Defeatism and retaliation CNN: Soldiers unrecognizable, bodies booby-trapped (Update: Photo of dead jihadi added) Iraqi: U.S. bodies showed signs of torture Terrorist group says man who succeeded Zarqawi killed the 2 soldiers –Associated Press  …

I don’t think islame will EVER reform. If it did it wouldn’t be islam.

If it don’t, it won’t be Islam either. The world is moving on, they are going to have to adapt or die as a religion, it seems to me. I think some form of moderate Islam will develop, but who knows?

I don’t think islame will EVER reform. If it did it wouldn’t be islam.

Duty, Honor, Country
(in THAT order)
Rowane

I think many of us wish we could fight this war … like its actually a war, rather than a third-rate police action with tactics influeced by politics. We tried that once, remember?

By most definitions the war is over in Iraq, what we are trying to establish is a political base for the Iraqis to police themselves, so it is impossible not to consider political influences. Indiscriminate bombing accomplishes nothing.

Yes, democracy is a good thing (or can be) but we need to be prepared if it is not our “flavor” of democracy. make sense? there is a very real possibility that democracy in the islamic world could usher in fundamentalism and sharia law.

I expect so initially, but strict sharia law is fundamentally undemocratic, I think after some growing pains Islam will reform into something more in tune with the rest of the world. There are enough variations of Islam already out there to make me believe it is not as rigid as some profess.

By not reaching out to the moderates and actually, the children, we will have real problems with fundamentalist islam well into the next generation.

That is the real key, the reason it is so important to be seen as the good guys, is if we can impress and befriend the children over there, and hold off the quitters over here, we have won.

One less Islamist pig sent to hell…

If I find the link I will post it.

There are two real problems as I see it: (The problem with Islam is a longer and more intractable problem that must be challenged with ideas and more, and braver, ridicule of Islamic taboos than we have shown in the face of publishing the Mohammed cartoons.)

1. Our unwillingness to take casualties in this conflict, and do the other things such as articulate and defend to the “world community” why it’s acceptable to imprison jihadists at Guantanamo bay. In WWII the press helped us take those casualties/steps. Since Vietnam, the press has made it more difficult for those responsible do the same. But not impossible…

2. Our misunderstanding of the target audience: The wider Muslim world. We must do & say many things on many fronts to move the ball forward. First: the jailing of jihadi fighters is an affront to Islam, no matter how safe the conditions are. We must be ready to meet that grievance with the right kind of action & talk. So IMO the conditions at Gitmo need to be made more, not less, severe: put them to work breaking rocks. Second: we must not continue to remain silent, or use “War on Terror” terminology, to explain what we’re doing. So, you’re outraged that kufrs are caging lawful halal jihadis like animals? Tough. Here’s what happens to you when you wage jihad against the dar al-harb.

That misunderstanding includes the implacable nature of much of the native population in Iraq. Nothing we do will ever be good enough, no amount of money sufficient, to earn their goodwill in the Western sense of the word. Islam demands its followers to dismiss all charity and goodwill from infidels as their just due, and to always demand more; to show genuine gratitude is to show weakness. Though we will see gratitude on an individual basis, the kind of “collevtive” gratitude needed to form a working bond between nations will not be forthcoming until we do something to change the mindset. This is a cultural imperative even among those who are not consciously basing their attitude on Islam.

Instead of trying to earn their goodwill, or tolerating their nascent Islamic republic (where intimidation of street vendors has gone largely unpunished and unchallenged by the Iraqi “street”) we need to go the other way, insist on banning Islam from the secular constitution that vigorously defends the autonomy and freedom of non-Muslims as a precondition of our support, stop subsidizing any myths of Islamic superiority, and evangelize a viable alternative. That is not happening now. It does not happen “implicitly” through the spending of a lot of time & resources on a Muslim population without reciprocal demands to wise up; all it does is feed the appetite for jizya, which we’re currently feeding in Egypt.

Anyhow: such an approach is not easy to follow and my outline is far from complete, but I belive it holds more promise than the approach we’re following right now, which is to try & cultivate the “gratitude” of the locals by indulging them at our own peril and expense.

They want an Islamic constitution? Fine, but no more free money (where’s your oil revenue?). We help bring more oil online – and station troops to defend the distribution network – and that’s it. And extract our repayment. We may have to return a few years down the road to fight another war against you, and we wouldn’t want to feel guilty about the about-face… ;-)

Where I differ from the nuke-em-now response is that, at the very least, we owe it to them to communicate a much tougher bottom line first. Saying next to nothing now, and inviting the kind of behavior that requires a “nuclear” response down the line, is just irresponsible on our part.

But we are America and we (almost) always do the right thing.

Exactly. And the sad truth is that sometimes being the good guy just plain sucks.

