What will we fight for?
While I work, I like to listen to talk radio in the background. (I use KRLA’s site, which has great streaming audio.) Today, however, I couldn’t stick with it. I was listening to Michael Medved talk about the very real possibility that the same portable missiles that are raining down on Israel could easily be smuggled into Mexico and begin raining down on America’s border states. This is not a far-fetched scenario. The ostrich-like liberals in my county may be driving their SUV’s around with bumperstickers saying “No War For Oil” or “War Is Not The Answer,” but they really don’t have a say in the matter when one considers that the Islamists have unilaterally declared war on us. (And, yes, I think 9/11 was an act of war.) The fact that 9/11 happened at all means that it is no longer in the realm of conspiracy theory to suggest attacks from across the border. I found the thought too depressing to work to.
Still, even though I turned it off, Medved’s show did get me thinking about America’s response. There are two levels to the response. The first is a military response. Obviously, we wouldn’t begin bombing Mexico. I don’t think that there is any indication that Mexico is willingly providing a haven for terrorists to use as a base to attack the United States. Instead, we’d follow the money — and the money would lead to Iran. Would we attack Iran? I really don’t know. We’ve got a good launching site in Iraq, and we’re already waging a proxy war there with Iran pouring fighters into Iraq to destabilize the new Iraqi government. This would simply expand that initiative. We also know that 70% of Iranians are dissatisfied with their government. The question is whether that dissatisfaction extend to using an US invasion as an opportunity to overthrow their hated government, or if Iranians would coalesce around their government if their country were attacked. I’m not a militarist, a strategist or a tactician, so these are wild guesses and worries.
The second level to an American response would be what the citizens would do. This ties in with DQ’s earlier post today about an article that predicted that Israelis will cut and run if bombed, while Lebanese will coming out fighting. Aside from some serious problems I have with that assumption (are the Israelis cowards? are Islamists natural born fighters?), it does raise questions about America itself.
Americans haven’t had a war on their soil since the Civil War. Americans haven’t participated in great numbers in a war since the Korean War. Since that time, only minute percentages of the American population have been exposed to war. Americans live lives of stunning luxury compared to most parts of the world and compared to any other times in history. Americans are prone to think in terms of victimhood. (See here, here and here for my belief in this regard.) I know that I, personally, am a terrible coward. Do we have any fighting spirit left that will leave us capable of defending ourselves?
Well, perhaps we might still fight, not because we’re fighters anymore, but because of the unbearably bleak alternative if we don’t fight. In a way, a “normal” American life under falling bombs still has got to be better than the Hell of all eternity under Sharia (which is, after all, the stated goal of those arrayed against us).
A Sharia world means a world in which teenagers are lashed dozens of times for smoking pot, people are executed for watching soccer, girls are hanged for having a “sharp tongue”, tennis players are killed for wearing shorts, bareheaded girls are burned to death rather than being rescued from fires, adulterers are stoned to death (which would probably wipe out a third of America and most of Congress), children’s entertainers are murdered (something that might put a little fear in Hollyweird), women are enswathed in burkhas and denied the right even to leave their homes, whether for employment or healthcare, and on and on. Coward though I am, I’d prefer a real fighting war, where we actively repel this apocalyptic future. Maybe, faced with such an ugly enemy, Americans under attack would discover that there are things worth fighting for, and that there are fates worth than death.
