I continue to be disgusted by the recent performance of the American and Islamist establishments lately.

On the one hand, we are wasting time and focus wringing our hands about this worthless Abu Ghraib story. Message, Mr. President: I DON'T CARE. So some dirtbag enemy "soldiers" got pushed around a bit in a jail. Big deal. I didn't see any heads being sawed off. (The thing with the dog may be a bit much, however.) Message to the Congress as a whole: DROP IT. I wish Rumsfeld had gone to the Hill and said, "I take full responsibility because I ordered these activities. It was necessary to demonstrate to Islamist forces that to oppose the United States is to not only invite death but to guarantee humiliation, torture, and other things. Message: We be bad."

On the other hand, I am outraged at the grisly execution of Nicholas Berg by Islamist forces. Al-Qaeda continues to march forward on the Benjamin Martin Scenario, and their actions may eventually cause a grievous problem for all of Islam. Which way do you turn to pray when Mecca's been reduced to a smoldering hole?

I am a Jacksonian. That means that I don't favor pulling punches (except the NBC punch) in wartime, and I don't tolerate the abuse of our prisoners. The enemy will be relentlessly pursued and annihilated whenever possible. We are obviously not doing this, because Moqtada al-Sadr still draws breath, and the enemy does not fear us. That needs to change. The anguished wails and ululations of Islamic women should ring out in the night as they find their Islamist husbands dead by our hand. America can mean great friendship and cooperation. It should also stand for a fearsome enemy that demands respect or delivers annihilation.

I wholeheartedly reject any suggestion that the Abu Ghraib issue or further ruthless retaliation against the enemy somehow establishes moral equivalence between us and them. We would have laid the mantle of civilization down in order to defend it and to force an end to hostilities. The Islamists, on the other hand, have never been capable of productive civilization; the historically impressive gains of Islamic civilization are beyond their grasp.

The Jacksonian code as spelled out by Mead properly analyzes Abu Ghraib in my opinion. The Islamists, having executed people who could be considered their prisoners, (Daniel Pearl, the four military contractors from Blackwater, and now Nicholas Berg) have invited Mead's dirty war, and I would have no major compunction against watching Iraqi/Islamist POWs be gunned down. (Public relations issues would be the only thing I'd really worry about.)

Andrew Jackson's mindset would probably say something like this: Escalate the violence against our enemies until they collapse. Destroy anything necessary to bring about the end of the war and the defeat of the Islamists. Any and all casualties suffered by their side in pursuit of this goal are acceptable; there is no subsitute for victory.

I am only one man, and my opinion is unrespectable in the halls of Washington. Yet, it may be that there is a rising tide amongst the Jacksonians of this country. Rich Lowry, in a post to NRO's Corner illustrates this:

I just finished a review of Walter Russell Mead’s new book Power, Terror, Peace, and War. One of the points he makes is that there is an inherent tension between Jacksonian and Wilsonian goals in Iraq. Jacksonians care much more about smashing our enemies than reforming them. Wilsonians have grandiose ideas about uplifting foreign nations. As Wilsonians are discredited to some degree by recent events in Iraq, we will have to rely more on Jacksonian sentiment to see us through there. What seems to be the growing backlash against the wallowing in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal is a classic Jacksonian reflex. It will be made only stronger by the execution of Nick Berg. If you want a pretty good distillation of Jacksonian opinion on Iraq at the moment, consider the end of the New York Post’s editorial from today.

I went and read the editorial. In case it goes away, the entire thing is reposted here:

NICK BERG'S MURDER

May 12, 2004 -- What cruel, sick bastards.

Indeed, you can't get much more barbaric than the filmed beheading of 26-year-old Nick Berg that splashed across a terrorist group's Web site yesterday.

In case the world needed a reminder of why America is waging its War on Terror, it got one yesterday.

It's hard to imagine the terror that must have filled Berg in those final moments as he realized his hooded captors really were going to kill him.

It wasn't enough that they slaughtered the young Philadelphia businessman like a sheep and held his severed head aloft as if it were a trophy. No, they filmed the whole thing for the world to see.

Soldiers don't behave like that.

Only cowards and thugs do.

Now it's time to ratchet up the response to this war.

Forget Abu Ghraib.

The abuse committed there by a handful of soldiers was not typical; nor is it acceptable.

But the beheading of Nick Berg is par for the course for al Qaeda.

Of course, the terrorists of Muntada al-Ansar, an al Qaeda offshoot, claimed they were acting in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib abuses.

Bull.

There were no known abuses at Abu Ghraib when Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi were murdered by Islamic terrorists.

And the events at Abu Ghraib had not yet come to light when frenzied crowds in Fallujah burned and mutilated the bodies of four Americans and strung them from a bridge.

No, the massacre of Nick Berg had nothing to do with Abu Ghraib.

Instead, this slaying was about the war against the West in general - and America, in particular. Indeed, the beheading may have been carried out personally by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top aide of Osama bin Laden.

Some people - some Americans - have forgotten about 9/11.

That attack should have been enough to justify all-out war. But the hand-wringing over the war in Iraq - and over even the modest steps America took to defend itself, like the Patriot Act - suggests that folks truly have lost sight of what the war is about.

Yesterday they got a shocking reminder. And now they know: This war cannot be waged with half-measures.

It can end only with the total annihilation of those who practice butchery and barbarism. Those who have set as their goal the destruction of America.

There is no negotiating with such people. There can be no compromise with those who mean to destroy us.

Yesterday, the White House promised to "pursue those responsible and bring them to justice." That's the least of it.

America has to come out swinging.

And not stop until every last one of the savage thugs is dead.

If that means a resumption of major combat in Iraq, so be it.

Would it mean another division or so of combat troops to get the job done?

Turn to our garrisons in Europe, or Korea, to get them.

In sufficient numbers to get the job done.

To hell with political sensitivities in the region.

To hell with negotiating with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah.

To hell with handing Saddam Hussein over to Iraqis, as some want to do, and risking some reverse - perverse - kangaroo trial that results in his survival.

Evil, cutthroat terrorists need to be eradicated.

Let's face it: This is a job that's going to take overwhelming - yes, brutal - force. There is simply no "nice" or painless way to accomplish this.

As yesterday's slaughter showed (yet again), the enemy is bound by no moral compunctions.

America won't go that far.

But it had better steel it's backbone and get ready to fight like it means it.

It's the only way to win this war.

---

Mr. President, I am tired of hearing about justice for the men who did this, and other crimes. I am distinctly uninterested in "justice" for these men. I want them, or their mortal remains, delivered to the doorstep of Hell in a Ziploc bag after a close encounter of the Paveway III kind.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:38 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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