Winning the Terror Wars

VodkaPundit offers an insightful and much needed post on what it will take to win the war we are in. The key point Stephen Green makes is that this war is an ideological war in the same way that the Cold War was, and so our plan to win must be similar, but because the enemy's ideology is different, the way we win must be different in detail.

The key underlying facts of this war are these:

• The enemy is united by only one thing: the ideology of jihad. The key features of this ideology include attacking kufr (that's you and me) wherever you find them and by whatever means necessary, but most particularly in countries which are or once were Muslim and most importantly by killing us or forcing us to submit; dhimmitude (subjugation of servile non-Muslims); universal implementation of shari'a, a Koranic code of justice and prescriptions and proscriptions for living that is deeply opposed to every value and right held by any liberal society; "cleansing" the ummah (think of this the way Catholics mean "Church") of "insufficiently-Muslim" Muslims; restoral of the caliphate (theocratic government of the Arabs and Muslims as a whole covering all of the territory ever under Muslim domination [Sorry, Spain, nice try and all.]); and extension of the caliphate to the entire world.
• In the Arab/Muslim world, a large number of people are fellow-travellers with the jihadis, even when they do not necessarily agree with the jihadis. Partly, the reasons are cultural, and partly they are religious. Mostly, though, they seem to grow out of the deep sense of failure and shame within the Arab world, channeled by their tyrannical governments into xenophobia and the fetishization of death and hatred. As a result, the jihadis have considerable freedom of movement and action within Muslim populations everywhere in the world (yes, including in the US).
• The Western ideology owes most of its substance the Enlightenment liberalism of Rousseau (particularly in Europe) and Smith, Hobbes and Locke (particularly in the US). These values include equality of all (including law-makers and law-enforcers) before the law, freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, and the right to be tried by a jury of one's peers; the rule of law rather than the use of force to settle disputes; limited and representative government; mostly-free markets and trade; the right of individuals to life, liberty and property; freedom of speech, religion and the press; equality of people regardless of race, religion, creed, color, gender, parentage, or opinion; acceptance of the value of change; the value of prosperity and the independence it brings; and a rational scientific worldview (even amongst the very religious).
• In the West, we have failed over the last hundred years to bequeath the legacy of Western civilization and the Enlightenment to our children, because many in the West no longer agree with many of the tenets of that ideology and legacy. We have ceased teaching Western culture and values in government-controlled educational institutions; we have ceased passing these values on to our children; we have countenanced the outright denigration of our culture and our countries in comparison to others; we have sought world government while ignoring self discipline. In large part, we surrendered not our ideology, but our control of its presentation and interpretation to those among us most interested in overthrowing that ideology and replacing it with Marxism or some similarly-utopian ideal.
• Many of the people in the West who are most opposed to the values of the West are also in active or tacit league with our enemies abroad. In most cases, this comes not from a respect for the culture and values of the enemy, but from self-loathing and bitter recriminations over the imperfections (however minor in comparison) of the West. The primary effect of this (fairly large) coterie (particularly in Europe) is to hinder our efforts at self-defense and at spreading our liberal values to our enemy. In addition, socialism has invested us with a deeply selfish trend which causes many otherwise well-meaning people to oppose any efforts which might reduce government's largess on behalf of themselves or their pet causes. This imposes constraints of both material and will on the ability of the West to defend itself aggressively abroad and even at home.

Our strategy must be tailored to these facts, and I think that Stephen Green's strategy is a good starting point: take the initiative, fight against any challenge (even if we know in advance that we will not win in that particular instance), and remain what we are. In the light of my view of the war, though, I would extend and modify this somewhat.

The modification is to the last point: we must not merely remain what we are, but must articulate and defend that against both internal and external challenges, and must pass on our values to our children actively, as opposed to just letting them get it as best they can from TV and movies. In particular, I believe that a concentration on civics and history are critical. This is far, far more important than arguments over testing, grades, class sizes and the like.

The first extension is that we must modify their culture and replace parts of it with our own, as we did with Japan. In particular, we must democratize the Arab nations and give their people outlets for free expression. This will not only weaken the hold of the jihadis by depriving them of the swill of hatred in which they breed, but will also give them something to cherish in this life, making suicide attacks much less attractive.

The second extension is that, in order to prove to the enemy that their philosophy is bankrupt, we must prove that they do not have their god, as they conceive him, on their side. This must be done without compromising our fundamental values, but it will be brutal and unpleasant (as are all wars), and will require us to make some difficult distinctions.

To do this, we must fight symbolically. First, we must kill the enemy wherever we find him. In particular, we should concentrate on killing imams, mullahs, ayatollahs and other clerical figures who preach jihad. Similarly, where there are madrassas that focus on teaching jihad, we must either destroy them or dry up their funding, and should probably kill the teachers and administrators. Not only will these actions reduce the indoctrination of hatred and xenophobia over the long term, they will also strike directly at the enemy's religious heart: how could god allow this?

Second, we must pick high-value targets for religious reasons as well as tactical ones. Instead of avoiding shrines, we should level them indiscriminately. If mosques encourage jihad, we should level them, too. We should announce quite clearly and calmly that, should any nuclear or chemical attack occur within the US, or against US interests abroad, we will respond by destroying Mecca and Medina utterly. And if it comes down to it, we should destroy Mecca and Medina utterly. Again, the idea is to make them wonder how their god could allow this.

Third, and this will be particularly controversial, we should encourage Christian missionary activity and charity work among the Muslims, and protect the missionaries by force of arms. I'm really not happy with this, because I am not myself Christian and because I believe that a lot of bad things have been done by Christians in the guise of missionary work in the past. Nonetheless, such activity would challenge the jihadis directly on their own ground, and if successful could provoke a cultural change in the Muslim world that would hasten the end of these wars.

Finally, we should pull the gloves off completely and attack our enemies wherever and whenever we find them. If Montessedeq is released by Germany, we should grab him and take him out of the country by force. (Quietly, so as not to unnecessarily provoke the Germans.) Similarly, Moqtada al-Sadr should be dead right about now. We should bomb Iranian military facilities where al Qaeda leaders are hiding, and should assassinate our enemies even in friendly or nominally-friendly countries. If this means that oil supplies are threatened, we should occupy the oilfields and ship the oil ourselves.

Yes, what I'm advocating is a total war of civilizations, exactly what bin Laden has asked for. I think we can take them, and do it convincingly. The alternative is to accustom ourselves to having our citizens periodically and randomly killed by these maniacs. I'm not willing to do that.

Of course, such a course would require a total commitment of our civilization on a broad scale, and may not be politically possible. If that is the case, then we must work diligently at home to bring about the conditions where it would be possible. Or, as a last resort, we could just keep doing what we are doing now, and when the next and worse 9/11 hits, the political landscape will be significantly changed. The downside, of course, is potentially millions of dead Americans and a genocidal response. Perhaps, instead, we could be working on creating the political will now?

UPDATE: Be sure to read the trackbacks on Stephen Green's post, particularly this one.

Posted by Jeff at August 10, 2004 04:01 PM | Link Cosmos