This sounds like recent history, perhaps the huge Buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, or various Hittite, Roman and Persian ruins in Syria earlier this year. It also describes what happened in 642 AD, when the army of Amir ibn Al As, general under Caliph Omar, conquered Egypt and attempted to destroy the pyramids. The facing stones of the pyramids were removed; for 3,000 years the pyramids had smooth surfaces - the surfaces didn’t wear out, they were removed in an act of supreme vandalism, along with the destruction of thousands of artifacts.
The Caliph’s armies went on to conquer north Africa, and in 711 swept into southern Spain and attempted the conquest of Iberia and Europe, 385 years before the first Crusade, almost 800 years before the discovery of the new world, more than 1,000 years before US independence.
What does that have to do with the horror that was unleashed in Paris? Simply this: radical Islam is at war with the West, and Western Civilization, and has been – for more than a millennium before the birth of the US.
The attacks in Paris highlight a few things: Paris was already under a state of heightened security since the Charlie Hebdo attacks last January. Security had in fact been increased again in the last few weeks in preparation for the arrival of scores of heads of state for the climate summit. This included increased surveillance under already intrusive French laws (Napoleonic code) that give the state much more power than in the US. Further, firearms laws in France are substantially more severe than in the US.
None of that mattered. A lesson for the US – and Europe – is that stricter firearms laws only will mean more unarmed people present at the next terrorist attack.
Intrusive surveillance is also unlikely to provide much greater access to any single cell of terrorists. Too much has been said, far too publicly, about technical capabilities, and terrorists now know far better how to hide from that kind of surveillance. If you want to know the cost of people like Ed Snowden, they are at least partly to blame for what happened in Paris.
So, how can we deal with all this?
First, we must acknowledge that radical Islam is at war with the West. For centuries whether radical Islam hated Western Civilization or not didn’t matter: they couldn’t reach us. Now they can. Now, they also have better weapons. Soon, they may have nuclear weapons. It now matters.
Second, having recognized that they’re at war with us, we need to be at war with them, and ‘them’ is specific. It’s not ‘generic radicals,’ it’s radical Islam, as the King of Saudi Arabia has said repeatedly. We need to understand that we are at war.
Third, one of the comments that emerges from the survivors of these attacks is that ‘it looked like a war zone.’ No, it didn’t. Paris wasn’t a war zone, it was a slaughterhouse. In war zones the bullets are going in both directions. We need to take a lesson from Israel, we need to arm up. The police in Paris acted quickly. But there were already hundreds of dead and wounded. The police are minutes away. What are you doing in the minutes it takes them to rescue you?
Fourth, we need to get serious about our physical security. France is a mess, they have no control over who enters. We need control over who enters the US. We need real control of our borders, and real control of immigration. It is both respect for law and a demand for our own security.
Fifth, it’s time we seek out those nations, particularly Sunni Arab nations, that are as concerned about the rise of radical Islam as are we. We need a serious alliance, and a serious effort to ostracize those who begin to radicalize; Turkey take note.
This war IS GOING TO COME to the US. We can either wait and hope we aren’t in the restaurant they choose to attack or we can start taking steps now to reduce the impact.
Thanks to Ranger Roach.
