Three Kinds of Dog

An editorial over at RealClear Politics points out that perhaps Congress could stand to worry less about one kind of "nuclear option" (on judicial nominees) and more about another one (bin Laden's desire to nuke American soil). I would advocate a decidedly more unilateral solution to this problem than the article does, but this passage reminded me of an interesting analogy I came up with the other day.

In February 1998, bin Laden issued a religious order that called the murder of any American "the individual duty for every Muslim who can do it." Three months later, he added, "We do not differentiate between military and civilian. As far as we are concerned, they (Americans) are all targets."

With the fighting now going on almost entirely in the Middle East now, it's easy to forget the days leading up to and immediately after that terrible day in September of 2001. Recall the constant hostility of Yasser Arafat, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and their ilk. It's that hostility I thought of the other day. More precisely, it's the significance of that hostility, and with it, that constant threat to do us harm.

I have heard of an expression that goes something like this, "A growling dog is more dangerous than a barking one." The expression, of course, relates to how one might size someone else up as an opponent in a conflict: Are they about to act or are they just blustering?

Frequently, it is the powerless individual who will be the first to make a great deal of threatening noise. He's the idiot whose first impulse in a conflict is to start yelling, hoping that his opponent will be quickly intimidated, because beyond all that noise, there's usually not a clue about how to win the conflict. The guy who keeps his cool on the other hand, has his composure because he has the confidence of knowing what needs to be done. Show me a man yelling at someone who replies in a calm voice and I'll put my money on the calm guy.

The calm-voiced guy/growling dog is the rational man. The screaming idiot/barking dog is the fearful emotionalist. Take these men out of a conflict, and, like dogs no longer sensing danger, most of them are harmless. They do, at least on some level see the value of cooperating with those around them most of the time. What civilized men have in common is that when dealing with others, they use some kind of persuasion. (And some kinds are clearly more effective than others.) Force is a last resort, and is used only in self-defense.

So what kind of dog is an Islamofascist? A rabid one. And just as a rabid animal will attack for no apparent reason, so does the Islamofascist regard force, or its threat, as his primary method of dealing with others. The presence of conflict is not necessary to make this dog attack, and he cannot be called off. There are neither good reasons for, nor limits to, his ferocity. Not too surprisingly, the method of dealing with both rabid dogs and Islamofascists is the same: Kill them before they kill you.

And so the various assinine pronouncements men like these make are just so much foam at the mouth, and convey only that amount of meaning: Kill them before they kill you.

-- CAV