Some thoughts on... how the West was defeated in the war on terror

Tags: terrorism al-Qaeda neoconservative Western liberal democracy war

The following is based on a random musing I had on the way to work whilst listening to a podcast. I don’t always subscribe to this point of view, but occasionally, when I turn on the news, or flick through the law journals, I get depressed, and this is how I feel about the direction our society is heading in...

On the morning of 11 September 2001, nineteen fanatics armed with box cutters used 4 planes to completely and finally defeat the West.

Allow me to explain. The fanatics who pledge allegiance to Al-Qaeda and it’s total war against the West, profess hatred for our degenerate society. They profess hatred of our freedoms, tolerances, liberties. Everything that makes Western liberal democracy great, they seek to destroy.

They have succeeded. And therefore they have won. We live in a society where we openly discuss torturing people, as if that is some kind of legitimate option in a civilised society. We detain people without charge, intern people without trial, engage in extraordinary rendition. On the flimsiest of evidence we send people to countries that we know engage in brutal repression of human rights and then pretend that the people we send will not be tortured. We have turned our backs on notions of liberty, justice, tolerance, freedom - we are no longer a society based on respect for the rule of law. We are a defeated society that, in the name of protecting the very foundations of our society, have opted to consign our freedoms to the scrapheap.

Please, tap my phone! Intercept my e-mail! Require me to carry a card that justifies my right to exist in the eyes of monolithic government! Just promise to keep me safe from an overstated enemy in the name of a society that no longer exists, and I promise I won’t mention such antiquated notions as law, justice, freedom or liberty.

The rules of the game have not changed. If our notions of freedom and justice could not withstand the terrorist threat, then they were not as strong as we thought. If the most basic principles of our society must be brushed aside in order to achieve security, then the terrorists are right - our society was already sick, and deserved to be swept aside.

Al-Qaeda has won. The West has lost. And the irony is that the destruction was wrought, not by aircraft or suicide bombings, but by our own leaders, and their failure to articulate and defend our liberties.

Perhaps when we elect leaders who believe in Western liberal democracy, who swear to uphold the rule of law, who maintain that a society is not free and just if it betrays its deepest held beliefs in the name of upholding them, then on that day we will rise again. Until then, get used to the New World Order. The fanatics, be they Muslim extremists or Neoconservatives, are the only winners...