Do Whatever It Takes
Mr. Weingarten wrote a lengthy comment in my previous post which is worth you consideration. It presents a vision of the long-term changes required for civilization to triumph over the medieval threat of a resurgent Islam. Comments encouraged.
Do Whatever It Takes
by Allen Weingarten
Jason Pappas had written “In the long-term we need to re-think our whole foreign policy. In the short term I fear it is too late to change the course that has been put into motion.” That being the case, I have made a stab at re-thinking our foreign policy.
American foreign policy has been predicated on spreading democracy, and winning the hearts and minds of our enemies. That this has enabled and bolstered our enemies to do their worst should come as no surprise. Yet even if our approach were sound, it would not constitute a comprehensive and systematic plan for achieving victory. We should note that our enemies do have systematic strategies for winning, utilizing the full gamut of possibilities -- terrorism, negotiations, immigration, sedition, tactical alliances, or any combination thereof. They seek our defeat at every turn, and at any cost.
We on the other hand, follow the European model of the thirties -- accommodation. We have forgotten that it was Churchill, not Chamberlain, who won the “hearts and minds” of the German people, by defeating their dictators. And we have forgotten the cost we paid, in what Churchill termed “the unnecessary war” brought on by that accommodation. It is time to rethink that model, and to begin securing a future for our civilization. This would require changing our perspective from accommodation to providing justice. We would no longer reward those who harm us, but punish them, and provide disincentives.
We would protect our few allies, rather than use them as sacrificial pawns. This would require a restoration of our fundamental precepts of justice, truth, and righteousness, in direct opposition to political correctness. We could then seize the moral high ground, while clarifying that our adversaries are fundamentally immoral. We would speak straight, and never hesitate to refer to the enemy as the barbarian that he is. Then we would establish the objective of defending our civilization, by doing whatever it takes to defeat the enemy. Negotiations would be confined to those that advance our objectives, while precluding the usual forms that have consistently resulted in acceding to the enemy’s agenda.
We would cease subsidizing countries through foreign aid, and instead pay only for services rendered. In battle, we would employ whatever weapons are required to prevail. We would engage in economic and financial warfare to disrupt countries that oppose us, as well as computer and cyber warfare, to hamper their military, commercial, and social systems. Just consider the gain, of hacking into their missile systems to get our enemies to fire on one another, or merely flooding their markets with counterfeit currency.
We would select leaders who have no history of appeasement, but who provide approaches for victory. In every field of endeavor there are a few who have withstood corruption, and have addressed what could succeed. Surely, we would not employ approaches which lend legitimacy to terrorists, either through elections, negotiations, humanitarian aid, or by honoring their untenable rewriting of history.
We would legalize drugs, removing them as a source of profit for our enemies, and at the same time, eliminating the enormous expense to our taxpayers. We could use the McCarran act (as well as loyalty oaths) to undermine the ideological insurgency of the Muslims. We would halt any immigration that was not clearly in America’s interests.
Rather than engage in the pretense that finds virtue in the UN and the Geneva Convention, we would recognize that we are virtually alone in the world, and confine our alliances to those few who are actually on our side.
The American commitment to winning a just war would reinvigorate patriotism in our populace, which would find expression in our films and music, as it did in WWII.
There is a defeatism that avers that we cannot fight those who are willing to die. It is true that Islamists care little for life. Yet there are things that do matter to them. They care about their agenda, so setting it back, after any incursion on their part, registers. They care about infiltration, so throwing out those who do, or those who support them, matters. They do not care about truth, but do care when they are shown to be fraudulent. They do not care about doing wrong, but they do care about being humiliated for so doing. They do not care about lying or scholarship, but they do care about being denied legitimacy, and even more about being ridiculed. They are willing to use their Mosques to attack us, but they care about them being exploded. The Muslims do not care about being awash in blood, but how about spraying some greasy pig fat?
We lack the will to think in terms of victory. Yet “faint heart ne’er won fair maiden” so if we don’t know what we want, we won’t get it. It is disheartening that we seem to be mired in behavior that history has proven disastrous. Perhaps we must experience severe devastation on our own soil, before we address what we have to do to win. Yet once we do consider victory, if it is not too late, there can be many ways to bring it about.
by Allen Weingarten
Jason Pappas had written “In the long-term we need to re-think our whole foreign policy. In the short term I fear it is too late to change the course that has been put into motion.” That being the case, I have made a stab at re-thinking our foreign policy.
American foreign policy has been predicated on spreading democracy, and winning the hearts and minds of our enemies. That this has enabled and bolstered our enemies to do their worst should come as no surprise. Yet even if our approach were sound, it would not constitute a comprehensive and systematic plan for achieving victory. We should note that our enemies do have systematic strategies for winning, utilizing the full gamut of possibilities -- terrorism, negotiations, immigration, sedition, tactical alliances, or any combination thereof. They seek our defeat at every turn, and at any cost.
