Europe, Thy Name Is Cowardice

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Dendri, I draw the comment "gassing them muslims" from the article because people like the article author and many more view the muslims inside Europe as a threat to our societies as a whole, that they are the reasons for all our problems and that they are one, homogenous, unified group who is just waiting to take over power. Kinda like how the jews were viewed back in the day.

It is a problem with religios fundamentalism within our borders but playing it up like Döfner or whats his name is only serves to bring attention to the morons. They are nothing but criminals and shouldnt be treated as anything else. By viewing them as the right wants you justify the fanatics existance and you will in hte long run create a real conflict. Europe needs to integrate our muslim population, not turn them into a jihad in our suburbs which Döfner seems to want.

 

Geez. The old accusations of the rollback actionists today known as neocons against the detente realists in this article, this time directed at Europe.
Unusual only, that this time it's written by a German and published in a major German newspaper - and not in the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page or the National Review by the usual suspects going by names like Krauthammer, Boot, Krystol, Perle et Cie.

I have read that so often that this piece too doesn't cause more than a yawn with me. Well, and disgust.

The author is a polemist. He claims to have insight in the mechanims of history, which I think is hubris because history has no end (so Fukuyama was a fool when he wrote it, though the idea is comprenensible in the spirit of the time when he wrote it), when he writes that appeasement, and nothing else caused WW-II and that Reagan was the messiah who saved Europe from communism. Is that so?

The appeasement that 'legitimised' communism was the policy of detente. In fact, detente was IMO much preferrable to nuclear confrontation.

In Reagans first term the rollback wing's massive arms buildup and sabre-rattering (that gave Perle the title Prince of Darkness as a result of his nuclear love affair and the neocons the title 'neocrazies') almost caused WW-III (during NATO Exercise Refoger, iirc in 1981, 82 or 83 - I can't remember exactly) because the Russians were so afraid of the crazed Americans that they thought the exercise was in fact cover for a NATO first strike and were thinking about ... nuclear preemption if not prevention and were about one inch away from pressing the button.

Now that would have been ironic - WW-III and the annihilation of the majority the German people on it's battleground (not to mention the countless deaths in Russia and the US) as a result of a well intended and idealistic foreign policy - centred about contempt for 'detente' and focused on fighting evils.

With the collapse of communism they eventually replaced it with militant islam and that's where we are. Same policy, different label.

Today it's "we have to roll back the islamiacs", and that's basically what this moron is raving about, and just repeating it doesn't make the concept much better. The point is that it could well provoke a 'clash of the civilisations' - but that can't impress the author I presume because for him that war is already there.

The biggest problem with Huntingtons silly book is that it so persuasive and offers a simple explanation for what we see in the world today, how untrue however. Recognising the flaws of his theses, Huntington has now distanced himself from that book, but that doesn't seem to have reached the author.

Knowing it all idelogues like the author are actually much more of a problem for global stability than realist criminals like Kissinger because their actions could well destabilise and destroy what they intend to save - the collapse of Iraq as a result of it's liberation should give a taste of that naive idiocy at work, if the WW-III example wasn't actual and chilling enough. That's why neocons and their foot soldiers like this one piss me off so much.

They live in their own black & white world with clearly defined enemies and apply mathematical logic on it, something that has never worked in solving everyday problems because it's a set of ideological blinkers that leads to the predictable results ... War on evil, and then on the next evil, and then ...

[ February 05, 2005, 18:51: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Mr Hanson's article is a lot of half-truths and distortions. Such an approach for a REAL historian would be entirely laughable, were it not so tragic that people get emotional over such a load of baloney. Every line, or quote, which was the main thrust of his theme, (how others have misiniformed the media about George II), is a mere paraphrase; his own re-telling of what they supposedly commented on, and then a small amount of his own take on it.

Don't delude yourself HS, your own approach is more precise and better spoken than anything I saw in that pile.

 

I mean, huh, Hanson is one of America's blood & gore classicists. The history he deals with is - of course - history of war, anything else probably isn't glorious enough for him. And so he writes stuff like: " What would Patton say About the Present War?" Well, who cares.

