…in the immortal words of Thomas Jonathan Jackson:
“Kill them all. Every last one of them.”

I’m getting real tired of this around here. Next time you’re banned. Capisce?
Allahpundit on December 11, 2006 at 1:38 PM

Okay. So Puritan1648 and I (and maybe some others as well) NEED to be slapped down once in a while. Could it be that some of us actually KNOW that our rhetoric/hyperbole is over-the-top, but we WANT the other posters to tell us so. HotAir just might be a magnet for right-wing moonbats that need to be in therapy, but that are too cheap to pay for a shrink. I have no doubt the left-wing bloggers are SURE of it — and capitalize on any over-the-top post that they can find, as one of our more sane and astute participants already pointed out to me. Now that I know that Allah and the boss take the heat for this stuff, I will try to be more careful. (Ugh. Feels like censorship.)

If it makes you all feel better, I suspect that Puritan1648 was only venting. Of course, Stonewall Jackson wasn’t. It might interest (and shock) some of you to know that that the commonly used/frequently heard rhetorical phrase of “kill them all, let God sort them out” originally came from none other than Pope Innocent III himself. No kidding. Look it up here

Actually, its more like unraveling a knitted sweater.
Do you knit? My mother did. When the young girls of the family took up the hobby, they would often come to my mother when they had a mistake they wanted fixed. If they had kept on knitting, after making the mistake, there would be a lot of work that had to be undone. Mother would start pulling on the yarn, unraveling all of the work the young girl had done, often bringing the girl to tears, even after the mistake was uncovered, repaired, and ‘good’ knitting could resume. Many of those young girls gave up the hobby.

This ‘war’ we are in, is not a war of armies, weapons technology, or logistics. Instead it is a ‘war’ of information. Not just propaganda, but information. Who is working with whom, where they are working from, and where they are getting support. In fact, it is just like a ‘war’ on organized crime families, because these terrorists have the mentality of a gangster thug.

In order to defeat them, we first have to ‘get a clue’. Those discoveries we have already made, can not be broadcast in the news media, because that would tell those thugs what we know, and perhaps even how we found out. Which also makes what the news media is doing so despicable. Once we ‘have a clue’, we start pulling on that piece of yarn, and start unraveling the organization. One clue leads to another, and another. Eventually, we have ‘actionable intelligence’. This points out a major problem. We don’t speak the local language. Then we learn that not all of our interpreters are reliable. Some are infiltrators. Those who are reliable are often murdered because they are working with us.

If you think there is some thing we can do to end this, like parachuting 50,000 airborne rangers into Baghdad tomorrow, what would they do when they got there? Stand on street corners and be targets for snipers, and suicide bombers?

How do you stop a suicide bomber? Short answer, you can’t. You have to find the recruiter, the financier, the handler, and the supplier(s) of materials. All of these people hide behind ‘plausible denial’. They have all wrapped themselves in the robes of a religious person, and claim innocent piety. (Hint, go into any prison system anywhere in the world, and ask the inmates if they are guilty. “No, I’m innocent, man, I didn’t do anything”. )

If you think I am being ‘vague’ about what we need to do, I’ll say it again. We have to identify who these thugs are, where they are located, who they are working with. This ‘war’ is also a ‘war’ of will power, and confidence.

Don’t you watch any of those crime stories on TV?

If we had proof, that a head of state had set up a covert operation to instigate murder and mayhem in Iraq, or in the United States, it would be cowardly for the President of the United States to not make that information public, and take steps to destroy that covert operation and the head of state who ordered it done. That, ultimately, will end this. When every head of state on this planets understands completely, that the United States will destroy anyone who instigates murder and mayhem on us or our allies. This, of course, requires that everyone who is a citizen of the United States agrees that we have a god given right to self defense. Citizens who take the side of our enemies, must be understood to be enemies of the United States. “You are either with us, or against us”. There is no neutrality when our enemies send car bombs into crowds of innocent civilians.

The ‘problem in Iraq, today’ while painful, and distasteful, is survivable, that is, it is lost only if we give up. The solution is long term, on two fronts; Iran and Syria, and internal to Iraq. The lever Iran has over the US is dependence on oil. If we reduce that dependence we reduce the effectiveness of that lever. In fact, reducing that dependence is vital to the survival of the US (long term) as we know it today.

Overall, the short term task we face, is the same task we have faced since Sept 11; identify the men who recruit, inspire, motivate, lead, support, organize, and train the combatants who are carrying out these attacks, world wide. Locate those insanely murderous mad men, and explain to them, in terms they understand, and accept, that their choice of tactics will not get them what they want.

And I use the word “explain” to mean convince, persuade, or demonstrate, to these mad men, that ‘it ain’t gonna work their way’. What ever it takes to ‘convince’ them, confine them if needed, or end their existence if they resist with violence.

