I was actually working on a post that is, or rather, was, remarkably similar in its points to this article, on Muslim extremism, the possible destruction of Western Civilization, and the fact that too many ignore the obvious truths of both, and here I am
beaten to the punch by someone way to the left of me. Will wonders never cease. There's really too much to quote that I want to quote here, but I'll give some points that jump out at me:
On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.
This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.
[. . . ]
Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise. And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.
[. . . ]
Given the mendacity and shocking incompetence of the Bush administration especially its mishandling of the war in Iraq liberals can find much to lament in the conservative approach to fighting the war on terror. Unfortunately, liberals hate the current administration with such fury that they regularly fail to acknowledge just how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are.
[. . . ]
Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.
[. . . ]
While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren't.
And unless they pull their heads from
their asses the sand so aptly mentioned in the title of the editorial, liberals never will be. By focusing so much on the supposed internal threats and problems of Western Civilization, liberals constantly and consistently ignore the threat posed by outside forces, often ignoring them with the same determination and unyielding devotion to dogma they derisively attribute to the religious.
I'll use Ace to make my final point though, as he sums up liberal defeatism perfectly:
There's a great amount of odious liberal condescension at work here. No matter how many times Jihadists say "We are killing you because Allah commands it," liberals keep saying back, "Oh, pish-posh. We know what's really driving you -- a need for more day-care and infrastructure development."
Don't liberals believe in actually listening to the diverse narratives of oppressed peoples? Or is that just a cover for making up their own one-size-fits-all narrative and hegemonically imposing it on the world's repressed?
[. . . ]
[L]iberals are convinced we cannot win this war. Or, more accurately: They are convinced we cannot win this war in a way they find morally acceptable. And for many, fighting a war is itself morally unacceptable.
Ergo, the steady drumbeat from the left that we deserved it, we actually blew up the WTC ourselves, etc. They have decided the only liberally-correct response to the War on Terror is to lose it.
Far too few will ever understand that; if they ever do, their realiztion will come far too late to be of any use. Both posts are well worth your time for a full read.
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