Terrorists' Excuse du Jour

[kg_veteran]

September 29, 2006
Terrorists' Excuse du Jour
By Jonah Goldberg

link

Of course the war in Iraq has made us less safe, and I didn't need the National Intelligence Estimate to tell me so. Who could possibly deny that Iraq has become, in the words of the NIE, a "cause celebre" for jihadists? One need only read the newspaper to conclude that Iraq is spawning more terrorists. (Indeed, one fears that all the NIE authors did was clip from the newspapers.)

If you've ever stood up to a bully, you know how this works. Confrontation tends to increase the chances of violence in the short term but decreases its likelihood in the long term. Any hunter will tell you that the most dangerous moment is when you've cornered an animal, and any cop will tell you that standing up to muggers puts you in danger. American colonists were less safe for standing up to King George III, and the United States was certainly safer in the short term when we stood on the sidelines while Germany was conquering Europe. Heck, we would have been safer in the short run if we'd responded to Pearl Harbor by telling the Japanese they could have the Pacific to themselves.

After 9/11, there were voices on the left warning that an attack on Afghanistan would only perpetuate the dreaded "cycle of violence." Today, Democrats tout their support of that "good" war as proof they aren't soft on terrorism. Fair enough, I suppose. But guess what? That war made us less safe too - if the measure of such things is "creating more terrorists." A Gallup poll taken in nine Muslim nations in February 2002 found that more than three-fourths of respondents considered the liberation of Afghanistan unjustifiable. A mere 9 percent supported U.S. actions. That goes for famously moderate Turkey, where opposition to the U.S. ran three to one, and in Pakistan, where a mere one in 20 respondents took the American side.

In other words, before Iraq became the cause celebre of jihadists, Afghanistan was. Does that mean we shouldn't have toppled the Taliban?

Going back further, it's conventional wisdom that we helped "create" Osama bin Laden, or his Taliban and mujahedin comrades, when we supported the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union. So we shouldn't have done that either?

Every serious analysis of the Islamic world today describes a genuine tectonic shift in a vast civilization, an upheaval that cuts across social, religious and demographic lines. This phenomenon dwarfs transient issues such as the Iraq war. Are we to believe that once-moderate and relatively secular Morocco is slipping toward extremism because we toppled Baathist Saddam Hussein? Do we believe that the mobs who burned Danish embassies in response to a cartoon wouldn't have done so if only President Bush had gone for the 18th, 19th or 20th U.N. resolution on Iraq? Millions of young men yearning for meaning and craving outlets for their rage would have become computer programmers and dental hygienists if only Hussein's statue still towered over central Baghdad? Would the pope's comments spark nothing but thoughtful and high-minded debate from the Arab street if only Al Gore or John Kerry were in office?

Iraq is the excuse du jour for jihadists. But the important factor is that these are young men looking for an excuse. If you live your life calculating that it's a mistake to do anything that might prompt murderers and savages to act like murderers and savages, you've basically decided to live under their thumb and surrender your civilization in the process.

For me, the truly dismaying news this week didn't come from the NIE but from the German media. A German opera house announced that it would cancel its staging of Mozart's "Idomeneo" because Berlin police concluded that staging the opera - which includes a scene in which Jesus, Buddha, Poseidon and Muhammad are beheaded - would pose an "incalculable security risk" from jihadists. Germany, recall, proudly opposed the Iraq war - but still narrowly missed a Spain-style terrorist attack on its rail system this summer.

A leading Muslim spokesman in Germany explained that he was all for free speech, as long as it didn't offend Muslims. The Germans' all-too-typical appeasement of terrorism no doubt makes them "safer" and "creates" fewer terrorists.

And all it cost them - for now - is Mozart.

[dalmations202]

Too much truth in this article. Shows how far this country, and many other proud countries have fallen away.

[Usually Lurkin]

Tom and Jerry: Zionist propaganda

we should stop making cartoons, because the terrorists use them for recruitment.

[dude1394]

too much common sense to make it in our media.

Nice to see thinkers still out there.

[MavsX]

good work KG, screw ze germans!

[mcsluggo]

Sigh.

Straw men, and trying to impute the moral fortitude of a nation based on an individual org. making a financial decision based on a perseived risk/liablility.

Straw man: there were pinkos even against invading Iraq, gawlarnit!!

yes its true. Take ANY postion at all that you want to oppose, and someone has espoused it. Pro Hitler, pro-Osoma, pro-E coli, pro-sex with 7 year olds, pro-necrophilia... for ANY position you can find SOMEONE who supported it, and it is sooooo much easier to win an argument by defining loony opposition than by actually formulating an intelligent, nuanced position on the grey area that is actually under debate. too easy.

THEN, take some org that cancelled a show because some administrator is afraid of being bombed, and extrapolate it to an obvious lack of moral fortitude by the leadership of a foreign nation. Yes.
You know, my area's school district cancelled classes last february because there was 4 inches of snow... This means that damn George Bush and the neocons are denying the existance of global warming, motherf***ers!!!

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by dude1394

too much common sense to make it in our media.

Nice to see thinkers still out there.

Yes, its amazing that poor wittle conservative writers are EVER able to get to the market to buy granny some lemonaide, with all the big mean scary liberal msm wolves bullying them all the time.

Whats a conservative to do?

[Drbio]

Whats a conservative to do?

Try to educate the libidiots?