Shortly after 9/11, I was asked to reflect on what significance, if any, the great Athenian leader Pericles might have to our understanding and response to the terrorist attacks. What follows is a version of what I wrote. It is, I know, monstrously long for a blog post. You’ll know after a few paragraphs whether it is worth your time.
Midway through the long article on Afghanistan in the great eleventh edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica, one comes across this description of the inhabitants of that ancient mountain country:
The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is crime committed on such trifling grounds, or with such general impunity, though when it is punished the punishment is atrocious. Among themselves the Afghans are quarrelsome, intriguing and distrustful; estrangements and affrays are of constant occurrence; . . . . The Afghan is by breed and nature a bird of prey. If from habit and tradition he respects a stranger within his threshold, he yet considers it legitimate to warn a neighbour of the prey that is afoot, or even overtake and plunder his guest after he has quitted his roof.
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That refreshingly frank passage, by Colonel Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich, was published in 1910. I hope that the American and British troops now enjoying the hospitality of the Afghans are acquainted with this travel advisory. It is as pertinent today—in early 2002—as it was 100 years ago.
I was put in mind of Sir Thomas’s insightful commentary just before Christmas, 2001, when The New York Times took its quote of the day from one Faqir Muhammad, an officer in one of the many squabbling anti-Taliban armies: “This is what Afghanistan is,” he said. “We kill each other.”
Indeed. And not only each other, of course.
Sir Thomas’s remarks are valuable not only because of their contemporaneity but also because they help us set today’s issues in historical context. “The farther backward you can look,” Winston Churchill once observed, “the farther forward you are likely to see.” Early in the Peloponnesian War, a plague swept through Athens, killing thousands and demoralizing the survivors. In a rallying speech, Pericles (himself soon to die) noted that “When things happen suddenly, unexpectedly, and against all calculation, it takes the heart out of a man.” Against the temptations of apathy and acquiescence, Pericles urged his listeners to recall the greatness of Athens, to face calamity with an “unclouded mind and react quickly against it.”
As the shock of September 11 gives way to the reality of America at war, it is useful to take a page from Churchill and cast a backward glance. The pressure of contemporary events crowds us into the impatient confines of the present, rendering us insensible to the lessons of history—not least the lesson that tomorrow’s dramas are typically unforeseen by the scripts we abide by today. Language itself conspires to keep us in the dark. I will return in a moment to Pericles. But I want first to dwell briefly on our tendency to use language to emasculate surprise.
Consider only that marvelous phrase “the foreseeable future.” With what cheery abandon we employ it! Yet what a nugget of unfounded optimism those three words encompass. How much of the future, really, do we foresee? A week? A day? A minute? “In a minute,” as T. S. Eliot said in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “there is time/ For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” So much of life is a juggling with probabilities, a conjuring with uncertainties, that we often forget upon what stupendous acts of faith even the prudent conduct of life depends.
Had I been asked, on September 10, 2001, whether New York’s Twin Towers would continue standing for “the foreseeable future,” I should have answered “Yes.” And so, in one sense, they did. Only my foresight was not penetrating enough, not far-seeing enough, to accommodate that most pedestrian of eventualities: an event.
An event is as common as dirt. It is also as novel as tomorrow’s dawn. “There is nothing,” the French writer Charles Péguy noted in the early years of the 20th century, “so unforeseen as an event.” The particular event Péguy had in mind was the Dreyfus Affair. Who could have predicted that the fate of an obscure Jewish Army captain falsely accused of spying would have such momentous consequences? And yet this unforeseen event, as Proust observed in his great novel, suddenly, catastrophically, “divided France from top to bottom.” Its repercussions were felt for decades. We plan, stockpile, second-guess, buy insurance, make allowances, assess risks, play the odds, envision contingencies, calculate interest, tabulate returns, save for a rainy day . . . and still we are constantly surprised.
My heart breaks over the suffering of our 3,000. What makes it much worse is the building of a 9/11 victory mosque at sacred Ground Zero to honor Islam at the place where our cherished 3,000 were slaughtered without mercy by the followers of Islam.
We can never forget that in America and countries around the world, some Muslims celebrated 9/11. And that THOUSANDS of inhuman Palestinian Authority Muslims celebrated with great joy the murders of our 3,000. PA Muslims danced in the streets, passed out candies and fired into the air. The same people who demand a Muslim state inside tiny Israel. A Muslim terror state implant and a victory mosque at Ground Zero is the greatest betrayal of all.
