In The Art of War, Sun Tzu tells a story of a besieged city that sent spies into the enemy camp to spread disinformation. The spies first told the enemy commanders that cutting off the noses of prisoners of war would destroy the morale of the city. The enemy commanders did so, and instead of destroying the morale of the people within the city, they resolved to not surrender lest they too share that fate.

Then the spies told the enemy commanders that if they dug up and desecrated the graves of the city’s dead, which lay outside the city walls, the city’s defenders would lose heart. The enemy commanders did so, and the city’s defenders became so enraged that they yearned to spill their enemy’s blood.

This is what the city’s ruler had wanted. His strategem of using the enemy’s own pride to double and triple the resolve of the city’s defenders had worked. His men were now ready to become the conquerors rather than the conquered.

He had one last trick up his sleeve. He ordered all the old and sick men, and women, to man the city’s defenses. Then he gave the able-bodied men plenty of food, and he ordered them to remain out of sight behind the weak and females. He gathered a huge amount of silver and sent it with an offer of surrender to the enemy camp.

Predictably, the enemy’s pride again got the better of him. The enemy camp relaxed, rejoiced, and were utterly unprepared when the 5,000 finest warriors within the city rushed out at them with 1,000 sword-laden, dragon-festooned, enraged oxen before them.

Ever since America and the postmodern West began its now decades-long struggle with radical Islamists, this story has stuck out in my mind. At the same time that the postmodern West has engaged in a death match with an overly aggressive, masculine, hubris-filled enemy, the postmodern West has weakened itself by becoming the very thing that the Islamist enemy scorns.

Islam puts women very far down the pecking order. The postmodern West has elevated women to positions of supreme power — e.g., our near-miss with a President Hillary Clinton.

Islam values actual physical and financial strength. The postmodern West values moral victories and derides physical, financial, and other tangible markers of strength.

Islam laughs at homosexuals and other perverts. The postmodern West honors them.

Through the lens of the above story, it should be clear that whoever has been telling the postmodern West to do the very things that will embolden and enrage its Islamist enemies, is no friend to the West.

President Donald Trump announced July 26 that the U.S. military will not include troops in the image of RuPaul and Bruce Caitlyn Jenner. While the postmodern liberal rats destroying our civilization have done nothing but deride the move, Trump’s decision can have but one effect on the Islamists bent on bringing down our civilization:

Instilling a renewed sense of respect and fear for the United States.