A difficult balancing act

Submitted by Reuben Horne (Australia), Sep 11, 2005 at 20:47

Dr Pipes,
Whilst I agree in general with the remarks you have made, there are a few cynical realities that have not penetrated this brief essay. First of all whilst the American strategic position has improved because of the invasion in certain respects there are manners in which it has decayed. Whilst possessing the military might and strength of will to invade Iraq, the United States has fallen short of the will to discipline states such as Syria who are very closely connected to and funding the present insurgency. Perhaps the rationale for this is that the US is more concerned about a potential broadening of the conflict conventionally. Perhaps in the face of international criticism the US does not want to be seen as a universal aggressor.

The fact remains however that a conventional broadening of the conflict might indeed suit the United States strategically because it seems that US soldiers are dying anyway - they may as well be dying in a form of battle that favors them rather than one that hands an undue advantage to their enemy. Which is to say in the light of Syria's apparent complicity with the dissidents the US should take military measures against that apalling evil state (as they are long overdue).

The only legitimate and intelligent argument that is not driven by fervent anti-Americanism comes (not surprisingly) from conservative commentator and Professor of Law Prof Bainbridge who argues that G W Bush is using Iraq as flypaper to draw terrorists away from the west and push their resources into Iraq. He objects to US soldiers being used as bait in such an exercise morally and believes that it will create a training ground for terrorists (the ones that are left alive anyway).

As for the international criticism - well there's no point trying to avoid this anymore since it seems to be based on who you are rather than what you do. If the US is not militarily active it is criticised for not intervening. If it is militarily active then the President is a "maniac" a warmonger. The sad fact is that Europe can no longer be trusted and has fallen victim to its own folly once again (the next and perhaps final stupidity after facism and communism that will see its destruction). Bat Ye'or's theory of Europe becoming "Eurabia" is verifiable and convincing - as illogical as it seems for a society that has humanist values to embrace their absolute and undeniable opposite. But it has happened mainly due to the pretensions of a cultural and political elite in France who still have the dream of a greater France encompassing great tracts of the Middle East - this empire would be if not military then strategic and cultural. Surprisingly most of Europe has hopped on board. The elite in question demonstrate total and complete removal from the real world and the people that they govern. In France alone 5 million Muslims live in ghettos that are dangerous for even heavily armed police to traverse. These places are havens for violent crime and staging areas for criminals, gang rapes are also common no doubt fueled by Islamic contempt for the sexual habits of western females. But these facts affect and concern only the common Frenchman and he like the common Australian, common American and common Englishman has had the decision concerning cultural preservation and immigration taken safely out of his hands. After all as the Left wing intelligensia are keen to point out they are all "racist" (a word which the left has put considerable time and energy into defining as broadly as possible so that it can be used as a political weapon).

It's also worth noting that Bat Ye'or's Euro Arab dialogue has produced most of the propaganda that the left wing in Australia, the UK and America take as absolute and indisputable fact on any matter concerning Islam. This is in the face of numerous atrocities, the phenomenon of Islam's "bloody borders" and direct quotation from the Koran all contradicting the material in question. The tremendous volume of pro Islamic material means that a left wing person can spend his or her entire life drawing from the bottomless well of self affirming platitudes rather than deal with its hard realities. To this I must point out that in order to test a proposition in the Social Sciences one must attempt to disprove it - not constantly seek out information that proves your hypothesis. But then the quality of thought in western education systems has been on the slide and ideological indoctrination - teaching students "what" to think rather than "how" to think - has risen to take its place.

In summary the US, much like Israel, cannot frame its actions in such a way as to avoid criticism short of committing cultural, military and economic suicide like Europe. Thankfully Ariel Sharon has discovered this fact and is beginning to take solid steps along the road to achieving these three objectives. America, Australia and England on the other hand seem to have embraced a degree of wicked reticence where these things are concerned. But the left should take heart - they still have blanket control of media coverage, control of the education system (as well as education theory) and an iron grip on the Hollywood dream factory. They'll destroy our wicked society yet.
Cheers,
Reuben Horne.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".