Posted on 07/22/2003 7:21:19 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
"Since the events of 9/11," observes Lee Harris, America's reigning philosopher of 9/11, "the policy debate in the United States has been primarily focused on a set of problems -- radical Islam and the War on Terrorism, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
We sense that these three problems are related, Harris notes in an article at TechCentralStation.com, but we can't quite figure out how. He proposes a subtle link between these seemingly disparate issues -- and it's not specifically their common Muslim identity. Rather, it has to do with their unearned power.
"All previous threats in the history of mankind have had one element in common. They were posed by historical groups that had created the weapons -- both physical and cultural -- that they used to threaten their enemies." States achieved their military power through their own labor and sacrifice, developing their own economies, organizing their societies, training their own troops, and building their own arsenals.
But the same cannot be said of the threats emanating from the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda destroys airplanes and buildings that it itself could not possibly build. The Palestinian Authority has failed in every field of endeavor except killing Israelis. Saddam Hussein's Iraq grew dangerous thanks to money showered on it by the West to purchase petroleum Iraqis themselves had neither located nor extracted.
How, despite their general incompetence, has this trio managed to guide the course of events as if they were Powers in the traditional sense?
The cause of this anomaly, Harris replies, is that the West plays by a strict set of rules while permitting Al-Qaeda, the Palestinians, and Saddam Hussein to play without rules. We restrain ourselves according to the standards of civilized conduct as refined over the centuries; they engage in maximal ruthlessness.
Had the United States retaliated in kind for 9/11, Harris tells me, the Islamic holy places would have been destroyed. Had Israelis followed the Arafat model of murderousness, the West Bank and Gaza would now be devoid of Palestinians. Had the West done toward Iraq as Iraq did toward Kuwait, the Iraqi polity would long ago have been annexed and its oil resources confiscated.
While morally commendable, Harris argues, the West's not responding to Muslim ruthlessness with like ruthlessness carries a high and rising price. It allows Muslim political extremists of various stripes to fantasize that they earned their power, when in fact that power derives entirely from the West's arch-civilized restraint.
This confusion prompts Muslim extremists to indulge in the error that their successes betoken a superior virtue, or even God's support. Conversely, they perceive the West''s restraint as a sign of its decadence. Such fantasies, Harris contends, feed on themselves, leading to ever-more demented and dangerous behavior.
Westerners worry about the security of electricity grids, computer bugs, and water reservoirs; can a nuclear attack on a Western metropolis be that remote? Western restraint, in other words, insulates its enemies from the deserved consequences of their actions, and so unintentionally encourages their bad behavior.
For the West to reverse this process requires much rougher means than it prefers to use. Harris, author of a big-think book on this general subject coming out from the Free Press in early 2004, contends that Old Europe and most analysts have failed to fathom the imperative for a change. The Bush administration, however, has figured it out and in several ways (all of which surfaced during the Iraq campaign) has begun implementing an unapologetic and momentous break with past restraints:
- Preempt: Knock out fantasist leaders (the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat) before they can do more damage.
- Rehabilitate: Dismantle their polities, then reconstruct these along civilized lines.
- Impose a double standard: Act on the premise that the U.S. government alone "is permitted to use force against other agents who are not permitted to use force."
In brief, until those Harris calls "Islamic fantasists" play by the rules, Washington must be prepared to act like them, without rules.
This appeal for America to act less civilized will offend some; but it does offer a convincing explanation for the inner logic of America''s tough new foreign policy.
this is one of the most disturbing things i've read on FR in a long time.
our civilization is not in the least threatened, only our empire is.
but human pride and avarice will not allow us to forgo the throne and the thousand assassins' arrows that will accompany it. seeing our turn as king of hill finally arrive, the neocon can think of nothing but keeping us there at all costs. meanwhile the isolationist conservative, the "america first" conservative, the (heaven forbid) pacifist conservative are everywhere derided as wanting to handicap the US, as wanting to make her weak.
well, there is more than one kind of strength. all of our current trouble with fundamentalist islam, tragically, can be traced back to some past meddling of ours into their affairs. projecting american "strength" is not the solution to the problem, it is the cause of the problem. and each time we "solve" a problem by projecting our strengh, we create a new one (we've seen this pattern repeated many times in the middle east - the career of saddam hussein is the most recent and obvious example). admittedly, once this cycle has begun it is very hard to escape it.
what this country needs is more civilization, not less.
i want an america that is strong, secure, and self-sufficient. leave the empire to others with a hunger for gold and a taste for blood.
well said.
