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9/11: We are Still Losing
We lost the war to transform Afghanistan and the Arab world. Our leadership class still refuses to accept the truth that the Islamist ideologues continue to make material and ideological war upon us and our allies. We cannot bear to fully accept that Iran is making war in Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza, Ukraine, and Syria with plans to attack other targets–including us.
We are not permitted to notice, much less discuss, the fundamental problems of trying to integrate Muslim populations into secular Western culture.
The sheer idiocy of George Bush’s use of “the Religion of Peace” rather than a demand for Islam to renounce doctrines of jihad, to John Kerry’s capitulation diplomacy on behalf of Obama’s sophomoric policy vision, to Joe Biden’s sudden weird, disastrous surrender in Afghanistan… We have never had a clear-headed response to the reality and the challenge of Islam.
There is no “moderate” Islam. There is no “reformation” in the works. By its very nature, its traditions, and ideology, borne of the core documents expounding on the “Perfect Example,” will in every age drag adherents back into an orthodoxy wholly and increasingly unsuited to a world constructed under Western influence. The model secular state built by Atatürk has given way to the Islamic nationalism of Erdogan. The Middle East is a disaster because Islam there has only produced peace when under the rule of a militarily strong empire—the set of faux Western constitutional democracies and other imitation Western models (the fascism of the Bathists, the socialist dictatorship of Gaddafi). They were literally founded on sand, and produced chaos that fostered yearning for the security, procrustean certainties (and the tyranny) of Shariah.
The still unlearned lesson of 9/11 is that there still is a war that we do not even fully admit is underway. Islam remains surprised and pleased that we have not pressed its inherent internal weaknesses nor struck back proportionately and consistently to its excesses even as we accept many of its worst to live among us without question or challenge.
Happy 9/11!
Published in General
Very true. I have to point out, though, that there is not technically a “moderate Islam,” but there are moderate Muslims. I point to M. Zuhdi Jasser and his ilk.
Islam will be even more surprised and pleased when they see some MAGA type politicians, in the not too distant future, warming up to it as these politicians paint our decadent liberal coastal elites as the real enemy who bombs traditional, conservative Muslims.
This has been a mostly failed exercise for 1000’s of years (depends on who ‘we’ is).
Exactly. Jefferson, Adams, Teddy Roosevelt and Churchill all knew better than we do. And we are unable or unwilling to make the same observations about behaviour or have expectations of voodoo practicing Haitians who have been drop shipped into America.
This has been a long battle. From the siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the siege of Vienna to the present day this battle is not over.
It’s been a while, but my recollection of reading about past examples is that the only long-term solution any country has found to “the muslim problem” has been expulsion.
I think that you have it backward, OB.
We’re the aggressor in the Middle East. We’ve always been the aggressor, overall, since WWII. Israel is also the aggressor, overall, always, since its inception.
Both we and the Israelis have made relentless war on Muslim countries from Libya to Iran, at least. I don’t think that the Muslims have been aggressors for many centuries, probably with the last Ottoman conquests, which were around 300 years ago, I think. Before us, the French and British did so, as did the Russians, and the Italians.
I see no evidence that Muslim countries would give us any trouble, if we stopped invading them, toppling or attempting to topple their governments, propping up unpopular monarchies, and otherwise interfering in their affairs.
So the fact that they have said they must establish a worldwide caliphate doesn’t matter?
And on 9/11 you come out with this.
I’m sorry @oldbathos for hijacking this, but it’s all very related to this comment. I’ll try to take it elsewhere if you need.
But, here goes. Ahem.
I’m genuinely curious why you maintain a presence on a website that is for conservative thought and conversation when you increasingly espouse fewer and fewer conservative or even right-leaning beliefs. I’m curious why you feel the need to bring up the old tired talking points spewed toward conservatives in the urban/liberal parts of this country in one of the few spaces where conservatives can discuss finer points of policy and differences. I’m not calling for safe spaces, by any means, but I’m just curious.
What do you get out of this?
What perverse pleasure can you take in publicly repeating your assertions that America, basically, got what it deserved on 9/11? What perverse pleasure can you take in essentially justifying violence against the US, Britain, France, and particularly Israel?
I just genuinely do not know what you get out of this experience or what you even offer to whatever community we have left on Richochet other than as a self-appointed counter to the your perceived echo-chamber here.
And the fact that they’ve been incapable of doing so, they take as another insult to islam.
Islam has been a religion of war, rape, and murder since it erupted into the world. It has always been the aggressor to other faiths. It is the enemy of the West.
He’s fooling us into believing that he is super conservative.
I’m totally convinced.
In the early 2000s when one of my co-workers, a Marine Corps Lt. Colonel, was in the middle of the conflict, I ran across two books, one by Roger Scruton and the other by Niall Ferguson. Both discussed in part the relationship of Islam to “the West”. They were discussed in National Review and it was pointed out that of the conflicts on Earth, approximately 90% involved Muslims. The main point was that Islam is not just a religion; it is also a political system. Incompatible with the U. S. Constitution, BTW.
EDIT:
I have a slow processor, but a good one. Finally remembered the terms. This is relevant, I believe.
You’d think we’d have learned. Who’s smarter, the primitives or the would be civilizers?
