Thread: The War to Save the Western World

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The War to Save the Western World
Written by Richard Bentley
Thursday, December 28, 2006

It has been called the war on terrorism, but the name given to it is a misnomer. We are in a cultural world war, although any people are in denial. We had a wakeup call on 9/11, and most of us woke up for a short while. It will be my goal to wake those of you who have fallen back to sleep, realizing that when people are sleeping, they don’t want to be awakened.

Here are the ABC’s of the ''War to Save the Western World.'' A. The human side of the equation; B. The religious side of the equation; and C. The war between the liberal, modern world and 7th Century ideals'

A. The Human Dynamics

Nowhere have whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the Islamic world. In medieval times, Europe lagged far behind the Islamic world in science, mathematics, scholarship, and military power.

Even such ancient European thinkers as Plato and Aristotle became known to Europeans of the Middle Ages only after their writings, which had been translated into Arabic, were translated back into European languages.

Today that is all reversed. The number of books per person in Europe is more than ten times that in Africa and the Middle East. The number of books translated into Arabic over the past thousand years is about the same as the number translated into Spanish in one year.

Fewer than 400 industrial patents were issued to people in the Arab countries during the last two decades of the 20th century, while 15,000 industrial patents were issued to South Koreans alone.

Human beings do not always take reversals of fortune gracefully. Still less can those who were once on top quietly accept seeing others leaving them far behind economically, intellectually, and militarily.

Those in the Islamic world have for centuries been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the "infidels" of the West, while everything they see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise. Worse yet, what the people of the whole world sees with their own eyes tells them that the Middle East has made few contributions to human advancement in our times.

Even Middle Eastern oil was largely discovered and processed by people from the West. After oil, the Middle East's most prominent export has been terrorism.

Those who look at the world in rationalistic terms may say that the Middle East can use some of its vast oil wealth to expand its own educated classes and move back to the forefront of human achievement. They did it once, why not do it again?

All sorts of things can be done in the long run, but you have to live through the short run to get there. Moreover, even the short run, as history is measured, can be pretty long in terms of the human lifespan.

Even if the Islamic world set such goals and committed the material resources and individual efforts required, they could not expect to pull abreast of the West for generations, even if the West stood still. More realistically, it would take centuries, as it took the West centuries to catch up to them.

What will happen in the meantime? Are millions of proud human beings supposed to quietly accept inferiority for themselves and their children, and perhaps their children's children?
Or are they more likely to listen to demagogues, whether political or religious, who tell them that their lowly place in the world is due to the evils of others--the West, the Americans, the Jews?

If the peoples of the Islamic world disregarded such demagogues, they would be the exceptions, rather than the rule, among people who lag painfully far behind others. Even in the West, there have been powerful political movements based on the notion that the rich have gotten rich by keeping others poor--and that things need to be set right "by all means necessary."
These means seldom include concentration on self-improvement, with 19th century Japan being one of the rare exceptions. Lashing out at others is far more immediately satisfying--and modern communications, transportation, and weaponry make it far easier to lash out destructively across great distances.

Against this background, we may want to consider the question asked by hand-wringers in the West: Why do they hate us? Maybe it is because the alternative to hating us is to hate themselves.

B. Religion

These conflicts have ancient roots, but they seem to be gaining new forces as modernity spreads and deepens.

As bin Laden understands it, the “crusade” American is alleged to be leading is not against Arabs but against the Islamic nation. Bin Laden couldn’t have been clearer: “Our call is the call of Islam that was revealed to Muhammad. It is a call to all mankind. We have been entrusted with good cause to follow in the footsteps of the messenger and to communicate his message to all nations.”

This is a religious war against “unbelief and unbelievers.” That line is a fundamentalist, religious one. And it is an Islamic one. It would be naïve to ignore in Islam a deep thread of intolerance toward unbelievers.

There are passages as violent as this: “And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush.” “Believers! Wage war against the infidels as are your neighbors, and let them find you rigorous.”

There are just three choices available to non-Muslims: 1. Convert to Islam; 2. Submit to Islamic rule; or 3. Be killed.

Since Muhammad was, unlike many other religious leaders, not simply a sage or a prophet but a ruler in his own right, this exploitation of his politics is not as great a stretch as some would argue.

Let’s look at fundamentalism. It has attracted millions of adherents for centuries, and for a good reason. It elevates and comforts. It provides a sense of meaning and direction to those lost in a disorienting world.

