CHUTZPAH AND HUBRIS
March 23, 2004
by Joe Sobran
You know the excellent but now tired old joke about
"chutzpah": that it's best exemplified by the guy who
kills both his parents, then begs the court to have mercy
on him as an orphan.
Well, that orphan has been topped by the state of
Israel. It used a missile fired from a helicopter to take
out an old, half-blind quadriplegic in a wheelchair --
and claimed self-defense.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President Bush's idea
of "a man of peace," says he will continue ordering
assassinations of anyone he considers a terrorist,
excluding Jews of course. His country doesn't officially
have capital punishment, which means that an Arab who
gets as far as a courtroom has a reasonable chance of
survival. Sharon means to see to it that they never get
to the courtroom.
Bush says he is "troubled" by this policy. But how
can he object to it? He too assumes the power to kill
terrorists without a trial, along with the authority to
decide who counts as a terrorist.
It's often said that the Israelis have had long
experience fighting terrorism. Well, they also have had
long experience committing it. What they don't have much
experience of is defeating it. In cracking down on it,
they kill more innocent people than their enemies do,
which makes the problem worse.
Bush seems determined to follow the Israeli example.
His crackdown on terror has taken the form of making war
on the wrong enemy, and it's now clear that his victory
over Saddam Hussein was in no way a victory over the 9/11
killers. He's like a tough-talking district attorney who,
with great fanfare, arrests the wrong suspect -- only to
find that the real killer is still at large.
The March 11 bombings in Madrid told the world that
Bush had claimed victory prematurely. The Iraq war not
only wasn't a victory; it wasn't even progress. In fact
it has made things worse, wasting resources, causing
innocent suffering, making us more enemies, and
alienating old friends.
The Spanish voters who threw out their Bush-friendly
government weren't "appeasing the terrorists," as we are
now hearing; they were saying that Bush and his coalition
don't know what they're doing, and those voters want no
further part of this enormous fiasco.
Bush's war on Iraq gave illusory satisfaction to
Americans who wanted to strike back for the 9/11 horrors,
just as Sharon's crackdowns give emotional release to
Israelis enraged by unpredictable violence. Such blind
fury is understandable, but it doesn't really get you
anywhere. It only increases the chaos, rewarding the very
enemy it's supposed to defeat.
Does anyone imagine that Osama bin Laden has been
disappointed by the results of the Iraq war? America has
only created new problems for itself, including a costly
occupation that will go on for years. Even if the real
purpose of the war was to secure American control of
Iraq's oil, was it worth it? To whom?
Bin Laden hates America, but he may be ironically
thankful for the removal of Saddam Hussein, clearing the
way for al-Qaeda and its allies to operate in Iraq
unimpeded by a nasty dictator. The idea that terrorists
hate freedom may be a consoling platitude for Bush, but
of course the truth is that they know how to use freedom
for their own purposes. Bush might realize this himself,
if he ever reflected on his own cliches, which he seems
indisposed to do.
Terrorism isn't an enemy, and it can't be defeated
with the methods of war. It's more like a form of
organized crime adapted to the modern state, whose
peculiar weaknesses it exploits while avoiding
confronting its strengths. Analogies with World War II,
beloved of the Bush faction, are singularly inappropriate
to the new situation. So is playing Franklin and Winston
with belligerent we-will-never-surrender posturing. Bush
and Tony Blair are never more absurd than when they
suppose they're being inspiring.
Spain has now rejoined what the Bush crowd calls
"Old Europe," the Europe that can't be bought with
American money -- France, Germany, Belgium, and yes, the
Vatican. Bush's trigger-happy approach has failed,
completely missing the target.
Many Europeans snort that Bush is a "cowboy"
president. A cowboy might be tolerable if he were more
like, say, Gary Cooper, dealing with the varmints with
patient cunning. But why did we have to get Yosemite Sam?
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