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of television networks has deemed our current conflict "America's
New War," which has a slightly Madison Avenue ring to it and
at first glance seems accurate enough. We've never been attacked
as we were on September 11. In addition, being attacked by men who
believe, among other things, that they will be given free reign
in a heaven brimming with virgins (so that's where they all went)
is also something of a unique experience.
But looked
at another way, this is an old war. Osama bin Laden denounces our
president as a "crusader" fighting "under the flag
of the Cross." He apparently hasn't gotten word that the United
States is not a Christian country. He is not the only one to frame
the war this way. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, writing from his Colorado
bunker, says this "will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian
Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics
on both sides." In a somewhat similar vein, Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi stated that "the West will continue to conquer
peoples, like it conquered Communism," even if it means fighting
"another civilization, the Islamic one, stuck where it was
1,400 years ago."
This sort of
talk seems to spook the administration, which has taken up the line
that bin Laden and associates comprise a fringe movement in a religion
otherwise friendly to Western values. This view's most prominent
advocate is Cleveland law professor David F. Forte, who argues that
bin Laden means to "to hijack Islam itself. What they represent
is a tradition that Islam early on rejected as a perversion of the
universal message of its prophet," he says. "They are
not religious. They are a new form of fascist tyranny."
These views
have been closely echoed by the president and because Americans
are largely unfamiliar with Islam they carry great weight. Yet the
notion that bin Laden isn't religious is clearly ridiculous, even
if his level of devotion might not be quite deep enough to put him
behind the stick of a hijacked jetliner. Similarly, documents believed
to have been written by one of the hijackers mentions God more often
than a televangelist during donor week. We are no doubt better off
taking our instruction from, among others, Paul Johnson, who
the other day informed NRO readers that our adversaries are
very much part of a warring faith.
This view is
shared by former Carter administration official Samuel P. Huntington,
now a Harvard professor and founder of Foreign Affairs magazine.
"Some Westerners . . . have argued that the West does not have
problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists,"
he wrote in the mid-1990s. "Fourteen hundred years of history
demonstrate otherwise." Indeed, he says, we've been deeply
engaged in a quasi war that, as we know now, has become something
much larger.
"American
leaders allege that the Muslims involved in the quasi war are a
small minority whose use of violence is rejected by the great majority
of moderate Muslims," Huntington writes. "This may be
true, but evidence to support it is lacking." Evidence to the
contrary is not. "Many more Westerners have been killed in
this quasi war [through terrorism] than were killed in the 'real'
war in the Gulf." By his count, "during the 15 years between
1980 and 1995 . . . the United States engaged in 17 military operations"
against Middle Eastern Muslims.
Vincent Carroll
( with
whom I have written a soon-to-be released book on Christianity's
unique contributions to our culture, and who dug out the Huntington
quotes) points out that people who consider themselves part of this
longstanding tradition will not be easily defeated. Nor do they
care if Reuters calls them terrorists, or the rest of us call them
zealots or fanatics. Such is music to their ears. Also, in an age
of miniaturization, in which a very small number of men can kill
a very large number of opponents, raw numbers are insignificant.
These soldiers
of faith are not the only problem we face, of course. They are clearly
supported by exemplary clerics such as Saddam Hussein and the leaders
of Syria, who may have slaughtered more virgins than can be found
in heaven's uncharted stretches. It will take a great crusade, if
you will, to bring them to heel.
Westerners
have been taught to recoil at the very mention of the Crusades,
but perhaps a more generous appraisal will soon become common. Besides
the well-known atrocities and property grabs, the Crusades did raise
up heroes, including perhaps the most famous Crusader of all, Richard
the Lionhearted. His final days exemplified the sublime brutality
that may characterize the years ahead. The story is told by Winston
Churchill, who knew much about the clash of civilizations, and who
explains that after Richard was mortally wounded:
"He ordered
the archer who had shot the fatal bolt, and who was now a prisoner,
to be brought before him. He pardoned him, and made him a gift of
money. For seven years he had not confessed for fear of being compelled
to be reconciled to Philip, but now he received the offices of the
Church with sincere and exemplary piety, and died in the forty-second
year of his age on April 6, 1199, worthy, by the consent of all
men, to sit with King Arthur and Roland and other heroes of martial
romance at some Eternal Round Table, which we trust the Creator
of the Universe in His comprehension will not have forgotten to
provide.
"The archer
was flayed alive."
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