As modernity has advanced, and the certitudes of fundamentalist faith seemed mocked by an increasingly liberal society, fundamentalists have mobilized.

Middle Eastern fundamentalism has been challenged by the pace of social change. If you take your beliefs from books written more than a thousand years ago, and you believe in these texts literally, then the appearance of the modern world must truly terrify. If you believe that women should be consigned to polygamous, concealed servitude, then Manhattan must appear like Gomorrah. If you believe that homosexuality is a crime punishable by death, as the fundamentalist Islam world believes, then a world of same-sex marriage is surely Sodom.

To Islam, what is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. There is little room in the fundamentalist psyche for a moderate accommodation.

The secular totalitarianisms of the 20th century were discarded lies. Today’s conflict is against a more formidable enemy than Nazism or communism.

Islamic fundamentalism is based on a glorious civilization and a great faith. It can harness, co-opt, and corrupt true and good believers if it has a propitious and toxic enough environment. It has a more powerful logic than either Stalin’s or Hitler’s godless ideology.

We have to somehow defeat this without defeating or even opposing a great religion that is nonetheless extremely inexperienced in the toleration of other ascendant and more powerful faiths. It is hard to underestimate the extreme delicacy and difficulty of this task.

What is really at issue here is the simple but immensely difficult principle of the separation of politics and religion. We are fighting not for our country as such. We are fighting for the universal principles of our Constitution--and the possibility of free religious faith that it guarantees.

C. The Liberal, Modern World versus 7th Century Ideals

After 9/11, when asked what would be the solution to fighting terrorism, a female pacifist said to me, “Just give them have what they want.” Let’s start with a few things we know they want:

* Women are to remain indoors.
* When they go out, women must be completely covered up, even in 110 degree temperatures.
* Women are to receive no education.
* If women have outside-of-marriage sex, they will be stoned to death.
* There will be no practice of any religion other than Islam.
* In order to advance in society, one must be a practicing Muslim.

Are any of these things acceptable to anyone in the Western World?

Are there just a relatively few who want these things? It is estimated that 10% of Muslims support Al-Qaeda. In a democratic political campaign, that would be a pretty insignificant number. But in hard numbers, it amounts to 130-140 million people, the approximate population of Russia, or half the population of the United States.

Politically, the rest of the world is made up of four groups:

1. Pacifists and Appeasers. While a small group, they have developed the habit of being able to organize and demonstrate at the drop of a hat. One would think that having experienced dealing with the schoolyard bully in school that they would realize how ineffective this approach has been.

It is safe to say that pacifism has accomplished literally nothing in the history of mankind in fighting fascism and totalitarianism. The most famous appeaser, Neville Chamberlain, said on the eve of the Munich conference in September, 1938: “How horrible, how fantastic, how incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing!” He brought back to Europe a “deal” with Hitler that would give us “peace in our time.”

2. Political Opportunists. This group is composed of people who in the United States and outside of the United States who find it politically beneficial to undermine or attempt to undermine efforts to fight the war on terrorism. This is not only wrong-headed, but also extremely dangerous in today’s world.

3. Those in denial. Their big proposal to fight the global war on terrorism is to add 100,000 “first responders” to the ranks of firefighters and emergency medical personnel in cities and towns across the United States. In other words: Wait until the terrorists strike us again and then do a really, really good job of cleaning up the mess afterwards.

Of course, our brave firefighters, cops and emergency personnel need better training and equipment to respond in the event of another attack. But responders, no matter how courageous, prevent nothing. Dialing 911 is not the solution to stopping another 9/11.

The federal prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers in our civilian court system demonstrated the pitfalls of prosecuting the War on Terror like an episode of the former television show “Ally McBeal”--a pathetic courtroom comedy. The trials gave the bin Laden network a multi-million-dollar, tax subsidized defense team, free translation services, and access to information that was allegedly used by Islamists “to become more adept at eluding surveillance.”

The Bush administration has moved beyond reactively serving terrorists with their legal papers to proactively busting sleeper cells, detaining enemy combatants before they set off their bombs, setting up military tribunals, and deporting Arab and Muslim illegal alien suspects.

What are the alternatives being offered? Buying more walkie-talkies and playing “People’s Court” with Islamic mass murderers.

The prophet Muhammad said: “I have been commanded to fight against people until they confess that there is no God but Allah and that I am His Messenger.” The radicals see themselves as continuing a conflict that’s gone on for 14 centuries. It started long before economic issues ever existed and will continue long after they are solved.

