Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (No Series) by Michael Scheuer Page B
Authors: Michael Scheuer
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discriminate use of military power only if excellent intelligence is available about them. As this would not usually be the case, Dr. van Creveld went on to make the case for the indiscriminate and overwhelming force that America will have to employ in the future:
The other method [the indiscriminate use of military power] will have to be used when good intelligence is not available and discrimination is therefore impossible and, in case things reach the point where they run completely out of control. The first rule is to make your preparations in secret or, if that is not feasible, to use guile and deceit to disguise your plans. The second is to get your timing right; other things being equal, the sooner you act, the fewer people you must kill. The third is to strike as hard as possible in the shortest possible time; better to strike too hard than not hard enough. The fourth is to explain why your actions were absolutely necessary without, however, providing any apology for them. The fifth is to operate in such a way that, in case your blow fails to deliver the results you expect and need, you will still have some other cards up your sleeve. 12
EPILOGUE
An Abiding Uniqueness
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an ever lasting mark of infamy on the present generation, as enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
Samuel Adams, 1771
The single most important lesson to be drawn from America’s defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq is really an exercise in relearning a reality that has gradually become nearly opaque since 1945: American democracy and republicanism are unique and largely nonexportable. In saying that the American experience is unique, an idea often described and derided as “American exceptionalism,” one is merely stating what should be obvious to all. While the Founders certainly drew on the workings and experiences of earlier republican polities—Sparta, Athens, Carthage, Rome, the Italian city-states, etc.—they studied republics not only to see how they functioned but also, more important, to understand why each one inevitably failed.
The package the Founders ultimately put together for their republic in the U.S. Constitution took what they thought was best from the history of republicanism and reinforced it with a bracing dose of Machiavellianism and a central focus on the most important point of the American Enlightenment, that man is deeply flawed and not a perfectible creature. Thus, American constitutionalism to this day is infused with precepts drawn from the Bible, the history of other republics, the American Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, the hard-headed common sense of the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the successes and tragedies of the now four-hundred-year-old American national experiment. Composed of these varied influences, the uniqueness of American constitutionalism became more prominent because it was tucked safely away in North America and for centuries developed with minimal influence from the outside world, save those entering due to the never-changing American lust and talent for business and commerce—a sort of profit-seeking insularity, but certainly nothing remotely akin to isolationism.
To be sure, America has prospered because of the Founders’ design, and one must assume they would be pleased that others in the world are inspired to emulate the system they hoped would be imitated. But no set of men was ever more confident that they were creating a unique system than the Founders: they
The other method [the indiscriminate use of military power] will have to be used when good intelligence is not available and discrimination is therefore impossible and, in case things reach the point where they run completely out of control. The first rule is to make your preparations in secret or, if that is not feasible, to use guile and deceit to disguise your plans. The second is to get your timing right; other things being equal, the sooner you act, the fewer people you must kill. The third is to strike as hard as possible in the shortest possible time; better to strike too hard than not hard enough. The fourth is to explain why your actions were absolutely necessary without, however, providing any apology for them. The fifth is to operate in such a way that, in case your blow fails to deliver the results you expect and need, you will still have some other cards up your sleeve. 12
EPILOGUE
An Abiding Uniqueness
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an ever lasting mark of infamy on the present generation, as enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
Samuel Adams, 1771
The single most important lesson to be drawn from America’s defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq is really an exercise in relearning a reality that has gradually become nearly opaque since 1945: American democracy and republicanism are unique and largely nonexportable. In saying that the American experience is unique, an idea often described and derided as “American exceptionalism,” one is merely stating what should be obvious to all. While the Founders certainly drew on the workings and experiences of earlier republican polities—Sparta, Athens, Carthage, Rome, the Italian city-states, etc.—they studied republics not only to see how they functioned but also, more important, to understand why each one inevitably failed.
The package the Founders ultimately put together for their republic in the U.S. Constitution took what they thought was best from the history of republicanism and reinforced it with a bracing dose of Machiavellianism and a central focus on the most important point of the American Enlightenment, that man is deeply flawed and not a perfectible creature. Thus, American constitutionalism to this day is infused with precepts drawn from the Bible, the history of other republics, the American Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, the hard-headed common sense of the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the successes and tragedies of the now four-hundred-year-old American national experiment. Composed of these varied influences, the uniqueness of American constitutionalism became more prominent because it was tucked safely away in North America and for centuries developed with minimal influence from the outside world, save those entering due to the never-changing American lust and talent for business and commerce—a sort of profit-seeking insularity, but certainly nothing remotely akin to isolationism.
To be sure, America has prospered because of the Founders’ design, and one must assume they would be pleased that others in the world are inspired to emulate the system they hoped would be imitated. But no set of men was ever more confident that they were creating a unique system than the Founders: they
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