188 lines
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188 lines
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From fork-admin@xent.com Wed Sep 11 19:42:14 2002
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<fork@xent.com>; Wed, 11 Sep 2002 12:37:51 -0400
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From: "Bill Stoddard" <bill@wstoddard.com>
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To: "Fork@Xent.Com" <fork@example.com>
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Subject: Hanson's Sept 11 message in the National Review
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Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 12:37:15 -0400
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http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson091102.asp
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September 11, 2002 8:00 a.m.
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The Wages of September 11
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There is no going back.
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September 11 changed our world. Those who deny such a watershed event take a
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superficially short-term view, and seem to think all is as before simply
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because the sun still rises and sets.
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This is a colossal misjudgment. The collapse of the towers, the crashing
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into the Pentagon, and the murder of 3,000 Americans <20> all seen live in real
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time by millions the world over <20> tore off a scab and exposed deep wounds,
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which, if and when they heal, will leave ugly scars for decades. The killers
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dealt in icons <20> the choice of 911 as the date of death, targeting the
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manifest symbols of global capitalism and American military power, and
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centering their destruction on the largest Jewish city in the world. Yes,
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they got their symbols in spades, but they have no idea that their killing
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has instead become emblematic of changes that they could scarcely imagine.
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Islamic fundamentalism has proved not ascendant, but static, morally
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repugnant <20> and the worst plague upon the Arab world since the Crusades. By
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lurking in the shadows and killing incrementally through stealth, the
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vampirish terrorists garnered bribes and subsidies through threats and
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bombs; but pale and wrinkled in the daylight after 9/11, they prove only
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ghoulish not fearsome.
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The more the world knows of al Qaeda and bin Laden, the more it has found
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them both vile and yet banal <20> and so is confident and eager to eradicate
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them and all they stand for. It is one thing to kill innocents, quite
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another to take on the armed might of an aroused United States. Easily
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dodging a solo cruise missile in the vastness of Afghanistan may make good
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theater and bring about braggadocio; dealing with grim American and British
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commandos who have come 7,000 miles for your head prompts abject flight and
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an occasional cheap infomercial on the run. And the ultimate consequence of
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the attacks of September 11 will not merely be the destruction of al Qaeda,
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but also the complete repudiation of the Taliban, the Iranian mullocracy,
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the plague of the Pakistani madrassas, and any other would-be fundamentalist
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paradise on earth.
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Foreign relations will not be the same in our generation. Our coalition with
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Europe, we learn, was not a partnership, but more mere alphabetic
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nomenclature and the mutual back scratching of Euro-American globetrotters <20>
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a paper alliance without a mission nearly 15 years after the end of the Cold
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War. The truth is that Europe, out of noble purposes, for a decade has
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insidiously eroded its collective national sovereignty in order to craft an
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antidemocratic EU, a 80,000-person fuzzy bureaucracy whose executive power
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is as militarily weak as it is morally ambiguous in its reliance on often
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dubious international accords. This sad realization September 11 brutally
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exposed, and we all should cry for the beloved continent that has for the
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moment completely lost its moral bearings. Indeed, as the months progressed
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the problems inherent in "the European way" became all too apparent:
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pretentious utopian manifestos in lieu of military resoluteness, abstract
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moralizing to excuse dereliction of concrete ethical responsibility, and
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constant American ankle-biting even as Europe lives in a make-believe Shire
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while we keep back the forces of Mordor from its picturesque borders, with
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only a few brave Frodos and Bilbos tagging along. Nothing has proved more
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sobering to Americans than the skepticism of these blinkered European
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hobbits after September 11.
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America learned that "moderate" Arab countries are as dangerous as hostile
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Islamic nations. After September 11, being a Saudi, Egyptian, or Kuwaiti
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means nothing special to an American <20> at least not proof of being any more
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friendly or hostile than having Libyan, Syrian, or Lebanese citizenship.
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Indeed, our entire postwar policy of propping up autocracies on the triad of
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their anticommunism, oil, and arms purchases <20> like NATO <20> belongs to a
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pre-9/11 age of Soviet aggrandizement and petroleum monopolies. Now we learn
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that broadcasting state-sponsored hatred of Israel and the United States is
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just as deadly to our interests as scud missiles <20> and as likely to come
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from friends as enemies. Worst-case scenarios like Iran and Afghanistan
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offer more long-term hope than "stable regimes" like the Saudis; governments
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that hate us have populations that like us <20> and vice versa; the Saudi royal
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family, whom 5,000 American troops protect, and the Mubarak autocracy, which
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has snagged billions of American dollars, are as afraid of democratic
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reformers as they are Islamic fundamentalists. And with good reason: Islamic
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governments in Iran and under the Taliban were as hated by the masses as
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Arab secular reformers in exile in the West are praised and championed.
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The post-9/11 domestic calculus is just as confusing. Generals and the
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military brass call civilians who seek the liberation of Iraq "chicken
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hawks" and worse. Yet such traditional Vietnam-era invective I think rings
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hollow after September 11, and sounds more like McClellan's shrillness
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against his civilian overseers who precipitously wanted an odious slavery
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ended than resonant of Patton's audacity in charging after murderous Nazis.
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More Americans were destroyed at work in a single day than all those
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soldiers killed in enemy action since the evacuation of Vietnam nearly 30
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years ago. Indeed, most troops who went through the ghastly inferno of
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Vietnam are now in or nearing retirement; and, thank God, there is no
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generation of Americans in the present military <20> other than a few thousand
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brave veterans of the Gulf, Mogadishu, and Panama <20> who have been in
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sustained and deadly shooting with heavy casualties. Because American
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soldiers and their equipment are as impressive as our own domestic security
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is lax, in this gruesome war it may well be more perilous to work high up in
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lower Manhattan, fly regularly on a jumbo jet, or handle mail at the
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Pentagon or CIA than be at sea on a sub or destroyer.
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Real concern for the sanctity of life may hinge on employing rather than
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rejecting force, inasmuch as our troops are as deadly and protected abroad
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as our women, children, aged, and civilians are impotent and vulnerable at
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home. It seems to me a more moral gamble to send hundreds of pilots into
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harm's way than allow a madman to further his plots to blow up or infect
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thousands in high-rises.
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Politics have been turned upside down. In the old days, cynical
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conservatives were forced to hold their noses and to practice a sometimes
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repellent Realpolitik. In the age of Russian expansionism, they were loathe
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to champion democracy when it might usher in a socialist Trojan Horse whose
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belly harbored totalitarians disguised as parliamentarians. Thus they were
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so often at loggerheads with na<6E>ve and idealist leftists.
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No longer. The end of the specter of a deadly and aggressive Soviet
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Communism has revived democratic ideology as a force in diplomacy. Champions
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of freedom no longer sigh and back opportunistic rightist thugs who promise
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open economics, loot their treasuries, and keep out the Russians. Instead,
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even reactionaries are now more likely to push for democratic governments in
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the Middle East than are dour and skeptical leftists. The latter, if
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multiculturalists, often believe that democracy is a value-neutral Western
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construct, not necessarily a universal good; if pacifists, they claim
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nonintervention, not justice, as their first priority. The Right, not the
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Left, now is the greater proponent of global freedom, liberation, and
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idealism <20> with obvious domestic ramifications for any Republican president
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astute enough to tap that rich vein of popular support.
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All this and more are the wages of the disaster of September 11 and the
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subsequent terrible year <20> and yet it is likely that, for good or evil, we
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will see things even more incredible in the twelve months ahead.
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