We don't want to believe in enemies, and if we grudgingly allow that they exist, we certainly will not admit they are implacable. It is odd, perhaps, but we live at a time in history when people believe in solutions to everything. In fact, men have solved so many problems in the last 200 years that we imagine all problems have solutions. Unfortunately, this is an error we must guard against. It is, in fact, an all-pervasive error which has serious consequences for our time.
Related to this subject, the Jerusalem Post recently published a column titled Editor's Notes: The Bleak Logic of Bennie Begin. The piece includes an interview with an Israeli politician who is unwilling to delude himself about Israel's present situation. The peace process is not going to work, Begin says. It does not take proper account of the Palestinian leadership. These sorry folk want to eradicate Israel, and the peace process is merely a cynical ploy on the part of a cynical foe. Grasping these fundamental points, Begin is a man of logic, a man of simple truth. He is not an ideologue, because ideology properly belongs to those who believe in dangerous fairy tales.
A few structural points stand out in Begin's discourse. First, people don't usually change, and that includes enemies; second, a peaceful solution is not always workable; and third, the aim of an implacable enemy is to eliminate you, and this is not merely a "problem" open to endless discussion. War is a reality, and you simply have to fight. In this situation talking to your enemy is always an exercise in self-deception. This last point has come to be universally rejected by Western politicians. They do not see how discussions of this kind effectively hypnotize the masses, and fill people's heads with false expectations. In reality, the only solution is the military solution. But those who dream of peace see military conflict as the problem.
It is no wonder that Begin was against the Oslo peace process, saying that the PLO leadership "will never change." In fact, they never have. The Palestinian leaders are implacable enemies of Israel. This is not so difficult to see, though it is difficult to admit for those who believe in peace. It is sad to say, but there cannot be a successful peace process with such an enemy. For such an enemy, peace is merely an interlude of talking, useful for setting up a future attack. And what makes the PLO implacable? The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964 by a body of Palestinian representatives handpicked by the Soviet KGB. The first PLO chairman, Ahmad Shukeiri, was a KGB agent. The Soviet Bloc trained the PLO cadre, providing them with weapons and strategic guidance. The current head of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, received his Ph.D. from Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.
The PLO was an offspring of the KGB, which was an offspring of the Soviet Union, which was founded by Vladimir Lenin. This man was the enemy of bourgeois civilization, capitalism and religion. If we look around the world today, we find that regimes influenced by Leninism share an implacable aspect. Consider the following examples: Venezuela under Chavez (a Leninist) has threatened to make war on Colombia while allying itself with Iran; North Korea, a Leninist regime, constantly threatens South Korea; Leninist China presently occupies Tibet, while threatening Taiwan. According to U.S. State Department cables published by WikiLeaks, Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd warned U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that America must be ready for war with China. The Australian statesman did not warn about Japan or India or Indonesia. He warned the United States about Communist China. And he had good reason. While Leninist regimes frequently advocate "peaceful coexistence," or detente, or perestroika, they inevitably prepare for a future war against capitalism. This is what they do, even as they embrace capitalism. And this is what they do because Lenin taught them to do it, with his famous New Economic Policy (i.e., a retreat into capitalism).
There are enemies out there, and we are quite obviously embarrassed to admit that these enemies are Communist. One might even think, with such an admission, that we didn't win the Cold War; that Reagan failed to bring down the Evil Empire. I cannot resist pointing out, once again, that the Russian government hasn't buried Lenin; and they had a perfectly good opportunity to bury him when they buried Czar Nicholas II on 17 July 1998. Far from seeking peace, even now, the Russian government has announced its readiness to deploy a new generation of nuclear warheads and missiles; in fact, I received a report last week about a Third World businessman who recently traveled to a secret city in Russia where they were making strategic weapons, and where the KGB was alive and well, and where Russian military officers heaped scorn upon United States.
Of course, we don't want to acknowledge any of this. As America has grown more prosperous, more comfortable, and better entertained, we fortuitously made our enemies disappear. In 1991 our main enemy (the USSR) promptly vanished -- on Christmas Day, no less. The hammer and sickle came down, and the Russian flag went up. Such was the grounds for declaring a "New World Order." Then we began to build a global utopia. But there is no such a thing as utopia, and the Communists in Russia and China were not utopians (contrary to the misrepresentations of those who never understood Communism). "We are not utopians," wrote Lenin in The State and Revolution. The founders of modern Communism were clear on this point. And they were also clear on another point, which Lenin was apt to make: "One man with a gun can control 100 without one."
Here we stand on the edge of an abyss. War may break out tomorrow in the Middle East, Korea, or the Taiwan Strait. As nuclear weapons spread to South America, the situation in Venezuela is going to become dangerous. A terrorist attack may disrupt our country at any moment. Have we understood the underlying theme of implacable enmity running throughout? I submit, as well, that this is not a "problem" open to endless discussion. It is an explosion that one day will shatter the world, and potentially cripple our civilization.
So what are we doing about it? Are we continuing to delude ourselves, or are we going to face the truth?