While we “torture” them with air conditioning and lemon chicken on Tuesdays and free Korans, they mutilate and execute – and much of the world and the media and the liberal left will condemn us and ignore them.

We are the good guys – and this is what happens to good guys in our modern world. Only through the backward lens of history will we get the credit we deserve.

This is how we fight and this is how we will win. But if we were to carpetbomb cities, all of our new allies would turn against us and all those brave Soldiers who died will have done so in vein.

By turning dictatorships in the M.E. into free countries we are safeguarding America’s future generations. Yes, we pay the price today in blood and treasure, but we must win today to protect our children and grandchildren from the horrors of islam.

Either we liberate the peoples of the M.E. or the terrorists from that part of the world will islamize us. We’re not gonna let that happen. Our choices (to prevent our islamitization) are either do what we’re doing now, or to nuke the entire muslim world and wipe out all of our potential friends along with the enemy. Yes, I do know the history of islam and how it spread. Yes we have potential enemies within our allies. Yes, we could end the war in one day by destroying them all. But we are America and we (almost) always do the right thing.

I’m glad I left this thread when I was angry – because I might now apparently be banned.

It’s unfortunate that happened to a few posters, and this whole “Dresden” argument is equally unfortunate.

For the record, nobody – and I mean nobody – actually means that rhetoric. I know they say they do. I’m sure they FEEL that angry. They probably even think they mean it.

But they don’t. They’re angry and hurt by what happened to those young men. I don’t blame them.

But be patient with the anger, would you? It’s emotion. That’s all. We understand the Iraqis are our allies, and when the thought “nuke the bastards” scrolled across my brainpan yesterday, I knew I didn’t really mean it. But I felt it.

Let’s try to think, folks. And when some of us stop thinking and let emotion reign free … have a little patience for those people. Perhaps a temporary ban rather than a permanent one? A bucket of cold water on the head? The anonymous nature of the Internet sometimes lets us speak before our brains can be engaged. A little time out is a good thing.

The bottom line: nobody really wants to carpet bomb Baghdad. But then again … I think many of us wish we could fight this war … like its actually a war, rather than a third-rate police action with tactics influeced by politics. We tried that once, remember?

——————————

By the way, speaking of Dresden, a lot of you need a history review on the subject. Wikipedia has a very good article on it (one of the few good articles I’ve seen there). The gist is that 1) we didn’t do anything in Dresden we didn’t do elsewhere (in fact, we dropped less ordinance on Dresden than on many other cities), 2) weather conditions (the most important factor), refugee movements, and German lack of preparation are what led to an unusually high death rate, and 3) there were plenty of factories in Dresden and a critical railway and communications junction.

Still plenty of room for debate on that one (on some other thread, of course). But get the basics right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

That’s very good news, Allah. The howlers are just so draining. Thank you.

Patterico sez:

Have any of you met Omar and Mohammed, the folks who run Iraq the Model?

Well, I have. They are inspirational people, fighting for freedom in a land that has known far too little of it, for far too long.

The actions you advocate could kill them. Indeed, you suggest *targeting* people exactly like them.

Amen. They are our allies. They are our friends. They are of the Iraqis that have the power to rip that corner of the world out of the 7th century and thrust it into the 21st. They and theirs are bleeding and have bled. They are the ones that have heard the call of liberty and answered it. They see the evil and recognize it. They don’t want it in their country. They are a majority of Iraqis.

Now then, let’s kill all of the bad guys, shall we?

The “insurgents” used similar tactics, including the mutilating of captured British soldiers, ambushes, and so on. The Brits responded with air power, destroying entire villages by bombing and machine gun straffing, and brutal infantry/armored car assaults. Churchill, then Secretary of State for War in Whitehall, even advocated the use of poison gas against the insurgents, though it appears that they were never used.

The “Great Rebellion” was put down in 4 months at the cost of 6,000 dead Iraqis and 500 British/Indian troops.

Unlike the Brits, who intended to rule Iraq and Transjordan under their League of Nations mandate, our presence is intended to support and advance a democratic government in Iraq that will become the cornerstone and an alliance that will doom the Islamofascists.

So, unlike the 1920 Brits, we won’t turn Yusifiyah into series of connected large craters created by overlapping “daisycutters.”

We will show restraint.

We will choke back our tears, and swallow our anger and our pain, and even our hatred, and carry on — hunting down the terrorists and either arresting them or killing them as it happens, individually, while limiting collateral damage to the innocent.

This is the right thing to do, though our heart yearns for showing them no mercy, no consideration; not on the battlefleld nor in Gitmo.

And, the Fifth Column MSM and the liberals/Democrats will STILL continue to loudly screech that “Abu Gharib” and “Gitmo” and “Haditha” are major war crimes against humanity and “abuses” under the Geneva and Hague Conventions that warrant prosecution of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, while at the same time, completely ignoring or absolving Al Qaeda of clear and rank violations of the Laws of War, as they brutally torture and murder our captured soldiers and murder the innocent men, women, and children in Iraq.