The better question might be who’s more stubborn? They don’t give up, but we do.
Just do a duckduckgo search for “The Graveyard of Empires”. Short version: It’s Afghanistan.
In the race for first place in the Let’s Destroy Western Civilization Derby, it was until recently a tough call as to whether militant Islam or our own progressive left would win by a nose. These days I think it’s Woke Left for the win, followed by Crushing Federal Debt and Religion of Peace and Scimitars neck and neck for second place. But Woke Left has a pretty good lead, and looks favored to win — unless it falls back as we round the last turn in November.
…super-duper-extra-ultra-conservative?
That’s just Round One. “Woke Left” can’t bring itself to fight militant islam, and also believes in not-breeding themselves out of existence. So eventually militant islam beats them by default, if nothing else.
even better, double-secret conservative!
With an extra dollop of antisemitism.
This is so wrong.
Israel is responsible for war in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. So are we, directly in the case of Syria, indirectly by aiding Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. This is true now, and has been true generally back to the 1960s (for Gaza and Syria) and the 1980s (for Lebanon).
Saudi Arabia was behind the war in Yemen, with our help.
We are behind the war in Ukraine.
Severely conservative
My hope is that you’ll all come to see how you’ve been misled, in the same way that I came to see how I was misled.
Another thing that I’ve come to believe is that my views are actually the conservative ones, in the American context. This was American conservatism before WWII, and to some extent even after WWII, as in the case of Republican Sen. Taft. Our long, and accelerating, campaign of wars of aggression overseas was a leftist and Progressive project, from Teddy Roosevelt to Wilson to FDR to Reagan and to the present.
I stand by the views of the founders, particularly the advice of President Washington in his Farewell Address. That is conservative, I think.
There used to be some bipartisanship in rejecting the post-WWII narrative. Sen. Taft (R) was highly critical of the farcical Nuremberg trials, and President Kennedy (D) honored Taft for this principled stand in his book Profiles in Courage.
Looking back, I was both convinced of my own righteousness, and cowed, by the sort of ad hominem attacks demonstrated in your comments above, particularly the accusation of antisemitism. This is the method of silencing opposing views, and perhaps even more importantly, in convincing others to refuse to consider the facts.
Edited to add: I should have explained why I listed Reagan among the leftists and Progressives. He is considered a conservative, but he’s not. He had most of the same policies as FDR.
This is something that I’ve observed among many of you, and other friends who think of themselves as conservatives. I have the impression that the radicalism of one generation becomes the conservatism of the next. Thus, for example, we see many people who consider themselves “conservatives” who hold the views of 60s radicals on a variety of issues. Indeed, in many cases, people who claim to be “conservatives” hold even more recent radical views, with homosexuality being a prime example.
Even more conservative than Reagan!
Truly we are in the presence of greatness.
I want to add another point about the antisemitism accusation.
I think that this post is specifically aimed at supporting efforts to draw our country into war with Iran. I infer this from the mention of Iran in the final sentence of the third paragraph.
I think that war with Iran would be a terrible thing, for us and for Iran. Such a war would be bad enough on its own, and I think that it also risks a much wider war, one that could even become a nuclear war. I think that this is not in our national interest.
I think that drawing the US into war with Iran is in the national interest of one country. That country is Israel. I think that both the Israeli government, and pro-Israeli people inside the US, are trying to draw the US into such a war right now. I am not happy about the extent of Israeli influence in our country.
I think that this is why objection to US policy draws the accusation of antisemitism. This accusation is the Israeli’s chief propaganda weapon. I find it unfounded, and just as reprehensible as the claims of racism used by the likes of BLM.
No, it is because people like you indicate that Israel deserves whatever it gets because it is the aggressor. This includes the current terror attacks which started the current conflict, none of which was instigated by Israel. It isn’t your policies that people disagree with. People aren’t invalidating your arguments by calling you anti-Semitic.
People are invalidating your arguments as ludicrous and recognizing you as anti-Semitic. Those are two separate things.
How do you think about 9/11 Jerry? Do you commemorate it or remember it in a patriotic way? Or do you just shrug and chalk it up to the chickens coming home to roost?
That is partially what conservativism is, by definition. It is “conserving” the things that were good previously, limiting change. Sometimes there is change. It is a good change. One great example of Conservatives embracing change: abolition of slavery. As Conservatives, we’re happy to see some good changes persist in their original forms and are happy to see some changes reverted (see Prohibition).
Strangely, though, you can adopt whatever label you like but it doesn’t make you that thing. If I want to, I can call myself a liberal (no, I won’t qualify it with classical). My views completely contradict that modern label, but it’s okay. It only matters what I call myself, right?
All those Communist college kids are right! All those evil regimes that killed people, well, those weren’t real original Communists. They merely warped the true idea of Communism. Real Communism has never been tried!
It’s working really well for them. I’m sure it’s working really well for you.
Again, since you apparently no longer fit the label of Conservative, why are you even here? Your very unique definition of Conservative as it applies only to you and in your consideration does not meet common definitions in our shared reality. Since the ideas are so important to you, why aren’t you somewhere that your ideas are considered normal or even rational? Why persist in right-leaning conversation when you openly admit that you are no longer share the values or beliefs of right-leaning people who exist now?