Image via WikipediaI’ve been wanting to write a post like this for a long time, and I was finally prompted to do so by Michael Ledeen’s piece in last Saturday’s Opinion Journal, “Iran and the Problem of Evil.” In it, he offers some generally accepted reasons (excuses) why the World was unable to stop the rise of fascist dictatorships or to anticipate the resultant catastrophe:

Ever since World War II, we have been driven by a passionate desire to understand how mass genocide, terror states and global war came about – and how we can prevent them in the future.

Above all, we have sought answers to several basic questions: Why did the West fail to see the coming of the catastrophe? Why were there so few efforts to thwart the fascist tide, and why did virtually all Western leaders, and so many Western intellectuals, treat the fascists as if they were normal political leaders, instead of the virulent revolutionaries they really were? Why did the main designated victims – the Jews – similarly fail to recognize the magnitude of their impending doom? Why was resistance so rare?

Most eventually accepted a twofold “explanation”: the uniqueness of the evil, and the lack of historical precedent for it. Italy and Germany were two of the most civilized and cultured nations in the world. It was difficult to appreciate that a great evil had become paramount in the countries that had produced Kant, Beethoven, Dante and Rossini.

Which leads him, of course, to question why we are unable to recognize like evils today:

By now, there is very little we do not know about such regimes, and such movements. Some of our greatest scholars have described them, analyzed the reasons for their success, and chronicled the wars we fought to defeat them. Our understanding is considerable, as is the honesty and intensity of our desire that such things must be prevented.

Yet they are with us again, and we are acting as we did in the last century. The world is simmering in the familiar rhetoric and actions of movements and regimes – from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to the Iranian Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahhabis – who swear to destroy us and others like us. Like their 20th-century predecessors, they openly proclaim their intentions, and carry them out whenever and wherever they can. Like our own 20th-century predecessors, we rarely take them seriously or act accordingly. More often than not, we downplay the consequences of their words, as if they were some Islamic or Arab version of “politics,” intended for internal consumption, and designed to accomplish domestic objectives.

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So we need to ask the old questions again. Why are we failing to see the mounting power of evil enemies? Why do we treat them as if they were normal political phenomena, as Western leaders do when they embrace negotiations as the best course of action?

No doubt there are many reasons. One is the deep-seated belief that all people are basically the same, and all are basically good. Most human history, above all the history of the last century, points in the opposite direction. But it is unpleasant to accept the fact that many people are evil, and entire cultures, even the finest, can fall prey to evil leaders and march in lockstep to their commands. Much of contemporary Western culture is deeply committed to a belief in the goodness of all mankind; we are reluctant to abandon that reassuring article of faith. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, we prefer to pursue the path of reasonableness, even with enemies whose thoroughly unreasonable fanaticism is manifest.

The Left, of course, believes that it is the United States that is the latest nation to “fall prey to evil leaders and march in lockstep to their commands.” Except, of course, for the brave souls on the left, who “speak truth to power” — power to do what, I don’t know, because I don’t know of a single person executed, imprisoned, or even arrested merely for speaking his mind. If President Bush were half as evil as the folks at Daily Kos say he is, they all would have been rounded up and shot by now.

This is why I have such disdain for those who refer to the war in Iraq as immoral or evil. They wouldn’t recognize evil if they ordered it off the menu and had it served up on a plate.

Say there were practical alternatives to the war, or that going to war was was not in our country’s best interests, or that it was simply impractical, and if you can back that up with a rational argument, you’ll have my respect. Say that George Bush is the real evil, and I know you’ve gone off the deep end — where, unfortunately, tens of millions already reside.

Which reminds me of an exchange I had with my assistant at work during the 2004 presidential campaign, when it became apparent to me she did not like George Bush. She had such an incredibly short-sighted, selfish view of the world that I was caught speechless. Unfortunately, I suspect tens of millions of Americans feel just like she does. Our exchange went something like this:

ME: Why don’t you like George Bush?

ASSISTANT: I don’t like the war.

ME: Why don’t you like the war?

ASSISTANT: I don’t like killing.

ME: Not even killing the bad guys?

ASSISTANT: No.

ME: What if you could kill JUST the bad guys?

ASSISTANT: No.

ME (pointing): So, if this light switch were suddenly transformed into a switch that would kill just the bad guys in Iraq — those seeking to return Saddam to power, or just the terrorists who want to kill Americans rather than make a decent country out of Iraq — would you flick the switch?

ASSISTANT: No.

ME: What if those very same people were headed to the United States to kill people here? Would you flick the switch to kill them?

ASSISTANT: No.

ME: What if those same people were coming not just to the United States, but to our state, to kill people? Would you flick the switch and kill them?

ASSISTANT: No.

ME: What if they were coming to our city to kill people?

ASSISTANT: No.

ME: What if they were coming just to kill your daughter. Would you kill them then?

ASSISTANT: Yes. Then, I would kill them.

Chilling.