Frightening to Ponder Whether Terrorists Will Defeat Democracy (Are you ready for some Islam?)

The Calgary Sun ^ | January 4, 2004 | Paul Jackson

[quidnunc]

I'm thinking the unthinkable as the New Year opens.

That is, that world terrorism may win its war against the western democracies and our civilization will be replaced by barbarianism.

It's a tough thought — a very tough thought.

But remember, Imperial Rome wasn't destroyed by a superior race, but by nomadic German tribes, living in caves.

Yet how can such a militarily-strong and advanced civilization such as we have today lose against disparate wild-eyed fanatics and rogue nations?

Ponder Vietnam: Here we had one of the world's two superpowers, the United States of America, going up against hit-and-run bandits.

The U.S.A. lost.

With all its conventional military might, it couldn't beat the guerrilla squads of Ho Chi Minh.

True, the U.S. never went full throttle against Communist North Vietnam.

The bureaucrats in Washington refused to let the military pull out all the stops.

Had Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater been elected in 1964, Hanoi would have been a pile of dust in days and the war over. But average Americans didn't have the stomach for that.

Ponder Kenya:

In the 1950s, the British were driven out of Kenya by a bunch of terrorists called the Mau-Mau, led by Jomo Kenyatta.

The Brits had military superiority in Kenya — traditional military superiority — but couldn't tackle Kenyatta's own hit-and-run guerrilla squads. Exhausted, the Brits capitulated.

Ponder Yugoslavia: In the Second World War, Yugoslav partisans held down several German divisions for years by constant and unrelenting harassment. Some historians feel if those divisions had been freed up the outcome of the war might have been far different.

Ponder Israel:

Every single day it is under attack from its internal enemies.

A husband and wife go off to work in the morning and don't know if they'll return home at night.

When their children go off to school in the morning, they don't know if they will return in the afternoon.

-snip-

[Radix]

"never intended to be a Democracy, but a democratic Republic."

 

 

Actually, it is a Constitutional Republic. The Public Education System in this country is a disgrace. They do not teach, they indoctrinate. 

 

 

 

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction."

 

When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already...What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community."

 

"The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force."

 

"What luck for rulers, that men do not think."

 

                                                                                                                            Adolph Hitler; Mein Kampf

[claudiustg]

---But remember, Imperial Rome wasn't destroyed by a superior race, but by nomadic German tribes, living in caves.---

The German tribes were not nomadic, nor did they live in caves. They were a competing civilization. They were not as wealthy or organized as the Romans, but had a high birthrate and the vigor of youth.

Sound like someone we know?

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

The rest is history. Don't think the parallels aren't here

I'll admit you make a solid argument.

The main difference is the access to wealth.

Even our "slaves" may attain wealth in a short time with luck and hard work.

Dynamic capitalism will outpace socialism, thus refreshing each generation.

[Mamzelle]

re: Many great American statesmen have made the mistake of referring to our form of government as a Democracy. It was never intended to be a Democracy, but a democratic Republic. There are major differences. Still, ask any 100 people you meet on the street or any 100 students in America’s schools what form of government we have and you will likely get 100 responses of, “a Democracy.” )))

I've read this many times, and it still comes across as nitpicky and hair-splitty. Democracy is known in comparison to tyrannies--as a common-sense set of ideas rather than some diagnosis proferred by an undergrad in political science 101...

Votes, elections, representation, individual rights--these are associations with democracy. The associations are meaningful enough for a sensible person to say that we live in a democracy.

Shorthand? Maybe. But good enough for government work.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Frightening to Ponder Whether Terrorists Will Defeat Democracy

The terrorist, no. The politicans, media, lawyers, lobbiests and regulators, yes absolutely.

[Mears]

If Hillary is elected can I come with you?

[luvbach1]

With all its conventional military might, it couldn't beat the guerrilla squads of Ho Chi Minh.

The above is not really true. The fact is we did not have the WILL to direct our "conventional military might" to the military targets that would have won the war. We know what some of them were: bombing the dikes and the harbor at Hanoi, among other targets. Never mind the reasons we didn't do this, there is little doubt the North could have been brought to its knees and the war won if the will to do it had ben present. You make a valid point overall. The US and the West could lose to barbarians if we do not have the WILL to take the fight to the enemy until it is won.

[luvbach1]

The War on Terror is not a battle of weaponry but of wills.

[A Simple Soldier]

The main article has the historical quality of a B-/C+ 10th grade term paper. Full of historical cliches (e.g., Ho Chi Mihn's hit and run bandits) and millimeter deep analysis.

[technochick99]

Never mind the reasons we didn't do this

Well, what are the reasons? I know that our main problem was morale at home, and I worry about the constant drumbeat of negativity coming from our media now.

[Jack Black]

If it does come down to "Suicide bombers in our shopping malls, restaurants, bars and buses," I think it will be time to obliterate the societies from which they come.

But the nature of terrorism is that is those within who do the damage. It may be that most of the 9/11 perps were from Saudi Arabia, but they were living here. Nuking S.A. might help in the long run (especially the vivid example of the utter destruction of the Kabbla) but still you have all these Islamic societies and stuff here.

I think it would be interesting. I see three scenarios possible. One is the government acts quickly and deports hundreds of thousands of Arabs, and perhaps other illegals along with them. The second, and more likely is that they do not, and continue to mouth "religion of peace" nonsense as the death toll continues to rise. This could lead to vigilante justice where loosely organized mobs simply destroy every Moslem person and edifice in the country (imagine the fall out from a successful suitcase nuke detonation in mid-town Manhattan with millions dead). Of course many innocent will die in this. The government would again have to choose to either focus on the terrorist supporting communities or the vigilantes and this could, if mis-handled lead to full on Civil War as large segments of the population become unruly and unwilling to listen to the PC gibberish flowing from the senators from New York, Mass, Cali and other liberal hell holes. It could, easily, get regional. And with that, I'll ping Archy!

