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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Who Fights For Liberalism?

What motivates soldier to kill and risk death -- and what does not
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I’ve been meaning to post on the admission by Ash Carter, the Defense secretary, that the Iraqi Army had ISIS fighters outnumbered 10 to 1 around Ramadi, but were still pulverized. This morning, I see that Pat Buchanan said what needed saying about that. Excerpt:

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 Shiite 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?

More:

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.

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.

 

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