Your reply to me did not answer how you propose to fight the real dangers to us existing in the outside world. I agree with Mr. Harris and Mr. Pipes saying that for too long the islamists were giving a free pass to harm us at will, and to fight these dangers ( I listed some of them) we need to remove white gloves. So what is you solution?
BTW I am honored to be discredited together with Mr. Harris and Mr. Pipes (I might disagree with them here and there, still deeply honored), but that is besides the point. How do YOU want to fight the outside dangers?
This thread has not received the serious discussion it deserves. I hope to expose it to more.
Your reply, incidentally... Herr Pipes?... fascists? demonstrates a profound lack of intellectual horsepower or even the common and essential tools with which to hold a rational discussion.
So don't expect a response; at least from me.
There is a general unease which informed and intelligent people feel about the subject, since 911, and in retrospect the "muslim" behavior of the last 30 years.
This unease is somewhat mitigated by clear verbalization which survives the BS test: it fits the facts and provides some explanation of clearly irrational behavior by large groups.
Whether this explanation survives the time test or not remains to be seen.
But certainly childish namecalling and guilt-by- association, the tools of the ignorant and intellectually bankrupt, can be tossed in the trashcan of civilized discussion.
BUMP!
A decentralized government, a well-armed citizenry, Letters of Marque and Reprisal, punishment (pension stripping, tar and feathering?) for incompetent bureaucrats who failed so miserably, Congressionally declared wars, halt of Islamic and Third World immigration, low taxes, end urban subsidies...just the basics.
Thank you. What you said is all good, but INSIDE measures. What do you want to do OUTSIDE of the borders? I gather you don't dispute my list of dangers.
To any fair person some of that dangers related first of all to technological developments (communications, transportations, miniaturization, etc.) that provide means to harm us in unprecedented way can't be blamed to any real or imaginable malice from our side. How do you want to deal with these outside dangers?
The perfect synthesis of someone who has read much ---- and learned nothing.
Educated waaaay beyond your intelligence.
These are by no means mutually exclusive, but I have no desire to fertilize a rock.
Have a nice day.
Yes.
And much too PC.
I've heard this "we must become more like them to beat them" line before. In the 80s we were faced with the economic competition from the Japanese, and all the rave among the policy wonks and pundits(my term for experts in Pipes position)was that we "had to become more like them to beat them". It was total BS. For one thing, their success was based partly on becoming more like what we were, using objective management tools to guide operational conduct. For another, they were a high-trust monoculture, unencumbered by our multi-cultural BS, as well as divisive managment-labor distinctions. But ultimately, the Japanese economic ability and threat was a fraud based upon unsound banking practices, government subsidies, and dumping.
Similarly, the entire Islamic world view is a fraud, as is their threat to us. They have no productive capacity to wage real war. Their ability to wage asymetric war is also poor, and only scares pant wetting liberals and Hollywood commentators. For this we should become more like them? Their major strength is access to our oil market, and we control that. We can fight any barbarians without becoming more like them. One doesn't fight immorality with immorality. If Pipes has to justify our behavior with illogical dialectic sophistry, there is something fundamentally wrong there.
I think we've kicked this stiff mare to death, but feel free to continue with the ad hominem attacks, my skin is thicker than my skull ;-)
Uday and Qusay might say, "no", except they're dead and we can't ask them. They're dead, Jim. (Just feels so good to say.)
Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.
2 out of 3 ain't bad for a forum priding itself on a civil exchange of discourse, one based on standards of behavior, one might even call ethics.
That reminds me of something I read this morning. The U.S. State Department said GRAPO issued a statement following the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States expressing satisfaction that "symbols of imperialist power" were decimated and affirming that "the war" had only just begun.
Precisely, and it's high time that they do so.
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