The War for Civilization

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<p>From the Canadian Muslim political scientist Salim Mansur, in yesterday’s Toronto Sun…</p>

<hr>

<p>THE WAR FOR CIVILIZATION </p>

<p>George W. Bush stays firm in confronting the contemporary barbarians </p>

<p>By SALIM MANSUR</p>

<p>Those who may share U.S. President George Bush’s anguish in these recurrent winters of our discontent are not many. </p>

<p>It is easy to describe Bush as a beleaguered president in a war that a majority of Americans now question as the November mid-term election demonstrated. They want an end to the war in Iraq without having to admit defeat. </p>

<p>The agony of Bush is compounded by his knowledge of the enemy. </p>

<p>That and the constraints placed, in a free society within the context of our integrated world, on his office and its ability to wage the sort of war necessary to defeat the enemy. </p>

<p>U.S. presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt and Truman were also reviled in their times and during their respective winters of discontent. </p>

<p>But their circumstances in defeating the enemies of freedom were much different, and less onerous than those Bush has to contend with. </p>

<p>The Confederates were slave-holders, bent on destroying the American Union, rather than give freedom to their slaves. </p>

<p>Despite doubts about Lincoln during the worst months of the long Civil War, the enemy was clearly visible and victory was precisely defined as saving the Union and crushing the Confederacy. </p>

<p>Similarly, Roosevelt and Truman fought the fascist and militarist powers of Germany and Japan who were on a rampage across the world. </p>

<p>Even in the darkest moments of World War II their political opponents could not, dared not, publicly doubt the objective of securing the unconditional surrender of these enemies. </p>

<p>But the enemy Bush is contending with – while a majority of Americans and America’s allies pretend it doesn’t exist – is not merely an alliance of states or a mix of ideologies or a cause that the United States must fight and defeat. </p>

<p>ATAVISTIC IDEAS </p>

<p>The current enemy is the outcrop of a broken civilization of the past, spewing forth from its rotting bowels an endless horde of militants and fellow-travellers, carrying with them the most atavistic ideas about faith and politics that modern civilization, which Bush represents, hesitates to name for what it is. </p>

<p>We have to go back to the declining years of the Roman Empire to find a parallel with our times. Rome had spread civilization far and wide around the Mediterranean basin, but over time it became besieged by barbarians from outside its frontiers and then from within. </p>

<p>Civilization is more supple, hence fragile, than the iron and steel from which it is built. It might be likened to a garden, delicately laid out and carefully maintained. </p>

<p>When ignored or unattended, weeds destroy what human artifice builds with much labour. </p>

<p>Over time, people take their civilization for granted, become careless and unwilling to bear the burden of protecting it. Then its defences are breached, as Rome was, and the city is overrun by those who envy or loathe civilization, bringing ruin in their wake. </p>

<p>Radical Islamism and Islamist terrorism have already made a wasteland of the greater Middle East. Where once a great Islamic civilization prevailed, now, in its place, there so often thrives a culture of bigotry and tribal violence, with their effects spreading outwards across land and sea. </p>

<p>Rome did not know how to defeat the barbarians before they overran her. Those who endlessly fault Bush for the shape of the world visible since 9/11, will one day cry a river if he and his successors fail to save civilization from its present-day enemies. </p>

<p>Michael Novak, a Catholic theologian and philosopher, named Bush “the bravest president” for staying firm in confronting the contemporary barbarians, despite the venom of his peers. </p>

<p>In the dark winter nights, some of us will have prayers for Bush, knowing the difference between what he represents and those who would prey upon civilization. </p>

<p>Salim Mansur is professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario.</p>

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<p>Thoughts?</p>

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<p>I fully support the war against radical Islam and Islamic terrorists.
However, I didn’t support Bush’s war against Iraq. There was no purported link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.</p>

<p>But once we get in, we shouldn’t retreat. Now we have to fight this war out. Thanks to Bush, Islamic terrorists have gained power in Iraq.</p>

<p>Bush is one of our worst Presidents ever. He didn’t allocate enough resources to Afghanistan and started an unneccessary war in Iraq.</p>

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<p>Uh, ethnocentrism, much? I hate the word “civilization” anyway, and how people use it to divide lines in society. </p>

