June 1^st

Pat Buchanan’s column today comes to a conclusion with which I can’t disagree.  He writes, “To be a martyr for Allah, to create a new caliphate, to expel the infidels and their puppets, these are the causes Islamic men will die for.” Naturally he overreaches a bit; he should have written, “these are the causes (some) Islamic men will die for.” Still, it doesn’t take a great many people willing and eager to die to make a huge difference.

It is possible to get to an accurate conclusion even if you don’t fully understand the events leading up to it and this is the case with Buchanan’s column. He claims that the Iraqis are not cowards because they fought for Saddam Hussein against Iran for eight years and died by the “tens of thousands.” That they did, and they did that because if they weren’t willing to die for Saddam they would have been killed by Saddam. This is the same choice offered troops in the first World War, charge machine gun nests and die a hero or cower in you trench and be shot as a coward; some choice!

Buchanan does not understand that “Expel the crusaders from our lands.” Is exactly the rational that does motivate the Islamists. Of course the shoe bomber, the twin tower destroyers and the truck bombers in Beirut are murderers; so were the Irgun terrorists who blew up the King David Hotel. The Israelis who benefitted from that have now put up a bronze plaque commemorating their victory. The Irgun were terrorists as far as the British were concerned just as the Beirut bombers and the hapless shoe bomber were terrorists as far as we are concerned. But then what other weapon did these people have? Britain then and the United States now are great powers fielding enormous well equipped armies and drones capable of attacking without any risk to the attacker.

Most religions have prohibited suicide but Muslims have special religious incentives for those killed in a holy war and holy wars, jihad, can be declared by any appropriate religious leader. Special delights await those killed in a holy war. Such beliefs obviously add a serious incentive to Muslims convinced that their countries and, particularly, their holy places have been invaded yet again by infidels. Kill an infidel and earn an eternity of pleasure; that’s hard to trump!

Buchanan wonders how to counteract those beliefs with western ideas of women’s rights and appeals to democratic government. The answer is that you can’t and we should have thought of that in 2003 before the Iraq war and in 2001 before the Afghanistan war. It has turned out to be very expensive revenge for 9/11 and I don’t think we got any oil at all.