Lee Harris, in a long but fascinating essay, says we aren't at war with radical Islamists in the conventional sense. We should view them more as a virulent disease that must be wiped out. Despite the harsh sound of this in speaking about fellow human beings, it rings pretty true to me.

After all, as he says:

...Bush?s critics argued, the term ?evildoers? dehumanizes our enemy. And again, the critics are both right and wrong. Yes, the term does dehumanize our enemy. But this is only because our enemy has already dehumanized himself. A characteristic of fantasy ideology is that those in the throes of it begin by dehumanizing their enemies by seeing in them only objects to act upon. It is impossible to treat others in this way without dehumanizing oneself in the process. The demands of the fantasy ideology are such that it transforms all parties into mere symbols. The victims of the fantasy ideology inevitably end by including both those who are enacting the fantasy and those upon whom the fantasy is enacted ? both those who perished in the World Trade Center and those who caused them to perish; and, afterwards, both those who wept for the dead and those who rejoiced over the martyrs.

[via Charles Johnson]

Enough with the disease metaphor, already!

Harris has his answer in his discussion of Fascist Italy. Sure, maybe we can understand Mussolini, and the Nazis, and the Imperial Japanese better if we see them as being in the grips of a "fantasy ideology" that makes them behave irrationally. But we still beat them by pursuing an adaptive, inventive war strategy in conventional terms. By his assessment, then, we weren't in a Clausewitzian war in WWII either, since the Axis powers all had fantasies of world (or at least regional) domination?

Harris, it seems to me, is simply calling on us to "know the enemy" so that we can defeat them more efficiently, and perhaps making the observation that given the so-called "End of History" with the spread of self-governing democratic capitalism to much of the world, Clausewitzian-style war is becoming a much rarer phenomenon. Seems to me, however, that our planned confrontation with Iraq is exactly a Clausewitz style war. We have been unable to use non-violent means to achieve Iraqi disarmament or regime change, and so we pursue a war in furtherance of those political objectives.

Ken,

The point that Harris is pursuing, I think, is the essential point that eluded decision-makers pre-1939: there are some regimes you cannot appease.

Once you recognize this, then certain policy options are removed from the table. Pre-1939, the assumption was that Hitler was in the mold of a Bismarck, or at most a Machiavelli. There were certain reasonable things he demanded (reuniting all the Germans in a single state, treatment as a "normal" state w/ a normal armed forces, etc.). If granted those things, and a free hand domestically, he'd be satisfied. Therefore, negotiations w/ him were possible, and war was a "last, worst option." Appeasement is perfectly reasonable, IF you are confronted by a "normal" (or in Harris' terms, non-fantasy-indulging) leadership.

Once the European leadership finally realized (summer of 1939) that Hitler was MUCH more ambitious (aka fantasy-indulging), they finally concluded that appeasement was the WRONG approach, because he did not, in fact, have only "reasonable" demands.

Similarly, Harris is pointing out that, for those who claim that "we can live w/ the radical Islamists and folks like Hussein," there is always room for negotiation, because their counterpart is "reasonable." What they need to realize is that, according to Harris (w/ whom I think I agree), the radical Islamists are NOT, in fact, "reasonable" and therefore the MOST dangerous policy is one of appeasement.

The disease analogy is actually a pretty good one, and sterilization is a pretty good technique for dealing with both pathogens and Islamicists.

While Harris' analysis is interesting, it's a distinction without a difference as far as defeating the enemy is concerned. He says the Imperial Japanese were acting in a Clausewitzian fashion, attempting to neutralize American naval power so as to consolidate their hegemony over their Asian neighbors. Fair enough, but I would also argue that they were similarly motivated as the other Axis powers by a racial triumphalism, combined with State Shinto, in what amounted to a "fantasy ideology".

To combat the Japanese kamikaze tactics, the U.S. didn't necessarily have to understand the motivation, or the "fantasy ideology" behind it. Similarly, we don't have to know what the terrorists_think_they're accomplishing, we just have to guard against their capabilities

Ken--

What you say is true, but I think that his point is that, like the Nazis (or the Stalinists), they are not an enemy that can be appeased--they must be defeated, decisively.

No argument there. We should be careful with the disease analogy, though, since while we have no compunction about attempting to exterminate viruses and bacteria, we ought not lose sight of the common humanity we share with our enemy.

There's no need to sugarcoat it, or obscure it.

We'll be killing these people because they harbor a diseased ideology of militant Islam, not because we believe they themselves are a "disease. " We defeated the Imperial Japanese, and German Nazis, and Italian Fascists on similar terms, without resorting to a war of extermination (e.g. the U.S. vs. the Indian tribes).

This is "total war," like WWII, against the terror states, with the objective of overturning the "stability" which permits this diseased ideology to grow, gain adherents, and to finance and carry out attacks against the U.S. and its allies. Though the enemy may think their "dying as martyrs" will defeat the "Great Satan" (witness the idiotic bomb belts on the Iraqi conscripts) through some sort of magical "fantasy ideology", at the end of this war, whoever of the Wahabbi imams and Saudi princes that survives will be reading a statement like Hirohito's, and will be standing in the dock like the Nazis at Nurnberg. Who knows, Sadaam Hussein might end up sharing a cell with Manuel Noreiga (though I wouldn't recommend that outcome).

To kill an idea you don't necessarily have to kill the person harboring it. I've had a lot of ideas die on me; I'm still here.

Andrea Harris--where ideas go to die... ;-)