by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n We Seem to Have Learned Nothing from 9\/11<\/strong><\/p>\n I thought we had learned long ago on 9\/11 that radical Islam hates the West not because of troops in Saudi Arabia, or Danish cartoons or Mr. Rushdie, or even, as Dr. Zawahiri and bin Laden once wrote, global warming and an absence of campaign-finance reform \u2014 or, this week, a low-rent, do-it-yourself crackpot video \u2014 but out of a deep sense of its own inferiority in a globalized world, whose causes run throughout traditional Middle Eastern society (e.g., tribalism, gender apartheid, statism, anti-intellectualism, a lack of freedom and transparency, religious intolerance, anti-Semitism, fundamentalism, and on and on). These things cannot be freely analyzed and discussed \u2014 and ameliorated \u2014 without apparent loss of face. Hence, the pathetic scapegoating and blame-gaming.<\/p>\n We also need to pause and reflect that we may well be in a descending revolutionary situation in both Egypt and Libya, in a way analogous to Iran between 1979 and 1981 in which we were a day late and a dollar short through fooling ourselves that the fall of the shah was the product of liberal dissent and that Khomeinists would fade before European-like social reformers. In other words, we should think hard about continuing relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood, and accept that Libya is a mess like Lebanon circa 1981-3. This is all occurring amid a depressing backdrop of snubbing Netanyahu, the looming Iranian bomb, and the suspicion that the Arab Spring is not a Democratic Enlightenment, but a revolutionary pause, in the manner of the French and Russian Revolutions, on the way to something as authoritarian as what was overthrown \u2014 and far more hostile to US interests. Since the US military cannot birth another consensual government as in Iraq, there will probably be no more consensual governments in the Middle East for the immediate future.<\/p>\n At the very least, the Obama administration needs to drop the politically-correct euphemisms, stop the Cairo-speech banalities, and remind its diplomatic team that radical Islam\u2019s hatred of the West is not placated by loud American outreach, soaring mytho-history about Islam, or the particular politics, race, pedigree, or charisma of the occupant of the White House, but that Islamic expressions of that hatred most surely are predicated on the degree to which America appears diffident, apologetic, and unsure \u2014 or confident, occasionally dangerous, and unpredictable. It also might be wise to remind Egypt that it has given the world Mohamed Atta, the Zawahiri brothers, serial anti-American rioting \u2014 and taken from the US over $50 billion in US aid. We are told\u00a0ad nauseam<\/em>\u00a0that Egyptians really do not want the aid, or that it goes to the military mostly and is of little utility, and so we should give them their wish to see it end.<\/p>\n In this regard, after four Americans are murdered and embassies attacked, a loud campaign rally in Las Vegas last night seems an unfortunate place for the president to offer serious commentary on last Tuesday\u2019s violence.<\/p>\n There\u00a0Must<\/em>\u00a0Be Ongoing Debate over the Embassy Attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n The Cairo embassy\u2019s depressing communiqu\u00e9 (\u201cThe Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims\u201d) reflects an abandonment of support for US constitutionally protected free speech and the right of expression, to the degree that anyone who read the communiqu\u00e9 would only encourage the growing anger by agreeing with the false premises that the American government is in any way responsible for what one or two Americans say.<\/p>\n Further, the \u201cclarification\u201d authored by Secretary Clinton that followed was not all that much of an improvement, given that it mixed messages and ended up once again contextualizing the violence (i.e., \u201cSome have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind\u201d). Why the need for \u201cBut let me be clear\u201d \u2014 unless what preceded it most certainly was not too clear?<\/p>\n In other words, we have two US official communications that bookended the violence, one as violence was simmering, one after demonstrators were over the walls. The first was abject appeasement with no effort to defend American values, the other sought to damn both the Americans who made the video (and hence supposedly sparked the uprisings?) and those who reacted to it. We had to wait hours for an unequivocal denunciation of the violence.<\/p>\n Finally, who believes that an unhinged, unknown YouTube video that had been in the public domain for some time suddenly enraged the Arab Street \u2014 just by happenstance \u2014 on 9\/11? We now know that the assaults were preplanned to send a message on 9\/11 that we should remember that radical Islam is still with us, and especially strong in revolutionary Egypt and Libya, despite our Arab Spring hopes. In other words, by referring to Terry Jones and his cohort\u2019s video, all the communiqu\u00e9s did was play into the radical Islamists\u2019 game of putting the\u00a0onus<\/em>\u00a0on the American government for something that is entirely a private matter of bad taste and free expression. The Islamists wanted 9\/11 assaults, preplanned them, and used the excuse of the video. And we fell for it, ending up with dead personnel and befuddled in our sort of, not quite apologizing.<\/p>\n As for the sermons about coming together in crisis \u2014 wise and sober advice, of course. But I remember not long ago when criticism of ongoing military operations was considered speaking truth to power. In the midst of the surge, when we were at war and it was critical to show solidarity to the enemy as American soldiers streamed into Anbar Province and Baghdad, presidential candidate Barack Obama, on no factual basis, prematurely pronounced the surge to be a failure \u2014 a proud assertion that mysteriously vanished from his campaign website in July 2008, when the surge\u2019s success was undeniable. These shoot-from-the-hip statements about the surge in the midst of its implementation \u2014 from Hillary Clinton: \u201cThe surge . . . has failed\u201d; Joe Biden: \u201cThis whole notion that the surge is working is fantasy\u201d; and Harry Reid: \u201cThis war is lost and . . . the surge is not accomplishing anything\u201d \u2014 were not helpful at the time and seemed rank election-cycle partisanship.<\/p>\n But all this back and forth hides the real issues. Why were there not adequate security forces around the US ambassador in Libya? Why do lower-level embassy employees of dubious sense speak for the US government in times of crisis and remain the official record for hours? If these communiqu\u00e9s were not apologies of sorts, why were they finally superseded with language far different from both?<\/p>\n Ally, Enemy, or None of the Above?<\/strong><\/p>\n If the president does not consider Egypt either an ally or an enemy, it is perhaps best to hold off on the $1 billion-plus aid package until he can determine which, of any category, it belongs in. In the meantime, given Mr. Morsi\u2019s failure to protect the embassy of his American diplomatic guests (odd, given that America offered sanctuary to Morsi when he sought freedom and education that he apparently could not find in his homeland), and his constant citation of a crackpot video of a private American citizen, we should quietly go ahead and curtail aid to Mr. Morsi, call in the visas of all Egyptian nationals, prohibit travel there by American citizens, bring home our ambassador for consultation, ask their ambassador to leave Washington \u2014 at least until we can clarify what sort of state we are supposed to be subsidizing. The subtext to Morsi\u2019s constant referencing of a silly video by a private citizen is our director of national intelligence\u2019s declaration that his Muslim Brotherhood government is really \u201csecular.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner We Seem to Have Learned Nothing from 9\/11 I thought we had learned long ago on 9\/11 that radical Islam hates the West not because of troops in Saudi Arabia, or Danish cartoons or Mr. Rushdie, or even, as Dr. Zawahiri and bin Laden once wrote, global warming and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[28,150],"tags":[1051,233,12,1045,229,1035,1053,183,1048,139,1043,235,58],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-7g","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":444,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-rape-of-christopher-stevens\/","url_meta":{"origin":450,"position":0},"title":"The Rape of Christopher Stevens","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Frontpage Magazine By obsessing over the 14-minute YouTube Muhammad video and its maker, the mainstream media ultimately exonerates the inexcusable and murderous response of the Islamic world. There is only one question: did those who make this movie break any law? No, they did not \u2014 and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5931,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hope-for-change-in-syria\/","url_meta":{"origin":450,"position":1},"title":"Hope for Change in Syria","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again, Obama has proven more of an idealist than an implementer. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Remember when President Obama used to warn Syria\u2019s Bashar al-Assad to stop his mass killing and step down? Moammar Qaddafi\u2019s dictatorship had just collapsed under Western bombing. The murders of Americans\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5939,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/terrorism-as-therapy\/","url_meta":{"origin":450,"position":2},"title":"Terrorism as Therapy","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Obama administration is intent on downplaying the Islamic roots of contemporary terrorism. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online One common theme emerges from the hearings over the Benghazi disaster: The Obama administration is intent on downplaying the Islamic roots of terrorists who harbor an existential hatred of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7422,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/benghazi-constructs\/","url_meta":{"origin":450,"position":3},"title":"Benghazi Constructs\u00a0","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Much is still murky, but the Obama team was at the least guilty of negligence and deception.\u00a0 By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Almost everything the administration has alleged about Benghazi has proven false. Yet also, in Machiavellian fashion, the Obama group successfully peddled useful fictions, effectively deluded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5926,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-benghazi-becoming-a-watergate-or-iran-contra-or-both\/","url_meta":{"origin":450,"position":4},"title":"Is Benghazi Becoming a Watergate, or Iran-Contra, or Both?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Benghazi cannot be dismissed with \u201clong ago\u201d or \u201cwhat difference does it make\u201d exasperation, given it may have the cover-up and civil-liberties aspects of Watergate and the weapon-transfers and foreign-policy implications of Iran-Contra. 1. 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