<p>His word choice is repulsive. I don’t know if he means it earnestly and mockingly. “Michael Novak, a Catholic theologian and philosopher, named Bush “the bravest president” for staying firm in confronting the contemporary barbarians, despite the venom of his peers”??? Are we back to the 19th century foreign policy of white man’s burden? If so, wake me up when the people in power realise that globalization is happening…</p>

<p>By the way, just a minor point, just because the author of the article is a Muslim does not beckon justification and “correctness”. You could use that same arguement for Noam Chomsky, because he’s a Jew but also a Holocaust denier (which I won’t discuss).</p>

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<p>Your problem with Mansur seems to be that he does not speak the language of contemporary liberalism. News flash: He’s a conservative. He does know how to push the buttons of liberals like you, though, I’ll give you that.</p>

<p>As for Chomsky, there is a big difference between him and Mansur. Chomsky is an atheist; his Jewishness is barely skin-deep. (I would be surprised if Chomsky would even call himself a Jew.) Mansur, on the other hand, is a deeply religious Muslim and a proud Arab.</p>

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<p>Good point. Unfortunately, there are those who would rather not care to distinguish amongst fanatical Muslims, regular Muslims, non-Muslim Arabs, and just generally dark-skinned Arabish-looking people. </p>

<p>Against fanatical Islam destroying civilization? So am I. But… what does Bush’s invasion of Iraq have to do with that? Saying that it was all right to launch a barely legal (if not illegal) unilateral strike that not only cost a couple of thousand American lives but tens of thousands of Iraqi ones in addition to creating an inevitable civil war, all for the stupid pipe dream of magically winning over these rightfully disgruntled Middle Easterners with an oasis of Iraqi democracy is, in a word, idiotic. And if Bush is really for saving civilization from these fundamentalists, why is he so cozy with the repressive Saudis?</p>

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<p>Chomsky is a holocaust denier?
If you are referring to the Faurisson affair, that does not qualify him as a denier.</p>

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<p>“Unfortunately, there are those who would rather not care to distinguish amongst fanatical Muslims, regular Muslims, non-Muslim Arabs, and just generally dark-skinned Arabish-looking people.”</p>

<p>Well said, nbachris, well said.</p>

<p>“in confronting the contemporary barbarians, despite the venom of his peers.” </p>

<p>contemporary barbarians? were 600,000 people contemporary barbarians? (obviously, that number is debated, but still). <a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-10-10-iraq-dead_x.htm[/url]”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-10-10-iraq-dead_x.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And Noam Chomsky is not a holocaust denier. And I don’t even like Noam Chomsky.</p>

<p>“Mansur, on the other hand, is a deeply religious Muslim and a proud Arab.”</p>

<p>Mansur always states he is no authority, yet always acts like one. IDK what his agenda is, but it looks like an appeal to authority argument here. </p>

<p>“Similarly, Roosevelt and Truman fought the fascist and militarist powers of Germany and Japan who were on a rampage across the world.” </p>

<p>If the author wants to compare parallels between the WWs and this war, perhaps he should also have noted the differences.</p>

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<p>“Mansur always states he is no authority, yet always acts like one. IDK what his agenda is, but it looks like an appeal to authority argument here.”</p>

<p>Mansur believes that Islam has been hijacked by fundamentalists, who are following a heretical Koranic theology that initially sprouted up in the Arab world in medieval times. He laments what has happened to Islam and the Muslim world because of its influence, and his agenda is to help stamp it out.</p>

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<p>On Chomsky: that’s a tricky subject. my mother had professors, who are scholars on the holocaust, who swear up and down that chomsky is a holocaust denier. if you look at the people he associates himself with, and the thin words he veils himself in defense (historical revisionism), his holocaust revisionism lines up quite in line with many of his politics.</p>

<p>i’m not going to bother with this thread…but i will say this: “liberal” is not an insult. if being liberal means thinking progressively, believing in the protection of social freedoms, and asking the government to take responsibility over the welfare of a people, then yes, i’m a liberal. if liberal means caring about humanity and not just dollars and cents, then yes, i’m a liberal. if liberal means free thinking, than i’m a liberal. i’ll give you another: i’m a socialist. and i’m in good company. </p>

<p>otherwise i stand by my main point, regardless of a poor chomsky comparision. the middle east is not some backwards wasteland that time forgot. its culture is not “savage” (i am speaking in the terms that this, and alot of other examples, state as the mindset of many of the region; i’m not speaking of the author). and anyway, if civilization is an english term, than it is the west that defines it. what gives the west to define what is the ethical code for all human conduct? absolutely nothing.</p>

