Mon May 02, 2011 12:31 pm
I was already asleep last night before the news came out, The story of bin Laden's demise was the first thing that greeted me this morning when the clock-radio went off at 6 AM (EST). I didn’t post on the other ‘Bin Laden is Dead’ threads but I did page through them and then felt compelled to put down my personal thoughts.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
~Sir Winston Churchill, Speech in November 1942
Thinking back well over a decade ago I heard that the Pakistanis were angry at America. Their anger, if I remember correctly, was because the United States helped defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and then left the field of battle. There were reports in the media that some in the Pakistani hierarchy felt we should have done more, post-victory. In some twisted piece of logic we were to blame. However, anything that we did do would inevitably be used and misconstrued by the numerous anti-American forces domestically, in the West, and in the Third World as evidence of the Colonial ambitions and predatory intentions of the US-superpower and the war-mongering of evil men like Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder. In other words, a Reverend Wright or Louis Farakhan wet-dream come true.
Well, we left, and the rest, as they say, is history. In the following years the Afghani society was taken over by a group of Islamist-throwbacks called the Taliban. We did not intervene. At the same time, the Taliban gave succor to a group known as al Qaeda run by an evil little man named Osama bin Laden. Both groups were philosophically motivated (JMHO) to varying degrees by the teachings of Sayyid Qutb. Qutb’s writings, penned in an Egyptian prison much like Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’, put forth ideas that led to the formation of The Muslim Brotherhood. Is it any wonder that many of the founders of al Qaeda like the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri are motivated by the writings of Qutb? And that this has found its way into the core philosophy of Radical Islam? More importantly, Qutb’s philosophy was nothing new. Besides being written in prison the underpinning was not dissimilar to that of Hitler and Mussolini in that they all longed for a resurgence and reconstitution of their societys' past glories. The vehicle that Hitler and Mussolini used to accomplish these romantic visions was in both cases Fascism. Ultimately though, what Hitler romantically longed for was the Teutonic Knights and the idealism of a northern-European Wagnerian folk-tale past. Hitler used the Knights as analogues for heroism, dedication, duty, and sacrifice for the nation. Likewise, Mussolini romantically longed for a revitalized Roman Empire to motivate his citizens. Similarly Qutb’s writings show the same philosophical purpose and he romantically longed for the dead Caliphate and the vast civilization it held sway over. Coincidentally, Qutb not only had criticism for the current Muslim leadership of his time but also penned his disapproval of the society and culture of the United States which he saw as obsessed with materialism and violence.
Yes, Osama is dead, but the philosophy that spawned him is not; Qutb’s philosophy lives on. It is in al Qaeda, it is in the Madrasas, it is in the Mosques. Osama resided next to the Pakistani equivalent of West Point. This speaks volumes about some of the Pakistani leadership and ISI and their philosophical beliefs. Moreover, I have heard that we did not inform or ask permission of the Pakistani government before this mission. I believe this says volumes about our military planner’s opinion of the current Pakistani government. As I said previously, we left the field of battle in Afghanistan and left the country to it's people, not Haliburton. We eventually had to return to Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban after being attacked on 911. However, not unexpectedly this was used by some as fodder for slogans like “No blood for oil” or in indictments of the US government in movies like ‘Farenheit 911’ by domestic Leftists like Michael Moore.
I have to ask that if Osama was living not in a cave, but in luxury next to the Pakistani West Point, what about our West Point? Someone long ago said the first requisite to winning a war is to correctly identify your enemy. My understanding is that in our West Point the enemy cannot be identified. That would be considered 'Politically Incorrect'. Both Bush, and more recently Obama, have instructed that references to Islam be scrubbed in classes taught to our future military leaders. For that matter, the recently published report on the Fort Hood massacre contained no references whatsoever to Islam as a primary motivation to the incident. I must conclude that this action is being performed under the rubric of the historically recent Western concept of ‘Multiculturalism’ which spawns the thought that it is more detrimental to alienate “peaceful Muslims” by putting an actual face on the real enemy. John Kerry gave voice to this philosophy by saying that “we are creating enemies faster than we can kill them”. In truth we are being disarmed by this concept. How can one go to war and succeed without being able to identify the enemy? Rumsfeld discussed this in his book about the Bush administration’s phrase ‘War on Terror’. He said that this title was a misnomer and that, “(Terror) is a technique, it’s a method. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize.” Rumsfeld’s words indicate that the administration was not ignorant of the real threat but instead chose policies that would lead to the threading of a political needle with politically correct nuance and word games. “Islam is a religion of Peace”, indeed! To be blunt, we are not at war with terrorism; we are at war with radical Islam whose purpose is the romantic reestablishment of the Caliphate. We did not choose them, but instead Radical Islam has chosen us through the writings of Qutb.
I fear the loss of Societal Memory through multiculturalism, the erasure of words, and our inabilty to name an enemy. I cannot pretend to speak for the other members of Darwin Central, but only myself, when I say that I am a child of the Enlightenment. To be honest, we all need a paradigm to hang our philosophical hat on as a convenient organizational construct whether it be Teutonism or Islamicism. However, it is for a thinking individual to choose correctly and continually reevaluate his/her position, and to abandon the entire paradigm if the scientific evidence points in another direction. As Ayn Rand would say, "check your premises". This is also the basis of Kuhn's 'The Basis of Scientific Revolutions'. I have not seen anything to point me in another direction from my present beliefs and I remain imbued with the spirit of Western Civilization and its heritage. It was why I choose to join Darwin Central after Rades' invite in the first place. That, and my progressive and increasing disgust with the infiltration of other websites with anti-Enlightenment ideas, such as Creationism, that are held in common with Islamists. More specifically though, groups like The Muslim Brotherhood have set up front organizations in the US. We have a Fifth Column that is within the gates of the US, advising our government, and setting our policy. That Fifth Column subversively undermines the ideals of this Country as evidenced by the Orwellian scrubbing of identifying titles. To conclude: I live in the shadow of Jefferson's Monticello whose memorial says, "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." He meant it. I mean it. Osama is dead, but this is merely the end of the beginning.