Free-Falling Prestige
A Question for Our Times
I read quite a few opinion columns, both from the right and the left, and if there's one common theme among them, it is this: American prestige in the Arab world is falling, and in fact our actions contribute to the growing fundamentalist trend in Islam.
To which I reply, "who gives a shit?"
Why does anyone care what our standing is among the enemy? Did anyone ever care whether Musollini liked us? Or Hitler? Or Tojo? Are you kidding? Our enemy doesn't like us? Good. If our enemy did like something we did I think that'd be immediate cause to reconsider the course of action.
Let's be clear: the two emotions I want in my enemies are hate and fear. I want them to hate everything about us. Because they hate really good things, like freedom, pluralism, equality, democracy. And they like things I hate, like intolerance, totalitarianism, religious oppression, indiscriminate murder. I want them to hate me.
Does this mean eternal war with Islamic Fundamentalism?
Are you daft? Of course it does. Making war on evil isn't wrong. It's a moral imperative.
And what's my exit strategy?
Let me quote Winston Churchill for that answer:
I read quite a few opinion columns, both from the right and the left, and if there's one common theme among them, it is this: American prestige in the Arab world is falling, and in fact our actions contribute to the growing fundamentalist trend in Islam.
To which I reply, "who gives a shit?"
Why does anyone care what our standing is among the enemy? Did anyone ever care whether Musollini liked us? Or Hitler? Or Tojo? Are you kidding? Our enemy doesn't like us? Good. If our enemy did like something we did I think that'd be immediate cause to reconsider the course of action.
Let's be clear: the two emotions I want in my enemies are hate and fear. I want them to hate everything about us. Because they hate really good things, like freedom, pluralism, equality, democracy. And they like things I hate, like intolerance, totalitarianism, religious oppression, indiscriminate murder. I want them to hate me.
Does this mean eternal war with Islamic Fundamentalism?
Are you daft? Of course it does. Making war on evil isn't wrong. It's a moral imperative.
And what's my exit strategy?
Let me quote Winston Churchill for that answer:
You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
