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| Home Front: Politix |
| Bush basics |
| 2005-08-20 |
| By Diana West It's not enough to say that world affairs are in a crazy state and leave it at that -- which is exactly what I did last week in outlining how the United States is effectively boosting the spread of sharia law and the Iranian sphere of influence in the Middle East. It's easy to say this is nuts. But what do we do now? It's time to get back to basics. And by basics, I mean getting back to First Term W., back to when the president's strategy to defend and protect the United States was to take military action against terrorists and the nations that sponsor them. By unfortunate contrast, the security strategy of Second Term W. is best described as bringing universal suffrage to these same terrorists and the nations that sponsor them. Getting back to Bush basics requires a re-reckoning of what and why we fight -- and, just as important, for what and why we don't fight. Do we fight to spread democracy? Or do we fight to stop jihad? Far better to fight to stop jihad. Second Term W. believes democratic principles will neutralize jihad -- a.k.a. "extremism" in the strangled parlance of political correctness. It may not be polite to notice, but the nasty reality is that jihad is neutralizing democratic principles. The fact the administration must reckon with is that the concept of human rights -- the ideals of liberty and justice for all -- isn't a natural by-product of majority rule. Islamic terrorists still support Islamic terrorism, even when, as in the Palestinian Authority or Lebanon, they are democratically elected; and sharia erodes human rights even when, as in Afghanistan and likely Iraq, it is implicitly mandated by a constitution. It's time for the administration to consider the possibility that the democratic process alone -- constitutions, legislatures, ballot boxes -- doesn't result in Jeffersonian democracy. Such a re-reckoning doesn't mean abandoning Iraq. But it does mean reordering our goals. Forget the Iraqi constitution for now. More important is a single-minded effort to eradicate the death squads that destabilize the country and threaten to exhaust our staying power. Getting back to Bush basics, that means taking action against the nations that sponsor these terrorists: Iran, for instance. Tragically for the human race, the strategy articulated by First Term W. is a novel, never-before-implemented doctrine. Re-reading Claire Sterling's "The Terror Network," a 1980 work of careful analysis that unraveled the Soviet-sponsored tangle of terrorists from the Baader-Meinhof Gang (now defunct) to various Palestinian terror groups (now approaching statehood), drives home the shocking fact that throughout the 1970s the first real "fright decade" of terrorist kidnappings, assassinations, embassy takeovers and bombings designed to destabilize mainly Europe, often in the name of Palestinianism -- the Western democracies never took action against, never even mentioned the names of, terrorism's state sponsors. This was the time of the Cold War, and a craven policy of "soft neutrality" toward the terror masters in the Kremlin and its proxies prevailed. More astonishing, the democracies never took action against the extensive network of martial training camps that turned out tens of thousands of deadly terrorists, not only in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European "bloc" countries, but also in Cuba, Libya, Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, South Yemen and North Korea. These camps for killers -- camps for killing democracy -- functioned freely under clear skies never penetrated by a NATO bomber. This was a moral surrender that undermined Western civilization to an incalculable extent. Nothing really changed (Ronald Reagan's one-time bombing of Libya notwithstanding) until September 11 and George W. Bush. This little history lesson should ring a bell, particularly in light of Time magazine's report about how Iran has marched its Revolutionary Guard units into Iraq to kill Americans -- units that, according to Time, train in Iraq's Sadr City district, Lebanon and "another country" (very possibly diplospeak for Iran). Putting this together with a most encouraging discussion of America's massive Air Force potential against proto-nuclear Iran from The Guardian (flagged by the blog View from the Right) makes me wonder: Can Iraq ever be stabilized without defanging Iran? Shouldn't there be, for starters, a big bull's-eye on these Iranian training camps? Such questions need addressing. It's not enough for Donald Rumsfeld in an interview to refer, glancingly, to Iranian interference in Iraq, or for the president to let drop that "all options are on the table" regarding Iran's compliance with international nuclear regulation. We need to be educated, not left wondering in what sounds like pusilanimous silence. We need to be prepared. We need First Term W. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #4 The strength of liberty is quite robust, either you believe in it or you don't. Freedom works, trust in that. |
| Posted by: Clavilet Angesh8422 2005-08-20 20:03 |