Dear brothers and sisters, we will never forget you. We will continue protesting against the mosque and holding up protest signs in the street. It is the least we can do for you. We love you. Rest in eternal peace.
Brilliant.
AGREED
Mr. Kimball, your essay — though eloquent — supplies neither a description of victory nor a strategy for achieving it. For such a long essay, it was mighty shallow.
What the h*ll does the concluding paragraph’s reference to “hard manliness” mean, anyway? Do we want to go back to 2003, when the CinC wore a manly leather flight jacket under a banner that said “Mission Accomplished”?
Excuse me, but the verdict of history is that that peculiar variety of “hard manliness” was mighty stupid and America paid dearly in treasure and heroes’ blood for that stupidity.
Seeking depth, I checked to see what the redoubtable Abu Muqawama had to say about 9/11, and found there links to three deep-truth stories:
• From 9/11 to the Arab Spring by Fouad Ajami
• Blowback in Somalia by Jeremy Scahill
• Girls at War: Teenage Believers in Israel-Palestinian by Elizabeth Rubin
These three stories assert (to summarize them brutally): (1) in the long run, victory in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria (etc.) looks like today’s cosmopolitan Istanbul and Indonesia, and (2) strategies that focus upon “killing our way to victory” lead to a mortal long-term defeat in which our children grow up to look like our enemies.
The great weakness of your essay, Mr. Kimball, was that dodged these two hardball truths.
Kudos to Abu Muqawama for tackling tough issues head-on.
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Abu Muqawama
URL: http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama
You haven’t made a point.
I am surprised that Roger Kimball did not look back to the 18th century and to American exceptionalism for his model. Instead he comes off as a moderate man, whose deficiencies I wrote about here: http://clarespark.com/2010/11/06/moderate-men-falling-down/. I would also have said something about the censored documentary, the Path to 9/11 that nailed the Clinton administration for nixing the killing of OBL when they had him in their sights. Surely, he has read The Federalist Papers, that criticized Athens, even in its glory days, for a weak state that enabled its enemies to conquer it. And what we should support is “toleration”?
I’m not surprised that you don’t know what “hard manliness” means. Do you by any chance teach at Duke University, or perhaps Harvard?
Harris, the young Marines in my family teach me lessons about “hard manliness” every day … and it was these young Marines are the ones who recommended to me Abu Muqawama and Small Wars Journal as reliable non-MSM/IFM sources of information. Here MSM/IFM == MainStream Media/Ideology-First Media … both of which are regarded as utterly worthless when it comes to learning about the war.
I have observed that the virtue that these Marines embody is not “hard maniless” — `cuz for one thing, nowadays plenty of outstanding young Marines are women — but rather USMC Gen. Victor Krulak’s Three Cardinal Marine Virtues:
(1) When trouble comes, Marines take action at once.
(2) Marine actions succeed immediately and dramatically.
(3) Marines make proud, self-reliant, stable citizens.
The peculiar brands of American conservatism that are spouting slogans about “hard maniliness” — slogans that are backed-up mainly by personal abuse, smears and willful ignorance — are showing none of these three Marine virtues.
I doubt you’ve ever even shaken hands with a Marine.
“The farther backward you can look,” Winston Churchill once observed, “the farther forward you are likely to see.”
Today we are threatened by another Islamic jihad attack, by another Muslim with a disturbingly familiar name, Jude Kenan MOHAMMED.
If we follow Churchill’s advice and look backward to see if some connection with 21st century terrorists named MOHAMMED (aor any derivitive thereof), we discover a shocking pattern.
