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| MUST READ! “No Substitute for Victory” — The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism | |
| 2007-03-05 | |
| Hat tip to Jihad Watch Note to Moderators: I searched both the author's name and the article's title before posting this. No hits on either term ensued, so I would like to share this vital essay. I'm hoping you will consider leaving it intact, or at least abridging it to Page 49. If this has already run here at Rantburg, please delete this post. Thanking you in advance. All: This is a MUST READ work that provides the definitive analysis of why Iran must be defeated at the soonest opportunity. Lewis' writing is lucid, cogent and factually based. His conclusions are clear cut and explicit. I have yet to see a more compelling argument made for crushing the Iranian mullahs. This is a long piece but, once finished, no one will dispute the time spent reading it.
By: John Lewis The Greek historian Thucydides, writing about the calamitous war that had destroyed his own world, made an important observation about the causes of historical events: Even though circumstances may change, human nature remains the same; and certain human elements—especially moral and psychological factors—are at the root of all wars. We can disagree with Thucydides about the identity of those factors, and reject his pessimistic view of human nature, but we will benefit from accepting his challenge to rise above particular circumstances and focus on the principles of human action that are common to all time. Differences in technology, politics, or economics will always remain secondary to the ideas that motivate aggressors to launch bloody attacks and that empower—or restrain—defenders opposing those attacks. In that spirit, let us begin by considering an event of cataclysmic proportions, a deadly attack against Americans, and then examine two possible responses to it. This approach will show us that the crisis we face today—a series of highly motivated attacks against the heart of civilization—is not unique, can be understood, and can be ended—if we choose to understand and end it. | |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #16 Yeah, these last few weeks have been a horrendous drain on the bandwidth. Eh, Pappy? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-03-05 22:19 |
| #15 If you look at my posting history, I rarely put up works of this length, ever Commentary, of course, is a whole other issue... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-03-05 21:31 |
| #14 Please don't post long articles in full like this. The beauty of the web and weblogs is the link. Provide the link and the first few paragraphs. This isn't an article, this is a treatise. Thanks, AoS. Steve, is there any way to abridge the text to Page 49? I was concerned about this and only wanted to make sure it was made available. I know that too often, I don't always click through unless it's real easy to do. If you look at my posting history, I rarely put up works of this length, ever. The current indecisiveness afflicting both the public and our administration motivated me to get this piece in front of people as it gives them the tools to argue effectively for our overthrow of the Iran's mad mullahs. America is at a critical juncture with respect to this. Please rest assured that I will excerpt and link in the future. I appreciate your understanding in this matter. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-03-05 15:27 |
| #13 The preferred order of boxes in free society: Soap Ballot Jury Ammo We've scarcely begun to use "Jury" and that's the box that most of this Leftist claptrap has been implemented. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2007-03-05 15:08 |
| #12 "I no longer believe the Gramscian cancer can be excised via the ballot box, either." I reached that conclusion right after 9/11, when the MSM and other usual suspects returned to business as usual. Problem is, who or what, is going to kick it off? |
| Posted by: Chiper Threreger8956 2007-03-05 14:24 |
| #11 SPECIAL NOTE: I would like to thank Fred and Rantburg's moderators for leaving Lewis's essay intact, without abridgement. By rendering it most convenient to read, more people will peruse this superb piece of critical analysis. I still maintain that any Iranian campaign need only consist of dismantling or breaking whatever is needed to cripple their nuclear aspirations and oust the mullahs. No boots on the ground, this time. No reconstruction or nation building. No installation of democracy. Just the solemn promise that should Iran even hint at again pursuing theocracy, we will return to wreak havoc of a sort unknown for more than half a century. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-03-05 13:42 |
