Is General Dannatt reading VFR?

The most remarkable thing about General Sir Richard Dannatt’s interview attacking the British government’s campaign in Iraq is that he grasps both the failure of Muslim democratization in Iraq, and the failure of Muslim assimilation in Britain. Sounding like a traditionalist conservative, he says a “moral and spiritual vacuum” has opened up in British society which is allowing Muslim extremists to undermine “our accepted way of life.” Name one other prominent British or American leader who combines criticism of the Iraq occupation with criticism of Western decadence, as Dannatt has done. Dannatt clearly understands that Iraqi democratization and Britain’s multicultural embrace of Muslims are two sides of the same coin, the attempt to introduce to Western ways Muslims who by and large are not interested in them and are totally unsuited for them. He seems very close to seeing the truth that can save us—that instead of spreading democracy to Islamic lands while importing Islamic people to Western lands, we need to strengthen our own civilization and draw lines between ourselves and Islam.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 15, 2006 01:39 AM | Send