Clashes: Their way is not our way – but we must adapt to their way

National Review ^ | April 20, 2004 | David Pryce-Jones

[quidnunc]

The murder of four American civilian contractors in Fallujah, and then the instant defilement of their corpses, is conspicuously barbarous. So is the maltreatment of hostages, and the threat to burn them alive. Barbarous but not surprising: people who have been brutalised as thoroughly as Iraqis commit brutalities as though that were normal. Context determines behaviour. For as long as anyone can remember, Iraq has been in the hands of some thug whose will is the only law. No institutions of any kind have ever existed to mediate among interests. To protect themselves, people can only turn to those of their own kind. If some important interest is at stake, violence quickly rises through the levels of family, tribe, religious sect, and ethnicity. However outrageous, brutality is the way to get things done under absolute rule, a system of cruel and self-perpetuating custom.

At Fallujah, and in the cases of hostages, television cameras were ready to record what was happening. The brutality was evidently not the work of men whose passions had overwhelmed their human inhibitions. Quite the contrary, this is exemplary force, premeditated and staged by some in order to compel others to buckle under and do their bidding. These Sunnis of Fallujah and elsewhere are trying to make the simple point that they are ready to do whatever they have to do, no matter how violent, for the sake of advancing themselves and their interests.

By coincidence, the wider context presents opportunies for further exemplary force to come into play. All can see for themselves that recent acts of terror in Madrid immediately reversed Spanish policy towards Iraq; perhaps Washington can be intimidated into similar surrender. Crucially, Iraqis are to have a government of their own as from the end of June. Its composition and its powers are still unknown, but it promises to be representative and popular. The Shia ayatollahs of Iran are financing the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to get into place the alternative of government according to their absolute model . A willing tool, as unscrupulous as he is ambitious, al-Sadr knows that the entire Iraqi elite — including the senior Shia ayatollahs — mistrust him and will do whatever they can to keep him out. His only hope is to order his militia to shoot his way into power. Unwilling to risk being left behind, the Sunnis have to do the same. In the absence of agreed or institutional mechanisms for going about it peacefully, such trials of strength are the customary resort. The fighting which broke out in several cities is the equivalent of electoral campaigning in a democracy.

-snip-

[CDHart]

I believe you forgot the "barf alert."

Carolyn

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Superior and exemplary force alone can prove that the political and military leadership of the coalition has confidence in its goals, and the strength to carry them through. Anything less, anything like evidence of weakness or hesitation, will only encourage those seeking power to believe that victory is theirs for the taking, and accordingly rachet up the level of violence to the maximum of their capacity and ingenuity.

Ignorant about the harsh imperatives of absolutism, liberals in the West are swept by fantasies of disaster, and the specter of Vietnam.

I believe you forgot the "barf alert."

You might consider actually reading an article before passing judgement on it.

Just a thought.

[glorgau]

The fighting which broke out in several cities is the equivalent of electoral campaigning in a democracy.

You disagree with this? I think it is most cogent.

[King Prout]

why a "barf alert"?
this article makes a fair amount of sense