America Alone Read Online Free Page B
Author: Mark Steyn
was, the question is: are they a credible enemy to us?
For a projection of the likely outcome, the question is: are we a credible enemy to them?
You may recall a pertinent detail during the bogus controversy over the "torture" of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay: U.S. guards at Gitmo are under instructions to handle copies of the Koran only when wearing gloves. The reason for this is that the detainees regard infidels as "unclean." But it's one thing for the Islamists to think infidels are unclean, quite another for the infidels to agree with them - and, by doing so, to validate their bigotry. Far America Alone
Page 14
from being tortured, the prisoners are being handled literally with kid gloves (or simulated kid-effect gloves). The U.S. military hands each jihadist his complimentary copy of the Koran as delicately as white-gloved butlers bringing His Lordship the Times of London. It's not just unbecoming to buy in to Muslim psychoses; in the end, it's selfdefeating. And our self-defeat is their surest shot at victory. Four years into the "war on terror," the Bush administration began promoting a new formulation: "the long war." Not a good sign. In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs - our strengths. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower - their strengths. Even a loser can win when he's up against a defeatist. A big chunk of Western Civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it's dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, the jihadists figure: hey, why not us?
The longer the long war gets, the harder it will be, because it's a race against time, against lengthening demographic, economic, and geopolitical odds. By "demographic," I mean the Muslim world's high birth rate, which by mid-century will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia. By "economic," I mean the perfect storm the Europeans will face within this decade, because their lavish welfare states are unsustainable with their post-Christian birth rates. By "geopolitical," I mean that if you think the United Nations and other international organizations are antipathetic to America now, wait a few years and see what kind of support you get from a semi-Islamified Europe.
I said above that there is one difference between me and the other doom-mongers. For AI Gore and Paul Ehrlich and Co., whatever the problem, the solution is always the same. Whether it's global cooling, global warming, or overpopulation, we need bigger government, more regulation, higher taxes, and a massive transfer of power from the citizen to some unelected self-perpetuating crisis lobby. Not only does this not solve the problem, it is, in fact, a symptom of the real problem: the torpor of the West derives in part from the annexation by government of most of the core functions of adulthood. Even in America, too many Democrats take it as read that the natural destination of an advanced Western democracy is Scandinavia. If it is, we're all doomed. Every successful society is a balancing act between the private and the public, but in Europe and Canada the balance is way out of whack. When the foreign policy panjandrums talk about our enemies, they distinguish between "rogue states" like Iran and North Korea and "non-state actors" like al Qaeda and Hezbollah. But those distinctions apply on the home front too. Big governments are "rogue states," out of control and lacking the wit and agility to see off the threats to our freedom. Citizens willing to be "non-state actors" are just as important and, as we saw on Flight 93, a decisive part of our defense, nimbler and more efficient than the federal behemoth. The free world's citizenry could use more non-state actors.
So this is a doomsday book with a twist: an apocalyptic scenario that can best be avoided not by more government but by less - by government returning to the citizenry the primal responsibilities it's taken from them in the modern era.
The alternative is
For a projection of the likely outcome, the question is: are we a credible enemy to them?
You may recall a pertinent detail during the bogus controversy over the "torture" of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay: U.S. guards at Gitmo are under instructions to handle copies of the Koran only when wearing gloves. The reason for this is that the detainees regard infidels as "unclean." But it's one thing for the Islamists to think infidels are unclean, quite another for the infidels to agree with them - and, by doing so, to validate their bigotry. Far America Alone
Page 14
from being tortured, the prisoners are being handled literally with kid gloves (or simulated kid-effect gloves). The U.S. military hands each jihadist his complimentary copy of the Koran as delicately as white-gloved butlers bringing His Lordship the Times of London. It's not just unbecoming to buy in to Muslim psychoses; in the end, it's selfdefeating. And our self-defeat is their surest shot at victory. Four years into the "war on terror," the Bush administration began promoting a new formulation: "the long war." Not a good sign. In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs - our strengths. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower - their strengths. Even a loser can win when he's up against a defeatist. A big chunk of Western Civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it's dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, the jihadists figure: hey, why not us?
The longer the long war gets, the harder it will be, because it's a race against time, against lengthening demographic, economic, and geopolitical odds. By "demographic," I mean the Muslim world's high birth rate, which by mid-century will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia. By "economic," I mean the perfect storm the Europeans will face within this decade, because their lavish welfare states are unsustainable with their post-Christian birth rates. By "geopolitical," I mean that if you think the United Nations and other international organizations are antipathetic to America now, wait a few years and see what kind of support you get from a semi-Islamified Europe.
I said above that there is one difference between me and the other doom-mongers. For AI Gore and Paul Ehrlich and Co., whatever the problem, the solution is always the same. Whether it's global cooling, global warming, or overpopulation, we need bigger government, more regulation, higher taxes, and a massive transfer of power from the citizen to some unelected self-perpetuating crisis lobby. Not only does this not solve the problem, it is, in fact, a symptom of the real problem: the torpor of the West derives in part from the annexation by government of most of the core functions of adulthood. Even in America, too many Democrats take it as read that the natural destination of an advanced Western democracy is Scandinavia. If it is, we're all doomed. Every successful society is a balancing act between the private and the public, but in Europe and Canada the balance is way out of whack. When the foreign policy panjandrums talk about our enemies, they distinguish between "rogue states" like Iran and North Korea and "non-state actors" like al Qaeda and Hezbollah. But those distinctions apply on the home front too. Big governments are "rogue states," out of control and lacking the wit and agility to see off the threats to our freedom. Citizens willing to be "non-state actors" are just as important and, as we saw on Flight 93, a decisive part of our defense, nimbler and more efficient than the federal behemoth. The free world's citizenry could use more non-state actors.
So this is a doomsday book with a twist: an apocalyptic scenario that can best be avoided not by more government but by less - by government returning to the citizenry the primal responsibilities it's taken from them in the modern era.
The alternative is
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