Posted on 08/17/2006 4:28:20 AM PDT by Tolik
What makes two-dozen British Muslims want to blow up thousands of innocent passengers on jumbo jets? Why does al-Qaida plan hourly to kill civilians? And why does oil-rich Iran wish to "wipe out" Israel?
In short, it's the old blame game, one that over the past century has taken multiple forms.
Once, a tired whine of Islamists was that European colonialists and American oilmen rigged global commerce to "rob" the Middle East of its natural wealth. But they were pretty quiet when the price of crude oil jumped from around an expensive $25 a barrel to an exorbitant $75.
Recently, oil exporters of the Middle East have taken in around an extra $500 billon each year in windfall profits beyond the old lucrative income. It is one of the largest, most sudden -- and least remarked upon -- transfers of capital in history.
Another old excuse for Islamist anger was the claim the West had favored autocrats -- the Shah, the House of Saud, the Kuwaiti royal family -- in a cynical desire for cheap gas and to prop up strong anti-communist allies.
Some of that complaint was certainly accurate. But since Sept. 11, America has ensured democracy in Afghanistan, spent billions and over 2,500 lives fostering freedom in Iraq, pressured Syria to leave Lebanon, and lectured long-time allies in Egypt and the Gulf to reform. For all this, we are now considered crude interventionists, even when our efforts may well pave the way for radical Muslims to gain legitimacy through plebiscites.
Islamists have and continue today to gripe about Western infidels encroaching on Muslim lands. Osama bin Laden attacked because of American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, or so he said. Hamas and Hezbollah resorted to terror to free Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, or so they said.
Yet, nothing much has changed since the United States pulled its combat troops out of Saudi Arabia, or after the Israelis departed Gaza and Lebanon, and announced planned withdrawals from parts of the West Bank. Meanwhile, the elected Iraqi government wants American soldiers to stay longer (while the latest polls suggest the American public doesn't agree).
Then there is moaning that the West treats its Muslim immigrants unfairly, despite evidence to the contrary. After all, Muslims build mosques and madrassas all over Europe and the United States; yet Christians cannot worship in Saudi Arabia or have missionaries in Iran. Western residents or immigrants in most Arab nations would not dare demonstrate on behalf of Israel. But in Michigan last week, largely Arab-American crowds chanted "Hezbollah" -- despite that terrorist organization's long history of murdering Americans.
Another Islamist grumble is that the West supports only Israel. Again, that's hardly true. The Europeans gave plenty of aid to the PLO and Hamas, and their hostility to Israel is well-established. The United States make no bones about aiding Israel, but it also has given tremendous amounts of money to the Palestinians, Egypt ($50 billion so far) and Jordan. And without the United States, Kuwait would be the 19th province of Iraq, the Taliban would rule Afghanistan, Saddam and his sons would still slaughter Kurds and there might not be any Muslims left at all in Kosovo or Bosnia.
The one thing, however, that the United States cannot do to please Islamists is change its liberal character and traditions of Western tolerance. And isn't that the real story behind all these perceived grievances and phantom hurts: the intrusive dynamism of freewheeling Western, and particularly American, culture?
Both its low form of girly magazines and punk rock as well as its impressive literature, art, commerce and technology now saturate the world. And why not? American radical individualism appeals to the innate human desire for freedom and unbridled expression. Westernization subverts most hierarchs, especially in the reactionary world of Islamic fundamentalism, where the mullah, family patriarch or state autocrat can't keep a lid on it. Instantaneous communications have also brought to an insecure Middle Eastern society firsthand views of how much wealthier, freer and more tolerant the outside world is when it is democratic and transparent.
But instead of providing a blueprint for reform, these revelations only incite envy and anger from millions who are advised that parity with the West is found instead by retreating further into 7th-century religious purity.
So never mind the trillions in petrodollars, billions in aid and concessions. Unless we change our very character, or the Middle East achieves success and confidence through Western-style democracy and economic reform, expect more tired scapegoating and violence from radical discontents, from Lebanon to London -- and well beyond.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com
Let me know if you want in or out.
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His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
And this is why the hard left finds common ground with the Islamists - both despise core American values.
L
I'm with you on that.
