What is a "9/11 Conservative?"
In a conversation with a friend, I was asked the question in the title. My response was this:
A 9/11 conservative is what most HotAir and LGF commenters are. In other words, they realized on 9/11 that there's something wrong with Islam, namely that it's a violent religion. Once a true conservative starts to discuss what to actually do about Muslims in the West causing problems, they revert to pre-9/11 thinking and label you a racist. For example, I believe that adherents of Islam should be treated like Southerners post-1865: they should be made to renounce their religion just as Southerners were made to renounce secessionism and swear loyalty to the Union. Mosques, being military centers of 4GW, should be bulldozed. Those who don't want to stop practicing Islam should be given tickets to their country of ethnic origin and help onto the plane. A 9/11 conservative will immediately label you a Nazi. Their solution involves doing nothing but going online and fretting over the whole thing. Or, like you said, they believe that by invading the world and spreading democracy, the problems will just disappear.
PRCalDude
18 Comments
Reader Comments (18)
taking out Saddam and "spreading democracy" are two seperate issues.
Your way isn't politically feasible either, domestically, not in our culture and far-left and Left-Libertarian(Ron Paulist) outfits like the ACLU around. I'd say mainstream conservatives post-9/11, many anyway, are for much tougher things than we've done but understand they are feasible unless willing to start riots and all out revolution among other things.
A case for taking out Saddam was made, and was probably valid based on a priori knowledge. However, Bush was also talking about spreading democracy at the same time, and if you look at what he says about 'functional democracy' in Gaza and teh West Bank, believes it solves all your problems. He had Condi warn the Turkish military because they were going to intervene on election results in Turkey. They're only tautology is "democracy = good". Bush is a 9/11 conservative.
they debated 23 different cases for War in 2002, against Saddam. The question after taking Saddam out is what to do with the country. I see 3 options I suppose:
1) attempt democracy
2) place pro-western dictator, the left and libertarian charges of "imperialism" stick better.
3) wipe the whole place out, not feasible because we need their oil pumped and shipped, aside from the obvious fallout with the "Global community"
the "Democracy Project" wasn't bushes idea so much, but State and others taking everything they learned during the Cold War and what worked, and trying to apply it to the Middle East.
Take a read of this, David Bahnsen's review of Natan Sharskansky's book "Case for Democracy". Sharshanksy met with bush, Dubya has read this book and it is good to know. Here is Bahnsen's review:
http://dlbthoughts.com/Articles.aspx?IDCol=153
I heard David Frum once note that Rumsefeld didn't want the Democracy push, but the pro-western dictator option instead, big debate with State Dept. over that issue. Ended up with Rumsfeld's war plan with not enough troops over this argument.
They are trying to, I think, make Iraq another Korea longterm. With Korea, and Japan, the argument at the time was "Democracy isn't compatible with Shintoism religion". Of course we didn't push it so soon, had some dictators then brought it later on, had a military presence and pushed down the oppressive forces in the region. Now today, both are peaceful democracies with major companies we do business with. In S. Korea's case we literally "turned the lights on" in a way, which is why Rumsfeld liked to trot out that Satellite photo to make his case.
I beleive South Korea is now 50% Christian, I wonder what it was back in 1950? assuming it was much lower, did the taste of Freedom lead them to Christianity perhaps, along with Western influence?
Bush's inaugural address in 2005 laid out their worldview on this, in short that man is made in the image of God to be free and will because of that appeal to Democracy over time. To me it's how you push it which has obviously caused at a minimum some short term issues.
I'm a 9/11 conservative. I was a Green Party activist at that time. Not a member, I mean an activist. When my fellow Greens started spinning after 9/11, without even pausing to mourn or feel anger, I told them off and registered as a Republican. I did end up at LGF, then became even more conservative! So, even though what you say is true of Prophet Charles and his followers, there are also many like me. Like the ones who got kicked out of LGF or left on their own.
jp
Your way isn't politically feasible either, domestically, not in our culture and far-left and Left-Libertarian(Ron Paulist) outfits like the ACLU around. I'd say mainstream conservatives post-9/11, many anyway, are for much tougher things than we've done but understand they are feasible unless willing to start riots and all out revolution among other things.
