamentalists better left secret, the New York Times will keep leaking confidential national-security measures. But the time will come when there is once again a Democratic administration. In that climate, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, and Howard Dean, or their epigones, will still have to persuade the American people that radical Islam means to destroy us. They can’t say their war is cooked up in Texas, but will instead have to deal with the Sheehanites and the loose-cannon bloggers they either appeased or encouraged. Who knows — perhaps President Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Wesley Clark, and Attorney General John Edwards may soon appear on television extending support for democrats in Baghdad or deploring unlawful disclosures that emboldened terrorists plotting to blow up Washington. Because this generation of the opposition, in a foolish and short-sighted manner, has turned an American struggle into George Bush’s futile war, it will either have to abandon the democracy in Iraq or recant and assure the rest of us that its past hateful and extremist rhetoric was just politics, and they are now going to unite us and lead us on to victory over the primevalists after all. Good luck. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #2 Dubya correctly interpreted the meaning of 9-11 as that either America [in its own way]overtly rules the world, or America/e enemies will destroy America. IMHO I believe the Amer mainstream knows the nation is in a war for its very survival - the DemoLeft's on-going rants against the war and Dubya for the sake of OWG and political advantage is only hurting and weakening the Party of Jefferson-Jackson evermore, ergo the Demoleft's curr RINO-ism and CINO-ism = POTEMKINISM!? MOUD > warned that Israel's moves in Gaza may induce a ME explosion, but that Iran will attack American and Western targets. IOW, ASYMMTERIC ANTI-US-ISRAEL-WEST "PEOPLE'S WAR OF RESISTANCE/ANTI-IMPERIALISM" REMAINS A PARALLEL PC/PDENIABLE WAR FOR GLOBAL MUSLIM STATE = GLOBAL IRANIAN MUSLIM ISLAMIST SHIA CALIPHATE-EMPIRE. Iranian/enemy-alleged "self-defense" is also simul Iranain/enemy-specific wilful imperialism and geopol-internat bellicosity. SHOWS THE GWOT IS IN REALITY A DE FACTO WAR TO THE DEATH OF ONE SIDE-CAMP OVER ANY AND ALL OTHER SIDES-CAMPS. ARMISTICE > MEANINGLESS, TEMPORARY INTERIM PERIOD OF PC PEACE = LIMITED COLD WAR. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-07-07 23:37 |
| #1 As always, VDH is spot on. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2006-07-07 22:17 |