| #10 In the minds of many people, the Bush administration’s allegedly “offensive” strategy has discredited the very idea of genuinely offensive war for American self-interest, which it pledged to fight, and then betrayed to its core. Our soldiers come home maimed or dead, and military offense, rather than timidity, takes the blame. Herein is contained one of the most vital truths. America has forgotten the vital lessons learned during World War II. Even at this late stage, other than by dint of financial expenditure, the Iraqi liberation bears not one whit of resemblance to the Viet Nam conflict, save in one crucial way. Politicians, not generals, have overseen both of these campaigns and have done so with equally disastrous results in each case. That we cannot even retain the lessons of Viet Nam bespeaks a nation with the collective attention span of a fruit fly. World War II and the monstrous ideologies we successfully confronted should have forever etched upon our national memory the will to engage in Total War. The Holocaust, The Rape of Nanking, The Bataan Death March, all of these should have reinforced an enduring recollection of why Total War has no substitute. Yet, once again faced with an identically genocidal enemy, we are attempting to negotiate our way out. Few, if any, even have the courage to point out that our enemy’s objectives are, for them, non-negotiable. We are attempting to dismantle an ironclad juggernaut with tweezers. Middle ground is being sought in a situation that can only be satisfied by Unconditional Surrender. Democracy is not a route to freedom—not for the Greeks who voted to kill Socrates, nor for the Romans who acclaimed Caesar, nor for the Germans who elected Hitler. This is, perhaps, one of the most difficult lessons of all to learn. In a naive haste to share our achievements with once despotic nations, we have overlooked how American democracy sprang from soil carefully tended for centuries with well-honed tools like the Magna Charta. Implements intentionally crafted to delimit governmental power and abuse of station. Instead, we have arrived bearing the most fragile of gifts hoping to plant these same seeds in soil utterly parched of the vitality conferred by liberty and free thought. We may as well be planting hothouse orchids in Death Valley. If we do not understand that we should defeat them—if we think that we are as bad as they are, or that they have legitimate grievances that justify their attacks, or that we have created a situation that morally demands that we compensate them—then our lack of moral self-confidence will undercut our motivation to fight. The author rounds up the usual suspects of altruism, moral relativism, self-loathing and appeasement for the wooden stake he is sharpening. That we have the overwhelming capacity to defeat the Islamic Totalitarians militarily is beyond doubt. Yet far from elevating technology to the key issue in winning a war, this illustrates the unequivocal importance of the moral self-confidence—the state of mind that proceeds from an awareness of one’s own moral goodness and efficacy—that is needed to use this weaponry. It is a chilling irony that in our time of greatest need, neither the permissive liberal left nor the moralizing conservative right, can manage to summon forth this indispensable “moral self-confidence”. Fortunately, this does not deter the author from driving home his critical point. But proponents of Islamic Totalitarianism have political power, to some extent, in dozens of nations. Should we attack them all, immediately? No. We need to aim for the political, economic, and ideological center of this movement—the core that embodies its naked essence and that fuels it worldwide. This does not mean finding the particular people who organized the 9/11 attacks. The question is: In which state is Islam most solidly linked with political power, dedicated to the violent spread of Islamic rule, and infused with hatred of America? What state is founded on these ideas, and their practice, as a matter of principle? There is a clear answer, which is known, admittedly or not, by almost everyone today. The political centerpiece of Islamic Totalitarianism today—the state in which Islam is most militantly welded to political power and contempt for America and the West—the world leader in the violent spread of Islam—is Iran. Few better cases against Iran have ever been made today, or all the way back to 1979. America, acting alone and with overwhelming force, must destroy the Iranian Islamic State now. It must do so openly, and indeed spectacularly, for the entire world to see, for this is the only way to demonstrate the spectacular failure and incompetence of the Islamic fundamentalist movement as a whole. A fact we continue to ignore as Iraq guts itself in the process of trying to install their own special brand of religious theocracy. We must not seek legitimacy for the removal of the Iranian Islamic State beyond the principle of our right to defend ourselves. To pretend that something more than this principle is needed would be to deny the sufficiency of the principle. To base our reasons on the alleged good of others, especially on any alleged benefits to the people of the Middle East, would be to accept a position of moral dhimmitude: the moral subordination of our right to life and self-defense to an allegedly higher principle. One of a very few remaining nails is hammered into the coffin’s lid. Most importantly, by ousting the regime in Iran, we would send a clear message to the world: Political Islam is finished. Why it is that Bush simply cannot understand the necessity for this, be it due to religiosity, selling out to Political Correctness or sheer flat out stupidity, goes beyond all reason. Swimming in their Multicultural Kool-Aid, the democrats can hardly be expected to do anything more than spout their usual torrent of Moral Relativism. That the conservatives somehow have been frozen in Islam’s totalitarian headlights will remain an eternal mystery. Most importantly, Western intellectuals must present not only a negative—a repudiation of the Totalitarian Universe—but also a positive—a clear explanation to the world that the moral purpose of a government is to protect its citizens’ rights to think and act on the judgment of their own minds, free from coercion by church, mosque, or state. Do we even have any politicians who are capable of this? The names of Virgil Goode and Tom Tancredo bubble to the surface. This is not a clash between civilizations; it is a clash between civilization and barbarism. The Islamic State—Totalitarian Islam—must go. End of story. Sadly, no one in elected office has the courage to openly say such things. Instead, they delude themselves with the Politically Correct notion that, when all is said and done, it is actually possible to pick up a turd by its clean end. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-03-05 13:35 |
