g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Sunday, June 2, 2002
11:57 - On the Burial of the WTC
http://pejmanpundit.blogspot.com/2002_05_26_pejmanpundit_archive.html#77174850

(top) link
Via Cold Fury, Pejman Yousefzadeh has a thoughtful and worthwhile post about the end of the WTC cleanup, the ceremony, and what America means to a first-generation citizen like himself.

I've always noticed that the fiercest defenders of something are always the most recent converts. Fiery young Muslim extremists come from Lindh-esque rallying for a cause. Mac zealots are easiest found among those who have just bought their first Mac. And the biggest US patriots, the ones who most clearly grasp America's founding ideals and hold them in higher regard than anyone else, seem to be the ones who have just become citizens themselves.

After all, to change one's nationality means a pretty drastic idealistic decision. Someone willing to make that decision will tend to have the force of conviction behind it.

I said in the past that I have a practice of viewing American society as an outsider. I have been an American all my life, but as a first-generation American, I cannot help but set myself apart at times, and view my country and my compatriots the way an outsider might. And I repeatedly find that Americans are a curious lot. Andrew Sullivan pointed out that we don't want to be bothered, really. We want to pursue this particular dream that we have, and we would like it if the world left us alone to pursue it. We don't particularly lust for an empire, or for hegemony--we take up the task of superpower out of a sense of obligation, not out of a desire to bestride the world like a Colossus. There is no song exhorting "Rule Americana." Many of us would be perfectly happy to be able to drop all of this superpower stuff, and take our society closer to the principles and ideals that bind us as a nation.

Then, something invariably intrudes on that dream. Something inevitably threatens those ideals. Something unfailingly presents itself as a mortal peril to America.

And almost immediately, this introspective American society turns to face that intrusion, that threat, that mortal peril, and wages a singleminded, passionate war to defeat it. The transformation in the national mood is akin to the transformation from night to day. Whether that war is fought with guns and tanks, or with stealth and diplomacy, it is fought by Americans with ardor, strength, intelligence and vigor. There are defeats, setbacks, botched schemes and foolish plans in the course of that war, but in the end, America ends up winning. Those who attack America and those who underestimate Americans, end up being astonished at the speed of America's response, annihilated by the ferocity of America's power, and ultimately aided by America's magnanimous generosity.

We don't like making war as a nation. And we despise it as individuals. Some people foolishly pronounce Americans as warlike. In the Blogosphere, we "warbloggers" have even been stupidly called "bloodthirsty" by those who just don't understand. No one I know covets a state of war. We would all prefer peace. Were I to find anyone who lusts for war, for war's sake alone, I would recommend their institutionalization--after I finish giving them a sound and deserved thrashing.

But we understand, especially on days like this, that we may have no choice. That there are enemies out in the world who wish nothing for us other than ultimate and absolute destruction. They will not be bought off, they cannot be negotiated with, they cannot be charmed or converted into being friends. They must be destroyed before they destroy more of us. No other way is possible. It is sad, regretful, and profoundly unfortunate that such a state of affairs exists. But exist it does. And we must face it.

I'm sick of America being critized for not being more involved in world affairs, and then reluctantly dragging itself into some provincial conflict that affects us not at all-- and then America gets criticized for playing "the world's policeman". Remember the Monroe Doctrine-- and pre-WWI isolationism? The dwarfs are for the dwarfs. But we got pulled into WWI to remember our friendship with our European allies, and WWII because we'd done so before. After WWII, it was expected that we'd do so every time. After all, we've got the biggest army anywhere, right? What could it possibly be for other than to defend the rest of the world against tyranny?

That's so cute... but it's wrong! The US Government exists to protect Americans, not to rule the world; and the US Army exists to defend our interests, not everybody else's who rubs their summon-the-Americans magic lamp.

And so it's mystifying to us to learn that Europeans have little sympathy for 9/11, because we didn't immediately leap to the defense of the thousands of victims of genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo, or that we're not in force defending East Timor or Rwanda from their own civil wars. It's like we were sitting there quietly doing our homework, and then some professor calls up demanding to know why we didn't turn in our Underwater Basket-Weaving final. Huh? I don't remember signing up for Underwater Basket-Weaving.

And then when 9/11 happened, you know what? We didn't really expect sympathy either. We just expected people to get out of our way while we went and kicked the requisite amount of ass. We knew who was responsible, we knew what needed to be done about it. We expected Europe to realize that we might possibly have our wits about us, that we didn't need to consult them and get their unanimous approval before acting, allowing al Qaeda to plan their followup attack in the time we spent waiting. I humbly submit that bin Laden was banking on the US response being held up by European dithering, just as Churchill had thought that America would turn out to be ineffectual in WWII. (The full quote is at PejmanPundit; follow the link.) But we swooped right in, and that second blow never fell. Yes, I know it might still. But I'm certain that it would have already, if we had done nothing.

Those who look at 9/11 and say, "Yes, it's terrible, but..." inevitably have some argument about perspective, or moral equivalence, or the big picture, or some conspiracy theory about how the US just wants an excuse to bomb Saudi Arabia so we can take over the oil fields to shake their fingers at us over. Listen: bullshit. I realize you may consider it to be a liability that the US is strong enough to act quickly and decisively to protect its own interests, but you know, we consider it to be a virtue. And the fact that it works is a powerful argument against our changing our minds.

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© Brian Tiemann