The enemy within -- and it's not who you think (David Warren nails Islamofascism's 5th column)

Ottawa Citizen - Canada ^ | September 13, 2006 | David Warren

[GMMAC]

The enemy within -- and it's not who you think

Ottawa Citizen
September 13, 2006

COMMENTARY: DAVID WARREN

Listening to President Bush speak, on Monday's anniversary of 9/11, after a day of distastefully sentimental memorials, my question was not what have we achieved in the last five years, but rather, what have we learned? Bush and Blair -- the captain and vice-captain of Team West in the war against "the terrorists" so far -- are both now in the twilight of their political careers. Both have recently broken with habitual discretion, and made attempts to name the enemy. This has, if anything, added to their unpopularity, for when they mention that the enemy presents himself as Islamic, there are shrill cries not only from radical Muslims, but across the spectrum of the Left in the West.

Mr Bush, much the less eloquent of the two, has now retreated from his use of the term "Islamofascist" -- which as I said in a previous column, is a fairer label than "Islamist" for an enemy that spreads a palampore of traditional Islam, over a stuffing from the Western-bred totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century. As I wrote Aug. 27, from Ahmadinejad to Zawahiri, we hear rhetoric that uses an Islamic vocabulary and crude grammar, but animated with a syntax that owes more to Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, than to the Prophet and his traditional interpreters. The term is thus meant to suggest a skewed Islam, an Islam "adapted to our age" by psychopathic men, whose own Islamic learning is purposefully politicized, and aggressively de-spiritualized. Since the alternative would be to say that Ahmadinejad, Zawahiri, et al. do speak legitimately for Islam, I don't see why anyone should object to the term "Islamofascist".

Mr Blair gave an interview worth reading to the Israeli daily, Haaretz, published Monday. The editors present characterized it as "sombre". The British prime minister was still going through the motions of advocating the "peace process", and the "two-state solution" for Israel and Palestine, without (according to me) any real conviction that it could work. It is just something Western politicians do to please the figurative "Arab street", and it does not please anyone, any more. With much more conviction, he said leaders throughout the West have grasped that we are in a truly "global struggle", for which the people of the West are not prepared. The politicians have failed to explain to us how much is at stake, and how much will be lost if we are not resolute in defence of Western values.

For all its uncharacteristic awkwardness, Mr Blair's answer to a question about British home-grown terrorists donged the bell:

"It's not necessarily what have we done wrong, because part of the problem of what you have in Western opinion is that Western opinion always wants to believe that it's our fault and these people want to have a sort of, you know, grievance culture that they visit upon us and say it's our fault. And so we have a young British-born man of Pakistani origin sitting in front of a television screen saying I will go and kill innocent people because of the oppression of Muslims, when he has been brought up in a country that has given him complete religious freedom and full democratic rights and actually a very good job and standard of living. Now, that warped mind has grown out of a global movement based on a perversion of Islam which we have to confront, and we have to confront it globally."

I frankly admire both Bush and Blair, as courageous politicians, with open minds, doing their best within the limits of what is politically possible in their respective spheres. They are both towering figures, in comparison to the little men who oppose them. We won't know what trouble is, until the little men replace them.

I continue optimistic about what can be done, should we summon the will to do it. I have written repeatedly that a robust and unified Western response to "Islamofascism" could fling it quickly onto the trash-heap of history, to join Nasserism and Baathism and other earlier manifestations of Arab nationalism and socialism. Smack it hard, without apology.

My pessimism is founded in the fear that this robust and unified response cannot be mobilized. We have a huge fifth column in the West, and it is not the Muslim immigrants. They become radicalized only because our "victim culture" encourages them to nurture their grievances. Yet most, despite temptation, remain good, decent people, doing their share of the West's work.

Our real enemy is within us, in the immense constituency of the half-educated narcissists pouring from our universities each year -- that glib, smug, liberal, and defeatist "victim culture" itself, that inhabits the academy, our media, our legal establishment, the bureaucratic class. The opinion leaders of our society, who live almost entirely off the avails of taxation, make their livelihoods biting the hands that feed them, and undermining the moral order on which our solidarity depends.

© Ottawa Citizen

[GMMAC]

"Anyone who actually has a Biblical Christian World View does."

Warren's world view is consistently in line with Catholic moral theology.
If you take issue with same, why not say so directly?

[-YYZ-]

Who the heck is James H. Fetzer, PHD, and does he have any qualifications, even basic high school physics or chemistry, far less university level physics or engineering, to categorically deny NIST's explanation of why the buildings fell? I have some understanding of those topics and I find the explanations that have been given quite convincing - certainly more convincing than the wild ramblings of the 9/11 conspiracy nutbags.

[Tolik]

David Warren:

...I continue optimistic about what can be done, should we summon the will to do it. I have written repeatedly that a robust and unified Western response to "Islamofascism" could fling it quickly onto the trash-heap of history, to join Nasserism and Baathism and other earlier manifestations of Arab nationalism and socialism. Smack it hard, without apology.

