Finally, David French has decided to set aside, at least
temporarily, the religious lens through which he used to interpret the events
under discussion. But when he replaced that lens with something else, his
confusion manifested itself.
French does not seem to realize that “beginning” and “principle”
are two different things. There are times when the two coincide, but most of
the time they don't. Whether in the reality of mundane living or in the drama
of the courtroom or in the specialized endeavors of the ivory tower, the
interplay between the two concepts make up the bulk of the ideas that the sides
try to communicate to each other.
For example, in a domestic dispute that's unfolding in the home or
in front of a marriage counselor or on “shock” television shows, each litigant
would hark back to a different point in time and builds a case from there as if
it were the beginning of the dispute. In a real case, he might say, she
humiliated me last night when she danced with my boss and let him kiss her on
the lips. And she would say, he made me feel like trash last week, telling his
mother at the dinner table, how much he wishes I were half as good a cook as
she is.
In this case, the reason for the dispute is the same: humiliation
that occurred at different points in time. But there could have been two
different reasons, even multiple concerns raised by each litigant — which is
usually what happens in real life. But in all such cases, the principle that is
alluded to, but not voiced by the litigants, would be that of fidelity and the
promise to stand by each other through thick and thin. Thus, if the litigants
would stop for a moment and define for each other how they want the promise of
fidelity to apply in their relationship, they can resolve the dispute quickly
and create a covenant by which to be guided going forward.
Taken to the national level, such covenant is called Constitution.
And this is where the beginning and the principle usually coincide. For
example, in America, the beginning of the Republic, and the form of Democracy
it has adopted have coincided with the adoption of the Constitution. This is
where the rights and obligations of the citizen and those of the authorities
are defined.
When it comes to international relations, unless we speak of
obligations under resolutions adopted by competent tribunals such as the UN
Security Council, what bedevils litigants and their supporters in the world of
punditry, is the burden of having to sort out what is principle and what is
beginning. In addition, when someone hasn't even thought of the subject, he
produces a confused mishmash of tangents having no core from which to begin,
and pointing in directions that lead nowhere.
This is what you see in the David French article, which came under
the title: “The Frustrating Necessity of Staying in Syria and Afghanistan —
Explained,” published on December 28, 2018 in National Review Online. It is in
the first sentence that David French has stated the principle he applied to the
discussion. Speaking of ISIS, he wrote this: “We know who will dominate in our
absence, and we know their hostile intent.” Note that the principle was not
stated by ISIS who supposedly adhere to it, but impugned to them by David
French.
And then, 300 words and several paragraphs later, David French
stated what he says are bin Laden's grievances that would explain why ISIS is
hostile to “us” and why it wants to dominate. Here is what French wrote: “Never
forget that one of the grievances Osama bin Laden listed as justifying his
attack on America was the Christian Spanish reconquest of Muslim Spain.” Once
again, you have a situation in which David French has asserted what it was that
motivated ISIS, a speculation he based on what he says is the historical point
in time that must have motivated bin Laden in the first place. Weird, isn't it?
In any case, whether or not these events have legs to stand on, is
immaterial. The truth is that we have it from the litigants themselves that they
are fighting back against a war they did not start, but one that was brought to
them. It was brought, they say, not by an enemy they can see wielding a
familiar weapon, but an enemy that blows their families in their homes before
anyone had even realized he was there targeting them.
Time after time, those who join ISIS have stated that the
principle motivating them was that the “West” was sending its war machines to
kill their people in their homes, their cities and their fields in Muslim lands.
When France was interfering in the Algerian election, the Muslim kids
retaliated by blowing up targets in France. When France stopped, they stopped.
When Spain joined America, and killed Muslims in their homes, the kids went to
Spain and blew up trains there. When Spain withdrew its forces from the Muslim
countries, they stopped attacking Spain.
This is the observable truth, the principle that is different from
the historical speculations, which David French and those like him fabricate to
justify maintaining a situation so absurd, it becomes deadlier and costlier for
America as time passes.