A War not A Politically Correct Boondoggle

Fire of Liberty

Upon a further review of the events of the riots of Afghanistan and Newsweek's brief but fraudulent reporting on the Koran being flushed down the toilet, I'd have to conclude that Newsweek did some shoddy work but probably wasn't the whole cause of the problem. Now, I'm not going to blame the US military or US policies like ABC's Terry Moran and The NY Times Elisabeth Bumiller have done but I do believe that the report did provide the much needed fuel for the Islamic radical rabble-rausers to gin up the crowd and send them to the streets. What the US needs to do is get away from this frightened mouse syndrome when it comes to our adversaries. We are in a war with a dangerous fundamentalistic ideology that has infected a sub-section of the Islamic world with thoughts of restoring its seventh century caliphate via extreme violence.

These mavens of a bloody death could care less about how much the West apologizes or begs for forgiveness, they only believe in one thing which is "kill the infidel." Now it's true that most people in the US realize that these harbingers of death represent only a small percentage of the Arab World, they also realize that the whole Islamic terrorist movement is clearly a Middle Eastern phenomenon that can only be solved by eliminating these problematic terrorists and the states that sponsor them and replace them with a democratic nation (with an Mid East flavor). Just look how far Afghanistan and Iraq have come since the US and its allies stepped in and eliminated the problem. I'd have to say that Victor Davis Hanson captured these sentiments best in his most recent piece over at National Review Online. In this wonderful piece, VDH notes that no matter how much we bow down to the "offended" in this part of the World to assuage their tempers, we are on a fools errand because our enemies want nothing but our death and downfall. VDH puts the burden of guilt where it rightly goes which is on the shoulders of the Islamic fundamentalists. Just read what VDH has to add to the frey:

So we do not dare remind the world that we have nothing to apologize for, given that we have expended lives and treasure in Afghanistan to improve a country that once helped to butcher us. Most of those rioting and killing idolize bin Laden. The problem is not that they are confused, but that they express exactly what they feel — and that is a deep hatred for Western liberalism, manifested on their now sacred day of September 11. We don't say such rude things, not only because it would be stupid politics, but because we don't quite believe them ourselves anymore.

In that sense, we can be as warped as the Afghan rioter. Westerners have their own delusions. We seem to think that our neat gadgets also equate with an ability to refashion human nature or that a fascist abroad needs to know how much we care about his hurt.

There is a sort of arrogance in the liberal West — the handmaiden to our own guilt and self-loathing — that strangely believes we are both to blame for the ills abroad and alone can solve them through handing out money. Almost all of the pathetic rhetoric of al Qaeda — "colonial exploitation," "American hegemony," or "blood for oil" — was as imported from the West as were the terrorists' bombs and communications.

Some Western intellectuals, I think, need a bin Laden to illustrate and confirm their nihilistic ideas about their own postmodern society, just as he needs them to explain why his culture's failure is not its own fault. So just as al Qaeda will always find an enabling Westerner to say, "You lashed out at us in frustration for your unfair treatment," so too a guilty Westerner will always find a compliant terrorist to boast, "Yes, we kill you for your sins." America was once a country that demolished Hitler and Tojo combined in less than four years and broke the nuclear Soviet Union — and now frets and whines that a few thousand deranged fascists want an apology.

I just hope that more people in the US and around the World become more enlightened with this way of thinking. A continuation of this "hat in hand" approach will further undermine our fight in this region. We have to be more vigilant and not be pulled into a PC quagmire where we are constantly afraid of setting off another offensive bomb in the Muslim/Arab World. The only way we are going to win this war is by wiping these fundamentalists off the map and implanting the light of democracy in these dark corners of the World.

Also, check out Lee Harris's take on the whole incident in Afghanistan and Newsweek. It hit on some of the same themes as VDH but with Harris's curmudgeonesque flair, which makes for a good read. I believe the readers of Fire of Liberty should find this very interesting. By the way, G-d bless our soldiers and the United States.