The jihadist attack on innocent London residents as they made their way to work during the morning rush hour two weeks ago, and the subsequent failed attack, illuminate the grim reality of this era. Despite all of the claims about assimilating radical Moslems or moderating their sentiments, it is clear that whatever Western motives may be, jihadist goals are unremitting: undiluted destruction and sanguinary nihilism.
With another 700 injured and at least 50 killed, it is time to face this truth. These fanatics are intent on killing and maiming as many people as they can. Negotiations are not possible. With whom would one negotiate in any case?
Difficult as it may be for well meaning liberals to accept, jihadists are different from those of us who share Judeo-Christian principles. They are at war with the West and it is a war in which civilization itself is at risk.
This is not merely a war for hearts and minds, it is a war of life and death. The West is at the crossroads. It is one thing to say, as Tony Blair has, that we will prevail. How we will prevail; what we must do to prevail? These need to be answered.
It is instructive that MI5 reports that “only 1 percent of Muslims in the U.K. are extremists.” However, that one percent translates into 16,000 potential terrorists. The “only” in the intelligence report speaks volumes about British political correctness.
A call for realism is in order. We can no longer tolerate sermons from mosques that justify slaughter or martyrdom. We can no longer allow foreign-born, noncitizen fanatics to live in our nation or any civilized nation where they plan attacks or marshal support for attacks. We can no longer simply assume that through Herculean effort radical Muslims will embrace the essential creed of our civilization. We can no longer allow our Constitution to be used against Americans. Freedom of religion is not freedom to promote carnage. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Even after 9/11 our Secretary of Transportation refused to consider “profiling.” From any perspective he was more intent on the maintenance of a liberal agenda than public safety. That decision is a metaphor for the war on terror. We cannot fight this war effectively with at least one hand tied behind our backs.
Now that body parts have been exploded on to London streets, the public may awaken from its tranquilized state. This war depends on an all-out effort to win. Half measures won’t do, nor will good-will. The time has come to remove our ideological shackles and fight this war with every once of strength we, as a people, can muster. Our destiny and the destiny of our civilization depend on it.
A longer version of this item appeared on FrontPage magazine.
16 comments:
Mr. London, welcome. The already interesting brouhaha here just got even more interesting.
Even a cursory look at any thread here should indicate that I'm one of your "well-meaning liberals." And I couldn't disagree with you more.
I am not opposed to a military solution to terrorism, rather than a law enforcement one. I was quite swayed by Caleb Carr's "The Lessons of Terror." Our initial campaign in Afghanistan was a good idea. Too bad we botched it, but the theory was sound.
As for confrontation, why don't we ask the Israelis how well confrontation with a "foreign" culture of extremists has gone for them, eh? Is that little boondoggle over yet? No?
I'm curious: Have you ever read Lee Harris's "Civilization and Its Enemies"? There are some ideas in there that you might want to consider, as well as some that'll be right up your alley.
As someone whose family has been peripherally involved in San Jose politics his whole life, I can tell you that your evaluation of Norman Mineta leaves a lot to be desired. Were you aware that Norman Mineta and his family were among the Japanese-Americans and Japanese-born to be interred in camps during WWII? Perhaps you should leave the opinions on racial profiling to someone who's actually been racially profiled, eh?
See, now that's a nice rebuttal.
You guys are like two boy wonders without any Batman. I wish the Reform Clubbers would resume the usual programming without your tiresome "Holy Cow, Batman" crap.
A call for realism is in order.
Fifty years ago, Herman Kahn was at RAND bringing realism to the then very new debates about military and political strategy in the newly nuclear world. He and his colleagues were demonized because it was claimed that even thinking systematically about nuclear strategy made nuclear war more likely to come about. But eventually Kahn's thought formed the basis for the way everyone thought about nuclear strategy.
It seems to me that we're in the same position now, but I don't see anyone like Kahn trying to lay out strategic visions and tactical scenarios based on the clearest reason that can be mustered. Maybe that's just because military and foreign policy is in no way my area of study, and I'm just unfamiliar with what is being discussed and planned.
If you try to "profile" the terrorist using such social markers as class or ethnicity, maybe even religious background, you will go badly astray.
Which is why the actual profiling used by any self-respecting law enforcement (as opposed to the fairy tale version told by the ACLU) is based on observed behavior. But we're not even allowed to do that in Norm Mineta's Wonderful World of Flight, we have to put up with Norwegian grandmothers having their girdles wanded and knitting needles confiscated in the Minneapolis airport.