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<p>“what gives the west to define what is the ethical code for all human conduct?”</p>

<p>When that code of conduct begins to put the lives of Westerners in danger, then it becomes the West’s responsibility to stop the threat. And that’s what America and her friends are trying to do.</p>

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<p>“…then it becomes the West’s responsibility to stop the threat.” </p>

<p>To what extent? Seems like the policy of the WH is to stand behind this blanket statement. When is too much? >3000 Americans? Hundreds of thoudands of Iraqis?</p>

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<p>Until the job is done.</p>

<p>Listen, throwing out figures every time a soldier or civilian dies is counter-productive. If we did this during World War II, we’d all be typing in f-ing German. We need to keep our eyes on the prize and stop being such bleeding vaginas about casualties, which, BTW, are incredibly low as far as wars go. How many Allied soldiers died in WWI? HUNDREDS of thousands. But we bloody-well got the job done.</p>

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<p>^</p>

<p>Oh God, stop with the whole “Saddam as Hitler” allegory. You automatically lose the debate for bringing it up.</p>

<p>And if the goal is to stop the likes of Osama bin Laden, then how does Iraq factor in? It’s the one secular government, albeit repressive, in a region steeped with religious fundamentalist powers. Okay, I understand to some ignorami, Middle Easterners=Arabs=Muslims=Terrorists, but in reality, it’s not like that. Saddam Hussein was a totalitarian dictator, not a religious fundamentalist; in fact, he despised and feared those people because it would undermine the one thing he did worship: power.</p>

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<p>Mansur really idealizes what Islam was perhaps even more than he idealizes Bush as the sole defender against the “barbarian hordes.” Even if you take much of what he says as valid (which I don’t), Bush really chose the wrong place and the wrong war in which to engage the Barbarians. Iraq has been a very expensive distraction, and has demonstrated the world that we don’t calibrate our power well to doable tasks. It has given the barbarians more of a leg up – though I would argue we still have much more power. Part of demonstrating strength is acting with savvy, not just brute shock and awe. In this sense, Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster, a foolish misadventure.</p>

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<p>My batteries were running out. What specifically determines Iraq as a foolish misadventure? It’s become increasingly clear that the primary effect of the war will be to have given Iran, a sworn enemy of our ally Israel as well as ourselves significant influence over Iraq, whereas before this was not the case. The sad thing is it was eminently forseeable – and foreseen by experts who were ignored. The other factor is while Saddam was bad to his people and was always pushing the envelope of what he could get away with vis-a-vis sanctions post Gulf War I, he was fundamentally a secular ruler, of socialist underpinnings.</p>

<p>By the way, I never faulted Bush endlessly for the shape of the world post 9/11. He started out more or less with the right response: declare the Afghan Taliban government party to the crimes of those they harbored, unless they gave them up. And then we went to war there, which we had to do. </p>

<p>The problem is since then, Bush has played right into the hands of those in Islam who want to paint our differences (between the West and Islam) as a grand clash of civilizations. The Iraq War has been a rallying cry for jihadists across the region.</p>

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<p>“The current enemy is the outcrop of a broken civilization of the past, spewing forth from its rotting bowels an endless horde of militants and fellow-travellers, carrying with them the most atavistic ideas about faith and politics that modern civilization, which Bush represents, hesitates to name for what it is”</p>

<p>I think that Hemingway hit the nail on the head. This whole article-- especially this excerpt-- reeks of stupid paternalism and “White Man’s Burden”-esque sentiments.</p>

<p>I just thought that everything about Mansur’s article was so… wrong. Firstly, I found Mansur’s assertions that the reasons behind Bush’s war are more important than the reasons behind the Civil War or WWII. The Civil War was a war that NEEDED to be thought. The economic, political, and social conditions DEMANDED it. In addition, WWII, I think we’d all agree, also had to be fought. But the war in Iraq? I personally believe that this war is one of the most unjustified wars in history. As the war progresses, -that- is becoming more and more obvious. So, Mansur’s attempts to glorify Bush and paint him as a savior of civilization are simply laughable. Bush never wanted to ‘save’ civilization. In fact, the presence of troops in Iraq is only exacerbating conditions there. ‘Civilization’ is crumbling in Iraq DUE to Bush’s/the United States’ actions. The idiocy of this entire article disgusts me.</p>