Barbarians
So I’m reading this historical novel (The Lords of the North, by Bernard Cornwell), set in England in the time of Alfred the Great, and it occurs to me that this is basically a Western, with the Christian Saxons as the settlers and the pagan Danes as the Indians. No, wait, the Saxons are already there, and the Danes are trying to take their land, so the Saxons must be the Indians and the Danes must be the settlers. Although… the Saxons took the land away from the Romans, who took it away from the Britons, who took it away from the people who built Stonehenge.
Not to defend my barbarian ancestors, but fighting for land makes a certain kind of sense. I wonder what they would think of modern wars, like the one in Afghanistan. They understood blood feuds, which is how it started. The Taliban wouldn’t give up Osama bin Laden, so we brought them down. The Saxons and Danes would understand that. But staying there for 7 years, not following bin Laden into Pakistan, not plundering the cities, not seizing the land and farming it… incomprehensible.
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
>>But staying there for 7 years, not following bin Laden into Pakistan, not plundering the cities, not seizing the land and farming it… incomprehensible.<<
Think of Toastmasters: One of the speeches everyone has to make is one designed to persuade your audience of something. You learn that the argument which persuades you is irrelevant: what counts is the argument which is comprehensible to your audience and which will persuade your audience.
That is why they hate us, or at least one of the reasons: We refuse to address our audience in terms they comprehend and find persuasive. Instead, we use the arguments which play well in a democratic society which sees itself as nice.
They also hold us in contempt, and for the same reasons.
One major reason: We want to be nice. They don’t respect nice. They hold nice in utter contempt. They value being feared.
Until we accept that and stop being nice, they will hate us, hold us in contempt, and in the long run, they will win.
Local values: Power and the ruthless exercise of power. Those without power get no respect. Those with power who exercise it get respect. They may be hated, but they are respected. Those with power who don’t exercise it get contempt.
Think of Jimmy “Nice Guy” Carter. When the US Embassy in Tehran was captured he had at least two options: Tell the captors that if they didn’t release the captives unharmed within 24 hours he would bomb Iran, hostages included if necessary, into rubble, or Be Nice and open negotiations with people who he could have obliterated.
Later interviews with captors showed they expected the most powerful man on earth to use his power ruthlessly, and they expected to let the captives go within two days. Instead Jimmy Nice Guy smiled bigly and was Nice.
Jimmy Nice Guy chose the You don’t have to bend me over, I’ll bend over for you option. In return he got 444 days of showing the world that anybody could bugger the United States, and the President would smile and be nice.
Guess what Osama bin Laden learned from that. George Bush was a lousy president, but he didn’t commit a preemptive bend over, and that shocked the Muslim world. Bush at least learned that much from Reagan, who brought the Iran hostage “crisis” to an end by announcing that if they weren’t released by the time he was inaugurated he would ask Congress to declare war.
Many critics thought the invasion of Grenada was ridiculous: It wasn’t. Its purpose wasn’t to get the medical students back, its purpose was to demonstrate to our enemies that the new administration was not run by a nice guy.
The best things we did in Iraq were invading it, killing Saddam’s sons and grandson, pulling Saddam out of a hole in the ground, and letting the Iraqis hang him. Those were not the marks of I’m Nice, I Want to Be Liked.
They were good messages to Libya. Khaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons program, which was further along than anyone thought, after seeing his colleague Saddam pulled from a hole in the ground. Khaddafi understood defeat and public humiliation, and he understood that Dubya was not a Nice Guy. All of a sudden he decided that the personal risk of a nuclear weapons program exceeded the benefits. He said so publicly.
They were good messages to the Iranian government: We have military bases to the north, we invaded your neighbor to the east, we invaded the country to your west, and we have bases and fleets to your south, so shut up, quit supporting our enemies in the Middle East and everywhere else and most of all quit giving weapons to our enemies, or we will invade you as well.
THAT the Iranians would have understood and respected, because it is exactly what the Iranians would have done.
Instead we let Iran supply brand new Iranian manufactured weapons to the our enemies in Iraq, and to supply trainers and refuge, and we let them do so without any consequences. Bush decided to Be Nice.
Other dumb things we did in Iraq: Denying that invading and executing Saddam were payback for trying to kill Bush Sr. The Arabs and Iranians et al understand payback. They respect payback. Bush should have told the world that this was payback, and that anybody who has a problem with that should keep a very, very low profile.
Instead he made Nice.
And he didn’t invade the frontier provinces of Pakistan, kill bin Laden, and publicly feed his corpse to pigs on his ranch in Texas, announcing that anyone who didn’t like payback should keep a very, very, low profile.
Now Bush probably was unable to do all that, but it is exactly what the Muslim supremacists would have understood and respected.
That would have been comprehensible.