The West - Its Own Worst Enemy and Why

In this war on terrorism, the US's biggest enemy will likely be itself. The reason this is so is rooted in the fundamental differences in the way battle is viewed by Eastern and Western cultures. Western culture tends to avoid excessive carnage, violence and anniahlation of the enemy during armed conflict. This mindset stems from the religous and phillosophical beliefs held by the majority of the west's inhabitants. Wars have typically been fought symetrically on the battlefield (symetric in the fact that two opposing armies approach and battle in a similar manner) with the understanding that general rules of battle will be followed. In worst cases, where guerilla warfare has been used, non-combatants are generally spared when possible. At the end of these conflicts, peace is usually established by the loser agreeing to the terms of the winner. This is usually recognized in the form of a treatsie or official ceremony. This operandi was generally followed in Europe and North America for the last 500 years.

Unfortunately, this mindset has, and continues, to pose a serious problem for countries of the West when dealing with Eastern cultures. The Islamic culture in particular, does not encompass the principles of surrender or compassion when it comes to conflict. To these cultures, letting up on the enemy, or even giving a hint of compassion and not finishing the kill, is seen as a weakness. This difference in culture is easily illustrated by the stark differences between the conflicts in the European and Asian theatres of operations in Word War II. Surrender was common among Europeans on Germany's western front and considered uncommon in the Pacific islands.

This is also further evidenced in the conclusion of the Gulf War. When it became clear toward the end of the conflict that Iraq had lost the war for all practical purposes, many westerners began to call for an end to the bombing and the ground campaign. The scenes of carnage on the road to Basra turned the stomachs of many in the west, including the Generals conducting the war. Based on Christian and western principles, President Bush offered Iraq a chance to end the conflict without total destruction of its people and its government. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Bush applied western principles to an eastern enemy. Iraq has continued to do battle with the US while avoiding a symetric conflict and could very well be involved in the attacks of Sept. 11.

There are some western nations however that have learned, or are learining, what it takes to battle eastern cultures. For example, the Israelis, who have more experience than any other country in this area and more at stake than any other country, know that it is necessary to be cold, decisive and relentless so as to drive fear into the hearts of its eastern enemies. Otherwise its existence is placed in jeapordy. A recent interview with an FBI terrorist task force agent, (responsible for arresting terrorists in foreign countries), revealed that when these terrorists were arrested, they were generally relieved when they discovered they were being taken by US police and not Israeli agents. This says alot about dealing with this threat. The Israelis are respected, the US is not.

Another country that has learned the hard way about dealing with Islamic enemies is Russia. Russia paid heavily in Afghanastan in the 1980s, and in Chechnya in 1994 trying to fight eastern Islamic enemies. The west has hounded the Russians for their use of extreme measures in the Chechnya conflict over the last decade and represents the west's misunderstanding of what is necessary when dealing with Islamic fundamentalists. There is a decent argument that the west, the US in particular, owes the Russians an apology for their stance on Chechyna. The Russians have no choice but to hunt down and destroy their enemies. Otherwise, they will only reappear to harm Russian citizens.

Unless the Americans and Europeans, recognize, embrace and integrate the mindset of the enemy into our war plan, we will repeat the same mistakes made for the last 50 years when dealing with eastern fundamentalists. Even though compassion and a lack of desire for outright destruction is solidly built in to our cultures, we will have to look past it and do what is necessary for survival. Harry Truman was faced with this quandry in 1945 and he might the right decision. Bush is faced with a similar decision, and hopefully he will make the right decisions because the stakes may be much higher.

To win the battle, one has to know it's own strenghts and weaknesses, as remarked by Sun Tsu 2500 years ago.

It is true that Western civilisation generally detest carnage and killing of noncombatants. For that reason, the American Civil War is the turning point in Western military history especially the inovation of Gen. Sherman (deportation of civilians, death by starvation, destruction of crops and other "brave" deeds that constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity

The rest is only advancement in technology of mass killing of civilians.

