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There is a pithy aphorism from a Tractate of the Jewish Law regarding
the right of self-defense. The Talmud, as the law is called, is a
veritable minefield of complexities and interpretations. The rabbis
would have prefaced their edict with extended discussion. They would
have argued about the threshold that must be met before a pre-emptive
strike can be carried out, what constitutes imminent danger, and whether
defensive actions apply only to individuals or to collective action as
well. These scholars belonged to a people that spent a good part of
their history perfecting the Christian art of turning the other cheek.
Yet ironically, and doubtless after careful consideration, the rabbis
recommended that, "He who rises to kill thee, ye rise earlier to kill
him."
In facing the onslaught of jihad, we have missed the opportunity to deal
a pre-emptive strike. We now have the benefit of hindsight—we have been
forewarned about an organized, deadly cabal, united by the creed of
jihad, the Muslim holy war. "Islamism," writes director of the Middle
East Forum, Daniel Pipes, "is not so much a distortion of Islam, but
a radically new interpretation. It politicizes the religion, turning it
into a blueprint for establishing a coerced utopia. In many ways, its
program resembles those of fascism and Marxism/Leninism." This faction
boasts an extremely cohesive infrastructure, including a well organized,
U.S.-based, militant Islamic lobby.
This brand of Islam sees the West—not only Israel—as an archenemy. Its
adherents seek an Islamic Revival through which the infidel is to be
defeated in holy war. We have had a taste of their dedication. They
intend, very plainly, to kill westerners. "Allah has answered our
prayers; the sword of vengeance has reached America, and will strike
again and again," came the message from the Hamas. The writing on the
wall is clear and pervasive. The Palestinians were not the only ones
swept up in the jubilation at the fate of the Twin Towers, but also the
urbane, cultivated Muslims of Lebanon. The message is embedded in some
Islamist religious rulings that cast suicide bombing as a devotional
act. And it is buried none too deep in a standard text for Palestinian
seventh graders: "Islam will defeat all other religions and it will be
disseminated, by Allah's will, through the Muslim jihad [holy war]."
Each and every recruit to jihad has one overriding aim, and that is to
kill the infidel (read: you and me). Whether this indoctrinated killer
discharges his bloody duty now, or years down the line, he remains a
terminator in waiting.
PACIFISM
The response of the pacifist is to reject a strike at this enemy. The
pacifist relinquishes justice in favor of some diffuse karmic
confidence; a fuzzy belief that somewhere along the line evil will be
punished. He is committed to a rudderless world bereft of individual
responsibility.
"Violence breeds only violence" is a pacifistic plum line one hears a
lot from libertarians like Harry Browne. This particular New Age guff
equates reasonable punishment with violence. While it can include
violent methods, reasonable punishment is not the same as violence. When
we follow an unprovoked act of aggression with a proportional act of
retribution, and when we punish only the guilty—no collateral
damage—then we are doing justice, not violence. We do justice not only
for the purpose of vindicating the dead, but because justice, like
liberty, is the foundation of a peaceful and orderly society. To ignore
the imperative of justice is to be in revolt against the natural law;
the law of reason, which precedes and transcends man-made law.
By extension, Mr. Browne's logic leads to the expectation that a lack of
response to terror will extinguish the "bad" behavior, much like
Pavlov's dog unlearned his tricks when the morsels of meat were no
longer forthcoming. While simple schedules of behavioral reinforcement
work fine with the laboratory animal, it would be naïve to think of the
human terrorist’s motivation in such simplistic terms.
THE RIGHT TO LIFE
The libertarian political philosophy is important when discussing what
constitutes a just war, because it pivots on the iridescent principle
that prohibits aggression against non-aggressors. Discussion can,
however, become singularly theoretical.
Despite the abstruse treatment author and commentator Wendy McElroy
offers in her essay
“Libertarian Just War Theory”, it is possible to reasonably draw from
it some pragmatic inferences. Only a small portion of the people in the U.S. was aggressed against,
goes this argument, yet on their behalf the state commits an entire
nation to hostilities against the terrorist entity. This indeed is true:
only a fraction of the population perished in the September 11 calamity.
But must we infer from Ms. McElroy's point that the more people killed
by an aggressor, the more a defensive war gathers moral suasion? Would
it take a jihad-dropped nuclear bomb that annihilated a majority of
Americans to make retaliation less subject to the calculus of minorities
or majorities?
I suggest, rather, that we look at the context and meaning of this
particular mass murder. The crime has grave implications for all
Westerners. Jihadists deem each and every Western infidel as kosher for
annihilation. By virtue of the fact that each one of us is a potential
target, a conduit to martyrdom for these fanatics, we are all at war
with the practitioners of jihad, even though, so far, only "a small
percentage" has been aggressed against. In the eyes of the Jihadist, we
have no right to life. And so, unless he comes to recognize our rights,
we must endeavor to eliminate him before he eliminates us.
Ms. McElroy adds that "the proper authority to exercise a right of self
defense against an aggressor is the individual whose rights have been
violated, or a designated agent." However charitably one interprets
this, one cannot avoid wondering how over 2000 people, whose right to
life was sundered, go about nominating a proxy to act on their behalf in
a manner that will satisfy libertarian legalities. (While most
people think of the criminal justice system as their proxy, they would
probably agree that it is much worse than useless to summon Bin Laden
and a few suspects to The Hague with a subpoena.)
