Redstate

By Paul J Cella Posted in War — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

During the Cold War there was a phenomenon known infelicitously as anti-anti-Communism; it consisted primarily of Liberals who, though cool on Communism, reserved their greatest alarm and antipathy for Communism’s determined opponents. They felt they had more to fear from their own countrymen, in whose judgment the Communist enterprise was, indeed, an evil empire, than they did from the Imperialists of the Marxist State. We can see the remnants of this persuasion in some tendentious histories, like the one someone gave me years back which nonchalantly presented Sen. Joe McCarthy as the leader of a nascent American Fascism.

The problem with anti-anti-Communism is quite simple: it was wrong. Stupendously wrong. The point can, I think, be illustrated easily enough: imagine what we would think today of a political movement of the 1930s animated by antipathy for opponents of National Socialism. Indeed, the point is even stronger when we consider that by the time anti-anti-Communism had reached its full flower in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, Communism itself was a form of National Socialism, Stalin having made full use of the proud nationalism of the people of Russia. A just historical estimate, therefore, must render a severe censure against the judgment and reasoning of the anti-anti-Communists.

I begin with this rehearsal of some recent history because a parallel is emerging today. It lineaments can be guessed at well enough.

Read on.

For some, the opponents of the Jihad are greater cause for alarm than the Jihad itself. Here is an Israeli academic, one Fania Oz-Salzberger, who says that, at a European Coalition for Israel conference last fall, “The tone was belligerent, the linkage crude: ‘The enemies of Israel are also a threat to Europe,’ delegates were told. And also: ‘In only two generations, most parts of Europe will be under Islamic law.’ Other self-declared friends grimly speak of Londonistan and augur the coming of the European Caliphate.” What an abominable horror that men might react to the massacre of civilians on commuter rails and bus with belligerent tones! She magnanimously allows that these statements “may reflect genuine concern” — again because, one supposes, “concern” is an acceptable emotion provoked to feel when confronted with treacherous acts of war — but goes on to aver that the statements “are disconcerting when made on European soil.” But only a couple sentences earlier, there was not even this allowance for “concern”: “These new pro-Israel voices base a love of Jews upon the hatred of Muslims.” Later, the clever sneer: “Beware of Islamophobes bearing gifts.”

The only evidence registered against these European Friends of Israel is the “tone” of their “belligerence” and the “crudity” of their rhetorical “linkages.” For the rest the author relies on what can only be described as racial guilt. Since Europeans made these statements, they are suspect — not because of what the actual Europeans in question have done, but because of what their ancestors once did: “Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be threatening the existence of Israel today, but no Muslim power has ever dealt the Jews such calamities as brought upon them by Europe.” (A particular irony, in this context, is the fact that a British Jew, Melanie Phillips, may be credited with giving the term “Londonistan” its currency.)

Ms. Oz-Salzberger’s column may be fairly described as tame compared to the deranged vitriol of Col. Ralph Peters some months ago. But the effect of it is the same: It lays down a dogma of quietism. There can be no use of rhetoric, and emphatically none that might be labeled “war rhetoric,” which impinges directly, or even by implication, upon the Islamic religion. The civilization and creed which incubates our enemies — the sort of men whose piety embraces the butchery of innocents — may not be criticized with anything but the most detached academic discourse. Islam shall be protected from severe criticism. It shall, moreover, be protected by the formidable of shield of political correctness, and all the thuggery implied by it. Its methods, as usual, consist of insinuation and intimidation. Opponents of the Jihad hate Muslims: bigots and xenophobes, all. Like the anti-anti-Communists before them — who assured us that Communism was no real threat, and whose public discourse urged coexistence with a wicked doctrine — these latter-day scolds urge acceptance for wickedness. Their monomania weakens our resolve. Somewhere a clever writer and global content provider is penning another elegant and amusing exhortation to the West to recover its “will”; and looking over his shoulder with mistrust for his own countrymen is the ever-watchful censor, his mind alert for some breach of his monomaniacal code of propriety. If a man, reflecting upon the day when the Jihad came to Lower Manhatten, or the day it came to London, or the day it nearly came to Germany, begins to speak with a bit of fire in his belly, the dutiful censors will move to silence him. If another man, pondering the contemporary surfeit of references to Winston Churchill’s war rhetoric, avows his agreement with the great man’s comparison of the Koran to Mein Kampf — a manual of “faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message” — he will be rebuked for the impropriety. What are we, really, to make of this: that while war is being made against us by men animated by an Islamic doctrine, we are harassed and abused for the “belligerence” of our rhetoric? To repeat: for some, the opponents of the Jihad are greater cause for alarm than the Jihad itself; while the latter has incinerated thousands of Americans, and hundreds of Israelis and Europeans, the former have committed a graver crime still: they have uttered hard words about Islam.

In this predicament, we must — for of course I count myself among those prepared to violate the sham propriety that shields Islam from criticism — do three things. First, if the anti-anti-Islamists ever get around to making their accusations to our face, of actually asking us, “are you are hater?” — we should answer, “Yes, sir, I do hate some things. Like the devil and all his works; and the doctrine of Jihad is of the devil. I do indeed hate it.” Second, we should calmly remind our antagonists, every once in a while, that a doctrine is not a man; that we believe we owe no charity to doctrines; and that no amount of rhetorical bullying will dislodge this elementary principle from our minds. Third, and above all, we should avoid being dragged into a paralyzing debate over these matters. Reason will probably have little effect on this monomania, and our time can be better spent talking past these tormented souls. They are entangled in their own web of euphemism and platitude; and it cannot be our duty to disentangle them.

— Because we have much larger duties to attend to: duties that will require, I am afraid, a belligerent tone and even some crudity of linkage. The duty, namely, of preparing this republic for the hard work of deliverance from the very real and very pressing threat of the Jihad. Our troops have shown their valor time and again. But that will be of little consequence if our people cannot discover in themselves the qualities of fortitude and defiance. Fortitude to endure the inevitable setbacks of war, and defiance to escape the monomania of our chattering-classes, including this new faction of anti-anti-Islamists.