| #3 While I agree with some of what the author said, this comment is primarily to say *bravo* to Moose and echo many of the same sentiments. Regards the article, Bush has, indeed, slackened the pace - I hope to consolidate gains, realign and refresh resources, and prepare for Round Two. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt over the author, because he has a history of taking action to back up his words. I will be the most disappointed person on the planet if he fails to follow up. Obviously Iran, driven by time and events, is the next serious challenge. He must meet it with what he has on hand when the time comes - wishing, sniping, and bitching won't affect it. I believe he will. As to Moose's comment, you rang many of the same bells I feel are important when I attempt to post on so complex a topic as true democratic ideals - and their end product, personal freedom. Agreed, once experienced and appreciated instead of feared, everything else is immediately and simply hateful, vile, intolerable. Nothing less will do, ever again. The desire for Freedom is an emotional addiction - and emotions drive people, not logic, and not even traditions and customs can withstand it forever. It can be a bitch to seed in hostile environments - and Islam + Arab Tribal "society" + absolute Dictatorships / Monarchies / Mullahcracies make almost the harshest imaginable... I picture it as 90% automatons, 9% sycophants, and 1% unchallenged controllers who are fighting for their very existence against it, trampling out individualism at every turn and resorting to killing their own to maintain power. But it's an idea that won't die as long as one person "gets it". Heh, it's like kudzu or bamboo - once rooted, it's there to stay. That's not to suggest it won't take generations, however. I figure that will be the case in both Iraq and Afghanistan. They have a lot of catching up to do in an environment purpose-built to prevent it. Again, your post really hit the spot, Moose. *standing ovation* |
| Posted by: .com 2005-08-20 16:33 |
| #2 Democracy is not so fragile as she supposes. In fact, it has an extraordinary combination of factors that may eventually prove it to be a slow, but irresistable force in the world. First of all is its organization. Visible is the powerful balanced hierarchy of its leaders; what a traditional oriental thinker might call its "masculine" trait. Invisible is the "masses" from where that power derives; its feminine trait. The masses are amorphous, coalescing into ad hoc, volitile and unpredictable groups to flesh out this powerful masculine hierarchy by voting. Add the two traits together and you can order and change; whichever is the mood of the people. There is an expression: "People eventually get the kind of government they want." By silently resisting and cooperating, they can train even an invader army to go along to get along. Democracy truly is what people want--to choose their own leaders. An obvious choice, the safest one there is. People who choose otherwise would also elect to obey orders instead of choosing their own way. Such is the way of sheep heading to the slaughterhouse. Any government stands or falls based upon a ratio of "government efficiency". It is simple, the ratio of what a government promises vs. what it actually delivers. Promise little and deliver it, and you will remain the government. Promise much and don't deliver, and you will be deposed. Ironically, it doesn't really matter *what* you promise, good or bad, as long as you deliver. Democracy promises much; but it can do so because it has rapid feedback from the people. It knows what they want, and knows it had better deliver or it will be replaced with someone who either doesn't make promises he can't keep, or delivers on those he does. So what opposes democracy? First of all, the "priests" and the "royals". "Priests", the shamen, ministers and imams say that all law and organization are dictated from heaven. And this law can only be dictated by them, as the voice of heaven. Theirs are the "moral" laws, and violations of those laws are "immoral". To challenge those laws is "blasphemous." Democracy creates laws written "Of men, by men, and for men", no god or gods needed. And if men want to change the law, they do so. To follow the law in a democracy means that one is "ethical", not necessarily "moral". But though the dictionary equates the two, democrats inherently know the difference. And they distrust those politicians who claim to be "moral", as they would distrust that policitician's priest, and his particular interpretation of "morality", if he wants to inflict it on them. "Royals" are much like "priests", in that they are elitists, thinking themselves so superior to everyone else that their dictates, based on their wisdom, should be the law. "Royals" still exist in those individuals who seek to undermine democracy from within, such as EU bureaucrats. "-isms" also oppose democracy. Tribalism, racism, sexism, socialism, fascism, communism, etc. And both groups, the "priests" and "royals", and the "-isms", always seem to take the upper hand, expecially in a new democracy. But this is deceptive. What would you expect when such entrenched and institutionalized forces meet that new upstart revolution? But revolutionary it is. Perhaps North Korea is the only remaining country on Earth that does not have at least some hidden democrats among its people. Democrats look like anyone else, and generally behave themselves even in a bitter dictatorship, but they are always there, waiting for their chance. The Saud family was recently shaken to its roots, not by the realization that there were Jihadis in its ranks, but democrats. And as surely as they knew they had them, they had no idea as to who, among their kin, they were. There can be no greater threat to their dictatorial rule than democrats--the democratic "disease" spreading unpredictably, but inexorably, throughout their kingdom. Right now, the entire Middle East faces what Europe faced in 1847. Democrats are everywhere, spreading their revolution. People become democrats without even fully knowing it, like a contagious philosophy. And once they become a democrat, they can't go back. In 1848, democratic revolutions spread to every country in Europe but two. What could mere Jihad do in the face of such an overwhelming enemy? |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-20 12:43 |
| #1 She makes a lot of important points, not all of which I agree with. I'll think about this and see what others have to say before commenting further. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-08-20 08:43 |