Tlaloc, this is one of the things about you that has bothered me since the beginning, although it is the one area of your professed anarchism that appears to be real. For some reason, you are utterly incapable of giving respect to formal learning and position. I suppose you think such things are as random as lottery winnings.
Dr. London is the head of one of the better think tanks in the nation. He has earned his authority as an analyst of culture and politics.
Now, you may disagree with him. There is no doubt about that. However, it would be greatly to my liking if you would accord him the respect to which is entitled.
Mr. Elliott frequently finds that his sense of decency gets the better of him and I'm happy when it does, but you are a bad influence on him. I often wonder whether you and he are the same person and he pulls out Tlaloc when he's feeling his oats.
Believe me, Hunter, I may be a pinko commie socialist domestically, but I'm no anarchist. Tlaloc's doing fine all on his own.
It's hard enough that I take as much time as I do away from writing my book to have fun here. If I was Tlaloc, too, I'd never get anything done.
Thank goodness classes are starting again soon.
Oh, my, Mr. T, if the folks want to troll the deep dark dank depths of Juan Cole & Co.'s swampy brains, they can do it for themselves.
I don't mean to play mother hen, but it's best to bring one's own thoughts to the table, and reserve links for establishing fact, from credible sources like CNN and the (hehe) New York Times.
And please---if I may---insulting another's integrity or intelligence only serves to bring one's own into disrepute. DefCon4-type incivility is for the kiddie table, or as some like to call it, the lefty blogosphere. ;-)
This is the Star Trek universe where Spock doesn't have a beard. Much harder to fit in, I know.
(BTW, I happen to differ a bit with Dr. London's thesis for my own reasons. But sitting at the grownups table obliges one to let the man catch his breath a bit first.)
Let's use a simple, commonplace example for why confrontational strategies broadly applied to terrorism don't work: Israel.
Israel has been combatting Arab hatred and Palestinian nationalism (which is now being co-opted my Muslim fundamentalist extremism) with confrontational tactics for decades.
When have we seen the most successful phases of attempts to make peace in that region? When the Israelis use a unilateral withdrawal and negotiation strategy. It's not easy. It's not all that safe in the beginning. But it is effective.
Look what happened in the last seven to eight years. Ariel Sharon gained power in a backlash against Ehud Barak's policy of withdrawal and negotiation (which was working).
What policy is Ariel Sharon now persuing after his decades-long commitment to confrontational tactics? Withdrawal and negotiation.
Now, this is not a perfectly direct analogy because the Israelis have a pseudo-legitimate entity with which to negotiate (the Palestinian Authority).
America has adapted the strategy of confrontation into the "flypaper" strategy. We gotta "fight them over there instead of here." Now, if this strategy had anything remotely resembling legitimacy, we could ask the people of Egypt and Great Britain how secure they feel right now and be pleased with their answer.
Or, we could ask the question, "How's al-Qaida doing?" Answer: "Bigger, more diffuse, with more affiliates, and harder to catch than ever." Hmm. Not exactly what we were going for, is it?
An example of the confrontation strategy properly applied would be the opening salvoes of Afghanistan.
This "struggle to save civilization" crap has just got to go. It's nothing more than hyperbole.
For the record, I don't think I've ever accused you of being stupid, T, just intellectually dishonest and not necessarily purposely so. Of course, we're trying to hash that out over in Gitmo land, eh?
Oh, and Herb, welcome to the blogosphere. The rest of it isn't like this, it's far worse.
I kid you not.
Every "once" we can muster, huh? Is your secretary gone for the week, Mr. London?
I'll tuck this in here, because it blows my mind, frankly, and I want to bring attention to it. According to the the Torygraph, France is fixing to deport its hatemonger imams, even if they hold citizenship.
I may voice my disagreement with Dr. London's thesis later, but in the meantime, at least one European nation agrees fully.
(Courtesy of the Christians United Against the New Anti-Semitism (CUANAS), a worthy and very hardworking blog. He's a bud of mine.)
Oh, I'm very conflicted about it, LA. But the first right is not speech, it is survival itself.
Oh, there's more to it than that.
Humankind has and will always regulate freedom in favor of survival in countless ways. Survival is an absolute; you're either alive or dead. Freedom is relative.
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