The Redhunter

The Naysayers

I wrote about these people last year and how they don't know any history other than Vietnam in my post called The Naysayers.

Once again, Victor Davis Hanson has them pegged in a recent article of his

But the latest criticism is more troubling, since it often comes from the “my perfect war, your lousy peace” school that, for some reason, never critiques the three-week removal of Saddam Hussein. Instead, it defends its evolving opposition to the war by advancing particular pet theories of reconstruction that were never followed. Rarely do we hear that most postbellum efforts are long, messy, and necessary, much less that the essence of war is lapse and tragedy, with victory going only to those who in the end err the least and endure. Anyone back in the United States can post facto write up a list of what ought to have been done in Iraq amid the heat and fire; but they at least need to factor in the conditions at the time that led the supposedly less bright on the ground not to anticipate their own inspired wisdom from afar.

Especially troubling are those who even before 9/11 demanded that President Clinton or Bush remove Saddam Hussein, but now consider such a move an abject blunder of the first order. Their advocacy helped us get in when there were dubious reasons to go, and their vehement criticism may well get us out when there are now better reasons to stay until Iraq is secure.

Iran

The problem with Iran is not so much Iran, as the trouble that dealing with them will cause throughout the Middle East. Or at least, might cause.

There is a very good chance that we will be forced to hit Iran with air strikes before the year is out. I stated my reasons for believing this in Toward the Brink last week.

The point to note here is that any strikes will certainly inflame the "Arab street", or rather, the street will be inflamed after some of the people are stirred up by radical troublemaker mullahs. There will certainly be riots in parts of Iraq. Although I doubt that the situation will be out of control, people will die and the news media will inform us that all is lost for the millionth time.

The Problem with Europe

Unless you've absolutely got your head in the sand (which would be the case if you depend on CNN and the New York Times for your news) you know by now that western Europe is infected with radical Islam, perhaps to the point of no return.

I wrote about this disease in What is Going on in Europe? and What is Going on in Europe II a few weeks ago. Again, I won't rehash everything, but will requote one part of Douglas Murray article which appreared in in The Sunday Times of London this past February 26

Murray had gone to Holland to speak at a conference about Islam in Europe. To give his readers an idea as to the current situation in Europe, he said that the threat to speakers was so high that they were asked by hotel staff if they wanted to register under false names. The police provided a personal security detail for everyone. Murray himself had a guard posted outside his hotelroom door.

The event itself was orderly and debate was conducted in scholarly fashion. But Murray talks about the situation in Holland and the rest of Europe

But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.

It seems the British police — who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) — were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making trouble.

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.

...
Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.

Europe is shuffling into darkness.

Indeed it may be. All you have to do is read almost any of the entries on European blogs like USS Neverdock(UK) or Downeastblog(Belgium) to get an idea as to how bad the situation is over there with regard to the inroads that radical Muslims are making. While there is some resistance, all too often the response of the elites is to pander.

But I guess that's what happens when you've lost your own religion. I've traveled quite a bit in Europe, both as vacations and a mission trip. Most of the churches and cathedrals I went in were empty - except for the tourists. And I'm talking about Sundays.

America - At the Tipping Point?

In the United States we might be at our own tipping point; a reaction against Islam. And I don't mean radical Islam, either, folks, I mean Islam.

Commenter "Wanda" on Belmont Club's post Blowback said

Going back to Geraghty's comments and Wretchard's followup, I think that if this shift in Western opinion is happening (and I think it is) much more than just the ports deal is dead. President Bush is in imminent danger of finding himself left behind by the American people, and he doesn't seem to realize it. He could soon be in the same position as the leaders and spokesmen of the EU - a font of noble-sounding platitudes and maxims that nobody pays attention to anymore.

Meanwhile, he will have lost his ability to sway his own people's hearts and minds, because he invested everything in the cause of winning the enemy's hearts and minds. All the emphasis has been on persuading Muslims to change; how was it possible that nobody thought that WE might change too? That never entered into the calculations; it always seemed to be a given that the West would be eternally patient, open, and willing to woo the reluctant Muslim world. But while President Bush has been anxiously hovering over his delicate Islamic plant, watching for any promising little green shoot that might repay all his efforts, behind him his own garden has changed into a dangerous, bristling jungle. When he finally turns around, he won't know where he is anymore.

