Please read the whole thing. And spread the word.I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said.
“The Century War,” said the Time Traveler.
I blinked and tried to remember some history. “You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .”
“I mean the Century War with Islam,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he stood, refilled his Scotch glass, and sat again. He said, “It was important to me to come back to this time early on in the struggle. Even if only to remind myself of how unspeakably blind you all were.”
“You mean the War on Terrorism,” I said.
“I mean the Long War with Islam,” he said. “The Century War. And it’s not over yet where I come from. Not close to being over.”
“You can’t have a war with Islam,” I said. “You can’t go to war against a religion. Radical Islam, maybe. Jihadism. Some extremists. But not a . . . the . . . religion itself. The vast majority of Muslims in the world are peaceloving people who wish us no harm. I mean . . . I mean . . . the very word ‘Islam’ means ‘Peace.’”
“So you kept telling yourselves,” said the Time Traveler. His voice was very low but there was a strange and almost frightening edge to it. “But the ‘peace’ in ‘Islam’ means ‘Submission.’ You’ll find that out soon enough”
Great, I was thinking. Of all the time travelers in all the gin joints in all the world, I get this racist, xenophobic, right-wing asshole.
“After Nine-eleven, we’re fighting terrorism,” I began, “not . . .”
He waved me into silence.
“You were a philosophy major or minor at that podunk little college you went to long ago,” said the Time Traveler. “Do you remember what Category Error is?”
It rang a bell. But I was too irritated at hearing my alma mater being called a “podunk little college” to be able to concentrate fully.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the Time Traveler. “In philosophy and formal logic, and it has its equivalents in science and business management, Category Error is the term for having stated or defined a problem so poorly that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, through dialectic or any other means.”
I waited. Finally I said firmly, “You can’t go to war with a religion. Or, I mean . . . sure, you could . . . the Crusades and all that . . . but it would be wrong.”
The Time Traveler sipped his Scotch and looked at me. He said, “Let me give you an analogy . . .”
God, I hated and distrusted analogies. I said nothing.
“Let’s imagine,” said the Time Traveler, “that on December eighth, Nineteen forty-one, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and asked them to declare war on aviation.”
“That’s absurd,” I said.
“Is it?” asked the Time Traveler. “The American battleships, cruisers, harbor installations, Army barracks, and airfields at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii were all struck by Japanese aircraft. Imagine if the next day Roosevelt had declared war on aviation . . . threatening to wipe it out wherever we found it. Committing all the resources of the United States of America to defeating aviation, so help us God.”
“That’s just stupid,” I said. If I’d ever been afraid of this Time Traveler, I wasn’t now. He was obviously a mental defective.“The planes, the Japanese planes,” I said, “were just a method of attack . . . a means . . . it wasn’t aviation that attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but the Empire of Japan. We declared war on Japan and a few days later its ally, Germany, lived up to its treaty with the Japanese and declared war on us. If we’d declared war on aviation, on goddamned airplanes rather than the empire and ideology that launched them, we’d never have . . .”
I stopped. What had he called it? Category Error. Making the problem unsolvable through your inability – or fear – of defining it correctly.
h/t: Vanderleun
Update 4/4/2006: The link to Dan Simmons's site appears to be broken in this post. Try this link.
Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm going back in. I read a good amount and got called away. Wow, this is pretty chilling!
ReplyDeleteBuck, I don't know what to say. Do you feel any legitamacy to this or is it the ramblings of an exceptional and I do mean exceptional, writer? See, a part of me believes all of it. I've said this from the beginning because my Dad taught me, "this war is different, it is a religious war. We are no longer one nation under God and they believe they are, under Allah." I'm almost speechless and am questioning my gullibility and intelligence. It is absolutely credible in theory, plausiblity and has me astounded. I really am on the verge of speechless.
ReplyDeleteBuck if you have the link to that site will you send it to me. I can't get in to it at all now. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteBarb: Just mailed you the link from Vanderleun's site. I tried it, it worked. I tried the link in my post...it didn't work. I wonder WTF's goin' on?
ReplyDeleteYou asked if I believe the stuff Simmons writes. If I were a jury, I'd be deadlocked: 10 to convict with 2 holdouts.
There's a part of me that wants to believe there's a "silent majority" of moderate Muslims who don't accept the Jihad imperative, who would rather not live under shari'a law, and who condemn, rather than celebrate, terrorism.
The problem is if this silent majority exists, they are silent, indeed. And their silence indicates (at the very least) complicity with the radicals, if not outright sympathy and support.
We've seen two Islamic theoracies. One has been deposed (Afghanistan), and one is still in power (Iran). There's a third large pseudo-theoracy, Saudi Arabia, that lives under shari'a. And there are numerous emirates and sheikdoms that live under shari'a. And then there's the damned Palestinians, a group of hard-cases with no love for America and the West, in general. Unless said West is handing out money.
There are new horror stories coming out of the Middle East and Europe every single flipping day about the excesses and abuses (to our world view) permitted under the regimes operating under shari'a. And I've YET to read about ANY group of influential immams or mullahs condemning jihad or making any attempt to liberalize shari'a.
So. Do I believe we're in a war with Islam and not with Islamists? Prove to me we're NOT. That's damned hard to do, if not impossible.
I tend to agree with you Buck and I would be in deliberation a long time over this one.I feel that it is a holy war to them and they have all the conviction of a kamakazee. They are taught to believe that we, every one of us is an infidel and to kill us or to die killing us merits them 1000 virgins in heaven and what man wouldn't kill for that. But they are taught differently than we are, it's a stronger sentiment, I think that binds them than our fighting soldiers and let me say this, that does not make us wrong, no in fact, it proves were sane. Yes, our men fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and they lay down their lives everyday. The difference is, we are not fanatical, for the most part when it comes to religion, not like them anyway but, and don't take this wrong, although there have always been notes of heroic men, who have gone above and beyond the call of duty, they are not trained, taught and had it ingrained in them, under violent pretense, that to get in a plane, knowing you will certainly die and fly it in to the side of a building,just one example, will allow you the very best in the afterlife, your country and peoples, your family and Allah will place you in a catagory with that of the greatest of men.They are taught to be fanatical, they cut in to their babies heads, for God's sake to show their love for Allah. They beat themselves bloody to show their love for Allah and they kill in the name of Allah. That's the difference. We are not fanatical, we are savvy, well trained, high tech, fighting spirits but we are not by any means up against any ordinary group of people.We need to approach it as such and not just from a military standpoint. I think, only now, we are getting the picture. There is a fine line between good and evil and we're gonna have to learn to walk it and redefine our mission.
ReplyDeleteBuck, that is indeed, a very interesting post and I dare say I've yet to read something so thought provoking as that!Have a good one buddy!