Radical Muslims are using core texts of Islam that are deeply rooted in Islamic theology, tradition, history, and law to justify their actions, and those radical Muslims are able to recruit and motivate terrorists around the world by appealing to these core Islamic texts. As far as the radical, violent element of the religion go, they are very deeply rooted, and we are naive in the extreme if we don’t recognize that.
Islam is unique among religions in having a developed doctrine theology in law that mandates violence against nonbelievers. Non-Muslims are not to be given equality of rights, but denied various jobs because they’re not allowed to hold authority over Muslims.

4. The fourth group is composed of those leaders and countries willing to fight the war for the Western World. International institutions and alliances are capable of meaningfully addressing the terrorist menace. There must be a willingness of free nations, when the last resort arrives, to restrain aggression and evil by force.

Our commitment must be to the global expansion of democracy, and the hope and progress it brings, as the alternative to instability and hatred and terror.

The stakes in that region could not be higher. If the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export.
These terrorists target the innocent, and they kill by the thousands. And they would, if they gain the weapons they seek, kill by the millions and not be finished. The greatest threat of our age is nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists and the dictators who aid them.

Despite what the news media constantly berates as a failure, the United States has had considerably more success in turning Iraq around than we have had in turning the ghettos around with our 40-year "War on Poverty."

Is the appeasement route satisfactory? Appeasement is the short term solution of temporarily getting the aggressors off your back, hoping they will kill you last.

Everyone points to Ghandi and Martin Luther King where pacifism has worked. In the case of Ghandi, it was an internal struggle within India against a colonial power. In the case of Martin Luther King, it was an internal effort for equality within the United States. Neither Ghandi nor King would have lived long enough to have us even know their names if Stalin, Hitler, Milosevic, or Hussein had been leading Great Britain or the United States.

Can anyone name a single situation where pacifism has worked in international affairs? When has appeasement ever worked to stop a dictator?

Did appeasement stop Hitler? Did delays in use of force have any affect on Milosevic? In Bosnia? In Kosovo? Would Israel even still exist if they were pacifist in 1948? In 1956? In 1967? In 1973? Today? Did the arms inspectors and pacifists help the 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis that Saddam Hussein killed (600,000 under the age of 5)?

Did a pacifist United Nations help the 700,000 Tutsis slaughtered in Rwanda? Did turning a “blind eye” stop the chopping off of limbs in Sierra Leone? Did inaction save the 2,000,000 Cambodians killed by Pol Pot? Did the Buddhists’ pacifism help them in Tibet against the Chinese Army? Did the pacifist movement in the United States in the late 1930’s save 6,000,000 Jews?

Is anyone convinced that the Islamist terrorism is going to go away anytime soon?

They didn’t “get mad” at us because of the war in Iraq. In 1993, they bombed the World Trade Center in New York the first time. This was before President Bush was even governor of Texas. In 1998, they bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. That was four years before the Iraqi war and 2 ½ years before Bush was president.

In 2000, they bombed the USS Cole, killing U.S. sailors. That was two years before the Iraqi war and before Bush was president. On September 11, 2001, 19 Muslim Arabs flew airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, killing 3,000 innocent men and women at their jobs. This was 1 ½ years before the Iraqi war. Living in denial or “hating Bush” is not going to make that go away. Does anyone think that denial will make us safer?

This is a war. It is a war that may last for our lifetimes. While one death is too many, the soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last five-plus years might well be saving hundreds of thousands of lives in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and other major cities in the United States.

Do we wait until we are attacked again? Do we wait for those who want us to fail to support us? Do we elect those to protect us who think we can persuade the Islamists to “play nice” or “give them what they want”?

It is time to be aware of the greatest threat to peace in our lifetime: Islamofascism.

My oldest son dropped out of college in 2000 and joined the Army. They were going to give him interesting training (airborne intel) and we weren't at war with anyone at the time ....

What they told him about this very issue during his training sent him back to civilian life with the emotional equivalent of a large rock on his chest. He and I talked about it a couple of times. Basically, something big and bad has decided to take us down. We will probably win, but it will take a good 15 years. Better to be in the heartland than a coastal city. Yes there will be more 'incidents'.

He took pictures on the ship as he came back from the war. All through the Suez, a small Egyptian military boat accompanied them - to prevent another Cole.