If you still haven't figured out that there's a world war going on, that across the globe Islamic values of pious submission and spiritual purity are locked in a death struggle with Enlightenment values of rational inquiry and religious tolerance, then the last decade of American foreign policy makes no sense to you except in conspiratorial terms.
Now that President Obama has weighed in on the controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero, coming down squarely on the side of tolerance, sensitivity and overall niceness, but voting present on the project itself, the rest of us can wrestle with the nagging questions.
Such as: What "culture" would an Islamic cultural center celebrate? I suppose you could devote a hall to medieval philosophers, put up busts of Avicenna and Averroes. Maybe another hall could focus on literature. There's the Arabian Nights. Oh, and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam . . . well, except Omar got into hot water with his contemporaries over literal obedience to the words of the Koran, so he might not be the best example to hold up for today's young Muslims. What else? Lots of Persian rugs, that's for sure.
The pickings get pretty slim after that. Unless, of course, the Center is going to highlight the way in which Islam took a wrong turn at the Enlightenment and led a billion human beings into civilization's dumpster.
Which, of course, takes us back to what actually happened at Ground Zero, and to the deeper significance of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Radical Islam declared war on the Enlightenment.
If you still haven't figured that out, then, yeah, there's no reason to oppose the Islamic Center. It's just another downtown construction project, and, judging by the architectural sketches, a handsome one. If you still haven't figured out that there's a world war going on, that across the globe Islamic values of pious submission and spiritual purity are locked in a death struggle with Enlightenment values of rational inquiry and religious tolerance, then the last decade of American foreign policy makes no sense to you except in conspiratorial terms. Hey, maybe it is all about oil, or about Zionism, or about George W. Bush's Oedipal complex.
On the other hand, if you have figured out the deeper significance of 9/11, then it doesn't matter one whit whether the sponsors of the Islamic Center intend the structure, as their supporters claim, as a symbol of interfaith understanding, or, as their critics claim, as a symbol of jihadist triumph. What matters is that radicals worldwide are certain to view the Center as the latter — and to use its image to recruit more terrorists to their cause.
That's the reason the Center should be opposed — not only by Jews and Christians whose sensibilities it happens to offend, but by Muslims of good will. You don't want to encourage the terrorists, even symbolically. There is no neutral position in the war between the Enlightenment and Islam. Your primary allegiance is to one or the other. Let me be blunt about this: If your commitment to divine authority trumps your commitment to reason and tolerance, then, regardless of your immediate intentions, you've thrown in with the terrorists. You're on the wrong side in the ongoing war.
The scalding irony of the current debate is that many of the professional appeasers who claim, for example, that the American prison at Guantanamo Bay serves as a recruitment tool for al Qaeda have no problem with the Islamic center. To be sure, a fence-sitting Muslim may be driven into the terrorist camp because he's outraged by abuses at Gitmo — whether or not those abuses have actually occurred. But he may just as well be driven into the terrorist camp because he feels that the terrorists are winning . . . if, for example, he sees a grand monument to Islam rising up from the dust of the former World Trade Center.
The war against Islamic totalitarianism — to call the thing what it is — is a war of perception as much as a war of bullets and bombs. Killing and capturing terrorists makes us marginally safer day by day but does not get at the core problem: the false perception among the terrorists' religious sympathizers and financial enablers (and there are millions of them) that their side has a fighting chance. Since the war is not an engagement between sovereign nations, it cannot end with a peace treaty; it can only end with the recognition that a worldwide Caliphate is not a possibility, that sharia law is not going to replace democratic government, that Islamic values are not going to trump Enlightenment values. The outcome of the war, on this level, is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether the body count will number in the hundreds of thousands — if we continue the long hard slog of spreading democracy — or in the scores of millions — if we retreat from the world stage, defer the combat a generation or two, and bequeath to our children and grandchildren a bloodier but more recognizable world war.
The terrorists, of course, are blind to the certainty of the outcome. To their credit, however, they understand the true nature of the war in which they're engaged. They understand that their pre-Enlightenment version of Islam cannot coexist with modernity, that Western mass media is too seductive, that the hearts and minds of their children and grandchildren are at stake. They also understand that they cannot achieve decisive military triumphs; their lingering hope is a series of symbolic victories — by the grace of Allah! — which cause an unrecoverable moral, financial and military collapse of the United States and its post-Enlightenment allies. It's not going to happen; America's terrible swift sword would be unsheathed long before such a collapse ever occurred. But that hope is what sustains the terrorists' cause, what stokes the spirits of their legions of sympathizers and enablers, what inspires the next wave of murderous fanatics.
September 11th 2001 was one such symbolic victory.
Let's not hand our enemies another one downtown.
It’s not going to happen; America’s terrible swift sword would be unsheathed long before such a collapse ever occurred.
