Lack of history classes: Part 2

Lack of history classes: Part 2 by Robert Mandel

Often times my students ask me what scares me the most. I often respond that nucl= ear weaponry in the hands of terrorists are what I t= hink the greatest threat to humanity is. But in my heart, I know this is untrue.=

My greatest fear is not what they can do to us, = it is what we can do to them. Save for self-imposed restraint, what is there stop= ping us from doing unto the entire middle east and beyond what Alexander did to Persia, Rome to Carthage, Europe to the Aztecs and Incas, or even America to the Indians. What is the history of the 20h century but Europeans trying to annihilate each other from the face of the earth. And the truth is, Germany damn near accomplishe= d it.

My greatest fear is that one day Europe = will wake up from her slumber. Remember, this is a continent with a long memory = and a long history of being very very deadly with v= ery little remorse. One day, they just might "rememeb= r the Hagia Sophia" they way Texans "re= member the Alamo". And if that day should = come, they won't just find some silly excuse, wage a war against them, take a big chunk of land, and build a railroad across the land.

Our enemies really have no sense of history. Sure, they take a nom de gu= erre of some seventh century tribal chief who conquered some part of Arabia, but they don't realize this is the continen= t that defined genocide. They have no idea what Europeans are capable of, nor any appreciation of what they have done. Do not underestimate 50 years of pacifism. It masks more than two millenia of barbarism on a scale of which their ignorance is exceeded only by their hubris. A few videos are not going to lessen any of that.

For all the bluster of a Khomenei, a Khadaffy, or a Hussein, how many Dresdens and Tokyos have they in their past? How many einsatzgruppen have they unleashed? Who but th= e West has shown not only a proclivity, but a passion to turn their entire efforts towards systematic, callous, cold, ruthless, and methodological killing. That Srebenica ca= used no concern, no outrage, stirred no action should be an awful warning. Just remember who it was that intervened.

Westerners have shown an uncanny ability and desire to be far more than a b= it excessive when aroused. You burn flags in streets while we burn civilizatio= ns to the ground.

We are in a world war, a war of cultures, a truly epochal struggle. Half a century of modernity has made many soft. Modern leftism has let their own successes mask the brutal realities that they presume reason and logic have solved. It wasn't the suc= cess of leftism but rather the drain that militarism= had taken that finally subdued the Goth, the Vandal, the Hun. Wax philosophic about the Saracen or the Seljuk, but know what neither could have or would have done.

Now, more or less freed from self immolation, and if given proper motivatio= n, the former can turn their furies on the latter. Reason and logic were nowhe= re to be found in Flanders Fields, yet a generation later, there they were aga= in. So, should those same energies, which I do feel are ever present though currently dormant, feel the power of renewal, the losses won't be counted in thousands or even hundreds of thousands. It won't even be counted in millio= ns.

Perhaps that is why it is ever vital that the dreaded = neocon idea reach fruition, for the alternative, either way, is far far worse. We might find the successes of clerical barbarism somewhat distasteful, a Taliban or pre-assault Fallujah awful reminders of the true nature of their victory. But those victories wi= ll always be small and trivial in comparison. It will always be some backwater town, some desolate country. But neither they nor their progeny will have t= he might or ability to be more than a terrible threat. There will never again = be al Andalusia.

Their greatest security lies not in defeating us but in becoming us. Their = only hope is that which they have eschewed for far too long. And by their hope, = I do mean the hope we have for them, not they for themselves.

While London never will, we do know all to= well from experience that Baghdad or Tehran could very well end up another Tenochtitlan. Combine all the force of arms of the entire Islamic world into one large army and they would stand as such: no air force, no navy, no technology, no= industry to back them, no trade to sustain them. The one commodity they hav= e is far more a curse. That they need the dreaded infidel to extract, process and ship it is testament to their weakness. That we have an insatiable appetite= is testament to our wealth and strength. Don't confuse the two.

What an historical anomaly, that for such paltry a force we show such respe= ct. Let Gaugamela be a reminder that raw numbers do not matter. Look no further than Rorke's Drift if one needs to know what the few can d= o to the many. A thousand drug induced infantry with spears are no match for one trained bearer of a Martini-Henry. Thus it is rather ironic that their only salvation, their only hope, is in the begging, borrowing, and stealing of weaponry the result of such a society they themselves would never tolerate. That their hated enemy provides the very means by which the can achieve some semblance of parity must be the greatest insult of all.

Perhaps that is why they seek our destruction, not out of hatred but self loathing. We are what they never could be. Destroy all vestiges and be free from the scathing truth that 200 million Arabs could not drive 3 million Je= ws out of Palestine. Be free from the humility that you were reduced to begging for help from the very society you hate, relying on their own centuries old hatreds to do the= job for you. And do it at the UN no less. Be shamed into corralling your might = to wage a vendetta against the hated infidel in the most anachronistic manner: voting, in this case at the general assembly.

Learn from history and learn well dear enemy for you shall not like the results. You have once before been destroyed but 1258 was a very long time = ago and very different enemy. Then you faced one who more or less resembles yourself today, a nomadic despiser of civilization. And you too share their same defects: factionalism, tribalism, cultural stagnation in the face of change. And you too can share their same fate: extinction.

So go ahead and wake the lumbering old fools in Euro= pe. Send in your advanced parties, weaken them, besiege them, undermine them, c= ause them angst and persuade them to turn against themselves in a temporary mome= nt of self doubt. But do it ever so quickly. And if you succeed, you'd better = be prepared to do what you've never done before. And if you fail, you'll only = need a history book to know why.

posted by Robert Mandel

7/07/2005 02:27:00 PM

Th= e original of this article appears at http://www.mandelinople.com/2005/07/lack-of-history-classes-part-2.ht= ml