Do Liberals Know There Is Evil?
Richard H. Shulman
Ideology helps determines what people believe and whom they support.
Some of my liberal friends, as fine as one can hope to know, also tend
to assume more decency in adversaries than I believe warranted.
Exploiting people’s inclinations, politicians promise what audiences
like to hear. Audiences assume that those promises, if put into law,
would work. Would they?
Let’s consider in that context just two issues: (1) The media that
urges negotiations; and (2) Negotiation with our enemies.
The NY Times is a major source of my friends’ news and opinion. I
read it too, but am dubious about its rendition of holy war. More
than a decade ago, I spent two years studying the subject, before
writing about it. I read or scanned hundreds of thousands of pages on
international law, history of the Arab-Israel conflict, and Islamic
policy towards other faiths. Included were several books about media
bias against Israel and a lecture series about Times bias.
In those days, few writers were tendentious, as they are today. They
were scholars. I emerged from my study versed in the context and the
historical record against which to weigh statements by politicians and
accounts by newspapers.
The NY Times has many magazine-like sections of general interest, but
it is not a news paper -- it seeks to mold public opinion by slanting
its presentation. Times bias is of false statements, misleading
figures, or omissions that survive readers’ correction and are one-
sided in favor of the Arabs, in headlines, photographs, news items,
and editorials. Too much one way for coincidence.
Many of my articles, perhaps hundreds, analyze Times bias against
Israel. The bias started long ago, when the publishers were Reform
Jews. They worried about being accused of dual loyalty. Accordingly,
they distanced themselves from Jewish causes. Hence they downplayed
the Holocaust. But they also had downplayed Soviet oppression. Their
Soviet correspondent, I think it was Harrison Salisbury, ignored,
minimized, or excused Stalin’s purges of millions of people. The same
newspaper missed Castro’s Communist oppression until obvious. It
repeated the error with other Communists in Latin America.
Disreputable! Yes. Reliable? No.
Times bias is subtle, perhaps seeming even-handed. Even-handedness,
itself, is a form of bias when one side is the aggressor. The Times
may even advocate a step “for Israel’s own good.” Correspondent
Anthony Lewis used to do that, when he wasn’t demonizing Israel. The
newspaper doesn’t call outright for the destruction of Israel but for
conditions that would accomplish it indirectly, by enabling the Arabs
to do it directly. The bias is invidious to folks who haven’t studied
media bias and aren’t acquainted with Mideastern history. Such folks
mean well but their opinions are manipulated by unscrupulous media.
A few of the standard Times propaganda techniques that favor the
Arabs: (1) Plant the impression that Israel seized “Arab land” in
1967, by omitting the story; (2) Falsely labels Abbas “moderate” or
“peaceful,” though he is a jihadist who is intransigence in
negotiations and advocates violence; (3) Keep readers ignorant of
Islamic ideology and tactics, such as its brutality, persistence, and
duplicity, bear on the utility of negotiations; (4) Quote baseless
Arab complaints at length, emotionally, and unchallenged, but quote
Israelis briefly, dryly, and with implied doubt unless those Israelis
are leftists. How many liberal readers of the Times know that to
Islam, the “peace process” is a ruse, and that the Muslims follow the
phased plan for the conquest of Israel, whereby what their negotiators
wrest from Israel they will use as a base for conquering the rest of
Israel? None I know. That plan was devised by Arafat, a terrorist
whom the Times nevertheless called moderate and a foe of the terrorism
he was promoting it, as does Abbas.
What about negotiations? When I was young, liberals were anti-
Communist. They had learned that negotiations with the Nazis made
gains for the Nazis and negotiations with the Communists made gains
for the Communists, and setted nothing. We called negotiations and
concessions “appeasement.” Both the Nazis and the Communists were too
fanatical to keep agreements. Liberals then were willing still to
negotiate with the USSR, but insisted that any agreement be easy to
enforce and brought small expectation.
Experience with earlier totalitarian imperialists is applicable to
contemporary totalitarian imperialists, the Islamists. However, the
people who call themselves liberals these days have not assimilated
the lessons.
My friend puts it, “One has to negotiate with one’s enemies.” It’s
more complicated than that. I think that in her basic decency, she
doesn’t recognize the basic indecency of fanatical, aggressive,
totalitarians. She knows Western idealism and ways of thinking and
all its faults. She does not know that the Arabs and other Muslims
have a different way of thinking. Their ethics and ideals we consider
evil. Islam certainly endorses violence and duplicity. Their faults
far outweigh those of the modern West. If liberals better understood
this, they would be more cautious about negotiations.
The US and proxies have negotiated for years with N. Korea, Iran,
Iraq, and the Palestinian Arabs. Nevertheless, liberals accuse the
Bush administration of failing to negotiate. They also accuse it of
lying. Don’t they realize that their accusation that he fails to
negotiate is not true? Bush found that negotiating with such enemies
doesn’t work. They call him stupid, but fail to learn what he found
out. (He is not consistent in this, however, because: (1) Our forces
were reduced; (2) His opponents restrain him; and (3) On the Arab-
Israel conflict, he accepts the anti-Zionist line of the State
Dept..) Negotiations might work if backed by a credible threat to use
force. However, liberals don’t want the US to use force. Their
stricture undermines the negotiations that they demand, by reducing
them to weak discussions that the enemy does not fear.
What kind of governments and societies are those of N. Korea, Iran,
Iraq, and the Palestinian Arabs? N. Korea follows an ideology that
causes mass-starvation and shoots dissenters or puts them into a
gulag.