In WWII Germans were not cuttting ears of captured and killed enemies as trophies and did not send sculls of captured enemy soldiers to their sweethearts back home. Maybe for that reason there was more soldiers surrendering, who knows.

The problem with radical islam is their belief that all carnage done to enemy civilians is justified. They believed in it before Gen. Sherman and had ample time to make an art out of it.

Deception of enemy is virtue, deception of oneself is deadly trait.

It's obvious that lately we have been suffering from a welfare mentality at the warfare level. Ever since we gave up the fight in Vietnam, we have not been involved singly in major conflicts. Instead we hired foreigners to do the protecting, and they on the other hand have become the welfare providers.

THe difference between East and West in the case of Islam is that Islam relies on the will of Allah, which is not to be counfounded with Allah Himself. Islam is relying on the will to Jihad, on the violence to jihad. That is a secular concept of violence, not a religious one, because violence in religious terms is rather a blessing, an ability to strike back at an aggressor, not a mean of achieving a premeditated stated goal.

SO Islam is solely in servitude to violence. Violence is the protector of Islam. Out West the protector are the "good fruits" J_sus talked about. We plow the land and we are servile to the land. The land and its fruits are the protector of the WEst.

We can see that the West cannot rely on the land as a resource when the land is destroyed by Islam. And this is what is happening. We are no match to Islam in that respect. So, what do we do? We do what we do best: We plow the land and use the proceeds to buy protection for the land, and, ironicaly, we buy this protection from muslims.

But muslims are bad protectors, because muslims would rather resort to sucessful violent conquests than ones that fail, since muslims' self esteem and existentialism relies on the successes of this violence. Hence, when the muslims hit the RUssia, China India brick wall, the muslims will turn against an easier target, the WEst, the very west that was paying it for protection.

Hence the west comes to be in an even worse situation than before, because not only its land is attacked, but moreover it is deeply penetrated by the attacker it trusted at first. THe west will seek to rely on other types of protection welfare, out of cultural impetus, and out of sheer laziness and cowardice - prefering peace at the cost of civilian populations used as shields against terrorists rather than picking up a fight with lesser collateral damage risk than peace. So the West will turn to China or Russia.

However China and Russia are giving up communism - communism that refused to plow the land but rather turn people into grazing animals, and instead are picking up a medieval modification akin to kingship. Under this third way, people can plow the land but they still have to face the wrath and hunger of the former communist cattle keepers at times. There will be a system set up so that the predatory nature of the leaders of China and Russia is maintained through feeding.

So as China and Russia will rely on the returns of the plowing done by the west, the west will rely on Russian and Chinese protection from barbarians such as muslims. We are returning effectively to a global dark age akin to the Middle Ages, where the WEst is the servant, and the East is comfortable in rationalising its position as King/god of the West, because the West will actualy request it.

Aside from this petty arrangement, there will remain a few brave people who will truly rely on G_D's blessing and G_d Himself. THose people will resist servitude in calculated ways. People of G_d are owned by G_d, and hence will rather fight and die rather than wish for protection from a thug. And that is the ultimate winning formula despite the likelyhood of people of G_d being utterly annihilated by the East. The reason being is that the East-West arrangemenet will rely on evolution, it will rely on nature's good will and on their own wits to succeed.

However we all know that nature and people's cunning and wits are the worst of the backstabbers, especialy a nature that is hostile to human beings whose immune system is weak, whose dependence on a Earth orbit, environment and meteorites is heavy and whose evolution and petri dish experiments are poor comfort for the tribulations nature is going to butcher them through.

It is then that those of faith will survive and resist better, because those of faith know better than to rely on wishful systems. Those of faith will never submit to nature, but will attempt to make nature its servant, they will attempt to make the sinner and criminal its servant, and not the other way around. Those will arm and protect themselves and they will not be part of the backstabbing tribulation process that will affect a G_dless system. Blessings are on the way for believers, and they will be best capable of exploiting and defending those blessings, G_d being their only source of welfare, absent or not.

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