The Benes Decree was enacted in Czechoslavakia, a socialist/liberal country.
I see 3 options I suppose:
1) attempt democracy
2) place pro-western dictator, the left and libertarian charges of "imperialism" stick better.
3) wipe the whole place out, not feasible because we need their oil pumped and shipped, aside from the obvious fallout with the "Global community"
Why would the charges of "imperialism" stick better? Staying in the country to rebuild it in America's image and keeping bases there for 60 years closer resembles the old British imperialism than installing a pro-Western dictator and skedaddling.
There is another option. They could've removed Saddam and said "Okay, now its up to you to run your country" (as John Bolton suggested) and then let the Shi'ites and Sunnis have at it without Coalition troops getting caught in the crossfire. It could've been a bigger regional fracas and financial drain for MidEast Muslims (esp. our fiends the Saudis) than the Iran-Iraq war and the Eygptian-Saudi proxy war in Yemen put together.
we aren't imperialist now, especially in historical context, because Iraq was signed over their sovereignty in 2004 and have signed contracts and asked us to stay via arrangement. We want to stay because we have vital interest, obviously if we had no presence it would be part of Iran right now, as well as northern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and most of the worlds Oil reserves. So there is a mutual relationship there.
All of our foreign bases are this way, and they all aren't tax payer funded completely, they are also funded by those govts. The Phillipines are an example of asking the US to leave and we did, as requested. Hardly an imperialist nation. Germany still doesn't want us to leave, because they don't want to spend what they do on their welfare state on the military, which is Mark Steyn's point about how we effectively subsidize their nanny states since they don't have to spend what they need to spend on Defense. and with Germany's militaristic history and now being Islamified, we have mixed emotions on the arrangement.
its an imperfect world. But if America was imperialist we would've taken over Canada and all its resources years ago. Canada doesn't have much of an army and couldn't defend itself if we tried....but they know we aren't an Imperiliast aggressor which is why they aren't arming up.
I never said the US was imperialist, you introduced that into the conversation. I just meant the charges stick just as good even if the situation is not as you and I would perceive it (i.e. based on reality) but how it appears to the far-left/liberal constituency over whom you expressed concern. Following the best policy should trump pleasing a permanently hostile political faction.
Iran tried invading Iraq in the past just as the US tried invading Canada. Both invasions failed. So how can you be sure your predictions are rock solid? The US-Canada part of that question is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
The Iran-Iraq part definitely isn't and why should it be? Shi'ites are not naturally militarily superior to the millions of Sunnis who would fight them for control of Baghdad.
I don't think you fit the definition, then. You sound like an actual conservative who simply woke up on 9/11. I'm sure there are plenty of people like you and this wasn't directed toward you.
PR, decision to fight a war must follow a flowchart
1) Is it war? yes/no
If no - no response necessary
If yes - 2) Who is the enemy?
3) Kill that enemy until the he surrenders.
This is what we did in WW1 and WW2. We won.
We did not do this in Korea, VietNam. We tied/lost.
Our problem today is we are afraid someone won't like us if we fight as war should be fought. I made a conscious decision to get out of 'Nam because we weren't fighting to win. ie no-fire zones, can't bomb dikes, can't bomb N. VietNam further back into the stoneage. I heard the horror stories from my cousins in service. We could have bombed N.'Nam 24/7 until they surrendered. But we didn't want to be seen as the bully on the block or whatever.
We can lock up the Japs in WW2, but not the Muslims in WW3. We shot WW2 Nazi infiltraters immediately upon discovery, but Jihadis go to GitMo. We fire-bombed Dresden to the ground and killed 185K+ civilians and didn't bat an eye (same in Japan) but we give the bad guys a month's notice in Fallujah.
We are going to lose unless we wake up and realize we are at war. Muslims are the enemy. To rid the world of the Muslim scourge you will have to kill them all and burn every copy of the Koran. It ain't gonna happen. We will lose because the Muslims will never stop. They only understand a bullet in the head and 72 virgins.
