Pinging 2 Ping Lists
|
|
Let me know if you want in or out. Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson |
Posted on 09/01/2006 5:18:39 AM PDT by Tolik
Hezbollah’s black-clad legions goose-step and stiff-arm salute in parade, apparently eager to convey both the zeal and militarism of their religious fascism. Meanwhile, consider Hezbollah’s “spiritual” head, Hassan Nasrallah — the current celebrity of an unhinged Western media that tried to reinvent the man’s own self-confessed defeat as a victory. Long before he hid in the Iranian embassy Nasrallah was on record boasting: “The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win because they love life and we love death.”
Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trumps that Hitlerian nihilism by reassuring the poor, maltreated Germans that there was no real Holocaust. Perhaps he is concerned that greater credit might still go to Hitler for Round One than to the mullahs for their hoped-for Round Two, in which the promise is to “wipe” Israel off the map.
The only surprise about the edition of Hitler’s Mein Kampf that has become a best seller in Middle Eastern bookstores is its emboldened title translated as “Jihadi” — as in “My Jihad” — confirming in ironic fashion the “moderate” Islamic claim that Jihad just means “struggle,” as in an “inner struggle” — as in a Kampf perhaps.
Meanwhile, we in the West who worry about all this are told to fret instead about being “Islamophobes.” Indeed, a debate rages over the very use of “Islamic fascism” to describe the creed of terrorist killers — as if those authoritarians who call for a return of the ancient caliphate, who wish to impose of 7th-century sharia law, promise death to the Western “crusader” and “Jew,” and long to retreat into a mythical alternate universe of religious purity and harsh discipline, untainted by a “decadent” liberal West, are not fascists. It is almost as if Alfred Rosenberg has returned in a kaffiyeh to explain why Jews really are apes and pigs, and why we must recapture the spirit of our primitive ancestors.
Next, in the manner that Hitler was to be understood as victimized by the Versailles Treaty, so too we hear the litany of perceived grievances against the Islamic fascists — George Bush, the West Bank, Gaza, or now Lebanon. But does anyone remember that bin Laden quip, four years before 9/11, when Mr. Bush was still governor of Texas: “Mentioning the name of Clinton or the American government provokes disgust and revulsion.”
Even as we split hairs over whether terrorists flocked to, or were created by, Iraq, the jihadists make no such distinctions between their theaters of operation. Listen to al Qaeda’s Aymin al-Zawahiri: “The Jihad movement is growing and rising. It reached its peak with the two blessed raids on New York and Washington. And now it is waging a great heroic battle in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even within the Crusaders’ own homes.”
“Even within the Crusaders’ own homes” would include, I think, the planned attacks against opponents of the Iraq war, such as Canada and Germany. Their often shrill, and sometimes blatantly anti-American, antagonism to the 2003 war still earned them no exemption from efforts to chop off the head of the Canadian prime minister or to blow up hundreds of Germans on passenger trains.
Here at home we witness “al-Qaedism” — fanatics shooting Jews in Seattle, murder at the Los Angeles airport, an SUV running over innocent pedestrians in San Francisco or driving over students in North Carolina, sniping in Maryland. And we shrug them all off. Surely such incidents can be explained, are not connected, occur at random — anything other than the truth that the constant harangues of the Islamic fascists really do filter down, even if randomly and spontaneously, to a number of angry and alienated young Muslim males in the West.
Some cling to the notion that Islamic rage is not the manifestation of an elemental hatred, but is merely about land. That’s about what bin Laden said in 1998 when he urged all Muslims to murder all the Americans: “to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an obligation incumbent upon every Muslim who can do it and in any country — this until the Asqa Mosque (Jerusalem) and the Holy Mosque (Mecca) are liberated from their grip.”
But the long overdue withdrawal of soldiers from Saudi Arabia (who were out in a godforsaken desert and nowhere near the “Holy Mosque”) had no more effect on al Qaeda than did the Israeli departure from Gaza and Lebanon on Hamas and Hezbollah. As in the case of Hitler’s serial demands for return of the “stolen” German Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia, land was never the real issue. Perceived loss of pride and status, hatred of the Jews, and unbridled contempt for a liberal West were.
