“Might it be that some conservatives are hesitant to say anything critical of the war-effort for fear that they will be perceived as ‘unconservative,’ as traitors to their cause and their philosophy? If this is so, the fact should give conservatives pause. It is possible for a movement to have too much esprit de corps; nor should conservatives fancy themselves immune from the intellectual stultification that has overwhelmed other orthodoxies during a spell of power. Success – political influence, well-connected donors, handsome endowments, elegantly provisioned awards dinners – is a mixed blessing for any movement that values intellectual suppleness, spontaneity of debate, and purity of spirit; and the vigorous iconoclasts, the prophets, and revolutionaries, of one phase of a group’s history may all too easily degenerate into the party-line hacks of another.” – Michael Knox Beran, in National Review online. Kudos to NRO for printing a vital essay. My concern is that in wielding our power, we may have become too impressed with our own rightness, too convinced of our own moral superiority. We may well have allowed practices and methods that, in effect, undermine our own moral position and thereby our ability to win this war. This war is both military and ideological. We cannot let prisoner abuse undermine the cause we are fighting for: democracy, secularism, freedom. We cannot become like the enemy. If we do, we will have denied ourselves victory. You can see the essence of the temptation in this passage from the Belmont Club blog:
Not only the treatment of the enemy combatants themselves, but their articles of religious worship have become the subject of such scrutiny that Korans must handled with actual gloves in a ceremonial fashion, a fact that must be triumph for the jihadi cause in and of itself.
No; no; no. It is insane to believe that maintaining America’s long-held respect for others’ religion, especially when those others are in the custody of the U.S., is somehow a victory for Jihadism. It is the opposite. It is a victory for our values that we do not stoop to their depraved understanding of what morality is. It is a victory for Jihadism to turn this battle into a fight between Islam and Christianity, or to watch our own military descend into the religious bigotry and intolerance we are fighting against. It is so sad to watch decent people like Glenn Reynolds or Wretchard descend into this moral abyss, even though their motives are doubtless good ones. They want to win the war. But if we win it the way they want us to, it will be a Pyrhhic victory. With great power comes great responsibility. Generations of American soldiers demand that we exercise it now, when the temptations of expediency are greatest.
The Dish 