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October 20, 2004
The New Fifth Column
Late in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalist General Mola was advancing on Madrid with four columns of soldiers. During a radio address he was asked which one would take the city, which was held by Republican forces. He replied that a "fifth column" of hidden supporters within the city would undermine the government from within.
We are today faced with a new Fifth Column in the War on Terror. One that is working to undermine us from within.
From the BBC's website we learn of a new documentary to be broadcast tonight
The Power of Nightmares"Baby It's Cold Outside" is the first of a three part series.
Wed 20 Oct, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm 60mins
Baby It's Cold Outside In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams weren't true, neither are these nightmares.This series shows dramatically how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.
Lest anyone be in doubt as to the Curtis' point of view, the review in the Guardian tells us that
During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
In other words, the entire war is a fraud. Not just the invasion of Iraq, mind you, but the entire concept of a War on Terror, which the writer helpfully puts in quotation marks so you'll get the point. Al Qaeda? Doesn't exist.
The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have "sleeper cells". It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
One hardly knows where to begin. That every point of this inditement is wrong has been amply documented elsewhere. Where does this idea that it is all an illusion come from, then?
Even before the start of the Cold War the left never believed the Soviet Union to be a threat. Far from it. They saw the communist experiment as one of hope for the future of mankind. After returning from a visit to the Soviet Union in 1921, Lincoln Stefans famously proclaimed that "I have seen the future, and it works."
Far from a threat, the "Old Left" saw it as the saviour of mankind.
We're all familiar with the run-up to the Second World War. The British and French ignored what today seem to us as obvious signs that Hitler would settle for nothing less than European domination. The idea that Hitler was anyting more than a nuisance was dismissed by the "enlightened" crowd. Churchill? Well, he was uncouth, a loudmouth, and everyone knew that he drank too much.
When the Cold War started up in the late '40s, again we were told that we were overreacting. Far from being a threat, the Soviet military buildup was simply a response to an understandable fear of us. It was the Soviet Union, we were told, who was surrounded by unfriendly states. We threatened them, and we should learn to understand their position.
The movement received new vigor with the rise of the "New Left" (their own term) in the 1960's, and reached it's climax with the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Carter went so far as to tell us that we had an "inordinate fear of communism."
What ultimately saved the West in each of these examples was not a new military weapon, or better intelligence, or the employment of some new military tactics or strategy. It was willpower. The resolve to stand up and stare down our enemy even, or perhaps especially, in the face of opposition from within.
The key to winning the War on Terror, then, is not military (although it is crucial), nor improvement of our intelligence capabilities (though surely we must), or even a repackaging of our message (which has been neglected). The key lies in Willpower and Resolve. We must develop what I call a philosophy of "anti-nihilism." For unlike what the multi-culturalists would have us believe, our beliefs and values are better than those of the Islamic world. There is an objective truth, and it is that freedom is the best hope for mankind.
And we are indeed in a War on Terror. It is real. Al Qaeda is not a fiction of our imagination, any more than the communists in the United States were during the '30s and '40's were. As the Venona transcripts have shown, there was a serious espionage threat from the Soviet Union. We today are faced with a similar infiltration that will likely only be exposed in it's entirety many years from now. We already have enough evidence to understand the threat.
We all remember the heady days following the attacks of Sept 11. The extreme left kept out of sight. Only a few, Susan Sontag among them, dared to say anything controversial. Her wrongheaded commets made a bit of a splash, then faded from the scene. Only Norman Podhoretz forsaw that the left would rise to oppose this war with all the ferocity they could muster.
It didn't take long, however, for indications of trouble to appear. There was the manufactured "controversy" over whether we should continue our attacks in Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Some who said we should stop the bombing were trying to be genuinly helpful. They feared an uprising by the "Arab Street." But others seemed to be using it as the excuse of-the-day to stop the war. Any reason would do, and this was the must convenient for the moment.
Had we hesitated we would have set a terrible precident. We would have given hope to our enemies and demonstrated weakness instead of resolve. War is, indeed, a terrible business. It is a measure of our humanity that we may wish to delay or avoid bloodletting. There are times, however, when we must carry forward.
None of this is to be construed as advocating indiscriminate killing. I am a firm believer in the Just War principles of proportionality and discrimination.
Nor am I saying that anyone who opposes the invasion of Iraq, or who has criticisms of how we are conducting the War on Terror, is a member of the Fifth Column. You can vote for Kerry and be a patriotic American. You can oppose the invasion of Iraq, although I will disagree with you. You can even wish that we involve the UN and French more, although I will really disagree with you.
