Winds of Change.NET: Banagor's Take on the War

Banagor's Take on the War

by Joe Katzman at January 13, 2004 5:56 PM

Sir Banagor has a fine pair of posts up these days. First, I direct you to "Choosing Sides," which includes this excellent summary:

"When people call out the reasons we are fighting the societies which proclaim themselves, on their own and with their own loud voice, to be our enemies, they should not be reprimanded. Just as the Muslim world finds solidarity in their hatred for the West, Jews, and Israel, so too we should be allowed to find our own solidarity with those of us who oppose everything they stand for."

Shades of Christopher Hitchens. Banagor adds:

"The reason we are fighting this war is not because nineteen hijackers crashed into a burning building and a handful of others cheered, but because the entire Muslim world not only cheered, but then turned around, pointed at "The Jews" and said that it was their fault, denied they ever did it, denied that it ever could be them, screamed that they hated us anyway, danced in the streets, printed up posters about the heroes who did the deed all while denying they ever really did, and then increased their threats to tell us that if they didn't get more capitulations that it would happen yet again."

That about sums it up. Then we move on to an interesting and thought-provoking piece called "Words Matter". As Banagor notes:

"Perhaps the Arab world failed to realize that when they say �we will destroy you�, we actually take it to heart; after September 11th, we no longer wish to rely on their incompetence before testing the validity of the threat, and we should not relax in our wish to stop that sort of threat. In a world where one threat could very well mean the encroaching doomsday scenario, we should take these as seriously as possible. The Arab and Muslim world, however, do not see it as such. Their view and tactic has always been that these threats were negotiating points, much like haggling at a bazaar. But September 11th changed much of that with this country. Now, if a state says that it means to destroy us, we will take it as an act of war.
To Arabs and Muslims in general, that threat was perhaps merely a dream, or an outlet for rage at their own inabilities in the world community to create something more valid in modern times. But they have not moved beyond this, and have utterly failed to grasp the seriousness of our resolve. Whether or not Saddam had these weapons is a futile argument at this point: he is gone, and he could have avoided it by shutting up and playing ball. He gambled on the hot air of the Arab world, and he lost. His words made him the enemy; his posturing; his inability to comprehend that when he said �we will destroy you�, that we would take that message most seriously.

Therein is the Arab problem: to make them understand that this is our message. If you speak the words, you better mean them."

Well, that would be a fine start, at least. For one thing, it might stem the steady cultivation of hate within their societies, by attaching real costs to fostering or tolerating it.

Here's the bottom line: Right now, inculcating hate has the positive value of distracting the population from societal failure. Until the consequences clearly outweigh that benfit to the Muslim world's dictators and theocrats, it will continue. And so will the war. And so will the steady raising of the stakes, as the technology curve continues to drop and the hate continues to spread and harden beyond the capacity of peaceful means to fix.

That way lies disaster, for all sides.

UPDATE: While Banagor's piece clearly generalizes its key concepts beyond the British Kilroy Silk affair, British blogger and principled leftist Harry Hatchett does have lots of background on that situation if you're interested. From the right, I offer Belmont Club's perspective.

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