Human history might be described as a sequence of recurring errors committed by intelligent men who should have known better. The leaders of the tribes and nations of the earth are often ignorant, sometimes willfully so, despite education and the ready availability of information. Elites are limited by the prejudices of their teachers, misled by the false ideas that buttress their society's most fantastic dreams. It is no wonder, then, that wars are determined more by error than by insight. At times it would seem that the dominant factor in human politics is the bungle factor.
The world's dominant civilization - the West - has lost its way. The United States, alarmed by the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, responded with an undeclared war against terrorism and its state sponsors. That war has lost its way in a "crusade for democracy" that promises to uplift the Shiites of Iraq - who will turn on their liberators at the first opportunity. American policy is a series of bungles. The same can be said of Israeli policy.
For many years the Israelis foolishly worked for peace, striving for a diplomatic settlement of the Middle East conflict. They wanted a permanent solution. They wanted an end to bloodshed and violence. Though Israel won every war, smashed every foe, dominated by air and sea and land, diplomacy was tried. Year after year, the instability of the peace was proven. The bad faith of the Arab side was demonstrated. But fantasy prevailed over realistic thinking in one cabinet after another, in one government meeting after another. Strength and deterrent power was despised. The bungle factor, in the case of Israel and America, does not corrupt the military sphere. Instead, it corrupts basic political ideology and diplomatic perceptions. The Muslims, with all the advantage of numbers, are diplomatic visionaries. They want the destruction of Israel, and so the peace process is nothing but a means to that single end. But unfortunately for them, their leaders have bungled one military project after another. Perhaps they assume that Allah will carry them to victory, despite the impractical schemes their generals continually devise. Perhaps they assume that the diplomatic weakness of the Great Satan and the Little Satan translates into eventual military weakness. At any event, the Muslim power and the Arab power once again finds itself crunched. Once again, the Israeli Defense Forces rain bombs and shells upon the strongholds of the Prophet, upon the bunkers of the Arab nation, and Allah does not prevent the victory of the unbeliever. Just as the Americans smashed the jeering Afghan and Iraqi regimes in the wake of 9/11, the Israelis are smashing the Shiite terrorists in Lebanon.
But in Tehran the dismay will not last. When the political correctness and misguided humanitarianism of the West returns to the fore, the Islamists will find themselves presented with fresh opportunities for mischief. Eventually the Muslim fanatics in Tehran or elsewhere will get hold of nuclear weapons. According to researchers Yossef Bodansky and Paul Williams, al Qaeda already has dozens. In the appendix of Williams's latest book, The Dunces of Doomsday, we find 63 references to al Qaeda's WMD activities. It is Williams who spells out the politically correct delusions of the West. Nothing could be more idiotic than the multicultural assumptions of the Americans and Europeans. "The enemy is Islam," he writes. "Not a fringe group within this body of believers who constitute one-fifth of the world's population. Not 'radical' Islam as if such a faction can be separated from 'mainstream' Islam." He further states: "The real fringe group within Islam is neither al Qaeda nor any other Muslim terrorist group but rather the Sufis, who preach love between God and humanity, uphold principles of strict asceticism, and live in quiet meditation among monastic settings. The Sufis, who represent less than 5 percent of Islam, have been subjected to centuries of violent persecution and brutal oppression from their fellow Muslims."
The bungle factor that underlies America's Middle East policy, and also upholds a bogus "peace process," is rooted in a set of fundamental misunderstandings about Islam. It is not a religion of peace, says Williams. It is a religion that teaches intolerance and war. President George W. Bush has said that the teachings of Islam "are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah." In saying this, President Bush reveals his ignorance. It is the same ignorance that led his predecessor, President Clinton, to say that there is nothing in Islam "that would promote terrorism; that would be destructive of our values." One is supposed to nod at such sayings.
Williams spends a chapter of his book describing the crimes and atrocities of the Prophet Mohammad. Citing 79 sources, Williams says that Mohammad spread his faith through banditry, assassination and war. He authorized the killing of innocent people, and the confiscation of their property, merely because they weren't Muslims. The Prophet also authorized the assassination of poets and writers he disliked. According to Williams, "Muhammad demanded complete loyalty and utter submission from his subjects." Islam was spread by the sword, through death threats and bloodshed in one country after another. Such are the facts of history, and such is continuing fact of our time. "Jihad is a religious duty," writes Williams. "It is a means of suppressing the enemies of Islam and of establishing faith in Allah." The Koran urges war against unbelievers, including "the people of the Book" (Christians and Jews).
Williams lists ten blunders that give rise to radical Islam and the threat of an American Hiroshima. The first of these blunders is our refusal to identify our enemy. The tenth blunder is our failure to declare war on radical Islam itself. "The Bush administration vacillates over just about everything," says Williams. "It remains reluctant to firebomb the poppy fields in Afghanistan and to ferret out the mujahideen in Pakistan. The administration has been unwilling to address the situation within U.S. mosques and the problem of radical Islam within the federal prison system [where its spread is tolerated]." If we are going to fight radical Islam then a declaration of war is necessary, he argues. Only a declaration of war wills serve to orient the American legal and political system, to place the words "traitor" and "enemy" in proper perspective. "To achieve victory," Williams explains, "The president must remove the velvet glove, toss down the metal gauntlet, and demand from Congress a formal declaration of war against radical Islam in all its militant manifestations."
War to the death against America is preached in mosques around the world. The killing of American women and children has been sanctioned by Muslim clerics. Al Qaeda's stated objective is to kill two million American children. Williams therefore believes that "such a declaration should not be a Herculean task." Unfortunately, the United States and its leaders will not declare war until the country's economy is in shambles, its cities are burning, and its leaders discredited. This is because the illusions of America's elite go hand in hand with the country's prosperity. Adherence to the ways of peace, despite the harsh reality of 9/11, forms the basis of a prosperity to which the American people have become addicted. Every drug affects the brain, and the drug of prosperity conditions the brain of the American to shun a full warlike posture, and eschew the naming or listing of enemies. Admitting the existence of an enemy is a frank acknowledgement that a state of war exists. If the enemy should consist of a few violent lunatics hiding in caves, why should the shopping mall regime close its doors? The situation is that of a manhunt and nothing more.
America is bungling the war on terror, which is not a proper war at all. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls for a permanent solution to the Middle East crisis. But only force and deterrence will work. Fantasies of peace merely empower the strategic deception of the enemy. Williams reminds his readers that the 9/11 attacks on the United States were celebrated in "Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, England, and New Jersey." According to Williams, "The omnipresent images of Osama bin Laden in shops, stores, stalls and marketplaces across the Islamic world" ought to give us pause. Osama is now the favored name for newly born Muslim boys in country after country. Williams also makes note of a "classified CIA survey" showing that 95 percent of educated Saudis between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five support al Qaeda and jihad. Throughout the world Muslims have an unfavorable opinion of the United States. "Even in Turkey," says Williams, "where the popularity of bin Laden is lowest, 31 percent favor the bombing and killing of American civilians."
Muslims will be offended by Williams' book. The political correct will be scandalized. But the ten blunders listed by Williams are, in fact, the foundations of American policy, the fountainhead of an ever-unfolding fiasco that cannot end well.
