We spent around 12 years from 2001 to 2013 (Iraq pullout) steeped in the modern-day Crusader narrative. We prosecuted a war with the intent of overhauling Muslim culture. Then from 2011 onward we had mass migration into Europe, starting with Syrians, and the first European massacres with Charlie Hebdo and Eagles of Death Metal. The narrative naturally continued as the clash of civilizations.
Muslims continue to randomly stab and run over Europeans to this day, yet I no longer believe the Crusader outlook. The first reason is simple: Muslims cannot be our existential enemy because they have no power. Every advantage they have has been granted to them, except for oil money (and even then). Our governments let them into our countries and give them billions of dollars. We let them run away with our military gear. We appoint their leaders. We tolerate their bullshit.
Saying we're in an existential war with Islam is like saying you're in an existential war with a pitbull. You don't need a pitbull for anything and you can shoot it at any time, but a lot of people let them play with their kids. Rotherham sound familiar?
The other reasons are more complex, and I'm going to try to be as direct as possible. Basically, some Muslims have good reason to hate the West. The origin story of almost every enemy in the Middle East involves America. We created the Taliban. We shook hands with Saddam. We destroyed Iraq based on lies and wishful thinking. We overthrew an elected Iranian government - democracy in the Middle East? - and installed a gasbag as king of Iran. We protected Afghan child rapists. We tried to indoctrinate children. We installed Israel and whitewashed their history to the point where 99% of Americans don't even know that Israelis invented modern terrorist bombing. So much stuff with Israel.
Some of the culpability falls on Muslims and their leaders, but the problem is that WE never admit responsibility. They're supposed to be savages lacking our modern standards, but where is the accountability for getting 250,000 Iraqis killed based on Jewish neocon fantasies and the recklessly arrogant reconstruction plan? Where is the justice for the aid worker whose whole extended family was exploded by a Predator or the Afghans who actually believed our propaganda and ended up clinging to C-5 landing gear?
It would be one thing if we were forced to go into their countries and clean up their messes, but we're letting them into our countries at the same time. If you're letting Muslims onto your turf then killing them on their turf does almost nothing to stop terrorism - they can just come legally over here and drive a truck over your Christmas parade! So we are implicitly admitting that if you died in collateral damage from a drone strike, you died for no good reason. How are they supposed to deal with that?
Muslims are rational people, despite their militancy. If you set the rules openly and realistically, you can come to an understanding. Europeans have been involved with the Middle East for the entire post-industrial period, even restructuring their countries, and yet Islamic terrorism has only been a problem since the 1970s because of Western doctrines of interventionism, multiculturalism, and globalism. Western sabotage at the hands of elites is the only existential threat to us. Muslims are only victims and tools.
3-point plan to achieve peace with Islam
- Deny Muslim immigration
- Relocate Muslims immigrants to Muslim countries
- Adopt an open and realist foreign policy a la Trump
There, it's that simple.
Imagine if The West dropped 2 centuries of leftist delusion and indulgence, to form actual crusader states in 2002. We have a supreme technological and educational advantage over the high medieval militaries, but a spiritual/cultural regression.
It'd be actual progress from what we have. Not regression. We're at peak degen right now.
That's what I meant, that we're too compromised to pull off such an operation. Not that true colonialism is inherently immoral, which it isn't.