Bush Doctrine? Asinine
I have not commented much of late on the Bush Administration's foreign policy, mostly because I've been conflicted. I fully believe we were right to take out the Taliban in Afghanistan. Since the First Gulf War I had felt that - eventually - we would have to take out the Hussein regime, or its successor. And I don't believe we have a single "friend" in the entire Islamic world; there are only somewhat lesser shades of bitter enemies who, despite any protestation to the contrary, want to either kill us or subject us to dhimmitude. And killing us is their preferred course.
After taking out the two regimes, I don't really know what we should have tried to do. "Kill them all before they kill us" comes to mind, but completely snuffing out a problem that seems an historical constant that is certain to come back and try to kill us doesn't make sense for some odd reason either.
But I believe it to be literally insane (I cannot emphasize the insanity of this enough) to believe we can "spread democracy" to nations that are culturally antithetical to it. Our actions will quickly foment the mob rule promise that is the only promise of pure democracy; I find it absurd to attempt the grafting of republican representative democracy on to cultures steeped in and born of the contrary mandates and constraints of shari'a. Democracy in Iraq will work until the very first dictator is popularly elected (free from US meddling) by one sect who will then set about suppressing the other sects, and it won't take long at all.
I have a conviction that history should lead the prudent to believe we are engaged in "the next wave" of a war with Islam that has persisted for this nation since the Barbary Wars, which started when the United States was barely a decade old. Before that, the conflict had raged between Islam and Christianity for 700 years. And before that, this conflict may well have been set in motion by Abraham almost 4000 years ago. It isn't likely that actions, solicitations or negotiations taken by any US Secretary of State are going to fix an intractible problem that spans nearly the entire history of civilization itself..
So yes, Newt is right in calling it WWIII, and we'd better proceed with our preparations accordingly. Whether you care for the Bible or not, whether you are religious or not, you'd best start looking at the world from an historic perspective that includes the religious context or you will be a fool, and will likely soon be a dead fool. Sardonism aside, I think that there will be one of two outcomes to all of this, either Western Civilization will be destroyed because it could not come to terms in time with what this conflict actually represents, or the West will have to effectively wreck Islam so badly that it will lack even the slightest smidgen of self-confidence. Doing so would probably clear up the problem again for another couple hundred years, but they'll be back. That's just the way it is.
The bottom line: We are going to be forced to face miltary conflict with Iran in the coming years. We had better start accepting as our most likely future path that we are going to have an all out war, again, between Western, Christian-rooted Modernity and contemporary Islam's ancient desire to turn its diaspora in to a new Caliphate. Will we be led by leftist Chamberlains who would have us wait until Islamists have nukes? Or will we save ourselves from ourselves in time?
I know that for many, trying to place themselves in an historic contiuum is just too scary and more simple, easily understood language is needed. Well, this morning I browsed through some sites that Blogflux deems "similar" to this one and stumbled across this gem:
Technorati tags: Islam, Western Civilization, Bush Doctrine
After taking out the two regimes, I don't really know what we should have tried to do. "Kill them all before they kill us" comes to mind, but completely snuffing out a problem that seems an historical constant that is certain to come back and try to kill us doesn't make sense for some odd reason either.
But I believe it to be literally insane (I cannot emphasize the insanity of this enough) to believe we can "spread democracy" to nations that are culturally antithetical to it. Our actions will quickly foment the mob rule promise that is the only promise of pure democracy; I find it absurd to attempt the grafting of republican representative democracy on to cultures steeped in and born of the contrary mandates and constraints of shari'a. Democracy in Iraq will work until the very first dictator is popularly elected (free from US meddling) by one sect who will then set about suppressing the other sects, and it won't take long at all.
I have a conviction that history should lead the prudent to believe we are engaged in "the next wave" of a war with Islam that has persisted for this nation since the Barbary Wars, which started when the United States was barely a decade old. Before that, the conflict had raged between Islam and Christianity for 700 years. And before that, this conflict may well have been set in motion by Abraham almost 4000 years ago. It isn't likely that actions, solicitations or negotiations taken by any US Secretary of State are going to fix an intractible problem that spans nearly the entire history of civilization itself..
So yes, Newt is right in calling it WWIII, and we'd better proceed with our preparations accordingly. Whether you care for the Bible or not, whether you are religious or not, you'd best start looking at the world from an historic perspective that includes the religious context or you will be a fool, and will likely soon be a dead fool. Sardonism aside, I think that there will be one of two outcomes to all of this, either Western Civilization will be destroyed because it could not come to terms in time with what this conflict actually represents, or the West will have to effectively wreck Islam so badly that it will lack even the slightest smidgen of self-confidence. Doing so would probably clear up the problem again for another couple hundred years, but they'll be back. That's just the way it is.
The bottom line: We are going to be forced to face miltary conflict with Iran in the coming years. We had better start accepting as our most likely future path that we are going to have an all out war, again, between Western, Christian-rooted Modernity and contemporary Islam's ancient desire to turn its diaspora in to a new Caliphate. Will we be led by leftist Chamberlains who would have us wait until Islamists have nukes? Or will we save ourselves from ourselves in time?
I know that for many, trying to place themselves in an historic contiuum is just too scary and more simple, easily understood language is needed. Well, this morning I browsed through some sites that Blogflux deems "similar" to this one and stumbled across this gem:
BEAR TO THE RIGHT
"The premise behind the Bush administration's policy is the hopeless view that tyranny is reversed by the holding of elections--a premise stemming from the widespread confusion between freedom and democracy."If you've been scared or inspired by the comments I made here, you'd best click the link and read the whole post at Bear to the Right.
Technorati tags: Islam, Western Civilization, Bush Doctrine
