A poll of Britons take for The Spectator has produced some interesting and, I think, disquieting results:
The survey, carried out for The Spectator magazine, shows that a majority of people now recognises everyday lives will change fundamentally. Seventy three per cent agreed that “the West is in a global war against Islamic terrorists who threaten our way of life”.
When asked whether Britain should change its foreign policy in response to terrorism only 12 per cent said it should be more conciliatory, compared with 53 per cent who thought it should become more “aggressive” and 24 per who wanted no change.
People were divided about the Muslim community in Britain. Fifty per cent said “most British Muslims are moderate” while 28 per cent disagreed with the statement and 22 per cent did not know.
While there was strong support for a hard line on terrorism at home, the survey exposed deep-seated distrust of the foreign policies championed by Mr Bush since September 11, 2001. Only 14 per cent believed Britain should continue to align itself with America.
It’s not entirely clear to me how one reconciles a more aggressive foreign policy with distancing Britain from the United States. Tim Worstall may be right:
More aggressive? What on earth would that be? The turn Teheran into a parking lot option?
Presumably, the interpretation is that both Americans and Britons are increasingly skeptical that, at least in the near term, liberal democracy at peace with America and Britain is an achievable prospect for Middle Eastern countries or, possibly, that liberal democracy in the Middle East wouldn’t necessarily bring increased security along with it. The remaining alternatives aren’t very appealing.
I’ve always believed and continue to believe that for most Americans the default condition is isolationism. Is there a comparable default position for Britons?
It couldn’t be simpler really. The British public sees the difference between the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
As I read it, the poll wants a more forceful effort on domestic threats, ie., better security and intel; but the public doesn’t want to go ( cf John Adams) “abroad in search of monsters to slay.”
I agree with ATS. There’s the war on terror, and then there’s the WOT’s idiot cousin, the Iraq War. Maybe the Britons would like to kill terrorists as opposed to creating more.
The word “aggressive” doesn’t imply that to me, ats. I’d characterize that as a more defensive posture.
M. Takhallus, the problem with “killing terrorists” as an objective is that, as the Israelis have learned recently, there’s no good way to tell the terrrorists from the non-terrorists until after the attack has occcurred.
Additionallly, experience doesn’t suggest that killing terrorists doesn’t create more terrrorists.
I’m not a neo-con. I never thought invading Iraq was a good idea not because I didn’t think a liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East wouldn’t be a wonderful thing but because I didn’t believe there was a national consensus behind that policy and I didn’t believe the American people would have the patience to do what needed to be done to achieve the objective.
However, I can appreciate the benefits of the neo-con grand strategy. It has the advantage of answering a lot of the tough questions in a good way. Viz. how do you identify terrrorists? The people in the countries that have been producing and/or training terrorists identify them for you. Why would they do that? Because the terrorists are a threat to their own liberal democracies which are making everybody in those countries happier and more prosperous.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
Don Sensing had an excellent post a couple of years back that addressed this specifically. I’ll have to trot it out. Problem is that killing alligators alone doesn’t get you much of anywhere—you’ll be doing it forever.
But, just as I’m not a Wilsonian (neo-con), I’m not a Jacksonian, either. I don’t like the idea of turning the entire Middle East into a radioactive roller skating rink.
I’m not sure that there’s a big difference between a Jacksonian and an easily-angered Jeffersonian. I tend to wobble between the two, myself, with Wilsonian desires far too tempered by cynicism to get out much.
If we could pull back into our shell and be a moral example to others, and that would be the end of it, I would be content. But we cannot, and the real argument is between whether we democratize or utterly destroy the Muslim world. I hope we can democratize them. I fear we will be driven to destroy them. The two options we do not have are to ignore them in safety, or to buy them off. Those have both been tried to exhaustion.
That’s why I think of myself as a neo-Jeffersonian, Jeff. The requirements of the modern world are such that real Jeffersonianism is unworkable.
However, my inclination is that we should pull in our horns a bit and consider the old saying: “He who sups with the devil must use a long spoon”.
Well, first the poll is a reaction to the liquids scaremongering.
Second, aggressive certainly means to most people going after terror cells, not rampaging incompetently around like a cretin, which is rather what seems to be the Bush Administration speciality.
It’s not hard to parse, as several noted supra.
Ah. The Merriam-Webster (American) dictionary defintion:
Definition 2 as opposed to Definition 1 (which is how I would have understood the word “aggressively”).
If Muslims truly are culturally antagonistic to a liberal (in the traditional sense) and democratic form of society, does it not follow that it is pure madness to allow Muslims to immigrate into the democracies of the West? Why should the Western democracies want to import vast numbers of people into their countries who are culturally inclined to want to end democracy? Isn’t this the political equivalent of taking poison that builds up in the body until death results?
This would seem especially so if such societies continue to pursue strong multi-cultural policies, in which immigrants are not really expected to assimilate. After all, culture consists of many different attributes and patterns of behavior, not just the cuisine one eats and the manner in which they dress. It also consists of political attitudes, and the way individuals relate to the power of the government, as well as to each other.