Why a reader feels the war in Iraq is a “so what?”

An excellent letter from a reader on the underlying problem with President Bush’s war on terror: even if it succeeded, and even if we excluded jihadists and Islamic “theocrats,” that wouldn’t save us from the larger threat we face, which is the steady loss of our culture and way of life under the impact of unassimilable immigration.

Assume that Bush’s strategy in Iraq works (for the sake of argument). The Iraqis publically adopt a secular form of democratic government as Islam gets relegated to a form of purely private and individual worship (even if that were a conceptual impossibility). The Middle East follows suite and that region becomes preponderantly democratic in government and constitution. Islam now becomes an internal form of being that does not affect public policy.

How does this help the West in terms of its historical persona? Muslim immigration to Europe and North America will STILL continue to flow in unabatedly. The cultural, spiritual and intellectual complexion of Europe and North America will STILL continue to be radically changed by foreign cultures. Democratizing the Middle East will in no way stop the current destruction of the traditional American personality of this country. It may ease the flow of immigration because political barriers have fallen!!!

Australia’s finance minister told an audience that those who wanted to live under a theocracy were not welcome in Australia. So ten million Muslims migrating to Australia and publicly declaring that they support “secular democracy” HELPS Australia in its self-definition? Whether those Muslims wish for a theocracy or not will not stem the destruction of the Australian persona if Arabs come to constitute the majority over time.

The issue at bottom is not theocracy but the social composition of a nation. Even if Muslims were not theocrats, their overwhelming of a society by numbers (as in France) should be the issue.

When a Muslim cleric stated that a mosque in Detroit would sound the call to worship from the minaret 5 times a day—to be heard by all in the neighbourhood, that was threatening. It said that we are going to be changing the sights and sounds of your culture within your everyday, conscious life.

Here the issue was not theocracy but how their culture impinges on and redefines our culture (and psychology).

Once a culture gets overwhelmed by foreign elements, the political agenda will change. It is not good enough to say, “Let them abide by our rules” because as soon as they become the majority (or even a sizable minority), THEY WILL CHANGE THE POLITICAL RULES TO SUIT THEIR CULTURE.

That is why the war in Iraq is a “so what” for me. So what if Bush achieves his aims in the Middle East? How does that in any way stop the slide of American culture into the dustbin of history on this side of the ocean?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 27, 2005 10:45 AM | Send