Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

The American Way of War

I think this article from the New York Times is the best reporting I have read on the war. It probably makes the best case for the essential justice of our cause.

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The questioning of taking life, and the fear of death, vs. the ruthlessness of taking life, and the worship of death.

American vs. Islamicist Nationalist?

But here is an important issue, you claim that this a makes the case for the essential justness of the war, and I won’t disagree with you. But many people made the argument or seemed to be agreed upon the justness of the war from consideration of arguments offered apriori. in other words, many who believe this was a just war, believed that it was a just war long before the 48 hour period had lapsed. It had been debated and many were firm. The war was just. Many had "proven" this with high philosophic argument! But supposing we believed before hand that the war was just, would there be any reason to blink or ponder while killing? If the war is just, and we can say this knowing that people die in combat, then why revist the question a posteriori, as one looks upon dismembered bodies?

If the one who attacks you is really defending evil, and you know this, then it would be good that he is dead, provided the cause for which you fight is just. To question the justness of killing a man who is defending and promoting the existence of an evil tyrant is to question at a more fundamental level the full meaning of the justness of war as extending both to the end and the means. This is to question seriously the very possibility of ever being able to say that a war is just to the extent that one would kill without any self-doubt.

Would a soldier absolutely sure of the full meaning of the cause ever blink, or look back? Those who have imbibed with absolute certainty the "truths" of the Koran do not look back at the bunker as they face down a Bradley with a riffle, those for whom this war is justified with the greatest subjective certainty seem to be the Iraqi soldiers, and terrorists. The Martyr goes to his death without question, his resolve is steel. This is the essense of what we are fighting.

You can call it hatred of seperation of church and state, or anything else you wish to label it. But essentially this is the battle between those with absolute faith in "truth" vs. those who must always raise rational objections. It is a fight between people whose beliefs are in no way different from the actions they follow, and those whose beliefs are always tempered by the situations surrounding any particular action. It is a fight between those for whom knowledge of (justice) and (truth) means, that one never doubts the results, vs. those who while somewhat sure, neverless flinch when they see the real thing. What the Islamicists dislike more than anything is the seperation of belief and resolution, or professed belief and action, of the west and its culture. Peace for Islam means unity with the self, and this entails the sort of belief or faith that would think itself right in action such that it would never blink, or encounter self-doubt. The Islamicist would charge you shooting and never think of dying. If he killed you he might grin, or kick your corpse, but he would never treat your corpse as he would that of a dead beliver.

He would never question his own death or yours, he is CERTAIN that he will enter heaven, he KNOWS you will be in hell. The justness and truth of the END is so certain that nothing can interfere. In fact Islamicism is "essentialy" not an argument or anything rational but an intensely passionate belief in the Koran. The West is an enemy because it presents worldy lures and doubts which interfere with "submission". The western man no matter how much philosophy he has done, may still seperate this from his day to day affairs, and even in cases where he doesn’t he keeps doubts, and even when he has the greatest "philosophic certainty/assurance" of the justice and truth of his cause, he still looks around him and feels bad about the life he has taken.

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