No matter what nonsense the traitorous left bleat at dailykos, we really are on the side of the angels.

Let’s not forget that.

and some of the rest of you ought to be ashamed of your tepid response to these idiot armchair genocidists.

You know what? It was a poor choice of words and I shouldn’t have tried to end the argument with a glib comment, just because I was tired of arguing about something so insanely stupid.
You’re right. I was being a sissy.

Wretchard of Belmont Club wrote an essay title “The Three Conjectures” in 2003 at http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003/09/three-conjectures-pew-poll-finds-40-of.html

Conjecture 1 is that terrorism has lowered the nuclear threshold, and a suspicion of the existance of a nuke in terrorist hands could result in a US preemptive strike using nukes.

But it gets worse than this. Much, much, worse.

Conjecture 2 is that attaining WMDs will destroy Islam.

Wretchard writes:

“This fixity of malice was recognized in President Bush’s West Point address in the summer of 2002, when he concluded that “deterrence — the promise of massive retaliation against nations — means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend.” The enemy was equally indifferent to inducement or threat. Neither making nice — Jimmy Carter’s withdrawal from Iran, Reagan’s abandonment of Lebanon, Bush’s defense of Saudi Arabia, Clinton’s rescue of Albanian Muslims from Serbian genocide, the payment of billions in aid to Egypt and Pakistan — nor the gravest of threats would alter the enemy’s intent to utterly destroy and enslave America. Allah had condemned America. The Faithful only had to find the means to carry out the execution.

Because capability is the sole variable of interest in the war against terrorism, the greater the Islamic strike capability becomes, the stronger the response will be….

…Consider a case where Islamic terrorists obliterate a city, causing five times the deaths at Hiroshima and an American limited response.

Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1 – 5 x 10^5 -2 x 10^6
Total – 5 x 10^5 -2 x 10^6

In a war between nations, the conflict might stop at this point. But since there is no one with whom to negotiate a peace and no inclination to stop anyhow, the Islamic terrorists will continue while they have the capability and the cycle of destruction continues.

Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1 – 5 x 10^5 -2 x 10^6
2 – 1 x 10^6 -5 x 10^6
3 – 5 x 10^6 -1.5 x 10^7
4 – 8 x 10^6 -3.0 x 10^7
5 – 1.5 x 10^7 -5.0 x 10^7
Total – 2.95 x 10^7 -10.2 x 10^7

At this point, a United States choked with corpses could still not negotiate an end to hostilities or deter further attacks. There would be no one to call on the Red Telephone, even to surrender to. In fact, there exists no competent Islamic authority, no supreme imam who could stop a jihad on behalf of the whole Muslim world. Even if the terror chiefs could somehow be contacted in this apocalyptic scenario and persuaded to bury the hatchet, the lack of command and control imposed by the cell structure would prevent them from reining in their minions. Due to the fixity of intent, attacks would continue for as long as capability remained. Under these circumstances, any American government would eventually be compelled by public desperation to finish the exchange by entering -1 x 10^9 in the final right hand column: total retaliatory extermination.
Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1 – 5 x 10^5 -2 x 10^6
2 – 1 x 10^6 -5 x 10^6
3 – 5 x 10^6 -1.5 x 10^7
4 – 8 x 10^6 -3.0 x 10^7
5 – 1.5 x 10^7 -5.0 x 10^7
6 0 -8.93 x 10^8
Total – 2.95 x 10^7 -1 x 10^9

The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the ‘rational’ American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset.

Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1 – 5 x 10^5 -1 x 10^9
Total – 5 x 10^5 -1 x 10^9 ”

[Emphasis and bold, mine]

So, yes, given that Islamofascism is NOT a state, the result might very well be the death of every muslim on the planet, if the Islamofascists obtain nuclear weapons.

And this is a horror that must not be allowed to happen.

Wretchard’s 3rd conjecture is: “The War on Terror is the ‘Golden Hour’ — the final chance”

He writes: “It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat. While American arms have proven irresistible, much of Europe, as well as moderates in the Islamic world, remain blind to the danger and indeed increase it. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad recently “told an international conference of young Muslim leaders … (that) … Muslims must acquire skills and technology so they can create modern weapons and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies”. Fecklessness and gunpowder are a lethal combination. The terrible ifs accumulate.”

The liberals and the Democrats absolutely refuse to see the danger of “cut and run” as it affects the long term picture of what might come about if we lose the war against the Islamofascists.

I believe that if the Democrats take control of the government (or even one house of Congress), and if they follow through in their surrender plan in Iraq or block the war in Iraq through parliamentary processes, then a day may come when America will have to do a very terrible deed — out of pure self defense.

Or we sit and watch the human race die, in obedience to the liberal’s orders….