Gloves Off, Gentlemen By Donnel Jones, July 23, 2003	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Daniel Pipes has an elegant read of Lee Harris' re-orientation on the rules of engagement in fighting the war against terrorism. He claims the West should drop, or alter, the rules of engagement on terms similar to the Islamists: real hard ball.

While morally commendable, Harris argues, the West's not responding to Muslim ruthlessness with like ruthlessness carries a high and rising price. It allows Muslim political extremists of various stripes to fantasize that they earned their power, when in fact that power derives entirely from the West's arch-civilized restraint.

This kind of talk will raise the hackles on the politically correct. Why all the opposition to America's new exercise of power in the world? Because America is already, in some respects, doing just what Lee Harris recommends. Pre-emption is now a fact in the war against terrorism and Arafat has been ostracized by Bush.

Of course, this depends very much on the administration in power. Get an administration that doesn't understand the war we're in and how we must fight it, and you revert to the Appeasement Years, a term that should name the now permanently defunct era of 1979 to 2001.

On the other hand, there should always be enough restraint in not allowing for wanton death. Death by all means targeted and doing away with as many as necessary to make the enemy surrender, but not gratuitously overdone. It's a hard call.

One overlooked detail in the welcome deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein: they fought, with two others—a bodyguard and his son—for six hours. They were not about to be taken alive. They knew the world, even Europe, would be against them. They had to die. Not in a blaze of glory but like dogs hanging on to sheer survival because life has lost all meaning.

In short, they died like true fascists.