In the 7th century, a supposed ‘holy prophet’ named MUHAMMED founded a terror cult called ISLAM, and introduced a theology of violence called JIHAD that triggered a 1,400 year ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
Looking back at just the last few years, we note:
1) MOHAMMED Atta, 9/11 airline Jihadist
MOHAMMED Sidique Khan, London Tube suicide Jihadist
2) Abdulhakim Mujahid MUHAMMED, Little Rock recruiting center assasin
3) MOHAMMED Reza Taheri-azar, UNC SUV Jihadist
4) MOHAMMED Ajmal Amir Kasab, Mumbai Jihadist
5) Husayn MUHAMMED al-Umari, Pan Am Flight 830 bomber
6) Fahd MOHAMMED Ahmed al-Quso, USS Cole bomber
7) Khalid Sheikh MOHAMMED, beheader of Daniel Pearl
9) Ramzi MOHAMMED, convicted London Tube Jihadist
10) Whabi MOHAMMED, London Tube ‘5th’ bomber
11) Fazul Abdullah MOHAMMED, Tanzanian embassy bomber
12) MAHMOUD Ahmadinejad, despotic Shia leader of Islamic Republic of Iran
13) MOHAMMED Bouyeri, savage Islamist killer of Theo Van Gogh
14) MOHAMMED Ali Hamadei, airline hijacker
15) MOHAMMED Safady, Munich Olympics terrorist
16) AHMAD Marrouf al-Assadi, Achille Lauro hijacker
17) MEHMET Ali Ağca, Islamist who attempted to assasinate Pope John Paul
18) MOHAMMED Atif Siddique, Scottish terrorist conspiritor
19) Kafeel AHMED, Glasgow Airport bomber
20) Abdulla AHMED, ‘Liquid’ bomber
21) John Allen MUHAMMED, mass murdering D.C. sniper
23) MOHAMMED Haydar Zammar, al-Qaeda recruiter who assembled the Hamburg cell
24) Jaish-e-MOHAMMED, Pakistani jihadist terror organization
25) Mullah MOHAMMED Omar, Taliban terrorist leader
26) Maulana Sufi MOHAMMED, Pakistani jihadist who killed 11 police officers
27) MOHAMMED Meraj Khan, arrested for working under a false name at Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project
28) Arif MOHAMED Saeed MOHAMED Al-Ali, arrested for human trafficking offenses
29) MOHAMED Ali MOHAMED, arrested in Tanzania for the July 2010 bombings that killed 76 people
30) MOHAMMED Wali Zazi, on trial in Brooklyn federal court for obstruction of justice and lying to investigators to cover up his son’s foiled New York Jihad attack.
31) MOHAMMED Mamdouh and AHMED Serhani, arrested in terrorist plot against NYC Synagogue
32) Omer Abdi MOHAMED, admitted one count of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim others in a foreign country.
And, of consequence, Osama bin Laden’s full name is Osama bin MOHAMMED bin Awad bin Laden.
Mohammed…Muhammed…Mahmoud…Mehmet…Ahmed…and on and on and on….all namesakes of Islam’s ‘holy prophet’, all committed to violence and intolerance in the tradition of Muhammed and in the name of Islam.
This has to be either:
1) the greatest Las Vegas odds defying ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’ coincidence in the history of oddsmaking, or
2) undeniable proof that the founder and ‘holy prophet’ of Islam, Muhammed, was actually an evil, murdering, barbarian Islamic terrorist role model for other evil, murdering, barbarian Islamic terrorists.
Is there a similar list of terrorists named Jesus or Buddha? Think about that.
~ The Infidel Alliance
Jude Kenan MOHAMMAD, wanted by the FBI in connection with 9-11 anniversary terror threats
MOHAMED Dawod, who just shot a man dead in the Springfield, MO Greyhound station
Well worth the time to read, instructive and cautionary. Our educational system dismisses history as irelevent. After ten years of promoting multiculturalism and counseling against Islamophobia, our dominant media is pausing briefly to recall this “tragic event”, something like a rogue hurricane. Some are urging us to “get over it and move on.”
We should not perceive ourselves as engaged in a “War on Terror.” War has been declared on the U.S.A., specifically and brutally by a religious body that is over 50% in favor of it. We should be making it perfectly clear to them and the world that we have no intention of letting it happening again and will use full force to prevent it. They have started the war and encourage its continuation through stealth. They must expect to suffer the consequences.
We must not wait for “future tragic events of terror” (i.e. open warfare). We should be doing what Pericles would unquestionably have done: ACT, if not with direct reprisal, then with explicit threat of reprisal. Our Foreign Policy should be not one of appeasement,”Come, let us reason together.” – which is rightly interpreted as cowering. It should be: “To those who threaten us or our allies with extermination, or shelter and foster groups dedicated to our destruction – one more organized attack on our soil will result in the total destruction of your military capabilities.”
We may not be able to “forecast the unseen future” be we can be 100% certain that Iran and its minions. encouraged by our weakness, are plotting, daily, hourly, to make good on their threats. They respect only overt power and displaying it is the best, the quickest, and by far the least expensive way defeat terrorism.
