Sanction of the Victim
This has been an incredible week in the ongoing culture clash between the western democracies and radical Islam. In a series of events right out of the Onion or Monty Python, radical Muslims around the world protested the Pope calling them violent with ... waves of violence. Once his remarks were proven right in such an obvious and public way the Pope reacted by ... apologizing for his remarks.**
I am tired of apologizing to radical Islam (for some silly, bland cartoons, for god sakes!) I am tired of bending over backwards into pretzels to give them the benefit of the doubt. I am extremely tired of being told these folks are just aggrieved and in reality they share my values, because it is very very clear that they don't share my values. I am tired of being told most Muslims are peaceful -- when these peaceful folks give their sanction and support to the violent ones and accept the most radical as their leaders.
Radical Islam is, with the downfall of soviet communism and the painfully gradual opening up of China, the most illiberal force in the modern world. By a long shot. It treats individual life with contempt, has no concept of rights, and in particular treats women far worse than apartheid South Africa ever treated blacks. The theocracy we fear from certain Republican 700 Club folks is like 3.2 beer compared to full 200 proof Islamic theocratic fascism.
I don't know why the left in this country has been hesitant to call out illiberal practices in the Middle East as vociferously as they have in other circumstances. A part of this hesitation is probably opposition to the Iraq war, and fear that denouncing radical Islam for its faults might somehow give the administration a stronger mandate for more military adventures. A less charitable explanation is that the hesitation is an extension of political correctness and cultural relativism run wild).
Well, I opposed the Iraq war: The Augean stables are just too dirty to clean up by sending the military from dictator to dictator. I will go further and say I actually think the terrorist threat is exaggerated (and yes I do remember 9/11) in order to keep giving the FBI more powers and help politicians get elected. Get tough on terrorism is sort of the new get tough on crime election speak.
But I don't think the threat to liberal values posed by Islamic fundamentalism is exaggerated. And the first step in fighting it is to not give it, as Ayn Rand would say, the sanction of the victim. People sometimes email me and say "who are we to talk -- America is not clean." I will agree we have our warts - and much of this blog is taken up with pointing some of them out. But what I always tell people, and still believe, is the following:
The US does harm when we fail to live up to our values. Radical Islam does harm when they successfully pursue what they value.
**Postscript: I don't pretend to understand all the 13th century quotations in the Pope's speech. I don't think it matters. If he had simply said "radical Islam preaches too much violence and it has to stop" he would have gotten the same reaction. By the way, every person in the world seems to say bad things about the US, many of these comments are untrue or apply only to a minority of our leaders and not to myself. I can't remember anyone ever apologizing to me. This story that Muslims will do more violence unless the Pope apologizes some more reminds me of Sir Robin in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Perhaps if we run away more..."
And here is my message to the right -- I acknowledge that radical Islamic leaders treat apologies, backing-down, etc. as weakness to be exploited rather than preludes to reasonable compromise. For this reason, I thought the invasion of Afghanistan was a necessity. However, this general fact does NOT automatically justify the Iraq war. If it did, it would also justify invading any Islamic country we want. I still don't understand the strategic sense of Iraq and now we are stuck there, because I agree that once in, backing off will only embolden the radicals in the area to further hi-jinx.
Chris Yeh:
Warren, this may be one of your best posts. Thank you.
September 19, 2006, 1:33 pmJosh:
I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to formulate my feelings on this subject for a while now. You basically said everything I've wanted to say.
Great Post.
September 19, 2006, 6:55 pmdoug:
Warren,
September 20, 2006, 12:04 amRight on....reminds me of a line from a song I dig...."either you are with me or you gonna be without me". The Bush administration has taken this to mean any opposition is unpatriotic, when this is untrue and unfair.We are indeed in Dire Straits
The Bush administration is an "unvarnished disaster" with its foreign policy based on corporate earnings, as Cheney has so aptly demonstrated (yech)
However, notwithstanding,
The "Moezzies" are going to try and crush us with their intolorence. No problem the leaders of the Muslim world painting pictures of the West as a violent and racist society, but say anything negative about them and there are riots in the streets.
Is there any winning...I do not think so.
I cannot see any solution to this spreading problem....I only feel concerned about the generation coming up now. They will have their hands full.
AS the leader of Hezbollah so aptly put it, and a general feeling in the Muslim world...."Israel loves life and we love death"...this is the reason they will strap bombs to 17 year olds who are looking forward to blowing themselves up...how do you deal with this mentality?
70 virgins sounds nice, but to die for, I think not!!
Craig:
Please explain how you think the terrorist threat is "exaggerated". They just tried to bomb multiple flights on the way here from Britain. Terrorists are plotting every day to launch attacks here and abroad. They haven't been succeeding lately, thanks, I believe, to our government's efforts, even though we need to do more.
September 20, 2006, 10:54 amJohn T. Kennedy:
Craig,
"Please explain how you think the terrorist threat is "exaggerated". They just tried to bomb multiple flights on the way here from Britain.
Exaggerated like that, they didn't even have tickets.
Warren,
Here's what was hard for Muslims to swallow in the Pope's remarks: He quotes a Christian emperor, with apparent approval, strongly implying that Mohammed brought nothing but evil to Islam. Theologically, that's highly provocative. It's effectively a call to abandon Islam completely, since Islam without Mohammed is practically inconceivable.
Of course none of this remotely justifies violence against the Pope or other catholics.
September 22, 2006, 10:48 ammrsizer:
I still don't understand the strategic sense of Iraq
Look at a map. It should jump right out at you.
What I don't understand is the tactical sense of Iraq. We probably should have waited a year or so longer.
Great post.
September 23, 2006, 8:14 pmmrsizer:
I don't pretend to understand all the 13th century quotations in the Pope's speech. I don't think it matters.
It doesn't matter to the Muslim audience. It's of potentially great significance to the European audience.
Paula Cella at RedState (no link handy) looked at the history. It's pretty interesting. The son of Manuel II - the dude, uh, emperor being quoted - was nailed to the city wall when it was overrun by the Turks. This was after the son toured Europe begging for help.
If there is anything behind the reference - and I think there must be, why else not make it simple, as you suggest - then it is entirely possible that the pope sees for his successor a situation comparable to Manuel II's son. Not a pretty picture.
Hopefully the next Pope will have the sense to move the Vatican to American before Rome is overrun by barbarians, again. (btw: Birthrate in Italy is 1.4 - demographic suicide.)
September 23, 2006, 8:21 pmMike Schneider:
Craig> "Please explain how you think the terrorist threat is "exaggerated".
Craig> They just tried to bomb multiple flights on the way here from Britain.
>
Kennedy> Exaggerated like that, they didn't even have tickets.
What's that supposed to mean, John? It's an "exaggeration" to assert they were going to blow some planes up *before* all the pre-planning was done and the perps were at the boarding gates with their tickets?
-- Which is all beside the point that "terrorism", per se, is merely a SUBSET of the general on-going war of Islam against everything for over a thousand years. For every foiled (or not foiled) "big" plot that grabs headlines each year, there are a hundred other "ordinary" slaughters sprinkled around the world. If nations were wheat-fields, then a quarter of the earth is affected by an advancing, withering blight. (Malaysia and Indonesia, promising "economic tigers" in the '80s? Kiss 'em goodbye.)
You all have front-row seats to World War IV.
September 26, 2006, 11:25 amEnjoy the show, and please turn off your cellphones.