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May 08, 2004
Sherman and other Great Satans....
Via Stephen Green, I just read Charles Krauthammer's take on the scandal some are already calling "Torturegate". Jihadists, like all totalitarians, oppose many kinds of freedom. What makes them unique, however, is their particular hatred of freedom for women. They prize their traditional prerogatives that allow them to keep their women barefoot in the kitchen as illiterate economic and sexual slaves. For the men, that is a pretty good deal -- one threatened by the West with its twin doctrines of equality and sexual liberation.Putting aside the emotions (as we must in war), and putting aside the fact that these sickos should be punished as severely as military law allows, I am tempted to play Devil's Advocate here. I mean that quite, um, literally. What is terrorism? Striking fear in the heart of the enemy? If our enemy believes that Americans are sexually depraved people who can't wait for a chance to show them how much fun it is being Great Satan, what are they going to do about it? Get more pissed off than they already are? I am reminded of Sherman's March, which was intended to humiliate and degrade the largely beaten South. One of the reasons it worked was not because Sherman's men were genuine demons (most of them in fact were not), but because the Southern press -- the "Southern Street" for lack of a better term -- exaggerated the nature and scope of the atrocities, and believed the exaggerations. (Here are some very colorful, and yes, even sexualized, Southern accounts.) I do not mean to minimize Sherman's behavior, and I recognize that the bitterness survives to this day (interesting religious analysis here), but I don't think it is entirely out of order to ask whether any of this might have unrecognized (maybe hidden) psychological advantages. Did Sherman's March, by infuriating the South, prolong the war? Quite the opposite. It's credited by most historians as a major reason for Southern capitulation. And like Southern Calvinists, Islamists are strong believers in predestination and fate. If they start thinking God has abandoned them, might they too begin to have doubts? Scratch a terrorist and you'll find a coward inside. The kind of people who believe in terrorism are the kind of people who mistake kindness for weakness, and who think that Americans would never resort to their tactics. Not that Americans have done that as a matter of policy or ever would do that intentionally. But if the enemy thinks we have, might some of them be asking questions like, "Where's our god now?" Don't ask me! I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here....
What the hell am I doing here? Trying to document the emergence of a new word? But I'm not even a lexicographer! At times like this, I am tempted to call upon Janus, god of gates. posted by Eric on 05.08.04 at 10:49 PM |
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