Are all enemies of my enemy my friend?

Yet another reader, who is hardline when it comes to Moslems, criticizes me for my criticism of Canadian PM Paul Martin’s kowtowing to Canadian Sikhs, and thus confirms my point that many people who are opposed to Islam will approve any immigrant group so long as it’s not Moslem:

Please lighten up. Sikhs want to survive, period. In fact they originated as a warrior caste disgusted with their co-religionists’ (i.e., Hindus) submissiveness and ineffectuality in repelling Muslim jihadists in Northern India. They are peaceful and highly assimilable—two critical, positive attributes which Muslims lack—lest you have forgotten !!!

My reply to him:

What do you think of what the Canadian PM did? That’s the issue here, not whether we should stand with the Sikhs against Islam.

We needed to stand with the USSR against Nazi Germany. That didn’t require that we uncritically laud and praise the USSR, which we did.

This is the danger in the global struggles we keep finding ourselves in. In looking for allies against an enemy, America goes overboard in embracing and approving our allies. Consider all the “conservatives” today who worship at the feet of Tony Blair, a leftist (who once boasted that his aim is to “sweep away all those forces of conservatism”), because he sided with us against Hussein. These conservatives didn’t simply say, “Good for Blair, he’s a stand-up chap, we’re glad and grateful he’s our ally.” No, they embraced him in toto.

This tendency to dilute our principles in order to find allies is one of the reasons that paleocons are against our getting involved in any large ideological/global war.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 28, 2005 02:10 AM | Send