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September 13, 2006

The myth I wish would just shut the f**k up

One day after 9/11, Dem Senator Russ Feingold is trolling for votes in front of the Arab American Institute and scolds President Bush for using the phrase "Islamic fascism."

We must avoid using misleading and offensive terms that link Islam with those who subvert this great religion or who distort its teachings to justify terrorist activities
Feingold doesn't offer a specific alternative for the radical Islamic ideology that is, indeed, fascist in its tenets and goals.

And "fascism" is a mild label considering Islamism's stated views of how to treat the kafir.

However, this kind of blinkered pc-ism from the cut-n-run appeasers goes hand-in-glove with the myths that they continue to perpetrate. One I find particularly annoying (especially when I continue to run across it presented as a "given" by any number of commenters on 9/11 threads) is the one that claims

"The world loved us after 9/11 and the Shrub squandered all that goodwill!"
Leave aside the creepy beauty-pageant aspiration writ international in that phrase and lets just address the general assertion that an act of war on American soil changed the way "the world" felt about America and it was Bush and Bush alone who "pissed it all away." Usually such advocates of this view make reference to an editorial from Le Monde on 9/12/01 that declared

We are All Americans

Nice title, eh? But read the whole thing. After a nice opening paragraph the writer cannot help but start to engage in the usual "America brought this on itself" trope.
The reality is more certainly that of a world with no counterbalance, physically destabilized, and thus more dangerous since there is no multipolar balance. And America, in the solitude of its power, in its status as the sole superpower, now in the absence of a Soviet counter-model, has ceased to draw other nations to itself; or more precisely, in certain parts of the globe, it seems to draw nothing but hate. [...]

But the reality is perhaps also that of an America whose own cynicism has caught up with. If Bin Laden, as the American authorities seem to think, really is the one who ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, how can we fail to recall that he was in fact trained by the CIA and that he was an element of a policy, directed against the Soviets, that the Americans considered to be wise? Might it not then have been America itself that created this demon?

And the writer doesn't want war against this evil. No, no. In the hours after learning civilian jets were slammed deliberately into the WTC and the Pentagon to murder and maim, watching people leap to their death, learning that hundreds of firemen and police died in their attempts of rescuing, what response did he pen?
This situation requires our leaders to rise to the occasion. They must act so that the peoples whom these warmongers are seeking to win over and are counting on will not fall in step behind them in their suicidal logic.
Yes. Don't defeat 'em! Bribe 'em, understand 'em, appease 'em, don't speak honest of 'em, get them to love us!

I fear for the segments of Western civilization that have gone gangrene with such self-inflicted "multiculturalist" chic.

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Posted by Darleen at September 13, 2006 06:39 AM

Comments

Actually the US original empowered the Islamic fighters in Afghanistan by given them weapons to kick the Russians out.

Unfortunately they turned against us as sometime allies often do.

Islamic fundamentalists didn't see much difference between the Soviet Union and the US, at least in reference to Moslems.

Of course, US friendliness with a variety of Absolute dictators and monarchs in the Middle East didn't help much either.

It's not being unpatriotic to criticize government policies. But some in the GOP are calling all dissent unpatriotic.

Nothing new. I heard the same thing during that other useless war, the one in Vietnam.

Somethings never change.

Posted by: Carl W. Goss at September 13, 2006 10:46 PM

But some in the GOP are calling all dissent unpatriotic

Care to source that, Carl? Cuz I would call that yet another myth.

Serious and mature adults realize they have to deal with reality as it is, and that includes making compromises that are less than perfect. FDR had to deal with Stalin to defeat Hitler, and during the Cold War we sometimes only got a choice between accepting a relationship with a few friendly dictators or have 'em all go to the Soviets.

Posted by: Darleen at September 13, 2006 10:51 PM

Carl,

You conveniently have ignored that the United States was only one of many actors who were supporting the Afghan resistance against the Soviets. The quote Darleen pulled from the world press claiming that the CIA training Bin Laden is patently false.

The CIA, with the blessing of the Carter Administration, funneled money and weapons to the ISI (Pakistani intelligence) and basically let them support whomever they wanted. Unfortunately, the ISI tended to favor the more radical Islamists since they wanted to control Afghanistan through proxy. Saudi Arabia also funded these groups and actively encourged Wahhabist Arabs to wage jihad against the godless communists.

While the CIA's operations were more active than just supplying them with Stinger missiles, they were not out there actively training and encouraging the radical Islamists. When they did directly deal with the resistance, they tended to work with more moderate guys like Mossoud (the Northern Alliance leader who was assassinated by al-Qaeda just before 9-11).

However, it was absolutely crucial that the Soviets lost in Afghanistan, and these sins of ommission will be handled in time. The Soviets defeat in Afghnanistan triggered was the beginning of the end for those suffering behind the Iron Curtain.

Remember, the result of defeating Germany in WWII left the Soviet Union as a world power, and I don't hear too many people saying that we shouldn't have defeated Germany to avoid the eventual Soviet threat. Now that the Soviets are done, we'll deal with the Islamists.

Naturally, all of these problems predate Bush and the current GOP, so you'll have to find a new scapegoat to pin your patriotic dissent on.

Lastly, if you think it is a worthless effort to defeat the Islamists, then your moral compass is too broken to even have a discussion. While I think "how" to go about it is up for reasonable debate, "whether or not to" is not.

Posted by: TF6S at September 14, 2006 04:08 PM

Darleen,

Do you think we are winning the war on terror?

If so, can you cite some examples of progress (and exclude as one that the homeland has not been attacked since 9/11 -- actually we were attacked by the anthrax mailings; but surely you recognize that we are just as vulnerable to attack now as we were 5 years ago and that therefore either the terorists are biding their time, or they just don't have the capability; therefore please do not use the lack of a repeat attack as one citation of "progress"...cite something else)?

And if not, why not?

Posted by: Brad at September 17, 2006 10:58 AM

Yes, Darleen, give us other examples and don't bother with the one that means the most, that one is OFF LIMITS you cannot cite it cite something else.

After that would you please show us why the Bush economic record is NOT abysmal? Cite real examples but do not use GDP, unemployment, real tax revenue, rate of inflation, or deficit reduction those are OFF LIMITS cite something else!

Thanks

Posted by: Dave in Texas at September 18, 2006 09:08 PM

Here is an example of being unpatriotic for being a dissenter:

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1001-03.htm
http://www.australianpolitics.com/news/2001/01-09-21.shtml
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2003/bush_critics_equal_terrorists.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine

The "Founding Fathers" were also dissidents to King George... So I guess it is a matter of perspective only.

Posted by: neil at September 20, 2006 10:31 AM