Weaponized Compassion

In an interesting article on terrorism, Raymond Kraft discusses the underlying strategy that is being applied by Islamofascists:

The Islamic Resistance Movement (IRM), the Jihad, which includes Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all other like-minded folk, is much smarter about it than we are. It has turned the civility of the US, and Europe, into a weapon and turned it against us. It has weaponized niceness, it has weaponized compassion, it has weaponized the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. It has weaponized our desire for peace. It has recognized that our goodness is no match for its savagery, and will continue to exploit that fact until we lose and they win. However long it takes. Centuries, generations, decades, years, months.

The soft underbelly of America in particular and Western Civilization in general is that it has become so excessively nice and decent and civilized that it is now loathe to rise to its own self-defense, loathe to kill civilians when necessary, loath to cause "collateral damages," loathe to fight and defeat other countries, even when its own survival is at stake. We have emasculated our will to rise to our own defense, to the defense of our interests, to the defense of our friends and allies, to the defense of our own civilization and its unique freedoms. We would rather die than kill. We are willing to martyr ourselves and our children and their children and our country to the conceit of our own goodness.

I believe that Kraft is overstating things when he says we will not defend ourselves or fight (think Afghanistan and Iraq) but he may have a point when he mentions “the conceit of our own goodness.”

Many of our politicians, the vast majority of American media outlets, and a significant minority of American citizens suffer from moral hubris. They believe, as Kraft correctly notes, that savagery, although scary and troublesome, does not pose an existential threat to our way of life. They cannot and will not look into the abyss, preferring to look for any reason not to confront Islamofascism, not to call it what it is (21st century Nazism). They would prefer to appease its minions in hopes of achieving a peace they will not get.

Moral hubris elevates “peace” above all other things—a fundamental error that history shows has lead to the unnecessary deaths of tens of millions. Kraft comments:

While America wants peace, and recoils from the projection of deliberate savagery, the Islamic Resistance Movement embraces and adopts savagery, "managed savagery," as its primary militant tactic, calculating, correctly, so far, that America, which wants to be nice and doesn't really want to hurt anybody, will never respond with equal or greater force, or savagery. Thus, it calculates, Islam can easily withstand the pulled punches America is willing to throw, while America will eventually succumb to the never-ending managed savagery of militant Islam.

I think Kraft is correct in defining the effects of moral hubris, but incorrect in predicting the outcome. Our history has proven that we will only stand for so much savagery before we drop the pretence of being “nice,” and respond with a ferocity that will make Islam reel.

And while we wait for the event that will become our tipping point, Islamofascists continue their savagery. What they don’t seem to realize is we do have the will to respond with savagery of our own. It’s just that unlike our barbaric enemy, we’d much prefer another course.