Ranting Professors - THE WRONG LESSON
By Cori Dauber
You have to hand it to al Queda, because no one ever said they were stupid. And if the marches in Europe are any indication (and if we can take the Times' coverage at face value) too many Europeans have drawn exactly the wrong lesson from Madrid -- exactly the lesson al Queda wanted them to draw.
There were arguments before the war that a war with Iraq would increase terrorism. In context, those arguments were about real-time retaliatory terrorist strikes, which didn't happen. Other arguments were made that an invasion of Iraq would provide a pretext for the terrorists to use in their recruitment of new terrorists, and that probably is happening, and you have to factor that in when you evaluate whether the war was worth it or not. But these guys are assuming that European countries are a target of al Queda strictly on the basis of whether or not they supported the war and that's absurd.
Does it need to be said over and over? Indonesia was neutral. Turkey's refusal to permit the transit of a major division hurt the war plan badly. France is on alert and they're, well, France. Saudi was busy being their usual ambiguous, unhelpful selves.
Al Queda targets anyone who gets in the way of their vision of a single, borderless, caliphate. Global jihad to the end, baby, and Western liberal democracies do not jive with that vision. There are imams in Britain who have preached that jihad will not end until the black flag of Islam (I always thought Islam's flag was green, but whatever) flies over 10 Downing, and those speeches were made well before the war started.
These people are looking for a way to hide their heads in the sand, and they will tear the Western alliance, an alliance based on values that al Queda hates, an alliance that should be closer now than ever given the threat we face, apart. This is appeasement. I've read all the commentators who say that's a slur as regards the Spanish voters because those voters had other beefs with Aznar, complaints about an alleged cover-up, about arrogance, what have you.
Well these attitudes strike me as pretty damn close to what I was taught was appeasement in school.
Is that a slur?
If the shoe fits, baby. |