The truth is that we are in a pause, a lull in a great storm that broke upon us five years ago on September 11. We are waiting to see when and where and how — not really if — the Iranians test their envisioned bomb. “Another 9/11” is now part of the lexicon, suggesting that most Americans accept that an amorphous enemy that tries to knock down the Sears Tower, to blow up the Holland tunnel, to explode airliners over the Atlantic, and to slaughter commuters from London to Madrid to the Rhine may finally get lucky once — and that once could be a death warrant for thousands of Westerners.
After 9/11 we were at war with a fascist creed that had trumped any damage to the homeland wrought by all earlier enemies, whether Germans, Italians, Japanese, or Russians. But now, five years later, we are in a holding pattern, waiting in a classic bellum interruptum — whether in exhaustion from this long war in Afghanistan and Iraq, or complacent due to our very success hitherto in preventing jihadists from enacting mass murder in the United States.
So we are in limbo — a sort of war, a sort of peace. Lulls of this nature are not such rare things in history. The Athenians and the Spartans between 421-415, or the Western Europeans between October 1939 and May 1940, likewise thought the squall had passed — the respite a sign that the enemy was satiated, or was occupied elsewhere, or had had a change of heart, or that times of transient calm might mean permanent peace
We all wish it were so, but in private also fear that the worst — whether from al Qaeda, Iran, or their epigones — is to come.
Our pundits and experts scoff at all this concern over Islamic fascism — as crude propaganda, neo-conservative war mongering, a veiled agenda to do Israel’s bidding, conspiracies to finish turning America from a republic into an empire, or just old-fashioned paranoia.
Their argument for thinking the danger is slight is that either we have already won, or we don’t really have a credible enemy to defeat other than a few thugs better left to the FBI and federal attorneys: the jihadists may sound like Nazis; but they lack a nation-state and thus the means to harm the West to any great degree. Intent is irrelevant, if the means are absent. Sure, there is a Mein Kampf, but no Wehrmacht in the Middle East.
There are three rejoinders to this notion that the Islamic fascists are hardly serious enemies, and cannot be compared to the old-time fascists who once started a war that led to 50 million deaths.
First, Islamic fascism is already the creed of the government of an oil-rich and soon to be nuclear Iran. Secular authoritarians like Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf could easily fall, and the nation’s nuclear arsenal with him, into the hands of the madrassa Islamists. It is not inconceivable to envision several nuclear bombs among one or more theocratic governments in the years to come.
Second, in an age of weapons of mass destruction, global terrorism, and culpable deniability, authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes can, without being traced, subsidize and sanction killers, who in turn, with the right weapons, can kill and maim tens of thousands.
Third, in an interconnected and often fragile world, the mere attempt to blow up trains, jets, and iconic buildings results anyway in millions of dollars in damage to the West: ever more expensive airline security, cancelled flights, and money-losing delays and interruptions in a general climate of fear.
Each time Mr. Ahmadinejad opens his mouth, or Mr. Nasrallah shoots off a primitive rocket, the global stock market can dip, and the price of petroleum spikes. A good dissertation is needed to ascertain how many billions of dollars Ahmadinejad has conned for his theocracy by means of his creepy rhetoric alone, through price hikes on the daily export of his oil. Since this war has progressed, oil has gone up from $25 a barrel to over $70, now adding an additional $500 billion per annum to the coffers of Middle East dictatorships.
Given Iraq, Afghanistan, and the acrimony at home — so similar to the debate right before Pearl Harbor over the earlier discounted fascist threat to the United States — we apparently are waiting for the enemy to strike again, before renewing the offensive.
So while we keep our defenses up at home, foster democracy in the heart of the Middle East in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hope the globalized march of modernity undermines jihadism faster than it can disrupt the 21st century, we also wait — for the next blow that we know will come.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.