What distinguishes members of the Fifth Column are their utter lack of constructive criticism, their blind "peace" mantra, those who apologize for American actions, or those who seek to tell us that it is all in our heads, that Al Qaeda doesn't really exist or is not a threat.
For additional reading, you may enjoy these books. I must warn you, however, they can be profoundly depressing at times.
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz
Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba by Paul Hollander
Anti-Americanism: Critiques at Home and Abroad 1965 - 1990 by Paul Hollander
Useful Idiots: How Liberals got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First by Mona Charen
Update
I was reading Paul Hollander's Anti-Americanism again last night and came upon this passage
The people I have in mind - who belong to this broader adversary culture - can be identified by a number of beliefs. Among them is that American intervention almost anywhere in the world is without moral justification. They also aver that the United States bears the lion's share of responsibility for the sufferings of the poor in the Third World. They include prosperous white middle-class people who voted for Jesse Jackson, thosse who would not register for the draft (or who support and encourage nonregistration). They are citizens for whom all American military expenditure is wasteful, who claim to have sleepless nightts over the prospect of nuclear war and press for making their towns "nuclear free zones"(and "sister cities" of those in the USSR and Nicaragua), people who in any conceivable conflict between the U.S. and other powers instinctively place the blame on the U.S., those among the college educated who are persuaded that Orwell's1984 captures most aptly the characteristics of contemporary America. They can also be identified by sporting bumper stickers proclaiming "US out of North America" and "This Country Was Build on the Bones of Indians." They are inclined to believe that the United States is a uniquely hypocritical and destructive society that failed to live up to it's promises. They are for the most part people of goodwill anhd frustrated idealism, persuaded that in no other country are social ideals and practices so far apart as in the United States of America.
We've all met people who fit the description above. The amazing thing is that almost inevitably they have good jobs and families. They have benefited most from American society, and are kept safe through the use of American military force. Although written in 1992, with only a few slight updates those words are as appropriate today as they were then.
It is these people, then, who hate the very concept of a "War on Terror". "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is their motto. I said it above, and I'll say it again; I am not speaking of those who simply have honest disagreements over how to fight the terrorists, or those who oppose the invasion of Iraq (again, as long as they do it for honest reasons), or even those who think that we should adopt a more "law enforcement" model.
Rather, I speak of those such as Michael Moore, who make "documentaries" filled with lies and half truths, and of his followers. This even includes a past president, Jimmy Carter, who invited Mr Moore to sit with him in his box at the Democratic National Convention. The writers of the BBC documentary discussed above also appear to fit into this category. Most of those who protested outside the Republican National Convention in New York also fit into this category of a "Fifth Column".
Those of us who dare to call these people by their true name can expect vituperation in return. "McCarthyite!" will be among the more tame insults we will endure. But as I've said, the key to winning this war is not about military force, or intelligence gathering, or by broadcasting a better "message", although these things are important. The key is Willpower and Resolve in the face of trials and troubles. The words of Thomas Paine come to mind
These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the servive of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
Update II
Jamie at Conservapuppies has an excellent post on the BBC "documentary". Check it out.
Update III
After happening upon some leftist websites and blogs, I've just got to write this: Anyone who calls our country, Republicans, or George W Bush "fascist" is a member of the Fifth Column.
Posted by Tom at October 20, 2004 11:50 AM
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Comments
Or they could just be a member of academia like this associate professor of history at Kent State University. His name is Dr. Julio Pino (aka Lover of Angels) and you can find his blog at http://global-war.bloghi.com
Posted by: elmers brother at January 6, 2006 5:49 PM
Amazing how as "antinihilist" as you claim to be, there are no hard facts being listed here in favour of your otherwise aimless point of view. Just subjective statements of the most bland sort: "This is a lie", "Those people are liars", "I'm right, you're wrong", "It is 'obvious' because I say so," etc, etc.
You obviously don't understand what 'nihilist' fundamentally means: 'a philosophy that denies all existence'. So naturally, nihilists don't appreciate facts as truth. They boldly reject them and rely on aleatory thoughts of subjectivity to supplant their suspicion or even complete lack of reason.
A fact is that propoganda is a tool for every government. Having studied history thoroughly, I have never come across a government that failed to use propoganda of one sort or another. Even Ancient Egyptian pharaohs used the lie of 'divine authority' as a propaganda tool to keep people in check.
Modern governments do not and cannot escape reality any more than ancient ones.
This has evidently escaped you, as all facts have, because you are nothing more than a darkness masquerading as light.
A petty nihilist in sheep's clothing.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 14, 2006 5:00 PM
