source: http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=3D2150
Ever since World War II, we have been driven by a passionate desire to
understand how mass genocide, terror states and global war came about
=96 and how we can prevent them in the future.
Above all, we have sought answers to several basic questions: Why did
the West fail to see the coming of the catastrophe? Why were there so
few efforts to thwart the fascist tide, and why did virtually all
Western leaders, and so many Western intellectuals, treat the fascists
as if they were normal political leaders, instead of the virulent
revolutionaries they really were? Why did the main designated victims
=96 the Jews =96 similarly fail to recognize the magnitude of their
impending doom? Why was resistance so rare?
Most eventually accepted a twofold "explanation": the uniqueness of
the evil, and the lack of historical precedent for it. Italy and
Germany were two of the most civilized and cultured nations in the
world. It was difficult to appreciate that a great evil had become
paramount in the countries that had produced Kant, Beethoven, Dante
and Rossini.
How could Western leaders, let alone the victims, be blamed for
failing to see something that was almost totally new =96 systematic mass
murder on a vast scale, and a threat to civilization itself? Never
before had there been such an organized campaign to destroy an entire
"race," and it was therefore almost impossible to see it coming, or
even to recognize it as it got under way.
The failure to understand what was happening took a well-known form: a
systematic refusal to view our enemies plain. Hitler's rants, whether
in "Mein Kampf" or at Nazi Party rallies, were often downplayed as
"politics," a way of maintaining popular sup****t. They were rarely
taken seriously as solemn promises he fully intended to fulfill.
Mussolini's call for the creation of a new Italian Empire, and his
later alliance with Hitler, were often downplayed as mere bluster, or
even excused on the grounds that, since other European countries had
overseas territories, why not Italy?
Some scholars broadened the analysis to include other evil regimes,
such as Stalin's Russia, which also systematically murdered millions
of people and whose ambitions similarly threatened the West. Just as
with fascism, most contem****aries found it nearly impossible to
believe that the Gulag Archipelago was what it was. And just as with
fascism, we studied it so that the next time we would see evil early
enough to prevent it from threatening us again.
By now, there is very little we do not know about such regimes, and
such movements. Some of our greatest scholars have described them,
analyzed the reasons for their success, and chronicled the wars we
fought to defeat them. Our understanding is considerable, as is the
honesty and intensity of our desire that such things must be
prevented.
Yet they are with us again, and we are acting as we did in the last
century. The world is simmering in the familiar rhetoric and actions
of movements and regimes =96 from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to the Iranian
Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahhabis =96 who swear to destroy us and
others like us. Like their 20th-century predecessors, they openly
proclaim their intentions, and carry them out whenever and wherever
they can. Like our own 20th-century predecessors, we rarely take them
seriously or act accordingly. More often than not, we downplay the
consequences of their words, as if they were some Islamic or Arab
version of "politics," intended for internal consumption, and designed
to accomplish domestic objectives.
Clearly, the explanations we gave for our failure to act in the last
century were wrong. The rise of messianic mass movements is not new,
and there is very little we do not know about them. Nor is there any
excuse for us to be surprised at the success of evil leaders, even in
countries with long histories and great cultural and political
accomplishments. We know all about that. So we need to ask the old
questions again. Why are we failing to see the mounting power of evil
enemies? Why do we treat them as if they were normal political
phenomena, as Western leaders do when they embrace negotiations as the
best course of action?
No doubt there are many reasons. One is the deep-seated belief that
all people are basically the same, and all are basically good. Most
human history, above all the history of the last century, points in
the opposite direction. But it is unpleasant to accept the fact that
many people are evil, and entire cultures, even the finest, can fall
prey to evil leaders and march in lockstep to their commands. Much of
contem****ary Western culture is deeply committed to a belief in the
goodness of all mankind; we are reluctant to abandon that reassuring
article of faith. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, we prefer
to pursue the path of reasonableness, even with enemies whose
thoroughly unreasonable fanaticism is manifest.
This is not merely a philosophical issue, for to accept the threat to
us means =96 short of a policy of national suicide =96 acting against it.
As it did in the 20th century, it means war. It means that,
tem****arily at least, we have to make sacrifices on many fronts: in
the comforts of our lives, indeed in lives lost, in the domestic focus
of our passions =96 careers derailed and personal freedoms subjected to
unpleasant and even dangerous restrictions =96 and the diversion of
wealth from self-satisfaction to the instruments of power. All of this
is painful; even the contemplation of it hurts.
Then there is anti-Semitism. Old Jew-hating texts like "The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion," now in Farsi and Arabic, are proliferating
throughout the Middle East. Calls for the destruction of the Jews
appear regularly on Iranian, Egyptian, Saudi and Syrian television and
are heard in European and American mosques. There is little if any
condemnation from the West, and virtually no action against it,
suggesting, at a minimum, a familiar Western indifference to the fate
of the Jews.
Finally, there is the nature of our political system. None of the
democracies adequately prepared for war before it was unleashed on
them in the 1940s. None was prepared for the terror assault of the
21st century. The nature of Western politics makes it very difficult
for national leaders =96 even those rare men and women who see what is
happening and want to act =96 to take timely, prudent measures before
war is upon them. Leaders like Winston Churchill are relegated to the
opposition until the battle is unavoidable. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
had to fight desperately to win Congressional approval for a national
military draft a few months before Pearl Harbor.
Then, as now, the initiative lies with the enemies of the West. Even
today, when we are engaged on the battlefields of Iraq and
Afghanistan, there is little apparent recognition that we are under
attack by a familiar sort of enemy, and great reluctance to act
accordingly. This time, ignorance cannot be claimed as an excuse. If
we are defeated, it will be because of failure of will, not lack of
understanding. As, indeed, was almost the case with our near-defeat in
the 1940s.
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