A "Star Wars" Defense System Can't Zap the Enemy Within

The Israelis will almost certainly bomb Iran in early December. This will precipitate a series of very interesting responses from the world’s major powers. Our own fearless leader will express dismay that the “process” of infinite palaver and negotiation was not allowed to explore unplumbed depths of futility. The Chinese will be simmering for reasons not entirely clear to me: Iran has been a thorn in their side for decades, yet they seem intent on letting Adhmadinejad’s nuclear embers produce a flame (perhaps only to make the U.S. squirm). The Russians will grumble and immediately set about looking for ways to turn the crisis to their selfish interest. And any thoughtful American conservative worthy of the name will have to ask himself once again why we had to take out Saddam Hussein, the one player on the world stage who had held Iran’s rabid theocracy in check.

Because, after all, nations have no sacred obligation to labor AGAINST their self-interest (even if they need not be quite so Machiavellian as the Russians): the toppling of Saddam’s regime may well have been the beginning of our national suicide. I write these words as an unregenerate isolationist. I no longer reject the word, though it is not of my choice and reflects, I believe, a facile reduction of complex issues. I do not believe that one world order is morally desirable; on the contrary, I believe fervently that the appearance of such a beast would be catastrophic to basic human freedoms, to cultural traditions, and to the life of the spirit. Such an order would eventually melt down all language into an inexpressive babble whose parameters would be defined by the mass’s gross needs and meager abilities. It would inevitably nurture a two-tiered social and economic system reminiscent of medieval feudalism, with a pampered, privileged elite on top and an enormous crowd of water-bearers and street-sweepers below. The drones would sooner rather than later be culled to reduce their strain upon the system, and thereafter they would be carefully bred (at scientifically determined rates) to enhance their serviceability—all of this in the name of the holy trinity, Cost Effectiveness, Environmental Safety, and Social Responsibility. Liberals will stand about uselessly wide-eyed as their more extreme messmates morph into full-fledged “progressives”, complete with an agenda for merging human biology with cybernetics; and at last they, too, will be required either to sign on or check into the Reprogramming Camp.

I do not see a happy Christmas awaiting the end of 2009, in short—but it might be less dismal than I fear if we would at last recoil from the brink of World Oneness. Western Christendom’s disagreements with radical Islam are beyond negotiation, yet to vaporize Islamic terrorists around the world in a preemptive strike would outrage our “live and let live” tradition embedded in the example of Christ. Maniacal cults like the Taliban thrive because they enjoy substantial local support: we have neither the logistical capacity nor the moral right to “change the hearts and minds” of the locals until they suit our taste, any more than our states have the right to take children from their parents because Dad insists that the Second Coming is at hand. As a nation, we have the right and the obligation, rather, to secure and defend our borders. The money we shovel into the pit of “re-conditioning” the minds of Muslims halfway around the world might serve to create a viable state-of-the-art missile defense shield around the North American continent. We would then be exempt from the gravest threats of our adversaries—both those adversaries we can identify today and those who might mysteriously spring up tomorrow. We would not have to menace our ill-wishers with a retaliatory Armageddon probably lethal to the whole planet (Mutually Assured Destruction) in order to stay safe, nor worry about the long-term deterioration and eventual disposal of a dangerous nuclear arsenal. If we could simply swat away any hostile assault, then we could live our lives in peace while defying whatever power round about the world would control us.

It is our own leaders who stand in the way of such a course. Why do they not want us safe? Because, among the progressives, an impermeable defense shield is correctly perceived as destined to remove the most compelling motive for forcing America to join a world order; and because, among the less ideological but more corrupt, the concept of such a shield is usually perceived as displeasing our enemies, in whose pay these blackguards are (or in whose prosperity, shall we say, they have heavily invested). Both types are traitors; and when one mixes in the eternal leavening of outright fools, one finds very few capable and honest representatives in the United States Congress.

Yet if national disgust with both parties continues to rise, we may just reach the critical mass necessary to advance the cause of our own villages and families and freedoms and faith once again, for a while.