(hat tip Jim Geraghty on NRO)

Ouch. Although I think she overstates her case, she is definately on to something. Winds of Change thought it important enough to quote also, which is where TKS first saw it (note, be sure to read the WoC post).

The American people, or some of them anyway, have concluded that Islam as it is currently practiced is a dangerous religion. Many have concluded that "those people" aren't going to change.

Perhaps it is best said by Robert Tracinski in his postThe Lessons of the Cartoon Jihad

The West has long been aware that, while we hold freedom of speech as a centerpiece of our liberty, the Muslim world does not recognize this freedom. Before now, however, our worlds have rarely collided. The Muslims have not usually dared to extend their dictatorial systems to control our own behavior within our own cities. The Salman Rushdie affair—the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 death edict against the "blasphemous" novelist—was an ominous warning, but Americans did not take it seriously.

Now, seventeen years later, the Muslim fanatics are making it clear: you don't have to come to our country, you don't have to be a Muslim. Even in your own countries and under your own laws, you will not be safe from our intimidation.

For the whole Western world, this is an opportunity to learn an important truth about the goal of the Islamists. Their goal is not to achieve any specific political demand or settlement. Their goal is submission: our submission to their will, to their laws, to their dictatorship—our submission, not just to one demand, but to any demand the Muslim mobs care to make.

Europe particularly needs to learn this lesson. The Europeans have deluded themselves into thinking that this is our fight. If only Israel weren't so intransigent, if only the US weren't so belligerent, they told themselves—if only those cowboys didn't insist on stirring up trouble, we could all live in peace with the Muslims. And they have deluded themselves into thinking that they can seek a separate peace, that having the Danish flag on your backpack—as one bewildered young Dane described it—would guarantee that you could go anywhere in the world and be regarded as safe, as innocuous.

Now the Europeans know better. With cries of "Death to Israel" and "Death to American" now being joined by cries of "Death to Denmark", every honest European can now see that they are in this fight, too—and they are closer to the front lines than we are. Threats against American cartoonists, when anyone bothers to make them, are toothless; there is no mob of violent young Muslims in the United States to carry them out. European writers and filmmakers, by contrast, are already being murdered in the streets. The first people to find themselves living under the sword of a would-be Muslim caliphate are Europeans, not Americans.

The lesson here is not just that the Islamist ideology of dictatorship is a threat to Europe. It is also that the dictatorships themselves are a threat. The advocates of cynical European "realpolitik" deluded themselves into thinking that, if they just made the right kind of deals with Saddam Hussein, or with the Iranian regime, or with the Syrian regime, then the dictatorships over there would have no impact on us over here.

(again I am indebted to Jim Geraghty)

I will agree that some of the Europeans may know better, but hardly all or even a majority of them. Too many have been indoctrinated too thoroughly in "multiculturalism" and "tolerance" that they are unable to kill the viper even as it is about to bite them. Douglas Murray is probalby closer to the truth when he wrote that Europe was shuffling into darkness.

Can We Turn It Around?

Assuming that the situation here is as bad as the above essay concludes, can the Bush Administration reconvince a significant majority of the American people that we can indeed reform the Middle East?

Liberals we can write off. To them the entire War on Terror is a distraction from their main goal of putting us all under the rule of the EPA. They don't have different ideas on how to fight it, they just want it all to go away.

As for conservatives, well, there has obviously been much disappointment with President Bush and some of our congressional leaders. Out-of-control Federal spending and failure to reduce the size of government, failure to address illegal immigration, a zillion regulations that only seem to grow and grow, Harriet Myers, and more. I was not part of the anti-Dubai Ports World group, but could understand their position given the administration's failure to communicate the facts prior to letting information about it get out.

