Worries About Europe
A response from the founding chairman of the Trinity Forum.
Dear Trinity Forum Friends:
This is to commend the fine essay by David Aikman on “Civilization and Crisis and Europe’s Choices.” It is a superbly reasoned piece that I fully endorse. My only reservation is that the threat of Islamic extremism is certainly as grave as David suggests and he may have even understated the danger.
My worries about Europe are even greater than David’s expressed concerns. I suspect Europe’s only chance to counter the infiltration and ultimate force of the Islamic youth movement and immigration is with a solid Christian revival as David mentioned has happened before historically. Yet, at the moment I see little acceptance in Europe by the general public or governmental officials of Christianity or even its basic tenets, ignoring almost completely the deep Christian roots that have shaped Europe’s enormous success near the pinnacle of civilization for many generations.
Affluence and self-gratification are hardly noble causes that sustain the moral fiber or assure the future dynamism of a society. Our Western tendency increasingly to abort away our normal progression of future generations also produces a depressing, deteriorating demographic pattern except in those countries with rising numbers of Muslim births, as in France. Success with the Alpha program and with special congregations like Holy Trinity Brompton, as well as a deeply concerned Pope about Europe’s faith and future, are about our only hopeful signs there, making our small Trinity Forum Europe program particularly important.
The extraordinarily aggressive language of Islamic extremists apparently intent on overwhelming Western civilization must be taken seriously. The books I have read recently (Bernard Lewis, Mark Steyn, and the two Nasrs who are originally from Iran) all underline the conclusion that the threats we face are real and growing and are not just distant talk. I concur that we have reacted moderately and largely diplomatically from 1979 until 2002 while our enemies have gained strength, convinced that Western democracies, including the U.S., are weak, really only a collective “paper tiger.” Our ambivalence in Iraq with under manning our efforts and continuous domestic political division only reinforces their confidence.
In my view, the aims of the Islamic terrorists are not negotiable regardless of what the UN Secretariat or our usual Allies might prefer. The Islamic extremists must be soundly defeated or they will continue to infiltrate and undermine Western Civilization, including ours in the U.S., unless we are extremely careful, as Lewis repeatedly emphasizes. The Pope’s quote from centuries ago by a Byzantine ruler about their religion is true. Coercion and violence, not persuasion, has been Islam’s fundamental method for expansion, including physically conquering the countries that are predominantly Muslim today and prohibiting any form for religious pluralism or separation of church and state. With Islam they are always one.
There is a basic question about whether any democratic, open society with a free, 24/7 continual daily flow of war images and reported deaths over the highly competitive and sensationally oriented news channels can conduct a successful war in modern times. War is a brutal, inhumane activity, which today has no boundaries for death and destruction when civil-garbed guerilla insurgents with no Western understandings of normal rules of warfare are the opponent. One can only be relieved that today’s continual public exposure of the horrors of war, making all civilians a continual part of the conflict, was not the norm during WWII. Otherwise, after losing some 10,000 dead on D-Day before taking the heights above the landing zones, one can imagine Eisenhower being relieved of duty immediately, a full retreat ordered and Ike flown back for Congressional testimony about such a foolish invasion while possibly facing a court-martial. It is also doubtful that the Allies could have held and finally repulsed the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge. Estimates are that 80,000 Allied and 100,000 Germans perished in that enormously bloody encounter over several weeks.
Although every premature death is a terrible tragedy that must be avoided whenever possible, freedom is anything but free. Although our wounded numbers are high and also highly lamentable, it is worth noting that the U.S. has never had a war with so few deaths as in Iraq. Our almost 3,000 dead in some four years compare with 53,000 in only 18 months in Korea during my Marine years and an even larger number in Vietnam. We should also recall that we lose about 40,000 U.S. residents each year to premature death in automobile accidents, about half that number due to domestic murders and currently have 3,200 inmates on death row awaiting execution. Most of the deaths in Iraq have been generated by Muslim against Muslim rather than by Coalition troops against civilians. We are partially to blame for these as well since we have not used sufficient force to maintain security when rivalries between religions, areas and tribes burst force in repeated murderous acts of long pent-up revenge.
The continuing threat of long-term terrorism is neither a Democrat nor a Republican political issue. It is the basic issue in today’s world of high technology, fearful, mobile weapons of many kinds, and the ability of small cells of individuals to create massive disruption and destruction in liberty-loving, open societies. Add intensive religious fervor, total poverty without hope for a decent life for exploding populations of youths in autocratically oppressive Middle Eastern societies, and a preference for death over life with big promised rewards for the former and no respect for the latter, and we see a unique danger not faced before in history.
We may do well to reread about the decline of the Roman Empire, one never defeated from the outside, but the greatest world power prior to the U.S. position, that disintegrated internally, literally leaving the gates open with no resistance to the barbarians in the final days of its demise. May we, and our succeeding generations, avoid such a decline into decadent anarchy or a dictatorial theocracy that decries liberty and individualism.
Sightings, Faiths and Worldviews, Good and Evil, Religious Liberty, Wed 13 Dec 2006
