The American Spectator

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The Nation's Pulse

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What American faces across the world today, then, is a vast horde of unattached, unsatiated young men. In Iraq they are the "bad guys," loosely defined as all males between ages 16 and 24. Having failed to implant democracy, the job of the U.S. Military has become to keep this population in check. Their job is hardly different from that of the police in American cities, who are constantly facing hordes of "crime-prone" young men. It is an endless task.

But there are things for which we can be thankful. In Iraq, Muslim culture -- however flawed -- does provide a stable family background that prevents violence from becoming completely random and steers it into specific channels -- i.e., killing rival religionists. And in America, however unhinged the underclass culture may have become, it has never developed an ideology or religion that would universalize its grievances against Western society.

As we go about our lonely task trying to keep peace and order in the world, we can at least be glad of this much. In the 1960s, African Americans resisted the call to join a religion that would have eventually put them in league with our enemies.

Things could have been a whole lot worse.

topics:
Religion, Islam, Law, Military, Iraq, Africa