March 22, 2004
THE EUROS, HATING LIFE:
'You love life, we love death' (Spengler, 3/23/04, Asia Times)
Washington continues to underestimate its enemies. Who precisely loves life and who loves death? Al-Qaeda's taunt comes from a people with one of the highest birth rates in the world, namely the Arabs. It is directed at a people with one of the lowest birth rates in the world, namely the Spanish. One does not love "life" if one does not bother to have children. One loves rather one's own life, with its vacations, jamon serrano (cured ham), wines and siestas. Al-Qaeda is saying that the Spaniards are too soft to fight for their own future. Two generations ago, it was the arch-Catholic Spanish legionnaire General Millan Astray who raised the cry "Viva la muerte!" at the outset of the Civil War, by which he meant that death was preferable to defeat. [...]Sacrifice is the universal means by which religions enable the faithful to come to grips with death. Christians take part vicariously in the self-sacrifice of their God; Muslims sacrifice themselves. Jewish sacrifice in pre-Christian times contained both a material side, that is, the elaborate animal and other food sacrifices performed at the temple, as well as a purely spiritual side ("a broken and contrite heart", Psalm 51:10). In post-temple times that peculiarly Jewish institution, the Sabbath, became a sacrifice of sorts; by doing no work of any kind on the Sabbath, "a foretaste of the world to come", the Jew sacrifices his ego, namely his impulse to act on and control the world. Only in a very specific sense was Ismail Hayina correct to say that the Jews love life more than anyone else. The Jewish concept of election, the notion that Israel is a divinely chosen and thus an eternal people, gives the Jews a special surety of eternal life. That is why, alone among the major religions, the Jews have no ascetic tradition.
All religion submerges the ego, in anticipation of the day when death will destroy the ego for all time. Sacrifice, namely giving up something of one's self, is the universal vehicle for reducing the ego. Sacrifice becomes terribly dangerous when the ego cannot re-emerge under the sun and sky of the real world. [...]
The longstanding Judeo-Christian objection to Islam lies in the notion that Allah's absolute power is not constrained by love. "The God of Mohammed is a creator who well might not have bothered to create. He displays his power like an Oriental potentate who rules by violence, not by acting according to necessity, not by authorizing the enactment of the law, but rather in his freedom to act arbitrarily," wrote the Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig. (See Asia Times Online, Oil on the flames of civilizational war, Dec 2, 2003). Whether the human ego can stand up to this absolute power is a different question; whether Islam has a propensity to produce a necrophiliac brand of radicalism is a question that the West will continue to ask. That issue is only tangential to the matter of al-Qaeda's challenge, which simply means, "Unlike us, you are unwilling to give your lives for your cause." Evidently that is true of the Spanish; if it becomes true of the West in general, radical Islam will win.
Al Qaeda is certainly right about Europe, but for these same reasons wrong about at least 60% of America. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 22, 2004 3:38 PM
"Unlike us, you are unwilling to give your lives for your cause."
"Al Qaeda is certainly right about Europe, but for these same reasons wrong about at least 60% of America."
Yes, and even more important is how willing we are to expedite the process where they, willing or not do die for their cause. One can only hope that the Leftist traitors in this country at some point experience that same privilege.....Operators are now online to take your pledge....losers.
Posted by: NC3 at March 22, 2004 4:16 PMSpaniards were not so much unwilling to die for their cause, as they were unwilling to die for someone else's cause.
They evidently believe that they can deflect further al-Qaeda terror, and for a time, they're probably correct.
If al-Qaeda were to embark on a sustained campaign of terror in Spain, then, and only then, would we see if Spaniards are willing to die fighting.
Given their history, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 22, 2004 4:29 PMSpaniards were not so much unwilling to die for their cause, as they were unwilling to die for someone else's cause.
They evidently believe that they can deflect further al-Qaeda terror, and for a time, they're probably correct.
