War on terror—or pursuit of dhimmitude?

Yesterday I wrote: “As a result of the hopelessly moronic, sentimental, escapist, clichéd Western reactions to the London bombings yesterday, I’m starting to believe the worst.”

To which a reader replies:

Unfortunately I think your beliefs are well founded, and it gets much worse. Here, one day after this deadly terrorist attack, the following has happened: The G8 pledges $3 billion to the terrorist PLO, which amounts to nothing less than financing terrorism. Italy says it will start bringing its troops back from Iraq after threats that Italy and Denmark would be hit next if they didn’t bring their troops home. Condeleezza Rice reassures North Korea that they don’t have to worry about us attacking them, with the goal that just maybe they will come back to the negotiating table, as if such a ruthless, power hungry, authoritarian regime will ever agree to give up its nuclear weapons.

What I find scariest about this is not the European reaction, which is almost to be expected, but the reaction of our administration. In the first two years of its first term, the Bush administration seemed to show considerable resolve and clarity, so that there was someone in the world willing truly to fight this. However, now it seems that the administration has something very close to a European foreign policy, with the addition of the talk about democracy. It’s sadly ironic that after the post-election analyses showed that Bush won because he was perceived as the one who would not appease Islamic terrorism (a perception certainly not discouraged), his second term foreign policy is pretty much the same as John Kerry’s, the only difference being staying in Iraq and talking about democracy. (If you look closely, this seems to have been his policy since the moment the invasion of Iraq was over.) Diplomacy and appeasing the Europeans and the “international community” seem to be ends in themselves, but this can only be achieved by ourselves following a policy of appeasement.

The administration’s second term policy appears to have the main goals of going along with the Europeans and pursuing the futile task of winning over public opinion in the Moslem world. What’s truly scary is that it appears that there is now no one left in the world who will truly fight Islamic fascism, and a brutal terrorist attack on a major Western capital does not change this, but rather is followed by immediate appeasement and capitulation. If this doesn’t do it, what will? Will it now take a nuclear attack, which will then be far too late?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 09, 2005 08:55 AM | Send