[marron]

If recent events have taught us anything it should be that the Viet Nam War itself could have been won.

Victory would have required a military and civilian leadership that was determined to defeat the enemy, it required a leadership that was capable of articulating to the public and to the soldiers the purpose for which they fought.

It would have required the will to place our supposed "allies" on notice that we would sink their ships if they entered Haiphong harbor. And then do so.

It required that we discard a strategy of stalemate and static defense for one that targeted the leadership of the north. We should have fought the war at the gates of Hanoi, rather than fighting it at the gates of Saigon.

Electing men to office who are not moral and who do not understand the cause for which they send other men to die has fatal consequences. Electing men who see war as a sideshow and a distraction from other more important matters, buys you defeat and a damaged generation.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Nice analysis.

[Jimmy Valentine]

We don't need to brood about sacrificing our men. We need to take off all of the gloves and sacrifice a whole boatload more of the terrorists and their sympathizers, enablers, and fundraisers...............and we can start here in the good old USA.

Regards,

[Blake#1]

This is another tangental point. Fundamental Muslims and Fundamental Christians are together in opposition to "Hollywood" style smut. The Christians that came ashore on Plymouth Rock have more in common with Muslims than the do with pornographers. This will be the common building block that will "keep the peace" for Earth.

[templar]

If it does come down to "Suicide bombers in our shopping malls, restaurants, bars and buses," I think it will be time to obliterate the societies from which they come.

Inner city America? That's where the future of terrorism in America lies. Nukes probably wouldn't be a real popular solution for this, but I'm sure it would get some support.

[TheAngryClam]

You're confusing Roman slavery with the slavery practiced in American history. Totally different types.

Roman slaves were not simply field hands, but also the vast bulk of the skilled labor of the Empire- many of the civil servants, essentially all of the educators, a large portion of commercial management, etc.

They can, and did with quite a bit of regularity, become very personally wealthy and powerful. This was because the Romans culturally treated the slaves as part of the household, and not as a group somehow apart (of course, made easier by the fact that the Romans were willing to enslave anyone, with the exception of other Roman citizens apart from abandoned children, and thus didn't have the convenient racial divide that made the distinction between slave and free in America more visible).

Further, the Romans had a very strong tradition of manumission, which was more than simply saying "you're free, now get out." Freed slaves remained a part of the family, and were even entitled to adopt the nomen of their former owner- for example, Marcus Tullius Cicero's slave Tiro, when he was freed, became Marcus Tullius Tiro. Furthermore, freed slaves were entitled to continued financial support from their former owners.

A common example of how this all worked was say that random Roman patrician owned a shipping business. Every dock warehouse he owned at the various ports was managed by one of his slaves. Later, he decides to free one of them. When he does, he would often give them the dock warehouse, or one of the trading ships, and operate the business with them as a partner rather than a slave.

This was quite common, and for the average urban slave, wealth was not as far out of reach as one might imagine from hearing the word "slave."

Nor were the field laborer slaves much worse off than the other peasants of the time, who would, under the later Empire, end up as the same status as the slaves- serfs bound to the land. There wasn't a lot of opportunity for either class of people, so your comparison isn't correct.

[puroresu]

We have overwhelming superiority in military technology, and we will win virtually any straightforward military battle against Islamic armies.

But what worries me is that much of the West has lost its will to fight, and lost its faith in its own civilization.

When I was a kid growing up in the sixties, people still talked a lot about Pearl Harbor. A quarter of a century had passed, but people who lived through that time still remembered it. I had an uncle who fought in WW II who wouldn't buy anything made in Japan, because he was still mad at them circa 1967.

That may sound excessive today, but it was also a sign of our society's health. People were furious at Japan for attacking us, and it took a long time for them to forget it. This was an attitude that permeated society with very few exceptions.

Compare that to 9-11. Most Freepers are still furious over it, but that is not a feeling that is nearly universal in our society. Within two weeks of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, some of my acquaintances were ready to forget about it. The attitude was, "Hey, it was an awful thing, and we should safeguard against it happening again, but we need to put it behind us and move on". Forty-something percent of the population will likely vote for Howard Dean, a white flag waver in the war on terror, in the 2004 election.

I sense a country divided, not a universal anger over 9-11 and a commitment by 95% of the population to do something about it. Even President Bush felt it necessary to visit a Mosque after 9-11 to declare Islam a religion of peace. Can you imagine FDR, even though a Democrat, visiting a Shinto shrine on 12/8/41?

Decades of moral relativism, multi-culturalism, and political correctness have taken their toll. Millions of kids have graduated high school, having been indoctrinated in the idea that Western Civilization is no better than any other, and in fact may be worse since it's racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist, etc. Phony interpretations of the Constitution have driven our faith and religious heritage from the public square. Open immigration has flooded our nation with millions of third worlders who, unlike prior waves of newcomers, have not been encouraged to adopt American culture and ideals. They instead remain loyal to their homeland.

The same thing is occurring in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Roughly half of the population in most Western nations no longer value their own society and its heritage. As Islamic and other third world populations grow due to immigration and high birth rates, it will become harder and harder for our "liberal", secularized, "tolerant" post-Christian populations to maintain the backbone needed to fight.

As of today, I think a slight majority of the American population is willing to fight, and Bush will be returned to office because of it. But if a 9-11 type attack had hit America in 1955, before the sixties era began our downward slide, we would have been 95% behind a war against the terrorists and their cells.

At the current rate of degeneration, in a couple of decades, a majority of our population will have no interest in defending our nation or its "racist, sexist, homophobic, Euro-centric" heritage.