Who Fights For Liberalism? In Iraq or In America

[roo_ster]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/who-fights-for-liberalism/

Pat Buchanan on why the Iraqi Army, 10x the size and better equipped than ISIS, loses when it figths ISIS:

Again, why do these rebels seem willing to fight for what we see as antiquated beliefs, but all too often our friends do not fight? Perhaps the answer is found in Thomas Babington Macaulay: “And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods?”

Tribe and faith. Those are the causes for which Middle Eastern men will fight. Sunni and *expletive deleted*it fundamentalists will die for the faith. Persians and Arabs will fight to defend their lands, as will Kurds and Turks. But who among the tribes of the Middle East will fight and die for the secular American values of democracy, diversity, pluralism, sexual freedom, and marriage equality?

...

In almost all of the wars in which we have been engaged, those we back have superior training, weapons, and numbers. Yet, for whatever makes men willing to fight and die, or volunteer for martyrdom, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban have found the formula, while our allies have not. To be a martyr for Allah, to create a new caliphate, to expel the infidels and their puppets, these are causes Islamic man will die for. This is what ISIS has on offer. And the offer is finding buyers even in the West.

Rod Dreher asks:

The more unsettling question is coming our way may well be: But who among the tribes of the United States will fight and die for the secular American values of democracy, diversity, pluralism, sexual freedom, and marriage equality?

The Iraq War shook me the the foundations in this way: it made me radically suspicious of the US Government and how it will treat its soldiers. If one of my children thought of going into the military, I would strongly encourage them to think critically and think hard about it. I would normally be proud of my son or daughter putting his or her life on the line to defend our country, but I have lost trust in our nation’s leadership to use these men and women in a just and morally defensible way.

I would be extremely proud of my children fighting to defend their country. I would even, in some cases, be proud of them fighting to defend persecuted Christians overseas. But I don’t want my adult children killing or dying for the sake of Empire — that is, being deployed to the battlefield for reasons other than to defend America.

And I don’t want them killing or dying to replace the the very real evils of traditional societies with the evils of our own civilization — especially when our civilization, in law and custom, is in the process of turning on people of my religion, and seeing us as the enemy within. Put bluntly, I don’t want my children to risk death — their own or somebody else’s — for the secular American values of democracy, diversity, pluralism, sexual freedom, and marriage equality, especially when the most important American value — freedom of religion — is going into eclipse.

I have some answers for Rod but would like to hear what others think before I yip yap about them.

[MechAg94]

He might as well come out and say it:  Who will fight for a police state that abaondons Constitutional freedoms?

[RocketMan]

What it is devolving to is our armed forces will fight to preserve our government, not to preserve the Constitution and our country.
As Western Civilization loses the desire to preserve and protect itself, I wonder how this will evolve.  I suspect the armed forces of most Western nations will become tools to protect and preserve governments, not nations.

[vaskidmark]

The goal of secular egalitarianism has eliminated the self-identification with a tribe.  And the external pressures of society to maintain generational guilt have pretty much kept a lid on the Germans.  Nobody seems too concerned about the Japanese as long as they remain non-nuclear and are not allowed to extend the reach of their armed forces again.

At the tactical level our armed forces have a tribal identification.  It does not extend to the strategic level.  And since the powers that be have not, since way back when, allowed our tactical forces to carve out tribal lands for themselves we wind up fighting the strategic battle against those who know the fight is at the tactical level.  Who cares who controls Ramadi if you know that after you take it from them you are just going to give it back to someone whose desire to keep it is outweighed by their desire to go kill the other tribe?

We could, and did, win <insert conflict> but failed to hold it because the folks we "won" it for really did not care so long as their guys did not die too much and because we, sometimes reluctantly, rejected the position of colonial overlord.

stay safe.

[agricola]

TBH it is a bit of a stretch to turn this into a moral fight between religiously motivated zealots vs defenders of "liberal" values.  For a start, the last two Iraqi regimes have been about as far away from being secular, liberal, defenders of sexual choice etc etc as anywhere else in the middle east is. 

IS is appearing* to win because it is better trained, better paid, better equipped, has better intelligence, a better supply network, allies with deeper pockets and is less corrupt than the Iraqi state forces have been.   Of course this is one of the consequences of sacking most of the pre-2003 Iraqi Army, then training its replacement on the cheap, then making sure it couldnt do what Saddam's did (ie: scare the Saudis), and finally letting it (and the country) be led by some of the worlds very best proponents of graft. 


* appearing in the sense that all of its victories are proclaimed by everyone, especially the Western media, whilst its failures recieve less attention.  What the real situation on the ground is, is anyones guess though one would imagine that the longer this goes on the Iraqi Army will get (through a process of Darwinianism) progressively less bad.