That said, he's a neocon ideologue and, unsurprising, one of the guys Bush consulted for his inauguration speech. I mean, taking a negative statement on Europe's alleged cowardice by HIM for real is like, well, taking an antisemitic rant from a nazi or a anti-arab rant from a rabid rightwing rabbi for real - in the sense: It isn't really surprising to hear that from him.

One has to read Hanson carefully, like you have to listen carefully to a used car salesman (and better check his product). Where the salesman has a car to sell, Hanson offers war, blood, gore and imperial glory - and really frightening enemy the president has to save you from.

[ February 06, 2005, 16:12: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

And what about when war is brought onto your soil for you? How long do you watch it grow and fester in the name of "information" before taking some action? There are so many sides to every issue that trying to become thoroughly informed - let alone trying to inform a oublic that seems to actively pursue its own ignorance - leads to nothing but paralysis by analysis.

This is not to say that I condone going to war under false pretenses, but one man's hamburger is another's omen of th ecollapse of civilization. Perspective is everything.

 

Good to see that both the left and the right have blinkers on. Of course the "elite and cultured" have made and will continue to make mistakes. Sometimes you need people like Churchill or Patton, who understand the nature of the fight and what victory means. As far as military strategy, I agree with Patton's philosophy of total and utter demolition of the enemy, down to the basic structures that drive them. But generally, it's better to avoid having to be in that position in the first place, or to understand what is driving conflict in order to better act against it. Killing or oppressing people is not going to discourage their fellows unless you are prepared to engage in almost genocidal practice - in which case, they're still going to fight back, because they know you won't leave them alive.

And even that won't fix the other problems facing America (and other countries); you'll need a new enemy to feed that zealous fervour. What about the in-house problems in the US? Surely, not everything is roses in the Land of the Free right now, is it (or anywhere else, for that matter)? Stability at home should be a priority, shouldn't it? Certainly that's more important than having to find a justification for attacking a country which posed no threat to the US... isn't it?

Sorry about being facetious; I can see a damn good reason for keeping the peace in some cases (not all). If appeasement stops all-out war, or at least prevents conflicts from becoming too destructive, then surely it deserves consideration. Granted, it can be corrosive and paralyzing as well, but is a better "first step" than letting fly with the cruise missiles and smart bombs.

Re: Hanson's assertions about communism, liberating Iraq and European appeasement... if I had a student hand in a piece with such superficial analysis, I'd have to get it cross-marked because I'd probably fail it on principle. Patriotism, blood and glory don't inspire so well any more, and they certainly should not be taken as fact.

 

NonSequitur,
as for your Re: Hanson is a 'professor', I mean, huh, if he professionally works and teaches as he writes in his collumns, geez, in what shape must be the wing of the university he's at ...

So NonSequitur, I agree with you on that in an all-out war against an unyielding enemy his demolition is probably a necessity, unless you do that you probably won't be able to impose a durable peace on him.

My big problem with Hanson (and his ilk) is that he's so utterly convinced that militant islam is at war with the west and freedom - or the US especially rather - that we have to defeat them.

When western hedonism, wealth and personal freedom is their problem - why don't they attack Sweden and Switzerland?
Well, they presumably attack the US because the US are the only country, aside of Israel, where enlighted politicians see the deadly threat originating from them (while the rest of the liberal world is blind and afraid) - thus making the US their foremost enemy. Or because only the clear-eyed US didn't appease them in time? Sorry, but that's absurd and nonsense.

It leaves out elements like damaging US foreign policies, past and present, or US double speak like supporting democracy vocally while arming and propping up pro-western dictators, just to name a few. So seemingly there is more to it - and that's not blame the victim, but pointing out a simple fact that has to be adressed politically if one doesn't want to set the conditions for a second or third 911.

That's why I feel that the simplicistic theory of the 'clash of the civilisations' as offered by Huntington is so very much useless and so very dangerous as it lures people into a mindset that sees conflict as unavoidable anyway, so bombs away - it's Victory or Holocaust!

So when Hanson quotes Patton he is oblivious to that Patton's views were related to an all-out war against Nazi-Germany, while his conflict with the islamiacs may very well be not at all that way.