The Iranian people disapprove of their rulers, except for their
nuclear development for “prestige.” The rulers shut down dissenting
newspapers and candidates, train and arm terrorist militias to
destabilize countries in the Mideast, and advocate nuclear war for the
benefit of Islam.
Both Iraq and Iran were anti-Zionist. Iraq committed aggression and
fostered terrorism abroad. In its war on Iran, both countries bombed
each other’s cities, and Saddam poison-gassed Iranians. He also used
poison gas against his Kurds, in an attempt to wipe them out. Saddam
used to shoot aides who weren’t sufficiently agreeable to his
proposals. He had dogs eat children in front of their parents. His
crazy son used to grab women for his own use, and murder them when
finished. Considering that, Saddam’s nuclear arming was not
acceptable.
The Palestinian Arabs devote their schools, media, mosques, and
children’s camps to jihad. Their preachers, including those in the so-
called moderate area, regularly call Jews apes and pigs, to be
destroyed. (Traditionally, Islam let Jews live if they paid a special
tax and accepted inferior status. The Islamists have turned to
genocide.) Islam holds that any area once conquered by Islam belongs
to Islam and it is legitimate to make war to retrieve it, using any
means. The Islamists are pressing a vigorous form of jihad.
Are those people with whom we can negotiate peace? Are you kidding?
They don’t believe in peace. Let us not be deluded about that!
There comes a time when such enemies become a menace that must be
stopped. The results of negotiating rather than stopping such rogue
states were that N. Korea developed nuclear weapons, Iran is about to,
Iraq was rearming after Gulf War I, and the Palestinian Arabs came to
agreements all of which they violated, including their persistence in
propaganda that defames the Jewish people racially and advocates their
mass-murder.
The Bush administration does not give up on negotiations with the
P.A., but that is to its discredit. It persists because it hopes to
pressure weak Israeli regimes to cave in to Arab demands. Would peace
come from putting the Arabs in control of strategic Jewish territory?
Less than the previous peace agreements brought peace. Less, because
the new agreement would put the Muslims in a stronger position for
making war. It is Islamic ideology to make agreements that position
one for making war when convenient, regardless of pledges to make
peace. Why don’t our liberal friends know this? I think it is
because the newspaper on which they depend, having taken up the Arab
position against Zionism, does not go into such embarrassing facts.
When I mention the results of negotiations with N. Korea, Iran, Iraq,
the PLO, the USSR, and the Third Reich, liberals fall silent.
Psychologically, it is a form of intellectual dishonesty to maintain
silence in the face of an argument that demonstrates the fallacy of
one’s position. An intellectual discussion should come to grips with
the issues, not just recite one’s points.
I make the mistake of presenting a case, instead of asking the
liberals to make theirs beyond mere assertion. I should ask them
questions, so they have to find reasons for their assertions or
abandon them.
Here is a key question. After a decade of negotiating with Iran,
during which Iran made many agreements, broke all it promises, and
continues to develop nuclear weapons with which it threatens Israel,
what more could the US say to persuade Iran to end its bellicosity and
its nuclear development? My friends have no suggestions for our
diplomats. What might persuade fanatical enemies?
What are we to do? Just criticize the Bush administration (and give a
free pass to the Clinton administration, because Clinton was a
Democrat)? War, they not prohibit. Help Iranians overthrow their
government and regain their liberty and moderation? Oh, no, we should
not do that, the liberals say, though, somewhat self-contradictorily,
they blame the US for supporting some dictatorships. Impose
sanctions? China and Russia don’t allow much of that and there is too
much globalization (extended competition) to make it stick. Offer
money? Iran has as much as we, and spurns it. N. Korea, which is
broke, accepts such offers but reneges on its end of the deal. Iran
may have a nuclear bomb within a year. Too bad Israel is likely to
get destroyed before my liberal friends realize what is easy to figure
out if one is conversant with history.
I don’t have a formal ideology, just ideals of justice, basically,
Jewish ideals. I share with my liberal friends an abhorrence of
genocide. We want the genocide in Sudan ended. They complain that
the Bush administration does not do much about it and they complain
that it does not work much with other countries about such matters.
They are misinformed, by The NY Times.
What’s the real story? The US brings up in the UNO many issues about
oppression, but China and Russia keep the Security Council from acting
on it and few other countries join the US on it. Darfur is one such
issue. Do the liberals conclude that the US does speak out, and that
the UNO is useless? No, they condemn Pres. Bush. They prefer the W.
European leaders, who oppose decent US proposals, sometimes out of
immature spite. They prefer W. Europe, which proliferated nuclear
weapons development when the US tried to keep the lid on it. Is
preferring Europe realistic? Is that going to do any good?
If the US made war on Sudan, what military forces would we draw on?
Ours already are stretched thin. Do liberals suggest raising larger
forces? No. Then how would we stop the genocide?
Consider the genocide we did stop. We stopped Saddam from wiping out
millions of Kurds and Shiites in Iraq. Do my liberal friends take
comfort in that achievement? No. They condemn Pres. Bush for it.
They condemn him for having done in Iraq what they want him to do in
Sudan. They are inconsistent. Their misplaced idealism can let
millions be killed by genocidal fanatics on the ground and from
nuclear missiles in the air. They turn us into sitting ducks for an
Islamist death cult.
The irony is that the nicest of well-meaning people can get us
conquered by mass-murderers.
DoD
wrote:
> DO LIBERALS KNOW THERE IS EVIL? 15752 – Richard H. Shulman
I think there are several types of liberals and it is a pretty complex
subject, but you covered a good part of what I call naive but good
intentioned liberals.
Thanks for the post(s)