Only a fool, of course, would presume to know how a president will be treated by history based on opinion polls. Thomas Jefferson left office a despised man. The Civil War had grown so unpoplular that Abraham Lincoln for a time feared that he would lose the election of 1864. Harry Truman decided not to run for re-election in 1952 due to low approval ratings. Yet all three of these men are considered among our greatest presidents. On the other hand, Warren Harding was a very popular president, yet who today can even remember when he served?

I'll just let Jim Geraghty sum up my thoughts

I think most Americans wanted to see a lot more from their government over this(cartoon jihad). The opposition to the cartoons was signified by the photo of the London protester with the banner, “Behead those who insult Islam.” The Bush administration’s response was to say that violence wasn’t the answer; many folks would have preferred, “Like hell you will. Somebody insults your faith, you insult ‘em right back. The moment you threaten violence, we will knock your teeth down your throat.”

I hope President Bush “gets” this; I hope Karl Rove or someone is looking at this polling data and can figure out how to either mitigate or healthily express this impatient, angry, and sometimes ugly mood in America.

It’s not enough to say that the Democrats are worse.

Update

It as a post on Jim Geraghty's blog TKS on National Review called "Does President Bush See the Tipping Point" that prompted this post.

He's got a few additional thoughts on this issue today

Could the new president, voice of the West, say to the world’s one billion Muslims… choose?

What would happen if a leader of the West said, “No more maybes. No more, ‘yes, but.’ Get off the sidelines. Either bin Laden and his ilk have the right idea, or they don’t.

Seriously, if you agree with them, stop giving them half-credit and join them.
Please do so openly, so we know to kill you. And understand clearly – we will kill you. We will not submit to their vision of the world; and they cannot coexist with us. They will never stop trying to kill us; thus, the only day of peace will be when all of them are dead, or they have been persuaded that their vision is a futile one, a corruption of your faith’s beliefs.

If you oppose them, join us in opposing them with every resource, tool and ounce of determination we’ve got. You have your ways of war – let us introduce you to the nearly forgotten American tradition of letters of marque and reprisal. Let’s institute the first global terrorist hunt. American, Pakistani, Turk, Saudi, Muslim, Christian, Jew – it doesn’t matter your nationality or faith. You’re authorized to hunt down al-Qaeda wherever they scurry. Join us, and al-Qaeda will have no where left to hide, no one left to trust. The world as one has decided it’s a better place with them not in it.

This is it. Today’s the day you decide what side you’re on. No more debating, no more waiting to see who the stronger horse it. Trust me, it’s us. Decide what Allah really wants, and then act accordingly.”

How would the Muslim world react?

Thankfully, many would say that bin Laden never spoke for them, and they’re ready and eager to do whatever it takes to eradicate Islamist terror cells.

I suppose some Muslims would object to being forced to decide – a pretty revealing attitude, I think. But I can’t help but think that some Muslims, after years of seeing a faltering, doubtful, self-hating and equivocal West taking on the relentless faith of Islamist fanatics, would come off the fence.

Some of them would come off the fence and sign up on the other side. That’s fine. Then we would at least know those folks are our enemies.

And also

Right now, if you're a Muslim, and you denounce Islamism, there is a severe price to be paid - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, etc. Often you have to live in hiding and dodge death threats.

If you embrace and/or endorse Islamism, there is little price to be paid. The West won't attack you for what you say. You don't have to worry about some crazy Westerner suddenly pulling a Pym Fortyn or a Van Gogh on you. Heck, in London, you can preach jihad for years before the authorities even think about deporting you.

Thus, our message gets stifled; their message gets amplified.

But what if we changed that equation? What if the bad guys had to live in fear? What if they had to be careful about who they told, who was in the crowd they addressed, who was listening? I bet it would go a long way to slow down their efforts.

Or maybe the answer is a half-step down from my nasty gut reaction - don't kill the guy carrying a "behead those who insult my beliefs" sign, but don't let him do that without consequences: prosecute him for making threats.

Works for me. No doubt that groups like CAIR would announce that we were persecuting Muslims or some such tripe, but as Geraghty says, at least we'd know what side they were on.