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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| To Our Great Detriment - Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad |
| 2008-02-04 |
| In comments made at the National Defense University on 1 December 2005, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace explained to his audience the importance of understand[ing] the nature of the enemy if we hope to defeat jihadi extremists. Comparing our situation today, with that faced by an earlier generation who had to deal with the reality of the Nazi threat, General Pace suggested a simple solution to complying with his injunction: read what our enemies have said. Remember Hitler: He said in writing exactly what his plan was that we collectively ignored to our great detriment. Just as we ignored Hitler's articulation of his strategic doctrine in Mein Kampf, so too are we on the verge of suffering a similar fate today, if we fail to seriously assess the extremist threat based on jihadi strategic doctrine. PROLOGUE North design to conquer the South, we must begin at Kentucky and reconquer the country from there as we did from the Indians. It was this conviction then as plainly as now that made men think I was insane. A good many followers now want to make me a prophet. I rather think you now agree with me that this is no common war. You must now see that I was right in not seeking prominence at the outstart. I knew and know yet that the northern people have to unlearn all their experience of the past thirty years and be born again before they will see the truth. Though our armies pass across and through the land, the war closes in behind and leaves the same enemy behind. ¡ I don¡¯t see the end or the beginning of the end, but suppose we must prevail and persist or perish. ¡ We cannot change the hearts of the people of the South, but we can make war so terrible that they will realize the fact that however brave and gallant and devoted to their country, still they are mortal and should exhaust. General Tecumseh Sherman, 1862 Upon having his command restored The Civil War: A Narrative — Fort Sumter to Perryville Following the Chapter "War Means Fighting" pp 800, 801. It seems that the only way we can free ourselves from these preconceptions is this: that just once in our lives, we should make a concerted effort to doubt every previous belief in which we find so much as the slightest hint of uncertainty. It will even be useful to regard the beliefs we are going to put into doubt as false, so that we can discover all the more clearly what is most certain and readily knowable. However, this process of doubt should be restricted to our considering what is true. For as far as the conduct of life is concerned, the moment for action would usually have passed long before we could resolve our doubts. We are often forced to opt for what is only probably right, and sometimes we even have to choose between two equally probable alternatives. So now let us embark on our enquiry into what is true (but only what is true). To begin with, it can be doubted whether any sensible or imaginable things exist. The first reason is that we sometimes notice that our senses deceive us, and it is wise never to put too much trust in what has let us down, even if on only one occasion. The second reason is that in our dreams we regularly seem to sense or imagine many things which are completely non-existent, and there are no obvious signs which would enable someone having such doubts to distinguish between sleeping and waking with any certainty. Rene Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy, Part I: "The Principles of Human Knowledge", 1637. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |