by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n T<\/span>he U.N. resolution that supposedly will solve the problem of Hezbollah is a perfect example of the delusions inhibiting the West in its fight against jihadist terror. According to the resolution, the current impotent U.N. force \u2014 the same one that blithely sat by for years as Hezbollah prepared its attack on Israel \u2014 will be beefed up and given permission actually to stop Hezbollah with force. But don\u2019t worry: the U.N. will be supported by the fearsome Lebanese army, which up to now has shown no ability or inclination to prevent an armed gang from high jacking\u00a0Lebanon\u00a0\u2019s foreign policy and unilaterally plunging the country into ruin.<\/p>\n Delusional is too weak a word to describe this resolution. Does anyone really believe that U.N. troops, no matter where the soldiers come from, are going to use force against Hezbollah? I won\u2019t even bother asking that question about the Lebanese army because the answer is too obvious, given the high level of support for Hezbollah among the Shia rank and file. But don\u2019t bet on troops from\u00a0France\u00a0or any European country killing jihadists who are admired and supported by European Muslims. The French couldn\u2019t even stand up to punk teenagers protesting a perfectly reasonable law intended to loosen up a sclerotic economy. I can\u2019t see the same government standing up to Muslim rioters angry over the government\u2019s participation in a Zionist-Crusader plot to kill the warriors of Allah.<\/p>\n Once again the diplomatic dance of the seven veils is performed by the West to create the illusion of consummating a solution to the crisis when the whole time no one has enough testosterone actually to do so. I know why the Europeans engage in this charade: they\u2019ve convinced themselves that as long as the jihadists have\u00a0Israel\u00a0and the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0to hate, they\u2019ll leave\u00a0Europe\u00a0in peace. Sound familiar? Just give Hitler the\u00a0Sudetenland\u00a0and he\u2019ll be satisfied and we\u2019ll have peace in our time. Europe is so addled by prosperity and multicultural fantasies, all subsidized by American military power, that until the ticking jihadist bomb blows up in its face \u2014 and maybe not even then, if Spain is any indication \u2014 it\u2019s not going to do anything that gets in the way of afternoon adultery and caf\u00e9 philosophizing about unsophisticated cowboy Americans.<\/p>\n But why are we Americans going along with this farce? I\u2019d like to think there\u2019s some clever tactical ploy we don\u2019t know about, but the answer seems to be that we still buy into all the lies endlessly recycled by the self-loathing media and intellectuals. You know the CNN\/New York Times<\/i>\/Middle East Studies Association mantra: most Muslims are moderates who just want to get along, but a failure to resolve the Palestinian issue, the on-going war in Iraq, America\u2019s other imperialist depredations, the lack of political freedom and economic opportunity, and post-colonial hangovers have all rendered them vulnerable to extremists who have high-jacked the faith and distorted it to justify murder.<\/p>\n Of course very little evidence supports this fantasy, and mountains of evidence refute it, but it still serves a purpose: camouflaging the moral degeneracy of many in the West who, no longer believing in anything other than pleasure and comfort, have no basis for calling evil by its proper name. It\u2019s much easier to indulge the \u201call cultures are equally wonderful\u201d lie, or sadly invoke the \u201ccycle of violence\u201d canard, or fall back on \u201cmoral equivalence\u201d to avoid making a judgment that might hurt the feelings of those exotic little brown people so beloved by jaded Westerners.<\/p>\n And since we don\u2019t believe there is anything worth killing or dying for, we turn this moral nihilism into a virtue by chanting that\u00a0 \u201cforce solves nothing,\u201d and that talk, talk, talk will get at the \u201croot causes\u201d and solve the problem. Except we\u2019ve been talking and talking and talking for fifty years \u2014 rememberOslo\u00a0and\u00a0Camp David\u00a0? \u2014 and the jihadists and their millions of supporters still want to destroy\u00a0Israel\u00a0and the West, and are perfectly happy to murder innocents to do so. The net result is the current U.N. resolution that treats a terrorist gang like a state actor whose agreement to the terms of the resolution is required. Does no one else see the abject folly of this behavior? But why should we be surprised, when for years we\u2019ve been treating terrorists (e.g. the PLO, now retooled as the Palestinian Authority) like legitimate state functionaries?<\/p>\n And then we have the gall to proclaim, \u201cTerrorism won\u2019t work.