We on the other hand, follow the European model of the thirties -- accommodation. We have forgotten that it was Churchill, not Chamberlain, who won the “hearts and minds” of the German people, by defeating their dictators. And we have forgotten the cost we paid, in what Churchill termed “the unnecessary war” brought on by that accommodation. It is time to rethink that model, and to begin securing a future for our civilization. This would require changing our perspective from accommodation to providing justice. We would no longer reward those who harm us, but punish them, and provide disincentives.
We would protect our few allies, rather than use them as sacrificial pawns. This would require a restoration of our fundamental precepts of justice, truth, and righteousness, in direct opposition to political correctness. We could then seize the moral high ground, while clarifying that our adversaries are fundamentally immoral. We would speak straight, and never hesitate to refer to the enemy as the barbarian that he is. Then we would establish the objective of defending our civilization, by doing whatever it takes to defeat the enemy. Negotiations would be confined to those that advance our objectives, while precluding the usual forms that have consistently resulted in acceding to the enemy’s agenda.
We would cease subsidizing countries through foreign aid, and instead pay only for services rendered. In battle, we would employ whatever weapons are required to prevail. We would engage in economic and financial warfare to disrupt countries that oppose us, as well as computer and cyber warfare, to hamper their military, commercial, and social systems. Just consider the gain, of hacking into their missile systems to get our enemies to fire on one another, or merely flooding their markets with counterfeit currency.
We would select leaders who have no history of appeasement, but who provide approaches for victory. In every field of endeavor there are a few who have withstood corruption, and have addressed what could succeed. Surely, we would not employ approaches which lend legitimacy to terrorists, either through elections, negotiations, humanitarian aid, or by honoring their untenable rewriting of history.
We would legalize drugs, removing them as a source of profit for our enemies, and at the same time, eliminating the enormous expense to our taxpayers. We could use the McCarran act (as well as loyalty oaths) to undermine the ideological insurgency of the Muslims. We would halt any immigration that was not clearly in America’s interests.
Rather than engage in the pretense that finds virtue in the UN and the Geneva Convention, we would recognize that we are virtually alone in the world, and confine our alliances to those few who are actually on our side.
The American commitment to winning a just war would reinvigorate patriotism in our populace, which would find expression in our films and music, as it did in WWII.
There is a defeatism that avers that we cannot fight those who are willing to die. It is true that Islamists care little for life. Yet there are things that do matter to them. They care about their agenda, so setting it back, after any incursion on their part, registers. They care about infiltration, so throwing out those who do, or those who support them, matters. They do not care about truth, but do care when they are shown to be fraudulent. They do not care about doing wrong, but they do care about being humiliated for so doing. They do not care about lying or scholarship, but they do care about being denied legitimacy, and even more about being ridiculed. They are willing to use their Mosques to attack us, but they care about them being exploded. The Muslims do not care about being awash in blood, but how about spraying some greasy pig fat?
We lack the will to think in terms of victory. Yet “faint heart ne’er won fair maiden” so if we don’t know what we want, we won’t get it. It is disheartening that we seem to be mired in behavior that history has proven disastrous. Perhaps we must experience severe devastation on our own soil, before we address what we have to do to win. Yet once we do consider victory, if it is not too late, there can be many ways to bring it about.
posted by Jason Pappas at 9:37 PM
5 Comments:
Allan brings together several elements united by a fundamental moral righteousness that our cause—indeed our very being—so rightly deserves. If we identify, champion, and embody the values that made us the greatest nation in history, we'll regain our strength, motivation, and stamina to achieve victory.
Our first mistake is “accommodation.” Accommodation and generosity are virtues when dealing with people who share our values. But to our enemy, they only make us look weak, increase their contempt, and encourage even more concessions.
These leads to Allan’s second point: justice. Justice is facing the facts about others and acting accordingly. Those that warrant our friendship should be rewarded, those that warrant our contempt should be treated, in words and deeds, with the contempt they so rightly deserve. One does not accommodate vicious barbarians, one avoids them if one can or crushes them if one has to. And then move on.
The current PC atmosphere prevents the proper vilification of our enemy but allows (and even mandates) self-loathing. We have to learn to champion our greatness and damn our enemies if we are to have the fortitude to go the distance required to defeat them. Victory is the only option.
The moral spirit, rooted in the facts, is not a luxury or trivial epiphenomena. It is the soul and sinew of a man’s virtue. The health of our culture requires its revival.
American foreign policy has been predicated on spreading democracy, and winning the hearts and minds of our enemies.
This has been a fundamental flaw, IMO, reason being that Islam and democracy are antithetical.
And I just love Allan's next-to-last paragraph:
There is a defeatism that avers that we cannot fight those who are willing to die. It is true that Islamists care little for life. Yet there are things that do matter to them....
Multiculturalists, of course, indignantly object to the ideas which Allan mentioned in the rest of that next-to-last paragraph. But what is the alternative?
Jason,
Glad to see that you put Allan's excellent comment front and center.
An excellent post. Not sure about legalising drugs, though. Not all of them at any rate. Cannabis, certainly, but if we're going to fight an enemy like Islam, we don't want to encourage people to be out of their heads on crack.
(When I say "we", I mean the West/Infidels.)
