I recently interviewed the former CIA chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence, Tennent H. Bagley. There was one question that I couldn't help asking, because I've always wondered if I'm alone, or if a more brilliant mind, blessed with age and wisdom, sees what I see; namely, that America isn't like Russia; that the governments of the two countries represent fundamentally different phenomena. America is a free country while Russia remains under the KGB. I have long believed that this distinction is important in every phase of analysis, because when America uses its military power, the historical meaning of such action cannot be the same as it is for a totalitarian regime. Simply put, the military actions of totalitarian powers are unlike the military actions of democratic powers because the military success of totalitarianism promises a different future for humanity. It doesn't matter, in making this evaluation, that democracy isn't perfect or that America has pathologies of its own. What matters is totalitarianism's fundamental disregard of human values.
There is something else, as well, which nearly everyone fails to recognize; namely, that the present conflict in the Middle East is a continuation of the Second World War as well as the Cold War. The struggle between "freedom" and totalitarianism did not end in 1945. One of the totalitarian powers (i.e., the Soviet Union) survived the war, and following its nature, continued its struggle for global supremacy. For many years this struggle was called "the Cold War," and today it is called "the War on Terror." The fact that totalitarianism has exchanged its Marxist-Leninist attire for false democratic or capitalist clothes does not alter the fundamental nature of the ongoing struggle. The totalitarian gangster is always looking for a more effective political formula; and so, totalitarianism is always being reinvented. In terms of the "national liberation movements" once famously supported by the old Soviet Union, we now find Islamic totalitarianism being adjusted and fitted for the same strategic purpose - to cut off the capitalist West from vital raw materials (like oil and strategic minerals). It is no accident that Russia and China and North Korea support the Iranian military buildup. The totalitarian powers acknowledge a common cause by arming against a common enemy, by placing their forces along the vital arteries of the world. Even if the West remains blissfully ignorant of the overall design, the totalitarian bloc knows that its methods are incompatible with freedom, and all of them realize that peaceful coexistence is only a temporary expedient.
This statement will puzzle many in the West; but five hundred years from now historians may well regard the Bolshevik Revolution, the Second World War, the Cold War and the War on Terror as episodes within a single struggle between civilization and a series of pathological political formations. The real corruption and moral failing of the West may be found in the West's recurring appeasement of totalitarian countries. Future historians, seeing the advance of American forces in 1943 and the advance of American forces in 2003 will wonder what went wrong in the latter instance. Each advance took place at the expense of totalitarian regimes that, by nature, butchered or oppressed millions of people. And yet, mobilizing against this butchery and oppression has come to be decried as butchery and oppression in its own right. The constant propaganda message spread throughout the world today is that America is to blame. Never mind the crimes of Saddam Hussein. Forget his many provocations. Forget that he caused over a million deaths. The crimes of Saddam are mitigated. The crimes of America are exaggerated. Almost nobody cares to notice the testimony of Saddam's own general, Georges Sada, who recently wrote in his book: "The evidence of Saddam's nuclear and chemical weapons programs from the 1970s onward, from reliable sources inside and outside of Iraq, is overwhelming - so much so that it's difficult to understand why so many people in the West have been unwilling to acknowledge the fact that WMDs were not only a fact of life in Iraq for more than thirty years but they were Saddam's obsession."
The real wickedness of the West is here inscribed. It is the wickedness of the deserter who abandons his duty, betrays his ancestors and cuts off his own posterity. It is the wickedness of the man who rationalizes a policy of appeasement. Nearly everyone talks as if there were no WMDs in Iraq and the invasion went ahead on a false basis. President Bush is therefore discredited as a liar. The United States is converted into the likeness of its enemy. The totalitarian powers are said to be no worse than the United States. Whatever crimes they've committed are attributed to the CIA. Such claims as these are repeated in American classrooms, put in the ears of American children every day. They are published in books, newspapers and magazines. As Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said, the crimes of the Soviet past are comparable to the crimes of America; the wrongdoing of Stalin may be compared to the wrongdoing of Harry Truman. And many Americans are ready to concede his point. Here is the argument of the fellow traveler. Here is a ready-made rationalization for the American businessman who makes money by cutting deals with the Chinese Communists. His moral discernment has been conveniently put to sleep so that he can graze blissfully along in the illusion of green-pasture happiness. As the appeasers sniff the supposed wickedness of the American president, their own rottenness dares not smell itself - the whiff of a complacency that refuses to uphold the struggle that their forefathers bled for on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima.
Good strategy depends on knowing the enemy, on knowing the enemy's nature. In making this general observation, which deceptively resembles a jeremiad, I am not advocating the invasion of Iran or Syria. I am not suggesting that the invasion of Iraq was the right move. I rather think that America is morally and intellectually unprepared for war of any kind, and should avoid engagement if possible until it can put its own house in order. Wars are fought and won within the human heart, often before any fighting begins. That is why today's intellectual and moral trends are so alarming.
So I had to ask Mr. Bagley: As a former CIA officer, how would he respond to those who say the CIA is as murderous and despicable as the KGB? He replied that there is no need to respond to people who cannot distinguish between cholera and the common cold. Bagley's analogy is amusing; but I am nonetheless obligated to warn against a deadly disease on the off chance that someone might be saved.