Conservative Pessimism Is Not An Option In The War On Terrorism
I was not familiar with the premise of “conservative pessimism” before reading David Aronovitch’s article in the Times today. It is a failed logic and political concept that Aronovitch rightfully dismantles:
Aronovitch
History has proven time and time over, that not engaging monsters that are oppressing and killing others, is a loosing strategy that only brings about more death and destruction. Pick any of hundreds of examples and the evidence is crystal clear that a “stay out of it and it will go away” mentality is not a successful one.
Aronvitch sums up the cost of “conservative pessimism” here:
All through the Hurd and Rifkind years, the years when conservative pessimism was triumphant, the ingredients for al-Qaeda stewed away, emerging here and there in the occasional explosion. When some of the 9/11 bombers met up in Hamburg, one of their teachers was a veteran jihadi. He had fought in Bosnia, where, he said, the West had betrayed the Muslims.
We of course see the same conservative pessimism these days from some American elected officials, political strategists, the media, and at certain levels within our average American citizenship. It’s the same failed logic that Aronovitch contributes to Douglas Hurd and the climate that lead to the genocide in Bosnia only ten years ago. Do nothing and the treat does not retreat and neutralize, it instead grows and claims more victims.
I also liked Aronvitch’s debunking of the incorrect argument that the London bombings were a result of Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. He made several good points on this matter:
The jihadist campaign outside the Middle East first started when the omens for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement looked good, not bad. Then, just under seven years ago bin Laden’s people attacked the US embassies (no Bush back then) in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and killed 225 people, the vast majority of them local Africans. That was before 9/11.
A fact that in itself debunks the logic of “conservative pessimism”……………..
The most telling example in the piece that shows that conservative pessimism has no place in the war on terror is here:
In fact a group called the Abu Hafz al-Masri Brigades in claiming responsibility made a series of demands on the Turkish Government, should it wish to avoid future attacks. “Listen to us, you criminal,” the statement began emolliently, “the cars of death will not stop until you concede to our demands . . .”, which included the freeing of unspecified prisoners from Guantanamo and everywhere else and stopping the war against Muslims. Demand No 3, however, was for the Turks to “purify all Islamic land from the filth of the Jews and Americans, including Jerusalem and Kashmir”. Jews out of Kashmir is quite a tall order, since you’d have to find them first.
It’s not about Americans in Iraq as a military force and protecting Iraq, it’s about the threat that a free and democratic Iraq posses to the extremist Islamic agenda. Saudi’s, Moroccans, Jordanians, Chechnyan, and other foreign nationalist terrorists don’t blow them selves and innocent people up over the military actions by the coalition in Iraq. They blow themselves up to prevent the democracy that victory in Iraq will bring to Iraq and a chance for it to spread to the region. That is a threat that runs absolutely in conflict to the master goal of fundamentalist Islam. Democracy has no place in their model, so they use terror to try and prevent it.
Conservative pessimism has never worked in dealing with the worlds ills, and it absolutely would not be an effective tool in addressing the dark threat of terrorism that world faces today……………………
Aronovitch
History has proven time and time over, that not engaging monsters that are oppressing and killing others, is a loosing strategy that only brings about more death and destruction. Pick any of hundreds of examples and the evidence is crystal clear that a “stay out of it and it will go away” mentality is not a successful one.
Aronvitch sums up the cost of “conservative pessimism” here:
All through the Hurd and Rifkind years, the years when conservative pessimism was triumphant, the ingredients for al-Qaeda stewed away, emerging here and there in the occasional explosion. When some of the 9/11 bombers met up in Hamburg, one of their teachers was a veteran jihadi. He had fought in Bosnia, where, he said, the West had betrayed the Muslims.
We of course see the same conservative pessimism these days from some American elected officials, political strategists, the media, and at certain levels within our average American citizenship. It’s the same failed logic that Aronovitch contributes to Douglas Hurd and the climate that lead to the genocide in Bosnia only ten years ago. Do nothing and the treat does not retreat and neutralize, it instead grows and claims more victims.
I also liked Aronvitch’s debunking of the incorrect argument that the London bombings were a result of Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. He made several good points on this matter:
The jihadist campaign outside the Middle East first started when the omens for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement looked good, not bad. Then, just under seven years ago bin Laden’s people attacked the US embassies (no Bush back then) in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and killed 225 people, the vast majority of them local Africans. That was before 9/11.
A fact that in itself debunks the logic of “conservative pessimism”……………..
The most telling example in the piece that shows that conservative pessimism has no place in the war on terror is here:
In fact a group called the Abu Hafz al-Masri Brigades in claiming responsibility made a series of demands on the Turkish Government, should it wish to avoid future attacks. “Listen to us, you criminal,” the statement began emolliently, “the cars of death will not stop until you concede to our demands . . .”, which included the freeing of unspecified prisoners from Guantanamo and everywhere else and stopping the war against Muslims. Demand No 3, however, was for the Turks to “purify all Islamic land from the filth of the Jews and Americans, including Jerusalem and Kashmir”. Jews out of Kashmir is quite a tall order, since you’d have to find them first.
It’s not about Americans in Iraq as a military force and protecting Iraq, it’s about the threat that a free and democratic Iraq posses to the extremist Islamic agenda. Saudi’s, Moroccans, Jordanians, Chechnyan, and other foreign nationalist terrorists don’t blow them selves and innocent people up over the military actions by the coalition in Iraq. They blow themselves up to prevent the democracy that victory in Iraq will bring to Iraq and a chance for it to spread to the region. That is a threat that runs absolutely in conflict to the master goal of fundamentalist Islam. Democracy has no place in their model, so they use terror to try and prevent it.
Conservative pessimism has never worked in dealing with the worlds ills, and it absolutely would not be an effective tool in addressing the dark threat of terrorism that world faces today……………………
posted by Steve at 8:32 AM