I wonder what VDH thinks of the alternative reality?
Change its liberal character and traditions of Western tolerance merely to survive?
I cannot countenance my country sliding into the perversion of treating, permanently, its own citizens more ruthlessly than subhuman animals merely to "feel good" about itself and to embrace the stupidity inherent in the phrase "we need to be better than they are".
Better, and dead and gone.
Submission in not an option for most Americans.
We can't kill all of them? Why not? Of course we can.
But let's agree that we won't, for the sake of argument.
What then is the remaining option?
Isolation.
Either isolate them; or isolate ourselves.
As a start, remove every non-resident muslim from our areas of sovereign presence and control. Prohibit any new ones from coming until further notice; it may be centuries.
If violence and mindless behavior continues within our country from naturalized or second generation muslims, expel them in groups until it stops.
Brutalizing our own citizens, bakrupting our national wealth with "security measures", and continuing the fiction that they are our equals, simply has to stop. Sooner or later.
A new definition of insanity: Overwhelming power underwhelmingly applied.
The real common ground between the lefties and the muslims is that neither has a workable plan, but both want to rule. Neither deserve a position of authority and they are both mad as hell.
It appears the Muslims are on the march in their next crusade against non-Muslims. They will become more emboldened as they succeed in taking over countries, as they will see that as approval from their god in their methods.
And the West fiddles...
And insane, we might add.
When the power to destroy overwhelms the power to create, the time has come for ruthlessness to kick in, for the sake of survival.
Domestically, that translates into "we are just as dysfunctional as they are"; thus it doesn't matter if we survive...
I can't buy that.
Excellent point!
I think that is next on the agenda (however slow it has been in coming to the fore). The terror bust in the U.K. has reminded everyone that islam never sleeps.
Satan did a good days work when he created islam. Islam is a bomb that keeps on exploding.
Forget common ground. We're way past that. The only type of ground those monsters need is the "Glass Parking Lot".
Third choice: Stop catering to the Islamofacists and help them get to the 7th century.
But instead of providing a blueprint for reform, these revelations only incite envy and anger from millions who are advised that parity with the West is found instead by retreating further into 7th-century religious purity.
Michael Medved was challenged by a caller on yesterday's show to explain why America was so hated worldwide. He answered quickly and without hesitation with one word: ENVY.
I think they are both right. We are very lucky (most of us here) to live in America. The world does envy us no matter what they say.
Got my vote!.......Only hope the ACLU lawyers are in the line of fire.
He answered quickly and without hesitation with one word: ENVY.
Agree. I would add one addendum, and that would be the Islamists (or whatever term is in vogue today) envy the west in general, not just America. They live in a zero-sum world where there is only so much riches, power..etc to go around.
Qatar, where al Jazeera is based, has a per capita income of around $33,000. Compare that to the U.S. per capita income of around $40,000. There are other oil rich middle Eastern countries with an even higher per capita income. Yet they hate us as much as Iran does.
The 9/11 hijackers and many terrorist leaders such as OSL did not come from impoverished backgrounds.
I think the terrorist mindset has more to do with a very distorted interpretation of Islam than anything else. The WOT is a religious war, though it's more palatable to most people to term it a clash of cultures or a clash of the haves against the have nots.
The social values (or lack thereof) of the American liberals is what the islamists hate the worst because they feel that it is corrupting their culture. The hard left will be the first to get their heads chopped off.
Instantaneous communications have also brought to an insecure Middle Eastern society firsthand views of how much wealthier, freer and more tolerant the outside world is when it is democratic and transparent. .
It's the reason that liberals hate this country, too. Because you can't win on a level field if you're a liberal; you always have to have to have an advantage given to you, an entitlement, or you fail.
And winning with an entitlement leaves you open to the criticism that you 'didn't earn it'. Which is hard to live with, if you have the least of pride.
Because there are 1.2 billion of them living on the same planet as we are and the WMD's available for genocide on that scale would cause extensive collateral damage to non-Muslim populations. People who know anything about bugs and gas and nukes understand this.
How many Australians are you willing to sacrifice to exterminate Indonesia? How do you exterminate all the Muslims in India while leaving the Hindus and Sikhs untouched? Is your survival worth all that death?
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