It is necessary to crush islamist terror groups and perhaps to even kill individual leaders instead of putting them to trial - it is very much useful and right to change the political climate in the middle east to deny the enemy safeheavens.

Here I agree even with the neoconservatives, without sharing their paranoid doomsday view - even paranoids have real enemies, even though they, in real life, may be just half as tall as they see them.

It has rarely ever worked out to impose democracy at gunpoint, when it has worked in Germany - and evidently Hanson is propagating to repeat that by crusing probably the entire Middle East - he overlooks how many Germans the allieds had to kill, and that after that, they had one allied soldier guarding seven german civilians to ensure they really become democratic and 'good Germans'. They were overeager after all the carnage they went through.
Leaving out the morality of mass murder for one alleged 'greater good', and just looking at the US problems in Iraq to sustain 150.000 troops in Iraq hanson's approach is simply unrealistic unless you want total military mobilisation of the US and the draft.

Considering that at that time there were some 60 million Germans, and that some 10 or so of them were killed (let's just leave out the other countries for the sake of argument) and considering that there is about 1 billion muslims you get the idea of what carnage Mr. "Gore & Glory" Hanson has in mind as 'necessary'. That sort of delusion probably unavoidable when one specialises in looking at history's carnage through the sterile lense of 50 to 2000 years distance. The man is simply a crazed nut.

Another question is if spreading democracy is really the receipe of how to deal with the problems in the middle east, most prominent problem being the islamism.
On the plus side, effective parliaments could well deal with the corruption and effectively adress the social problems and take away the urge to resist the opressive regimes in offering a forum to express critique.
On the minus side democratic rule is one of the declared goals for the islamists in Saudi Arabia. ( special thanks to Richard Clarke for helping me out on this argument - this one to Rally )

The problem, and don't be mistaken, I have no solution, is that we are facing a situation where muslims all over the world, after a brief flirt with secular socialism and secular pan-arab nationalism, are experiencing something like a reformation - back to the roots of Islam - to fill their lives with sense and content. That is entirely legitimate.

That a number of extremists are bred here, who, in response to what they see as the invasion of islamic lands by western values, see their culture endangered and become hate filled fanatics is probably unavoidable. The same can be observed under America's 'the islamiacs are gonna get us!' nuts - just take chickenhawk Jonah Goldberg:

The message of the jihadists is probably even more sophisticated than Mr. Goldbergs

When Americans are concerned because of muslims expressing their religion with fervor, and that is seen as legitimate - then Muslims, who see westernisation endangering their own societies and culture, are acting irrational when they are angered?
The problem is how to adress the legitimate concerns of Muslims while denying the radicals support.
Pissing the moderates off, too, by starting the 'unavoidable' big killing because you see a total conflict is plain idiotic. When at conflict with foreign enemies you'd like to have friends and allies among them.

Terror is a tool to achieve a political end. It is easily forgotten when one looks awed at the destruction and devastation acts of terror produce.

Even without jihadists, Western democracies have hardly been immune to terrorism. The Irish Republican Army, the Baader-Meinhof gang of Germany and the Red Brigades of Italy all developed in democracies. Indeed, in the United States, the largest terrorist attack before Sept. 11 was conducted in Oklahoma by fully enfranchised American citizens.

It is not the lack of democracy that produced jihadist movements, nor will the creation of democracies quell them.

Bush's idea of spreading freedom or democracy is laudable but I wonder if it is the cure.

[ February 08, 2005, 19:21: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Correct. It is the abusive, massively corrupt tyranies in combination with the dark-ages religious environment that produces jihadist movements. In part, at any rate.

American policy alone cannot explain the movements--else, where are/were their equivalents in South America and South East Asia, for instance?

As for Goldberg...frankly, he's dead on, at least in the statement you've quoted. Yes, he put it bluntly and rudely. Accurately as well, though.

Re: Hanson's piece
...I'm amazed. His military histories, of which I've read three (no, I'm not a neocon, damn it ) are worlds removed from that tripe in quality of research, analysis, and so on.