Pinging 2 Ping Lists
|
|
Let me know if you want in or out. Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson |
"Do we really need further convincing of the threat we face?"
Sad to say, but yes 50 to 60 percent of the USA population needs further convincing. It's too bad it could result in the death of those that don't need convincing.
If there is another attack on the scale of 9/11, and I believe there will be, it will not result in a stiffening of American spines, much less enlightenment about the nature of Islam.
What it will do is, give Democrats ammunition against George Bush and his administration. We still have two and a half years. If they think they can destroy him, they will gladly try, even at the risk of American security.
bttt
Yes, we do. Liberalism is deification of Self. They are content that what happended in New York didn't happen to them personally. They will make no sacrifice for others. Liberals don't act until their own safety and possesions are immediately threatened. Then they act ruthlessly.
You hit it right on the head pal. I don't need convincing yet I'm in NYC all the time working . Be real sad if I had to get blown up to convince the wacko Liberals of NYC.
I believe Americans are made of tougher stuff than that.
All over the western world, there has been a slow but discernable shift to the right in politics. Just as in WWII, it took time for the world to awaken to the threat. It is happening again and just as slowly...but the world is awakening to the need to fight the dangerous element of islam.
@@@@
If our media wanted Americans to understand this simple concept, they would sell these very words day after day. Somehow, a drunk Mel Gibson's words are a 2 week media frenzy; a killer in Seattle who says "I did it because I hate Jews" or a killer in San Francisco who called himself a terrorist, do not get any more than the merest documentation in mass media, then are dropped from the news cycle forever.
More moral clarity from Victor Davis Hanson!
We're funding the guys who want to murder us.
(and the Israelis).
At least one writer sees it.
Bump!
What it will do is, give Democrats ammunition against George Bush and his administration. We still have two and a half years. If they think they can destroy him, they will gladly try, even at the risk of American security."
I'm not so sure. Look at the plane in Britain where the passengers walked off because they weren't sure about the Muslim passengers. A data point, and anecdotal. But it illustrates that while the media and politicians play games (in the case of the US media, an active siding with Islam because 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'), there appears to be a realization sinking into consciousness, no matter how dim.
Prior to Pearl Harbor, there was an uneasiness in the American psyche about events. An when Pearl harbor occurred, it took some time for the import of what happened to sink in, along with the occasional news about atrocities occurring from Japanese and Nazi occupied areas. But once the realization took hold, it was Katy-bar-the-door.
I think the well intentioned 'Religion of Peace' bit was an attempt to quell the immediate emotional reaction. It was unfortunate in one point, since it clouded the issue and provided a way for the libs to exploit for purposes of gaining power.
I think, if another attack occurs, the average person is going to get pretty angry. And it won't just be the muslims who have to worry, but the libs as well. And, if the groundswell really starts sweeping, politicians will cower and try to run to the front of the crowd as it marches.
Think about it.
There is crank literature out there that alleges international bankers (joooos?) financed both sides in the U.S.' War between the States; and WWI. Maybe at some level encouraged the conflict. The idea is that whichever side wins gets the spoils and can pay the war debts for both, with interest.
Then I read what you wrote: "We're funding the guys who want to murder us." Where do our funds come from? Our central bank perhaps?
How is that different from what the crank literature alleges? Cui bono? Who benefits from conflict between the islamic world and the West? The military industrial complex perhaps?
I'm not charging anything nor promoting any conspiracy theories. I'm just asking, why are we funding those who want to kill us? Is there a better answer than the conspiracy theory? If you have one, let's hear it. This is strictly devil's advocate, so spare me the flames.
" All over the western world, there has been a slow but discernable shift to the right in politics "
I see the just the opposite my friend .
why are we funding those who want to kill us?
Simple survival I imagine.
TRUE. The next time we are hit half the country will use it as an excuse to slam Bush for not protecting us. They hate Bush much, much more then they hate Islamic terrorist. Islam will get a pass and the unwashed masses will call for Bush's head
Ping!
I don't understand. Whose survival are we concerned about, ours or theirs?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.