Perilous Western Pragmatism

Submitted by Edward Cline (United States), Jan 18, 2010 at 21:17

I must agree with Mike Ramirez, that emulating T.E. Lawrence's policies of how to deal with the Arabs is self-effacing and ultimately self-destructive. As Mr. Ramirez notes, helping the Arabs win their "independence" first from Turkey and then from all Western influence didn't really win the West any true friends or allies. For example, no sooner did the Saudis gain a modicum of importance and leverage than they began setting the terms for oil exploration and exploitation over the Peninsula -- oil being a commodity they had no use for and over whose deposits they had been shedding each other's blood for centuries -- and finally simply nationalizing Western property, together with the other medieval "Bedu" families and tribes.

This was a consequence of pragmatic Western policies of not wanting to appear like bullies who pushed around the undeveloped little guys. Western oil companies were denied their property and their property rights. Western governments would not come to their assistance. So the West became hostage to the whims and wishes of a religious/political culture that should have perished with the Ottoman Empire, but which still exists and is obliged by its fundamental creed to castrate and conquer the West. Violent and cultural jihad is sanctioned by the Koran. If the belligerent imperatives against unbelievers were excised from the Koran, would the Saudis, Dubai, Kuwait, and the other fiefdoms on the Peninsula have any legitimacy as political powers? No. Regardless of their outward trappings, these are genuine oligarchies beholden to the mindset of the Dark Ages, but which are building gigantic monuments and white elephants with wealth extorted from the West (a West that could easily break free from the Arabs and OPEC if its governments would permit oil exploration and drilling in their own spheres).

Mr. Ramirez makes another salient point: 'I am sorry to say that T.E. Lawrence's military approach of "It's their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them" has put us in an awkward and dangerous position of assisting, empowering and emboldening a future enemy. In other words, we will help them now but we will fight them in the future when they turn against us. That's the lesson we still need to learn.'

Have they not turned against us when their oil revenues drop, or when the U.S. takes a rare stance and upholds Israel's right to exist? Do not the Saudi Wahhabists maintain brain-washing madrassas in the U.S. and claim religious freedom when they are criticized or exposed as academies for domestic jihadists? Did not prominent Islamic clerics admire Hitler? However much one may admire Lawrence as a hero and military strategist, his victories spawned something that is both bizarre and perilous to the West.

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