What Steyn really means when he says we’re in a war

I’ve written many blog entries about the Global Con Artistry Provider known as Mark Steyn, trying to zero in on what this sinister trickster is really about. And now it’s getting really clear, thanks to Steyn’s ever more audacious revelations of his real positions, which he indulges (as I have suggested previously) because he can’t believe how much blatant contradiction his mind-numbed “conservative” fans are letting him get away with, so he keeps testing the limits. It’s as if he were saying to himself, “Gosh, I just told these conservative morons that I’m indifferent to the death of a European country, and they are still worshipping me as a conservative hero. What outrage can I tell them next and have them still dancing to my tune? Maybe I’ll let on that the real purpose of the ‘war’ I keep calling for is to smooth the path for the Islamic conquest of the world…”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start over at the beginning.

A reader sent this note that mirrors my own experience:

This is becoming really tiresome. I keep getting articles by Mark Steyn from friends and then I see the silliness and the absurdity shot through every single piece.

What the reader sent was Hugh Hewitt’s interview of Steyn on Hewitt’s radio show, 2/16/06. Steyn’s previous outrages, which I have analyzed here in detail, pale besides what you are about to read:

Hugh Hewitt: Well, this raises a delicate question. Before there was Mark Steyn, there was and remains George Will. And I think many of us in the business of opinion journalism respect his work over a long period of time. But I’m beginning to worry if he’s going Pat Buchanan on us, Mark Steyn. Today he wrote a column blasting the idea that the authorization for the use of military force somehow authorized the president to conduct surveillance on al Qaeda. And Andrew McCarthy answered this at National Review. But it’s an absurd column by one of the elder statesmen of conservatism. What’s going on?

Mark Steyn: Well, I think George Will is like a lot of conservatives. I like George Will enormously, but, and he’s got a very sharp mind. But he doesn’t basically accept the premise of the Bush doctrine, which is that you can somehow change the culture of our enemies’ states, in other words, the Middle Eastern states, Afghanistan, Pakistan, that you can somehow change them, and make them more like us. And you’re right…he’s right to an extent that you can’t give liberty to people. They have to want it. But on the other hand, it’s a hard job, but there’s actually not much alternative to it. You have to somehow say to these people you have to find a way to reach an accommodation between your religion and the modern world, because just saying it can’t be done is no answer to anything. That condemns us all, essentially, to a majority Muslim planet in which American will be isolated and very short of friends. And the Bush doctrine is a long shot, but it’s better than just consigning ourselves to hopelessness. And I respectfully disagree with George Will, and I wish he could see that.

HH: Mark Steyn, you and I share an opinion on that one. Thank you. I look forward to next week as always. Mark Steyn can be read at Steynonline.com.

Steyn’s argument is one that he has advanced in other articles about Europe, but here he globalizes it. He’s saying that the Muslims are going to take over the West and the world, period, and there is nothing we can do to stop this. So, while they’re taking over, we must find a way to turn them into friends, because otherwise we will be in a world controlled by our enemies. In his many articles about Europe and demographics, he made the equally absurd argument that even while the Muslims are in the act of taking over Europe, Europe must assimilate the Muslims in order to transmit its culture to them!

But as off the wall as this is, what Steyn is actually saying is even worse. According to Steyn, to give up the hope of making an accommodation between Islam and the modern world “condemns us all, essentially, to a majority Muslim planet in which American will be isolated and very short of friends.” What he means is that if Muslims aren’t our friends, we will be short of friends. The Muslims must become our friends, because they’re taking over.

Remember how often I’ve criticized Steyn for pounding his chest and calling liberals politically correct cowards and saying that we’ve got to realize that we’re in a “war,” without his ever explaining what this “war” consists of. Now we have the answer. Steyn’s “war” is a war to make Muslims into our friends, even as they defeat us and take over the world. The “war” consists of our surrendering to Muslims, so that after they have taken us over, they will be nice to us.

Never in the annals of human conflict has a policy of such outright appeasement been accompanied by such bellicose chest-pounding. And never in history have so many otherwise intelligent people been fooled into believing that a call for surrender was really a call to arms.

If neoconservatism consists of the outward illusion of conservatism, concealing the inward reality of liberalism and leftism, then Steyn is the ultimate neoconservative.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 20, 2006 12:34 PM | Send