Logic Times
Buy the Mean Dog
Commentary by Aslan, 12/17/05, 3:46pm. Comments (0)
On November 4, 1979, the new Iranian revolutionary government seized 66 citizens of the United States and fascist Islam embarked on a crash course in Western weakness. On Ronald Reagan’s inauguration day in 1981, this fledgling Islamic movement sensed the paradoxical depth of American strength under different leadership, and the remaining 52 hostages soon returned home. But fascist Islam aced the lesson of their 444 day first semester in How to Defeat the West 101, in which a 12th century culture with no regard for human life might triumph over the modern Western world. What began as revolutionary defiance ended with a revelation about how the sanctity of life unnerves Western civilization.
Islamic fundamentalists hold no advantage over the wealthy and powerful West except a willingness to kill and to die. In 1983, the second semester began with a science experiment in death in Beirut, Lebanon, where even a strong President swallowed the lie that our actions – not our existence – were the cause of Islamic hatred. Another A+ and our primitive band of fascist students broke up into study groups to work on projects over the next several years, including one very significant war (the Muhajadeen in Afghanistan) along with fourteen attacks around the world taking 273 lives. Final exams in 1993 included stops in New York for the first attempt at the World Trade Center and in Somalia, where the curriculum on Western weakness came together like a symphony in the words of Professor bin Laden:
"As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War in which it destroyed the infrastructure and the milk and dairy industry that was vital for the infants and the children and the civilians and blew up dams which were necessary for the crops people grew to feed their families. Proud of this destruction, America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the new world order. After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim." – Osama bin Laden
Khobar Towers, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S.S. Cole – nothing that followed the lesson of Somalia persuaded Islamofascists the world over that bin Laden’s assessment was wrong.
September 11, 2001 happened for one reason: America was perceived to lack resolve. At a deeper level, a lack of resolve born of an unwillingness to endure hardship and sacrifice life in defense of closely held beliefs. The determined ideal of Patrick Henry ("Give me liberty or give me death") and Nathan Hale ("I regret that I have but one life to give for my country") was, in the mind of bin Laden and other terror leaders, dead in America and the West, while in the Islamic world the idea of sacrifice flourished, codified in religious doctrine.
But bin Laden made a giant mistake, confusing the weakness and complacency of American culture with weakness of the American military. In an impossible situation with unworkable rules of engagement and limited support, a mere 160 Army Rangers and Delta Force killed 1,000 heavily armed Somali guerrillas and wounded another 3,000 to 4,000 while enduring 19 dead and 73 wounded (data here and here).
Every move that our military made in Somalia that bin Laden perceived as weakness had nothing to do with the military and everything to do with civilian leadership averse to complicated geopolitical issues of life and death.
September 11th was not an isolated event, but one in a series of challenges to Western and American power attacking on the only vulnerable front: the unwillingness of Westerners to fight a determined enemy capable of killing lots of people. The genesis was Vietnam; the awakening was in Iran; the definitive tests were Afghanistan and Somalia; and the proof was in Madrid, Spain and rest of anti-war Europe - and in the Democratic Party of Howard Dean and Jack Murtha.
"The idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." - Howard Dean
"Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course." - Jack Murtha
If 9/11 happened because America lacked resolve, the most important thing after 9/11 was to demonstrate that America was determined and resolute. The most important action after 9/11 was not to catch who did it, but to refute why they did it.
A criminal breaks into a home, steals something and gets away. The first thing that goes through the mind of the homeowner is not to catch who did the crime, but to prevent that crime from happening again. Catching the criminal is important, but this does not dispel the feeling of vulnerability; changing how criminals perceive the home is more important. You buy a mean dog, illuminate the property, install an alarm system.
Similarly, catching the terrorists who pulled off 9/11 is important, but changing how terrorists perceive America is more important. You buy a mean dog called the Bush Doctrine.
The Bush Doctrine says that the problem is not that America was attacked, but that such people think that they can attack with impunity. The Bush Doctrine more simply says something else: "America no longer lacks resolve." Iraq is the Bush Doctrine*; to have pursued only al Qaeda after 9/11 would have confirmed bin Laden’s assessment and invited the culture of death to splinter into many groups, attack and hide, safe in the certainty that the United States would only ever pursue those directly responsible in a game of international hide and seek.
We would have gone after the criminal, but forgot to buy the dog.
* This does not mean that Iraq was a random target selected out of a hat. It meant that the U.S. was going to be resolute in the next contest of wills with the Islamic world.
Copyright © 2005 Dan Hallagan. All Rights Reserved.