| #9 "I no longer believe the Gramscian cancer can be excised via the ballot box, either. This could be the scariest possibility of our time. I hope you're wrong, but I cannot rule this out. When I hear a few leftists calling for a ban on organized religion (this is already happening, folks) I am concerned. If and when this spills over into leftist politicians doing the same, the bullets will certainly fly, and all bets will be off. It would be better if the Gramscian cancer could be done away with through plebiscite. But I agree that it must go no matter what. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-03-05 12:03 |
| #8 "My personal opinion is that the existing left-wing elite sincerely believes that on the conclusion of an islamic victory they will still be on top running things. Kelly, I commented on this last week. This notion held by the elite is not meaningfully different than that of Charles Manson who thought that black folks would destroy Western Civilization in a racially motivated war, but that the blacks would not be able to run the world, so they'd need the few enlightened whites left (Manson's followers, of course) to run things after the war was over. What's scary is that an essentially identical hope (substituting "Islamicist" for "black") is now held, not by an illiterate isolated group like the Manson family, but by substantial swaths of the Gramscian cultural elite living in the West. Wretchard at Belmont Club (see his link on Rantburg's front page) wrote an excellent article entitled "The Ichneumon Wasp" that touched on this subject. Radical Islam and the leftists living in the West both have a common goal, to take out the true, American Revolution-inspired (vs the false cancerous French revolution-inspired) version of Western civilization and feed on its corpse. This is not a conspiracy, but rather a confluence of purpose, and although the Left hates Islam and vice versa, both are happy when either scores points against the West. Also, both believe that if the West should fall, then they would be the supreme force on Earth. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-03-05 11:58 |
| #7 My personal opinion is that the existing left-wing elite sincerely believes that on the conclusion of an islamic victroy they will still be on top running things. I do not believe that they understand that their vision is doomed to die in an islamic victory. Until that vision changes and they too realize that they too are running for their lives, nothing will exorcise the cancer. Then again, maybe they do not care. Maybe their vision is truely just a pure lust for power over the great unwashed, no matter what the world looks like, and they see this as their ticket. |
| Posted by: kelly 2007-03-05 11:29 |
| #6 "The question then becomes, with the leftist Gramscian cancer living within the body of the West, can this be accomplished?" I no longer believe it can; excising that cancer is an absolute prerequisite for defeating Islamic totalitarianism, in my opinion. Until we rid ourselves of the political movement that is the source of our squeamishness in dealing with the enemy, we're just spinning our wheels. I no longer believe the Gramscian cancer can be excised via the ballot box, either. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2007-03-05 07:59 |
| #5 The question then becomes, with the leftist Gramscian cancer living within the body of the West, can this be accomplished? It's been suggested here on the 'burg and in other writings that as long as the class of '68 is alive and in positions of power in the education and infotainment industries in appreciable numbers, the West will lack the will to achieve total victory, unconditional surrender, in any war. Die they will, eventually. But in time? |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-03-05 07:42 |
| #4 Global domination is the end of the Muslim ideology. If they get the means - and indulgence of Iran's nuclear Ayatollahs would assist same - then they will wage final jihad. Muslim victory would commence genocidal sectarian wars. |
| Posted by: Sneaze 2007-03-05 07:10 |
| #3 Zen I'd read this before, can't remember where. Thanks for posting it! Yes a must read, break out the coffee folks. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2007-03-05 07:09 |
| #2 This is a long piece but, once finished, no one will dispute the time spent reading it. Seconded. Thank you Zenster. |
| Posted by: Gladys 2007-03-05 06:47 |
| #1 Very Good, but speaking of Greeks - REGNUM.RU > ARAB WORLD READY TO RECOGNIZE NORTHERN CYPRUS. OTOH, REGNUM > IRANIAN EXTREMISTS AND AMER REPUBLICANS, A CONSPIRACY STORY. Fer 2008. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-03-05 01:38 |