After the Democrats get horsewhipped in the next election, all nations must be put on notice:
Should America be attacked again in a major Pearl Harbor/9 eleven type of way, any country harboring terrorists will be hit with a tactical nuke in the area where terrorists training is done. If this upsets, Iran or North Korea, or anybody else, then tough nuggies.
We can’t sit idly by in a world that every day threatens to wipe Israel off the map or decides to explode a dirty bomb at the corner of Madison Ave. and 44th street.
I know 99% of conservative websites view this type of talk as radical, but I also remember when the mainstream media tried to print the truth.
9/11 changed the world. The left bias media killed journalism. Labor unions are turning into thug gangs. It’s time more conservatives realized it.
rachel peepers, there’s a vocal group of increasingly radical folks posting here on PJM/Tatler who are publicly advocating your brand of “direct action.”
PJM/Tatler’s editors and moderators do nothing. Where does this lead? Is this a political experiment and/or poll that PJM/Tatler’s editors are conducting?
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Arm yourselves and be ready, nay, eager for war with these subhuman trash
URL: http://pajamasmedia.com/comment/1241605/
They tolerate you, don’t they?
Physicist and his kind have something of a history:
If yah read a little further SDN, you’ll find Kipling asserting a very different message:
Yeah, American conservatism would be in far better shape …
… if more folks knew their Joseph Rudyard Kipling!
Of course, you agree that if They had crossed over the sea and blown up the tallest building in London, Kipling would have approved of war to the end.
What you advocate censoring is people voicing their frustration at watching their liberty under attack. Saying that liberty ultimately will not be abandoned without a fight is not radical. It is interesting that, like those who demonize the TEA party, you are silent about the thuggery and violence being perpetrated as we write this by union goons. You are a gem.
Fortunately, after 9-11 the Bush administration recognized that the War on Terror had to be fought tactically (invading Afghanistan and deposing the Taliban), and strategically (staying in Afghanistan and later transforming Iraq into a US ally).
Bush also recognized the War on Terror would last decades and was partly a war on specific targets and enemies and partly a war to change Islam from a barbaric, misogynistic, patriarchal monstrosity to a much more modern and reasonable religion.
It is sad so many Americans and other folks in the Western World were and are so caught up in their own twisted hatreds and ideologies they failed to see what was right in front of them and even did all they could to undermine America’s efforts.
“……..would last decades”…? How about centuries? Or millenia? Sir Richard Holdrich’s evaluation, one hundred years ago, was based on a prior 300 years of British attempts to bring the same order to Afghanistan they had achieved in India. And Islam is a truly inflexible Theocracy as well as a theology whose primary objective is to resist to the death any “modernization” or reason. Conquest through the sword or infiltration is their open strategy. Death in jihad or battle is their ticket to paradise. To believe that their terrorist tactics are simply a reaction to our being mean to them is simple-minded. They hate us blindly just because we were born infidels and refuse to convert. Stiff resistance just feeds the fires.
This is a generations war, to be fought on and on. Something America is not used to. The only way to avoid having your grandchildren not engage in the war is not to have children. Which would be surrender.
“September 11, which brought the destruction of war to American soil for the first time since the war of 1812″
My Paternal Great Gandfathers who served in the Union Army or one of my Southern friends whose Great Grandfathers home on the Savannah River was burned and all his posessions stolen by Shermans army might differ.
Thank you for reposting this article. It took me a long time to read it through. I had to get up, walk around and digest.
I have lived in fear for America since election night, 2008. A fear far greater than any I felt ten years ago.
I’m still in fear for the future of my great nation and the future of my granddaughters.
I see no clear way forward.
Whenever I think about Pericles, I try to put myself in that day. I imagine that I’d probably have been in the same occupation and would have served in the wars along with other Athenian men, and had the same opinion of the Spartans that others had. I would, however, have been exposed to philosophy and religion and seen him more as a man living with a haetera, who was a bit of a sophist. While he was extolling the virtues of Athens, I think I’d be thinking about how we had built the Parthenon with gold taken from Delos when we usurped the capitol of the Delian League for ourselves. Perhaps rightfully so. But leaving us without allies in our struggle against Sparta, and why we are shut up within these walls watching our countrymen begin to die of this mysterious disease.
Do I think that Pericles points the way? Hardly. I see him as one of those sacrificing manliness for the sake of hubristic show.
“Do I think that Pericles points the way? Hardly. I see him as one of those sacrificing manliness for the sake of hubristic show.”
