People make much of the need to address the “root cause” of terrorism and Islamism. For the Liberal/Idealist camp, the root causes include US support for autocracy and illiberalism during the Cold War.* For the Conservative/Realist camp, the root cause is, er, autocracy and illiberalism.
So really the difference between the two camps is that Conservatives actually propose to do something about it, rather than continue to writhe in abject humiliation and self-hatred.
In the last few days we’ve seen terrorist threats against France and Germany, the two countries most in league with Saddam Hussein of late. If the Islamicst grievance is simply with the US, then why target the US’s enemies?
We’ve seen the attack in Spain on 3/11 described by Islamists as motivated not by Spain’s recent support for the US, but by the memory of the reconquista half a millenium ago.**
We’ve seen an official Iraqi document describing Osama Bin Laden as a collaborator and agent of Saddam Hussein.
The only possible response to the screamingly obvious fact that certain elements in the Middle East have dedicated themselves to the destruction of Western socity — barring abject cultural suicide — is to attempt to bring the Middle East kicking and screaming into some sort of liberalism and free society.
And to fight terror in all its forms, domains and benefactors. To those who ask what sense a “war on terror” makes I ask this: what sense did the “war on piracy” or “war on slavery” in the 19th century make?
To people who say that “violence never solves anything”: what would you tell the officers and sailors of the Royal Navy on their anti-slavery patrols? We need greater understanding and dialogue?
Or the US Sailors and Marines who braved the shores of Tripoli. One man’s pirate is another man’s entrepreneur?
Give ’em a whiff of grapeshot!
Update: Donald Sensing has a much longer and more erudite post on the topic of root causes.
* Accusing Israel of being the source of the Middle East’s problems is, in my view, simple anti-semitism. How dare the fithly yids ask the UN for a country, then defend it against all comers, in the process maintaining a free, open and democratic society! True, they occupied land in the ’67 war to give them a bit of a strategic buffer against the countries who had twice attacked them — and would attack them again. They agreed to give them back in Oslo in the early 90s, and then again in 2000, and were refused each time. But how dare they assassinate the kindly old man who sends “militants” and idiot children (but I repeat myself) to blow up pizza parlours and school busses!
** Note that the Crusades and the Reconquista were, in fact, defensive counterattacks against the encroachment of Islam into areas that had previously been Christian.