The Mouse and the Snake

Wretchard at Belmont Club talks about the recent terror in Russia. He offers this interesting insight into a nation's response to terrorism:

In many ways, the Russian policy is exactly the reverse of the American. They are less squeamish about retaliating but lack the Bush doctrine of creating functioning democracies to replace the chaotic sinkholes of Islamism. To a certain extent, the Russian and French policies are identical. They draw a curtain over the putrefaction fermenting in certain societies, dismissing them as a natural state or in terms of cultural relativism, as situations in which civilization - I use the word consciously - would be ill advised to interfere. But it has become apparent that terrorism is an externality of rotting societies, an effluent, which if unchecked will poison the whole world. No cologne, not even French perfume, will long prevail against it. Civilization cannot hang back but must step forward, if not for love then for survival.

We can either exterminate the Muslims or we can strive to bring them into the civilized world. Leaving them alone is suicide. George Bush, almost alone in the world, believes that we must try to bring them into the civilized world. The rest of the globe, especially the West, wants to essentially spray them with perfume.

When I was in college I kept a black rat snake in a glass aquarium. From time to time I would place a mouse in the enclosure. The mouse went about its business acting as if everything was normal. The snake lay coiled in the corner ignoring the mouse. The mouse, however, was living in denial. It was just a matter of time until the snake grew hungry. Sooner or later I would awake in the morning to find the mouse gone and a lump in the distended abdomen of the snake.

Europe is a mouse which finds a seething, pullulating mass of Arab Muslims living, like the snake, in their proximity. Every now and then the Europeans cast a nervous glance in the direction of the snake, but they live as if they believe that they and the snake can coexist. One day the world will wake up to find Europe gone and the belly of the Muslim world swollen with its corpse.

Europe can either wait like the mouse for this to happen or they can join the United States in trying to bring the democratic values of free elections, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech and ideas to the Muslim world. The alternatives to this course are too awful to contemplate.