\u201d Who are we kidding? It\u2019s been working for decades. How else explain the speed with which the U.N. and the media have fastened on to this conflict, while millions elsewhere (\u00a0Sudan\u00a0,\u00a0Rwanda\u00a0,\u00a0Congo\u00a0,\u00a0Tibet\u00a0) have suffered and died while the rest of the world basically yawned? How else explain the obsession with the Palestinian Arabs and\u00a0Israel\u00a0\u2019s legitimate attempts to ward off an enemy that wants to destroy it? Anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, imperial and colonial guilt are all factors, but the pervasive threat of terrorist violence is the key element in the West\u2019s selective concern with one small group of aggressors while ignoring countless other victims of genuine tyranny and oppression. And, of course, the jihadists take our fear as an encouraging sign that we deserve to die unless we embrace a spiritually superior Islam.<\/p>\n The U.N. resolution will not solve the problem of Hezbollah. It will simply postpone the solution. Meanwhile Hezbollah will regroup and rearm,\u00a0Syria\u00a0andIran\u00a0will continue to make mischief, and the same old useful idiots in the West will peddle the same old excuses for Islamic dysfunction and Western appeasement.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Bruce Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why the U.N. can’t solve the problem of Hezbollah. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The U.N. resolution that supposedly will solve the problem of Hezbollah is a perfect example of the delusions inhibiting the West in its fight against jihadist terror.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,771],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1kW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5553,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/no-resolution-at-all-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5142,"position":0},"title":"No Resolution At All","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Why the U.N. can't solve the problem of Hezbollah by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The U.N. resolution that supposedly will solve the problem of Hezbollah is a perfect example of the delusions inhibiting the West in its fight against jihadist terror. According to the resolution, the current impotent U.N.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5547,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/inside-the-cease-fire\/","url_meta":{"origin":5142,"position":1},"title":"Inside the “Cease-fire”","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"U.N.'s looming failure reveals West's moral confusion by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers With every crisis in the war against Islamic jihad, the West displays a suicidal appeasement that heartens the enemy and lessens any chance of victory. The absurd \u201ccease fire\u201d the U.N. recently hammered out between Israel and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5242,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lo-the-u-n-by-what-name-do-we-call-thee\/","url_meta":{"origin":5142,"position":2},"title":"Lo, The U.N. By What Name Do We Call Thee?","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Failed, useless, dubious, impotent, pernicious, morally exhausted . . . by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Every crisis is an opportunity, a time when the fissures and cracks of received wisdom and worn-out habits of thought are exposed. The years since the terrorist attacks on 9\/11 have been such a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6074,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/intervention-in-syria-is-a-very-bad-idea\/","url_meta":{"origin":5142,"position":3},"title":"Intervention in Syria Is a Very Bad Idea","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Syria is turning out to be a sort of Spanish Civil War of our age, with Hezbollah and Iran playing the role of fascist Italy and Germany, and the Islamic nations and jihadists that of Stalin\u2019s Russia, as the moderates disappear and the\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":5239,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/unprincipled-and-inert\/","url_meta":{"origin":5142,"position":4},"title":"Unprincipled and Inert","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Why the United Nations is sinking fast. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers A review of\u00a0Tower of Babel. How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos\u00a0by Dore Gold\u00a0(Crown Forum, 2004: New York). The current dispute in the Senate over John Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations strikes me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5556,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-impossible-peace-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5142,"position":5},"title":"The Impossible Peace","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0editorial page published last Saturday a collection of short editorials on\u00a0Israel\u00a0\u2019s campaign to neutralize Hezbollah. With the exception of Richard Perle\u2019s, most of the opinions represent the tired received wisdom that ignores the true cause of the conflict and relies on various\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5144,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5142\/revisions\/5144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}