Let’s not confuse the main points with details of implementation. Like the issue of illegal drugs, alternative energy is often brought into the conversation. The problem remains Islam, true jihadist Islam. The first point of business is to understand the enemy and face the nature of this dangerous ideology. Tony Blankley compares our current state of denial with how we acted in the face of past threats.
I’m not quite sure what Ducky’s talking about. Obviously we relied on Stalin’s help to defeat Hitler but Stalin wasn’t fighting totalitarianism … he was just changing one vicious form of totalitarianism for another. The cost of defeating Hitler was the enslavement of Eastern Europe and the Cold War. But Stalin, using the Russians a cannon fodder, took the brunt of Hitler’s assault.
When we aligned ourselves with the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban, we choose one fundamentalist Islamist group to fight the other. That was obvious when we remember that the Northern Alliance was the previous Islamist group in power before the Taliban; and they ruled with a harsh Islamic code. This is the cost of defeating the Taliban and to do otherwise would mean a prohibitive cost on our part. Nation-builders just don’t understand the culture we are dealing with and the difficulty of changing a culture.
However, the Northern Alliance is less inclined to welcome jihadist camps to launch attacks against us. They are not our fiends, but they are the enemy of our enemy at this moment. Are we not agreeing?
Old Peculier expressed doubts about legalizing certain drugs, in part because “if we're going to fight an enemy like Islam, we don't want to encourage people to be out of their heads on crack.” Let us understand that part of the case for legalization is that it would lessen drug usage by reducing the profitability of its industry. The key example is how the prohibition of alcohol greatly increased its usage and the associated crime and corruption. In addition, even when drugs (including alcohol) are legal, they are prohibited from use in certain operations such as driving, surgery, fighting, etc. Moreover, legalization is not encouragement. Those of us who decry rendering usage illegal are generally opposed to their use. It is far better for people to find their enjoyment in developmental activities, than in irresponsible behavior. More significantly, *the issue of drugs is less a matter of consequences than of the principle of freedom*. Do we view ourselves as dictators of the behavior of others, or as holders of the view of live-and-let-live? Most significantly, even if we believe that we should dictate the behavior of others, would we engage in this luxury if it subsidized our enemy while being costly to our efforts?
I have not previously addressed the views of Mr. Ducky, because I have not respected their approach, but found them distracting. However, I wish to respond to his comments this time, to indicate why I do not find them worthy of an exchange of views. His first comment might appear sound, when he writes that “You seem to have this idea that we spend enormous sums on foreign aid. Hardly, it isn't even 1.5 percent of the budget and most of that goes to Israel and Egypt.”
Now I didn’t claim that the amount was an enormous sum, but that “We would cease subsidizing countries through foreign aid, and instead pay only for services rendered.” Were my focus to be financial, I would be quantitative “In 2003, the United States gave away 37.8 billion dollars in foreign aid to countries around the globe. The rest of the world only gave 70.7 billion, so the U.S. accounted for roughly 35 percent of all foreign aid. If you think that 37.8 billion is hefty sum of money, wait until 2008 when the foreign aid budget is projected to exceed 60 billion. The budget has been steadily increasing since 1993 and shows no signs of slowing down.” Now this is real money, even if only a percent of our unnecessary spending, but there are other aspects of greater import. The *foreign aid is part of an altruistic view that undermines ourselves as well as its recipients.* So my point was not essentially quantitative, but regarded the need for a change in our perspective. Nor is this in any way diminished by the fact that most of it goes to Israel and Egypt. In short, Ducky’s comment was not at all helpful to critiquing the original article.
Next, he writes that “Churchill didn't defeat Hitler.” This too is off the subject, since nowhere was it said that he did, nor was the significance of Stalingrad denied. Clearly, any sound analysis of the defeat would be due to a combination of factors, where if Britain had surrendered, or if America had not entered the war, or if Stalingrad fell, Hitler would have won. But again, that is digressive.
He goes on to speak of “Jason's little school boy dichotomy” which is not only irrelevant to the article, but insulting.
Ducky then writes “I also subit that nations only have interests and our foreign policy is normally the best jugement of what furthers our interests.”
Here, there are so many flaws that it is difficult to know where to begin. The claim is irrelevant, and it is untenable that there are only interests and not values, whereas foreign policy frequently (and perhaps generally) runs counter to our interests.
Then he criticizes Jason for what I wrote, namely that "American foreign policy has been predicated on spreading democracy". Moreover, Ducky’s criticism is not analytic, but insulting, labeling my statement as “some of the worst altruistic claptrap I've read from a Randoid.” As an aside, although I have learned much from Ayn Rand, and greatly respect her views (even when I disagree) I am neither an Objectivist nor primarily a follower of Ayn Rand.
Finally, he writes “Right now right wing dilittantes like yourself who can apparently think in no other terms than military force are an extreme danger. Along with fundamentalist protestants they have to be either controlled or destroyed. They are much more immediate enemies of enlightenment than any muslim country.”
This too is so irrelevant and off base, that it doesn’t warrant a response.
So I shall leave Mr. Ducky with the last word, but only wanted to explain why I do not find it developmental to address his comments. (I lack the patience of Jason to seriously consider what Ducky writes.)
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