I am currently reading “The Peloponnesian War” by D. Kagan. His policy of non-expansion of Athenian influence, strong naval maintenance and no decisive land action on her enemies homeland carried over after his death. They should have targeted Sparta and not her frontier allies for 10 years, but the foolish hope for a peaceful resolution persisted Athens even after Pericles death.
Sounds hauntingly familiar.
Long, yes, but still worth the time to read.
Note to “A physicist” ~ Were you proud enough of your opinions to own them, I may be more inclined to consider your input.
On forums whose management doesn’t tolerate death threats, personal abuse, and fantasies of violence, I do post under my own name. Forums like MathOverFlow and TCS StackExchange are outstanding examples.
Regrettably for conservatism, here on PJM/Tatler there is an increasing incidence of posts that abuse and/or threaten outright violence, and even murder. I do not care to expose my family to the risk of being targeted by these nutjobs … the Anders Breivek episode shows that sometimes ideology-driven nutjobs do act-out their murderous rhetoric.
Gen. H. R. McMaster’s views seem to me to express a foundational principle of conservatism:
PJM/Tatler’s drift toward toleration of abusive and threatening posts acts to suppress this critical discussion, not sustain it. In this vital sense, by its toleration of murderous rhetoric, it seems to me that the peculiar ideology of PJM/Tatler has forfeited the right to be called any kind of “conservatism” at all.
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One of PJM/Tatler’s many “Broken Windows”
URL: http://pajamasmedia.com/comment/1241605/
For one who uses ” physicist” as an alias, you have become overwrought. While some responders to your lofty pinions may have gone beyond the pale in civility, I am quite sure that the PJM monitors have not let any threats of physical violence or death be posted.
Yo my less tutored mind it seems that anyone, so brainy he feels vulnerable to attack by the illiterate and can only reveal his name in the hallowed chambers of MathOverflow and StackExchange, and then cites Gen. McMaster to substantiate his allegation that PJM is tolerant of murderous rhetoric and forfeited the right to the appellation of “conservatism” , is short on reasoning capability.
Regrettably stuart, your post is dead-wrong-on-the-facts.
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Regrettably for American conservatism
URL: http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh/comment/265149/
Of course, from the perspective of twenty-first century America, democracy in Athens may seem limited and imperfect. Women were entirely excluded from citizenship in Athens…
…and from any obligation of military service in Athens.
Athenians understood that the privileges of full citizenship should only go to those who bear the obligations of full citizenship. That alone makes their democracy less “limited and imperfect” than America’s feminized State.
Is it possible that physicist is a new type of troll, seeing that the old , in-your-face , living in mommie’s basement type of troll has been pretty well shut down here at PJM?
I notice he strives to be the voice of intelligent “moderation”, throwing in military references, yet at the same time belittling those who are more ready for action and less rhetoric. The time for talking ad nausuem is drawing to a close. . . when/if it comes to a shooting fight, what side will he be on?
Rick, your fantasies of us-against-them “shooting fights” are kind of non-specific.
Exactly how do these “shooting fight” fantasies work? Who is “us” and who is “them” in the ideology-driven “shooting fights” that you envision? And how in these fantasies is “shooting” reconciled with “voting”?
I don’t mind sharing my fantasy. It’s that when American citizens go to the voting booth, no parties are nominating ideologues, carpetbaggers, or willfully ignorant morons, and all parties are proposing realistic, foresighted & reality-grounded platforms.
Yeah … it’s a crazy dream … in the coming election, it is all-too-likely that plenty of folks will end-up writing-in Kinky Friedman and Al Franken, as preferable to the various clowns on the ballot.
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An ideology-driven fantasy of a “shooting fight”
URL: http://blog.bedlampaintball.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/l_8f577143b562e68caaf4b1cb5a70a61c.jpg
The 1908 edition of Chambers Encyclopaedia (article: Afghanistan) makes the Britannica seem positively mealy-mouthed:
“In character they are proud, vain, cruel, perfidious, extremely avaricious, revengeful, selfish, merciless and idle. “Nothing is finer than their physique, or worse than their morale”, says an intelligent observer.”
I have posted this curiosity not necessarily to endorse it, because it is a generalization that is a little over the top, but to reflect on the fact that posting it at all (where I come from) would most certainly constitute hate speech, and expose me to a large award of damages at the suit of an aggrieved Afghan.