My pessimism is founded in the fear that this robust and unified response cannot be mobilized. We have a huge fifth column in the West, and it is not the Muslim immigrants. They become radicalized only because our "victim culture" encourages them to nurture their grievances. Yet most, despite temptation, remain good, decent people, doing their share of the West's work.

Our real enemy is within us, in the immense constituency of the half-educated narcissists pouring from our universities each year -- that glib, smug, liberal, and defeatist "victim culture" itself, that inhabits the academy, our media, our legal establishment, the bureaucratic class. The opinion leaders of our society, who live almost entirely off the avails of taxation, make their livelihoods biting the hands that feed them, and undermining the moral order on which our solidarity depends.

Nailed It!
Moral Clarity BUMP !

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[Tolik]

You nailed it, buddy!

[buck61]

So many complaining President Bush is not a great communicator, it's odd to me they have no problem explaining what he has said.
Nothing works better than just plain English.
I'm sure if the president wanted to use big words, his speech writers could easily insert them.
After all, there are more of us every day people voting than English professors.

[ThePythonicCow]

Yes - very well stated.

[SuziQ]

The term is thus meant to suggest a skewed Islam, an Islam "adapted to our age" by psychopathic men, whose own Islamic learning is purposefully politicized, and aggressively de-spiritualized.

The problem that most Westerners do not understand, and apparently neither does Mr. Warren, is that in Islam. there is NO differentiation between the political and the spiritual.

[Tarantulas]

Good article, unexpected ending, but makes sense. I almost laughed out loud at the last paragraph which would be hard to explain at work.

[DarthVader]

"Our real enemy is within us, in the immense constituency of the half-educated narcissists pouring from our universities each year -- that glib, smug, liberal, and defeatist "victim culture" itself, that inhabits the academy, our media, our legal establishment, the bureaucratic class. The opinion leaders of our society, who live almost entirely off the avails of taxation, make their livelihoods biting the hands that feed them, and undermining the moral order on which our solidarity depends."

Amen to that and they all need a severe a$$ kicking!

[Lando Lincoln]

Thanks, my FRiend. Mr. Warren says it well. Sadly, it has been said before.........

“You ask what is our policy? I will say: it is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory – Victory at all costs, Victory in spite of all terror, however long and hard the road may be; for without Victory there is no survival.”

Winston Churchill, 1940

I pray that, as a society, the US has the strength and courage for victory.

Lando

[GMMAC]

With practicing adherents of most faiths, political actions flow from spiritual beliefs.

As example, I am a conservative because it offers a value system which provides worldly application of my understanding of my Christian faith as opposed to being one because my accepted personal ideology dictates as much.

Accordingly, David Warren doesn't fail to understand your apparent position but, rather, is contending that Islamofascists willfully pervert the teachings of their faith for their own selfish political ends.

In refusing to lump all Muslims together, Warren himself is taking a political stand properly founded upon his own Catholic faith.

[goldstategop]

The real enemy are liberals - hiding in plain sight.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

[VOA]

bump

[GladesGuru]

"Why make enemies of a billion-and-half Muslims when you don't have to in order to win?"

May I suggest reading Winston Churchill's The River War, published in 1899? They are our enemies.

As for your reference to board members, to which board do you refer?

In answer to the Muslims you know, are you familiar with the Muslim concepts of tarqia and kitman? I asked because you are, by implication and assumption on my part, a non-Muslim. The above mentioned Muslim theological constructs have been dubbed "Holy Hypocrisy" for a reason. That reason is that Muslims are allowed to lie to the non-Muslim.

In short, one can't really know what a Muslim means because of "Holy Hypocrisy".

[happygrl]

we are in a truly "global struggle", for which the people of the West are not prepared. The politicians have failed to explain to us how much is at stake, and how much will be lost if we are not resolute in defence of Western values.

We need a Churchill for this Age.

[Brian Allen]

<< "Mr Bush, much the less eloquent of the two.."

Mr Bush's speeches have been far better than Tony Blair >>

Absolutely.

The dedicated socialist, Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair, stands with one jack-booted foot and one side of his head facing and talking to his Euro-peon Neo-Axis masters. And the other, point-shoe-clad, foot and one of his faces turned and simultaneously talking toward the West.

[okie01]

I am familiar with "The River War" and the writings of Churchill.

My reference was to this board: Free Republic.

And, yes, I am familiar with the practice of taqiyyah and kitman. But I am not prepared to believe that they universally apply to all Islamics in all of their relationships with the West and Westerners. Not any more than I am willing to believe that capital punishment and war are proscribed by the Ten Commandments -- though some Christians believe that it is.

Just as there are many different readings of The Bible, I understand there are basically four schools of interpretation of the Koran. Only one of them is jihadist and necessarily inimical to all other cultures (including other Muslims, obviously).

[pissant]

I give Blair lotsa credit though. He has been steadfast in his support for America.

[bitt]

good read and good posts, also see #15

thanks Tolik!

[bitt]

oooops, meant #13 (but 15 is fine, too)...