The Terror War is longer than the Gulf War or the average
Arab-Israeli war. It’s longer than the doodlebug bombing of Sudanese
pharmaceutical plants. It has lived long enough, though, to breed colonies of
misconceptions.
Should we wage war during Ramadan? Ah, the pious scruples of
murderers. You can torch and crush 6,000 unwarned and innocent civilians and go
to paradise for it, but don’t look cross-eyed at the calendar. The Muslim world
has never observed such a prohibition. The Prophet Muhammad himself waged war
during Ramadan. The 1973 Arab attack on Israel
during Yom Kippur also coincided with Ramadan. One of Iran’s
offensives against Iraq
during their 80’s blood bath was called “the Ramadan offensive.” The Taliban will no doubt try to compound our offense by
stuffing their ordinance into mosques. Some might call that desecration. We
should end the scandal of using religious buildings for violent purposes by
eliminating the occasions for the offense.
British television, and foreign TV
generally, is wall-to-wall dead Afghan civilians. A Turkish friend, inclined to
be pro-American, tells me this is all his family back home sees on the tube.
Everyone, from crazed Indian novelists to wailing mullahs, laments the
casualties and accuses us of terrorism. No doubt we have killed civilians. Air
war always does, even the most technologically sophisticated. But let us
remember how this began. The civilian
casualties caused by our air campaign have been accidental. The only accidents
involved in the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade towers were that
thousands of infidels managed to survive (none of the passengers of the four hijacked
airplanes were so lucky). We have killed some innocents through inadvertence.
Our enemies have killed as many innocents as they possibly could. The Muslim
world is intoxicated with the theatrics of martyrdom; they swig it down at the
first gunshot. Never again will I imagine that liberalism, and post-Christian
civilization generally, is fixated on what Kenneth Minogue
called “suffering situations.” Compared to the homicidal crybabies of Islam, we
are tough, manly fellows.
Watchman, tell us of the Northern Alliance,
what the signs of promise are. I actually know someone who knew Abdul Haq, the anti-Taliban leader who
was captured and executed after making a freelance foray into enemy territory
last month. Charles Bork, a son of Judge Robert Bork, went into Afghanistan
during the Soviet occupation (his battlefield photographs were published in National Review and The New Republic ). Through an intermediary, he asked Haq for an interview. The first answer that came back was
that Haq would not waste time with the son of “that
hashish-smoking judge.” Haq evidently confused Judge Bork with Douglas Ginsburg, the
Supreme Court nominee who went down in flames because of youthful pot use. Not
bad for someone who probably wasn’t getting very good reception for Washington Week in Review . Once young
Mr. Bork straightened out his lineage, the interview
went fine.
A wild life, a dramatic death. We should
expect many more such betrayals and surprises, before and after our ultimate
victory. The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition) has this to
say about our new allies, and our new enemies: “The first impression made by
the Afghan is favorable. The European … is charmed by their apparently frank,
open-hearted, hospitable and many manners; but the charm is not of long
duration, and he finds that the Afghan is as cruel and crafty as he is
independent.” For a faint European analogue of Afghan hardiness and lying,
think of the old Scottish Highlanders and the Glencoe Massacre.
We will not impose a temporary calm on Afghanistan
until we have smashed the Taliban in significant
action. That will mean ground troops, which means the struggle will probably
not be joined until spring. President Bush warned us this would be a long war,
and Afghanistan
is only the first phase. (Over the horizon loom Iraq
and Saudi Arabia;
the first is a target, the second is … an
opportunity.) Let it last as long as it takes, so long as we do the job.
While we fight, we must
reflect that not everything will break against us. Iran, one of the largest nations of the region, is
experiencing slippage in unanticipated directions. Iranians chafing at the rule
of fanatics have taken to rioting after soccer games; when the regime recently
unveiled the former American embassy in Tehran as a revolutionary park, the crowds stayed away.
V.S. Naipaul, in a recent talk in New York, discounted the possibility of change in Iran. The recent stirrings, he said, were the work of
a tiny middle class, which could easily be suppressed. Then he added the
supremely dark thought, “We must never get between people and their happiness;
they have earned their revolutions.” Mr. Naipaul
speaks with the authority of a traveler, and a keen observer, but even he has
revised severely negative views of Third World
countries. The Iranians may be rerouting their pursuit of happiness.
Most long wars involve a
sorting out of leaders. Think of the bewhiskered failures, indistinguishable to
all but Civil War buffs, whom Lincoln had to sort through before he finally hit upon
Ulysses Grant. George Washington commanded the army throughout the
Revolutionary War, but several of his highest-ranking subordinates fell by the
wayside through incompetence, insubordination or treason. The higher ranks of
the military have come off 10 years of fundamental peace, draining resources,
fraying military culture and pussyfoot actions in
non-places for non-reasons. We have cared more about diet in Somalia, poll-watching in Kosovo
and sexual harassment at Navy blowouts than about how well our soldiers fight
and how keenly their officers think. That’s always the way it is in peacetime
in Anglo-Saxon countries. Then a hoedown begins, and screw-ups, paper-shufflers
and rank civilians discover that they are military geniuses, while some of the
spit-and-polish types at the top wash out. The Commander in Chief has to know
what he wants, and sack those who cannot get it for him. What we want is the
death and confusion of our enemies.