Delete if too graphic/unPC.
Heh.
I often wonder if the success of 4GW is only dependent on Western weakness. MacNamara tried to micro-manage Vietnam, then Kissenger came along and played Realpolitik. I think we could have won had we simply fought and left politics out of it. The longer the war goes on, the more politics get involved.
With regards to the Islamic enemy, Black Jack Pershing had, by far, the best system of dealing with them:
a) dip bullets in pig's blood
b) shoot Muslims, leaving one alive to tell the story
c) repeat as necessary
If the dreaded pig is what keeps them out of their quasi-homosexual heaven, perhaps it's the ultimate weapon in dealing with them.
That said, though, many countries have been completely ruthless in dealing with enemies, only to lose 3GW conflicts against 4GW enemies. Mao took over China in this way. He simply took his time and didn't confront government forces unless he could win easily. At the end, it came down to a military conflict, but only after he eroded all support for Chiang Kai-shek's government amongst the people.
I think Patreus knows COIN, so I think if he stays in charge we'll prevail there. We'll have to be there a long time though.
The major hole in Sharanksky's argument appears to be the fact that Muslims living in societies that have democracy (ie Europe, Thailand, the Phillipines, Turkey) try to either re-establish "fear societies" (caliphates), or allow democracy for only the Muslims in those societies, thus creating a "fear society" for non-Muslims. I agree with his points about lack of moral clarity, I just also agree with Schaeffer's point that presuppositions matter. Sharansky and Schaeffer appear to be at odds.
PR, I agree with what you are saying but I think its dependent on our influence in it and being there, via the Military, to put down oppressing forces that try to re-establish the 'fear societies'. That's what scares me about the isolationist mood developing in this country, if we retract they will dominate in all likelihood even more so than they do now.
If I understand their points right, in its organic form, Democracy/Freedom appeals to people since made in image of God. and those ideals appeal to alot of oppressed people. The obvious problem is when you have militant forces that reject that and act out their evilness they make it impossible and enslave and oppress people.
I still have a big ? on the "democracy" part of this whole thing with Islam. complicated issue
there has always been a certain strain of evil in the world, that has taken various forms(always anti-Liberty and violent). And we need to be able to have the moral clarity to realize it when we see it and react appropriately. How thats possible with the Secular-Humanist Left and Rockwell Right is my concern at this point.
pr, out of curiosity: Do you think Muslims in the military should be kicked out?
Is it?
Yes. In a sane world, they already would have. Recall, one fragged a group of officers at the beginning of the invasion. A Muslim sailor was caught giving away ship's movements to terrorists. Mohammed FArah Adid's kid was in the USMC before returning to Somalia to run his dead father's fiefdom. How much more do we need?
I think if we set back and had no say/influence then Islam is definitely not compatible with democracy. However, if like in Korea/Japan we stick around with our bases and via force and moral superiority push back any oppressing forces that try to rise up, then it has a chance eventually. all things being equal, terrorist/Iran blowing stuff up regularly to destablize the area so that doesn't happen being the wildcard.
of course the goal isn't so much democracy, but a decentralized, non Terror sponsor state and hotbed. Korea and Japan aren't ideal democracies, they are Socialistic, however they are no longer warring nations and just decades later are allies of ours.
anyway, if it works longterm I think it would push people away from Islam gradually. So, I think Islam is as compatible with Democracy as Shintoism is/was, one of those we've proven we can make work. Every time I pick up a LG or Samsung phone or see a Hyndai or Kia car driving down the road I think of Harry Truman and his unpopular decisions.
I think the only examples you have of democracy in Islamic countries right now are Indonesia, Turkey, and Kurdistan. I watched a report of one sheik in Kurdistan discussing how they'd reinterpreted the Qur'an to make it compatible with democracy. We'll see how long that lasts. Turkey and Indonesia are not good examples.
yeah the real problem is the orthodox version of the religion, which is why i think they are trying to do what they can to 'moderate' it. for better or worse.
difficult times