4 (via Paul Cella):

Font Size: Forgetfulness and Denial (Lee Harris, 04/06/2004, Tech Central Station)

Both sides of the political spectrum today have developed cottage industries designed to minimize the crisis that we are facing, and to minimize it by denying the plain and self-evident fact that we in the West can no longer even imagine doing what the men and boys of the Arab world dream of doing. 9/11, the suicide bombings, Fallujah -- these are not flukes or isolated events. They are the sordid hopes and aspirations of literally millions of young Muslims around the world.
 
"Only four men were killed in Fallujah." What is so significant about the death of four men? [...]
 
And so, on both Right and Left, there are astute minds always ready to deny that the Enemy exists, always prepared to minimize his cruelty and his utter indifference to human life, always quick to explain away acts of the most horrendous savagery, always willing to sacrifice judgment in the name of party line.
 
Our collective refusal to face up to the nature of our enemy imperils the future of the civilization that it has taken centuries upon centuries to achieve, and those who contribute to this refusal by minimizing the brutality and ruthlessness of Fallujah are acting no different from those who minimize the brutality and ruthlessness of 9/11.

Mr. Harris's recent book is just terrific and his essays generally great, but how about a little perspective? No matter how you slice it, there were just four men killed in one godforsaken city in one recalcitrant section of a country that is otherwise headed towards a substantially more Westernized society than has hitherto existed there. Of course the enemy exists in Fallujah, but we're going to kill a bunch of them and they have absolutely no prospect of even putting up meaningful resistance. It is certainly necessary to recognize our enemies, but hardly sensible to inflate these backwards thugs into serious threats to our civilization.

Here's a story from today that pretty much sums things up:

"We're facing a test of will, and we will meet that test," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, adding that the plan to postpone the troop return was part of a plan "to systematically address the situations we are facing."

In Falluja in the Sunni heartland west of Baghdad, where the most pitched battles occurred, hospital officials said several dozen people had been killed after Americans fired rockets at a mosque compound. American officials said firing had come from the mosque, forcing them to retaliate. The mosque itself remained largely intact.

Actually, that doesn't quite capture it--in fact, rockets were fired from the mosque compound and then we responded with laser-guided munitions so precise that the mosque itself was not destroyed. To imagine that any contest between them and us can end any way but with our victory seems somewhat overwrought.

As always, the enemy that really matters is here at home. Perhaps if we think of the current futile uprising in Iraq as a kind of mini-Tet offensive we can see that the threat is not on the battlefield but on the home front. When Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd say this looks like Vietnam all over again they are precisely right. We face an evil enemy in the field, but can handle him. We face a feckless enemy at home--those who want to cut and run anytime there's tough fighting involved--who can sometimes undermine our national purpose sufficiently for us to lose. Sadly, in case of Vietnam we ended up with a series of despicable presidents who were easy prey for the enemy within. So we turned over our allies in the South to the murderous tyranny of the Communists after only forty-something thousand dead. George W. Bush is made of sterner stuff and it seems highly unlikely that four dead will sway his resolve.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 8, 2004 7:39 AM