If al-Qaeda were to embark on a sustained campaign of terror in Spain, then, and only then, would we see if Spaniards are willing to die fighting.
Given their history, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 22, 2004 4:30 PMAre you saying, Michael, that they're dumb, not yellow?
Posted by: David Cohen at March 22, 2004 4:56 PM"Spaniards were not so much unwilling to die for their cause, as they were unwilling to die for someone else's cause."
What a lot of rubbish. The Spaniels inability to cough up the guts to fight for Western principles as well as for their own dead make them losers of the first degree. Let's not forget this when they come crawling.
Posted by: NC3 at March 22, 2004 4:57 PMI think Michael's got a good point. They probably do think that it's not their fight, or at least that they don't have to fight it the way we do.
And, like Michael, I think they may be right about the latter point, at least for the short term. As a target, the U.S. is by and far the sentimental favorite amongst Islamicists & Spain probably can expect to buy time.
But, Zapetero claimed his government would vigorously fight terrorism of all kinds. Never mind how, but if he's serious I doubt he'll be able to avoid the bombs. Wouldn't vigorous opposition be enough to provoke terror? Given the goals of the terrorists I doubt there's any compromise they would be willing to take beyond total capitulation, so there's nothing for Spain to negotiate over (except withdrawal from the coalition, which they've already granted).
I any case, I think they're only delaying the inevitable -- though maybe they expect someone else to take care of it for them.
Posted by: Twn at March 22, 2004 7:23 PMDavid:
I'm saying that they haven't been pushed hard enough to know if they'll fight, or not.
11-M was widely seen, both there, and here in the US, as a collateral attack on an American ally.
As such, it wasn't directly analogous to 9/11, which was a direct blow to al-Qaeda's primary enemy.
I'm not sure how stupid it is to decline to fight, yet, since any sane person would bet that eventually the US will mop up most of the terror organizations on its own.
Why put a target on your own back ?
NC3:
Well, let's see...
1993 WTC bombing: 6 Americans dead, 1,000 injured
US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania: 12 Americans dead, another 246 Africans killed, and 5,000 people injured
USS Cole bombing: 17 Americans dead, 39 injured
Yet, after all that, America didn't rush into conflict with al-Qaeda...
Perhaps Americans' inability to cough up the guts to fight for their own dead make them losers of the first degree.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 22, 2004 7:25 PMI think it would be naive for the Spaniards to think that this is someone else's cause, and not their cause. AQ's fight is with the west, and I don't see them letting Spain opt out, even if they didn't have an independent beef with the Spanish.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 22, 2004 8:31 PMMike:
Your point is unpalatable. That doesn't make it wrong, though.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 22, 2004 8:41 PMJeff, Americans have been fighting and dying for a year now in a land they didn't know and for a people they have little bond with other than that of humanity. Nothing new ... we've been doing it for almost a century now.
The Spanish are on the frontline of Europe and their elected representative has just shortened his DMZ by thousands of miles. Unfortunately he's done so by establishing that DMZ within the homeland, a decision they will surely come to regret in the future.
I pity the Spanish for his decision; assuming he will in fact withdraw the 1,300+/- troops from Iraq. It may well become one dearer than ever imagined.
Posted by: genecis at March 22, 2004 10:59 PMGenecis:
As Mike pointed out, we took a lot of hits while declining to do anything further to antagonize our enemy. How many more, until the big one of 9/11, would we have tolerated?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 23, 2004 7:21 AMIf they were serious about this fight, they should need no other reason to fight than 3/11. If I were a Spaniard, even if I was against the war in Iraq and the current administration, I would never bow to a band of terrorists who would murder my countrymen for a decision that their democratically elected representatives made. By changing administrations to appease the terrorists, they are saying that they are unwilling to defend their own democratic process.
Jeff & Mike, as far as I know the American voters never changed political direction as a result of any of the preceding terrorist attacks on us. We may have been lax, but we never appeased.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 23, 2004 4:55 PM