Going back a bit, I found a quote from Andrew Sullivan (yes the same one I lash out at below) that I think embodies the attitudes of our enemies. The quote is in reference to the continued attempts at and breakdowns of peace in Northern Ireland:

"You cannot negotiate peace with people whose power is entirely dependent on the will to wage war. This is anathema to many Americans steeped in the banality that peace talks are always better than no talks, that ancient conflicts can always be solved by the right facilitator. But the IRA's refusal to disarm is no mystery. War is its rationale. If power really were negotiated and shared, the IRA would be supplanted by moderate Republicans who would, by their very involvement in an Ulster government, legitimize continued British sovereignty. Why should a group that has gained everything it has through violence and murder, and whose raison d'�tre is implacable hostility to any British presence, ever decide that politics is a useful alternative? It's like asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving. They can't. They won't. And real peace won't break out until they do. "

This is the attitude of our enemies. They are on the fringes of society, but many have wrested control of governments in deprived countries. The only way they remain in power is through violence and oppression. The Taliban has no interest in peace with the US and welcomes this opportunity to inflame the fringes of society throughout the world. There are internal battles within other Arab countries that could threaten the coalition Bush is trying to create against terrorism, and the Taliban hopes to disrupt those countries enough that they become distracted from the goal. Moreover, the Taliban knows that the goal of destroying terrorism means destroying their terrorist control on Afghanistan. They hate the concepts of freedom and tolerance, the latter (I think) more than the former since it allows for views other than their religious fanatacism. This war will be a test for tolerant peoples to remain unified against intolerant regimes. Tolerant people are skeptical and are mindful of other points of view. There will be cries for mercy as terrorism is hunted and unfortunately, for the good of humanity those cries may have to be ignored.

In looking at Sullivan's site, I begin to understand that he may have a specific definition of the "decadent Left" of which (not reading him often) I am not aware. This attack has aroused all of our passions, and it is easy to read one's own meanings into text without contemplating the author's meaning. This has become common practice in American political debate, but there are those that try rise above this kind of induction. It will take more reading of Sullivan's archives to come to a better understanding of the "decadent Left", but I suspect (having read him over the past couple of months) he means a specific fraction of the left rather than the broader right vs. left distinctions. That being said, it continues to strike me as an awfully strident denunciation of a fraction of the American democrats in the face of an assault on the country that has never been seen. Reactions may surprise all of us.
- posted by levinson @ 9/18/2001 08:55:00 AM