Coming from libertarian anarchists, suggestions such as these imply
realistically that the aggressor has all the rights because he places
himself outside positive—national or international—law. The victim,
being a law abider, has no rights, because his only recourse to justice
is through the state.
It is possible to leave it up to the victim to forfeit—or choose his own
form of—redress for certain misdemeanors. If there are victims who think
smoking a peace pipe or huddling in a sweat lodge with a perpetrator can
work in these situations, well and good. But to leave punishment for
murder up to the vicissitudes of the victim or his proxies is a
different matter. When it comes to taking a life, and as a declaration
of values that cannot be compromised, society must punish. The case of
September 11 is especially compelling since each and every one of us is
equally weighted in terms of the propensity for becoming victims of
Jihad. By the same token, if Jihad renders every American fair game,
then, by virtue of his ongoing intention to commit murder, every
Jihadist has also foregone his right to life.
Assume that the remaining victims or their proxies request that no
punishment—privately executed or other—be carried out. Must the
murderers go free? If so, the implication is that the right to life is a
right that the victim's proxies can choose to alienate or relinquish at
will. This is not so much an expression of freedom as it is an
expression of nihilism.
Assume a group other than the victims—most of whom are buried in the
rubble—or their proxies, or the government takes out Bin Laden. Say The
Magic Montana Militia carries out the task of retaliation. Does this
change the fact that, according to the protocol specified by Ms.
McElroy's rules of a just war, the victims will not have sanctioned this
act? And would this lack of sanction from victim render the punishment
unjust?
What flows from Ms. McElroy’s argument is that libertarians of her
persuasion would have supported the remaining victims or their proxies
had they requested that no punishment—privately executed or other—be
carried out against the Jihadists. The implication of letting the
murderers go free is that the right to life is a right that the victim's
proxies can choose to alienate or relinquish at will. How else does one
construe this position?
On the other hand, to support the actions of private mercenaries or any
other benefactor of mankind who takes it upon himself to eliminate
Jihadists is to concede that justice is abiding; that taking a life must
be punished irrespective of the victim's consent, the consent of his
designated avenging agent, or, most importantly, the identity of either
of the parties. It is to say that the right to life is inalienable until
one kills, maims and rapes, or dedicates one's life to the planning of
such crimes. It is then that one loses the right to life.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Since the state monopolizes defense, we can hardly hope for an efficient
and just solution that eliminates terrorists without hurting innocent
people. "Shielded from potential new entrants into his line of
production," writes libertarian philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the
nature of the monopolist, "the price of his product will be higher and
the quality lower than otherwise. This unavoidable reality requires that
Americans accept only modest military excursions. The government can be
encouraged, for example, to lift a 25-year-old ban on U.S. involvement
in foreign assassinations. Operations that surgically eliminate terror
cells are also acceptable. All in all, the American people need to tell
their government they will not tolerate the military's clodhopper's
traipse around the world.
A "monopolist of ultimate decision making equipped with the power to
tax," explains Hoppe, "does not just produce less and less quality
justice, but he will produce more and more "bads," i.e., injustice and
aggression." Given the perverted incentives in a nationalized defense
system and the attendant inefficiency, the U.S. government must be
pressured to sub-contract to professional mercenaries, the kind who are
not inculcated with life endangering, politically-correct doctrines, as
is the case with U.S. soldiers. Professional killers get high on blood
and can be put to good use as the Pac-Men of the universe. Paid by
contract, the mercenary is far more motivated than a poorly paid
soldier.
GI Joe, moreover, has little incentive to avoid killing civilians.
Punishment for carelessness is infrequent and responsibility for mishaps
is collectivized. Litigating against the employees of an all-powerful
superpower can be Kafkaesque. Ultimately, the people who pay for the
soldier's excesses are the taxpayers.
The mercenary contractor, on the other hand, will incur liability for
"collateral damage," the euphemism for killing innocents. For the
mercenary, stray bullets mean strained budgets. Above all, like any
private contractor, mercenaries are paid in full only on delivering the
Bin properly Laden with goods.
Now that we know that the aim of the Jihadist is to destroy western
civilization, teaching jihad under the guise of freedom of speech and
religion cannot pass muster. "Islamic institutions that funnel Muslim
youth into jihad (sacred war) activities," must be tackled, writes
Daniel Pipes. Does the U.S. have an obligation to allow jihad
ideological boot camps just because they pose as religious institutions?
Let them set up shop off U.S. soil. At the very least, we can expect the
state to implement an immigration policy that does not undermine western
values, to say nothing of allowing entry to a steady flow of potential
killers who in time will prey on peaceful people.
My next recommendation is controversial. Academics, for the most part,
live off the public purse. Many in academia have with impunity
inculcated generations of young people with a devotion to socialism and
communism. It's bad enough that these academics are directly responsible
for siring stool pigeons for the state. Public servants that preach the
causes of jihad cannot be tolerated. Taxpayers must refuse to support
any attempt to romanticize this creed. Want to preach jihad? Do it on
your own nickel. Right now my tax dollars support academics who preach
theft of my property. Must we support those who preach violence against
our person? Publicly-paid pedagogues should not get away with curriculum
that romanticizes or exculpates jihad. The causal chain between the word
of jihad and the deeds has been established beyond a reasonable doubt.
©2001 By Ilana Mercer
The American Partisan
October 5
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