Former Navy Seal Dismantles Immorality Of Left-Wing Pacifism

In a podcast published on Tuesday, left-leaning atheist philosopher Sam Harris spoke with former Navy SEAL Jocko WIllink about the immorality of pacifism, the necessity of war, the nature of Islamist movements, anti-American cynicism in the realm of international relations, and the inability of much of the left to clearly countenance the aforementioned concepts.

Addressing the immorality of pacifism, Harris used Mahatma Gandhi’s message of universal non-violence as an example of enabling evil if applied.

“Let’s drill down on the ethical implications of pacifism,” said Harris, “From my point of view, pacifism, is simply a willingness to let others die at the pleasure of the world’s thugs. And it’s worth remember what Gandhi’s remedy was for the Holocaust. Gandhi suggested that the Jews should just have gone willingly into the gas chambers so as to arouse the conscience of the world to the enormity of Hitler’s crimes.”

“We were seeing bodies in the street. People skinned alive. People’s heads, the father of a family’s head being left on the doorstep of a home. That’s evil. And that is a real thing. Evil is a real thing, and it cannot be stopped through debate. It cannot be stopped through charity. It cannot be stopped through charity. It cannot be stopped through hugs. These truly evil people have to be stopped with violence.”

-Former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink

Such a Gandhi-esque approach can only have a chance in succeeding with an opponent or enemy in possession of sufficient conscience, such as the British Empire in the context of India’s quest for independence, concluded Harris. He then pointed out the futility of such an approach in dealing with Islamists and Islamic terrorists such as ISIS, or enemies of Western Civilization in the past such as the Nazis or Japanese Empire.

President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have both asserted that there is no military solution in defeating Islamic terrorism, and that diplomacy is always an option.

Taking on the narrative of ordinarily good Muslims being provoked into becoming mass murdering Islamic terrorists by a belligerent American foreign policy – as per Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, and Ron Paul – Harris and Willink highlighted the ideological and religious inspirational foundations of Islamism.

“Generally speaking, people think that [America’s] selfish behavior on the world stage, [its] own unapologetic theft of, or just commandeering of resources has created people with legitimate grievances all over the world, especially in the Muslim world,” prefaced Harris, explaining the perspective of many on the left, and some on the right, in framing Islamic terrorism as an inevitable response to American aggression towards and oppression of foreign societies.

President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders, and countless left-wing media, celebrity, and academic personalities have attributed the motivations of Islamic terrorists to perceptions of American aggression and statements made by Republicans like Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz.

Also blamed for driving Islamic terrorism is climate change by the aforementioned persons and groups.

Harris continued expositing on the anti-American and cynical perspectives of some of his detractors on these issues, claiming that such views were prevalent among Joe Rogan’s fan base.

“And ISIS is on some level, an expression of those legitimate grievances, and if [Americans] were better actors, if we were more apologetic, if we shared more wealth more of the time, if we just got out Muslim lands entirely,” said Harris, “Then we would discover that everyone wants the same thing out of life on some level, and this violence would no longer be directed at us. We have created [ISIS].”

“[America] is the greatest terrorist organization in world history. This is the center of [Joe Rogan’s] demographic. This is what Noam Chomsky has done to the human mind at a global scale,” quipped Harris.

Responding to criticisms of the War on Terror as incoherent given terrorism’s intangibility as a tactic, Harris and Willink concluded that ideas and ideologies can indeed be defeated through the projection of military power. Intangible concepts, they implied, exist within the minds of people who can be hurt and killed. The defeat of Nazism and Imperial Japan were used as historical examples of ideologies defeated through war.

On the barbarity of ISIS and other Islamic terrorists, Willink shared observations of treacherous tactics of terrorists he has witnessed on tour in Iraq.

“We were seeing bodies in the street. People skinned alive. People’s heads, the father of a family’s head being left on the doorstep of a home,” said Willink, “That’s evil. And that is a real thing. Evil is a real thing, and it cannot be stopped through debate. It cannot be stopped through charity. It cannot be stopped through charity. It cannot be stopped through hugs. These truly evil people have to be stopped with violence.”

Willink then shared testimony of the use of babies and children as human shields by Islamic terrorists in Iraq.

“I had my snipers kill guys that were holding kids,” said Willink, “and carrying machine guns and holding kids to protect themselves. No doubt about it. Using kids as body armor. That is another case of evil. Just pure evil.”

Listen to the entire podcast below.