World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism

Norman Podhoretz’s latest book, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, is a mission in damage control for the neocons. I bought the book hoping for the neocons’ latest vision of how WWIV would unfold and how it would be fought and won, but there was very little about the future and a lot about the past.

He spends a great deal of time discussing past presidents’ doctrines with regards to foreign policy: realists, isolationists, internationalists, etc. He then tries to show that the Bush doctrine was new and different to fight a new and different type of enemy. Its pillars include democratization, regime change and preemptive warfare. Currently, Podhoretz is lamenting that the anti-war movement along with even some neocons, have given up the global war strategy because we are bogged down in Iraq. He takes it as a given that this war must be waged to protect America, even though we have lost more lives in Iraq than we did on 9/11—not to mention the thousands of Americans injured.

He also stresses that negotiations are out of the question because all of the crazy leaders in the Middle East are demented, don’t care about human life, and they will surely use any WMDs if they have them and they can—and they will give them away to terrorists to use just because they are so whacked out. I guess Podhoretz has forgotten about Saddam Hussein hiding in the hole in the ground to keep himself alive.

And of course, he discusses how brilliant Bush was in putting together his preemptive war doctrine, without any input from neocons. He states, “A cognate count in this indictment, [that going to war in Iraq would derail the war on terror], held that the invasion of Iraq had been secretly engineered by a cabal of Jewish officials acting not in the interest of their own country but in the service of Israel, and more particularly of Sharon. At first the framers and early spreaders of this defamatory charge considered it the better part of prudence to identify the conspirators not as Jews but as ‘neoconservatives.’” What is interesting is that the little he says with regards to the neocons being behind the Bush doctrine is at odds with what Abraham Foxman says in his latest book The Deadliest Lies.

In discussing the emergence of Bush’s thinking after 9/11, Podhoretz quotes numerous speeches as if Bush could have actually written them himself. He really spends a lot of time trying to prove that the Bush doctrine had nothing to do with Israel or influence from the neocons in his administration—the book provides a lot of canards to swallow.

Podhoretz tries to show that because neither Japan or Germany managed to inflict any harm on American soil, while terrorists did, that the terrorists are as formidable if not more so than the axis powers during World War II. He then states that generals made as many mistakes during that war as Bush has made in Iraq—all quite to be expected really. And if we don’t continue attacking and overthrowing the entire rogue states that support terror, America will be brutally attacked in the future.

There are several reasons why I doubt this will happen. First, we could easily close our open borders and not let in anyone with a terrorist profile, along with ejecting any that are already here. The greatest suffering may well be to isolate Semites, Persians, and any other ethnic group that threatens us—especially if Europe does likewise.

Second, it has been shown that we were not concerned about terrorism until 9/11, and even though we have not mobilized to truly route out terrorists in our midst, we have been catching them quite easily before they can strike. These are not very smart people, they make numerous errors, and they spend far too much time reading Islamic books instead of science books. They are so incredibly inept that the only way they can harm us is due to our self-destructive egalitarianism.

I have no doubt that a policing action would have been far more effective, less costly in lives and money, and the terrorist problem would have been no more serious than dealing with organized crime. I am also convinced that the neocons kept a policing action under tight wraps because it would have made America safe but Israel still very vulnerable. Their goal is to neutralize all of their potential enemies, so that should the day come that Americans tire of propping up their government while it increasingly is compared to South Africa’s apartheid state, they can continue to marginalize the Palestinians and deny them their own state.

As for weapons of mass destruction, they are extremely difficult to make, deliver with accuracy, and remain undetected. I’m certain that our ability to detect nuclear material could be in place far in advance of any backward state’s ability to develop a useable weapon. And even if they did hit the United States with a rather brutal attack of some sorts, in the end it would be a benefit. Unless we have succumbed completely to socialism by then, with its hyper concern over moral issues and the oppressed, we would retaliate by invading their country and keeping it, along with the oil or any other assets they may have.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Monday, September 24, 2007 at 06:38 PM in War on Terror
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