I certainly hope it doesn’t come down to that, because if it does, I am equally as confident that America’s “terrible swift sword”, dulled by oxidation and disuse, will be dropped onto America’s collective foot and give it a tetanus infection long before it is wielded to any dangerous effect against Islam in general, “radical Islam” in particular, or any Islamic theocratic terrorist state specifically.
Patrick
So, I guess you are saying “Let’s just give up NOW!
And Mr. Goldblatt
It’s interesting that you mention the Enlightenment, an event, an idea, that was proposed as a alternative to the oppression of the church/government of the middle ages. That church was a “christian” one and with it’s witch hunts and inquisitions not an admirable one. The stories of beheadings and stonings in Islamic nations sounds very familiar to those of us that know about the history of Europe and the early Americas. Enlightenment implies that we know better now and I think history will bear out this fact. The barbarians have always sought to tear down progress and if that swift sword is the only way to defend ourselves then so be it.
So, I guess you are saying “Let’s just give up NOW!
In no way, shape or form. I am saying that I have absolutely no confidence that this, or any foreseeable, United States government would bring to bear the power of “America’s terrible swift sword”, if that “sword” is understood to be American military power, against Islam itself, or Islamic states, for the purpose of preventing a financial, moral or military “collapse” of the United States in light of the fact that both major political parties refuse to acknowledge that Islam is possessed of a penchant for warmaking and violence as a matter of theology, and have in fact made great efforts to proclaim Islam not just a “peaceful religion” but “the religion of peace”. The author contended that such a financial, moral, or military collapse would never happen because America would unsheath its “swift and terrible sword” before such a collapse occurred or were imminent. I would love to live in a United States where this was the case, but was simply acknowledging that, given the evidence thus far, I think the author’s contention is more fantasy than reality.
Patrick
You may be correct, but I think we are still in a good position with our military. Having lived through the post WWII period and being steeped in the history of what lead up to VE and VJ day I think we still have the power to kick some ass. Actually, we are in better shape today than we were on December 7, 1941. The terrorists are still trying and failing in their attacks, but someday they will strike again and the tide of public opinion will change overnight.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I have every confidence in our actual military, just not in the leaders who make the decisions as to how and when they are to be deployed.
I certainly hope that you’re right though about public opinion and our leadership. I may be underestimating the American public.
Patrick
Yes, I understand your doubt, but Sun Tsu said, 4,000 years ago, that long wars should be avoided. Of course “long” is a relative term. Rome was at war for most of the 500 years of it’s existence and Napoleon certainly capitalized on his conquests. With today’s media, months and weeks seem like yesterday’s years. The temptation for politicians to use war as a inspiration or dividing force is irresistible. Just watch all the fools saying “I was for it before I was against it” or visa versa.
Many are saying this is the longest war we have ever had. Maybe they forget that the US Military is still in Germany 65 years after VE day. I was there in 1988 and I visited an Army base.
Abe Lincoln said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Let’s try very hard to stay out of that first group
The Author states; “Since the war is not an engagement between sovereign nations, it cannot end with a peace treaty; it can only end with the recognition that a worldwide Caliphate is not a possibility, that Sharia law is not going to replace democratic government, that Islamic values are not going to trump Enlightenment values.” While these are the specific realizations that Radical Islamists must arrive at; even that realization will not end hostilities.
WW II ended in the Pacific when the Japanese came to the realization that the choices were two; capitulation or genocide. Islam to the Muslims is every bit as deeply ingrained into their culture as Bushido was in Japan. The only major difference is that Bushido never went ‘global’ as Islam did. This globalization of the religion will make it significantly more difficult to defeat.
Look at this from a practical side. The members of al-Qaeda, for example, have no compunction hiding among civilians and engaging troops. Just as Hamas has no compunction about hiding arms caches in school yards and hospitals. Do western military commanders have the grit to fire on those targets anyway? Al-Qaeda and Hamas don’t think so.
My personal opinion is that if Western Civilization is not committed to this for the long haul, and by that I mean the next generation or two, then Western Civilization will not win this conflict. The tide did not turn in Iraq until the Iraqis realized that al-Qaeda was killing, by orders of magnitude, more Iraqis than Americans. It will take twenty to thirty years of concerted effort to demonstrate that Western Civilization will not be subsumed by Islamic Sharia Law. Anything less will be a loss for the ‘Enlightenment Values’ the author cites.
Ivan,
“That church was a “christian” one and with its witch hunts and inquisitions not an admirable one.” But we were able to move beyond that, to grow beyond that phase. Islam, much like someone with ASPD is ‘locked’ in a state that precludes, so far, any movement forward. As the author stated; “They understand that their pre-Enlightenment version of Islam cannot coexist with modernity, that Western mass media is too seductive, that the hearts and minds of their children and grandchildren are at stake.” Our ability to move beyond the rigid teachings of the early church, I believe, was seeded in the ‘separations’ clause that eventually pushed the church’s influence out of the realm of politics. However; for over 1,000 years Islamic religion and Sharia have been irrevocably bound together. In this instance religion is law and vice versa: A much tougher nut to crack.