 

Recently, I have seen an interesting analysis stating that we almost always get an upsurge of religiousness when people are, in general, not satisfied with their influence over the government. Has there been one truly democratic and inclusive state in the Middle/Near Easti since, hmm, the 1950's?

 

@ dmc - did you mean "aside from Israel and Turkey?" We are talking about the near east after all...

@ Ragusa - if you want to see Goldberg get spanked check out Juan Cole.

 

Thanks for this link, Bion.

Amen. This guy knows what's goin' on, IMHO.

 

That's funny. I read it and thought that he had his head deeply in the sand. At a couple of paragraphs, I felt sorry for him. If I was a 'cut-an-paste' poster, I'd show you what I mean...but I invite anyone to read SEVERAL of his posts and see the double standard evident there.

I actually laughed once at his assesment of the situation.

 

Moderator fight!

Actually, I would be interested to read your criticism of Juan Cole, HS. I know Cole has been attacked by a number of (generally rightwing) bloggers and pundits for his pessimism, but I think even the more serious of his detractors read him regularly because he has some very valuable insight. Granted, he's often linked to by some of the more annoying anti-war bloggers (or even pro-insurgent Iraqi bloggers like riverbend and raedinthemiddle) due to his general low opinion of the US's handling of Iraq, and he got into a fight with iraqthemodel and buzzmachine, but if you've read him carefully, you'll know he's anything but a Baathist or fundamentalist sympathizer, or even a perma-dove (he was very much for the intervention in Afghanistan, and has never said anything positive about Saddam). He's pessimistic and tends to focus on the bad news, yes; but he's also someone whose analyses should be especially useful for a Repub admin that's become more and more like an echo chamber, to the detriment of the occupation.

 

I suppose there is some value in the views of someone that you yourself calls 'pessimistic' and 'focused on bad news'. I agree that he is well read, by conservatives and islamists alike. Juan Cole has a unique ability to draw out interesting news items from the Iraqi theater of operations...but it's his interpretation of those events that is saddly deficient. Mr. Cole does a good job relating the events that come to him from his specific sources, but then fails to properly interpret them as he is seated in an isolated office in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Other analysts report the same things he does, to a greater detail, and take the meaning much differently as they are closer to the real action.

Mr. Cole reminds me of the Vietnam era protesters, who objected to the war because it was war.

He would do us all a benefit if he would temper his pessimism with some 'real world' exposure and some 'big picture' analysis. As it is, he spouts fluff for the anti-war protesters and provides encouragement for insurgents...both of whom are faithful readers of his blog.

And I would never engage in a 'Moderator Fight' with Chandos...we'd take it to PM, where I would forget the fight as I asked about his family.

 

Professor Cole makes the opposite point about himself in that it his experience of actually living in the Middle East for several years that gives him his perspective on the Iraq issue. The other side of his argument is that people like Goldberg, who are completely ignorant of the situation there, just comment to cheerlead for George II, while sniping at the opposition. In other words they are the "King's minons." And I agree. Hey, but I wouldn't fight with Hack either. Principled people can always disagree on the principles, yet still be friends.

 

I agree that Mr. Cole has significant knowlege of the Middle East, and reports valuable information from his sources...it's just his little 'asides' that make him not completely reliable...he runs down the results of the Iraqi election, an event that turned out better that many hoped, and then claims it's a massive defeat for the Administration...huh? As if the Administration were holding out for the Republican candidate to win?

It's those kind of misguided, rhetorical statements that reveal him as far from un-biased and forces me to take his "news" with several grains of salt...and reject his analysis entirely until supported by additional sources.

I also have to stay on good terms with Chandos because he has some rather embarassing pictures of me partying at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

 

I find Cole's views so valuable because they come from someone not only with insight in the Middle East from knowing culture, people, country amnd language - where the neocon geniusses lack any of the four ( which doesn't seem to bother them, presumably they recognise evil when they see it and that's enough ) - but from someone without a political agenda to promote.

He's a scholar who offers his views, that have an opinion.

With a grain of salt, I think someone who studies the Middle East out of interest must come to a very different and more sober point of view when compared to people who deal with national security, then discover terrorism as a threat and start to study 'terrorists' and the countries they live in.