This is one disease that cant be beat (cult of death)

[Valkie]

From the daily telegraph .

Land none can conquer
KEVIN DONNELLY

By its very nature, Afghanistan remains eternally resistant to any and all external attempts at mastery

The fall of Kabul and the reality that Afghanistan, once again, is controlled by ruthless and barbaric Islamic terrorists proves how those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

While often initially successful, since the time of Alexander the Great no invading army has ever succeeded in controlling the country.

Illustrated by the British army’s retreat from Kabul through the Khyber Pass in 1842, when out of 16,000 soldiers, family and camp followers only one survived, it’s understandable why Afghanistan is known as the ‘graveyard of empires’.

More recently, despite billions invested and thousands killed and injured the British, the Russians and the US-led coalition, including Australia, have all been forced to withdraw.

Attempts to bring freedom and democratic values and to ‘nation build’ have also proven ineffective.

As argued by Akhilesh Pillalamarri in a prescient essay written in June 2017 for The Diplomat: “Despite spending more on Afghanistan than on rebuilding Europe after World War II, little progress has been made.

“It would not be surprising if the Taliban controlled all of Afghanistan within a decade.”

While Afghanistan’s inhospitable and rugged terrain makes conventional warfare impossible Pillalamarri also identifies tribalism as a key reason why it is impossible for Western nations to succeed.

The analyst writes instead of a unified nation the country is made up of “a plethora of tribes, many mutually hostile to each other and outsiders”.

Each tribe controls and defends its own territory and is ruled by local leaders committed to independence from outside control.

The mentality is a collective one where individual needs are subsumed by the needs of the tribe.

As argued by Karl Popper in The Open Society And Its Enemies, the reality is that unlike Western nations including the United Kingdom, America and Australia, tribal societies like those in Afghanistan can never be pacified and unified.

By their very nature, tribal societies, to use Popper’s description, are “closed”.

In addition to being insular, where allegiance is to the tribe and not to the nation, tribal societies are characterised by an unbending code of behaviour that enforces strict obedience.

Extremist Islamic groups like the Taliban enforce a rigid interpretation of sharia law – one where women’s rights are denied and how people live, conduct business and interact is severely restricted.

A theocratic form of governance is also enforced where Imams make the laws.

Tribal societies are also hierarchal and generally patriarchal where women are treated as chattels and where anyone of a different religion, race or ethnicity is ostracised and treated as an outcast or killed

While those committed to critical race theory and decolonising what is taught in the West’s schools and universities argue that there is nothing of value or worthwhile protecting about Western civilisation, events in Afghanistan provide a wakeup call.

The reason thousands of Afghans are trying to flee to Western countries is because such countries, as detailed by Popper, are characterised by “humaneness and reasonableness (and) equality and freedom”.

These characteristics differentiate tribal societies from those that are civilised.

Contrary to cultural-left ideology’s embrace of diversity and difference, where judgments are relative as there are no absolutes or objective truths, the reality is that not all cultures are equal and Western civilisation, for all its flaws, is superior to others.

Western liberal democracies like those operating in Australia, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, champion concepts like popular sovereignty, the inherent dignity of the person and a commitment to social justice and the common good.

What the American Declaration of Independence describes as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” are described as God given “unalienable rights” that governments, only in the most exceptional circumstances, have the power to interfere with or compromise.

Western nations like Australia, unlike those countries ruled as Islamic theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia, are also places where religion and the state coexist.

Jesus’ counsel to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” ensures a proper balance between religion and how society is governed.

The unique nature of Western societies like Australia can also be explained by the revolutionary nature of Christ’s teachings in the New Testament.

As argued by Larry Siedentop in The Origins of Western Liberalism, Christianity champions the belief that as we are all made in God’s image we are all equal.

The Bible states: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Christianity also teaches individuals have free will and a conscience that allows them to decide right from wrong and what is just and unjust.

Reinforced by a deeply held commitment to liberalism that places individual autonomy, freedom and justice for all above tribal allegiance there is much to celebrate and defend about living in the West.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is a Melbourne-based conservative author and commentator

Extremist Islamic groups like the Taliban enforce a rigid interpretation of sharia law