Fixing the problems in Iraq means many things, but one thing it absolutely does not mean is giving up the fight.

rockhauler on December 11, 2006 at 5:48 PM

I get what you are saying re oil, don’t disagree. (Though if we stopped buying oil from Iran tomorrow China would suck that up in a second)But your solution for today is pretty vague–keep on doing what we’re doing and find and kill/imprison the terrorist leaders? Well the former becomes nearly impossible lacking any real Iraqi govt and I assume we are doing the latter, the problem with this type of movement is that it tends to be both decentralized and organic–brings to mind the “wack a mole” metaphor.

The Saudis have been expressing their murderous bigotry against America, their greatest benefactor, since the 1980s when they decided to use their petrodollars to export Wahhabism around the world. It was Saudi money that funded the Sep 11 attacks. It is Saudi money which helps fuel the suicide bombers in Iraq. It was Saudi money that paid for Zarqawi’s snuff videos. Now it’s Saudi money which is paying the Sunni insurgents to kill Americans. The Saudis will continue to do evil while they enjoy sanctuary in Arabia to foment their war of religious imperialism.

The solution is to sever the connection between the oil fields and the Wahhabis. The Saudi princes are that connection. That means Saudi Arabia must be destroyed and the Wahhabis sent packing back into the desert with the scorpions. Maybe we’d have a more peaceful world with a Hashemite Arabia.

What do you suggest we do to discourage the flow of resources from Iran into Iraq that is at least part of the underlying problem we face in Iraq today.

The ‘problem in Iraq, today’ while painful, and distasteful, is survivable, that is, it is lost only if we give up. The solution is long term, on two fronts; Iran and Syria, and internal to Iraq. The lever Iran has over the US is dependence on oil. If we reduce that dependence we reduce the effectiveness of that lever. In fact, reducing that dependence is vital to the survival of the US (long term) as we know it today.

Overall, the short term task we face, is the same task we have faced since Sept 11; identify the men who recruit, inspire, motivate, lead, support, organize, and train the combatants who are carrying out these attacks, world wide. Locate those insanely murderous mad men, and explain to them, in terms they understand, and accept, that their choice of tactics will not get them what they want.

And I use the word “explain” to mean convince, persuade, or demonstrate, to these mad men, that ‘it ain’t gonna work their way’. What ever it takes to ‘convince’ them, confine them if needed, or end their existence if they resist with violence.

Fixing the problems in Iraq means many things, but one thing it absolutely does not mean is giving up the fight.

I’m getting real tired of this around here. Next time you’re banned. Capisce?

Allahpundit on December 11, 2006 at 1:38 PM

Totally understandable. This is a (semi)public forum and should be treated with some respect. Having said that, as previously stated, the doomsday scenario is held by many on both sides of the isle for many reasons. The one that gets me is the nightmare scenario that seems to me to be all too likely. It goes like this:

The west has been cultivated into a collection of aging wussie countries unsure of whom they collectively are and totally disinterested in defending itself against anything as large as the world Muslim community (some DO have nukes). Instead, we all get slapped (3,000 dead in the homeland) and the world can’t help going fetal and going into group therapy when it should have come alive like WW 2. As a result the Muslim collective grows stronger, bolder, and much more aggressive. The natural question is “what will it take to wake the western world up to this (to me) is a blindingly obvious threat?” The nightmare comes in when I think that what it will take will be so heinous that the western world will be so P.O.ed that it will no longer be willing or able to differentiate between the so-called moderates and the hardliners.

I’ve heard some say that either the Muslim faith needs to undergo a reformation that will make it compatible with the modern world, or be destroyed outright, one or the other. It has been said, rightly so, that a reformation is what got us to this point in the first place, reformation in both cases being to move the faith back to it’s roots, stripping away the parts of the faith that have accumulated over the centuries and do not conform to it’s basic founding precepts. Think for a moment what destroying a faith would mean. I’m sure all of you can come up with loads of examples throughout history of extremely brutal wars, but how brutal would you have to be to eliminate a philosophy that is held by more than a billion people? Couple that with what it would take to eliminate all copies of the Quranic texts. The mind reels.

Do I think this should be done? No. The nightmare that I cannot wake from is that it will likely not be our decision to make, it will be forced upon us all.

Let me back up for one moment….this is one of those “be careful what you ask for….” situations. I’ve always said that in this modern PC world, people simply do not understand the concept of the absolutes in life. The decision being forced upon us will be just that, kill or be killed, no third option. But……the Dhimmicrats will look for someone to capitulate to, the Republicrats won’t be able to by a clue with their daddies gold card, the Europian Socailists generally will capitulate “for the greater good”, and the French will hold true to their recent history and collaborate.

This is one nightmare I will not be able to wake from or forget. God save us all.

Re: Honora poses the question, What to do about Iran?

The short answer, drill for oil.

The long answer:
The theocrats in Iran believe in a Stalinist, Socialist economic model. As a result they have high unemployment, inflation, a shortage of consumer goods, and a black market. They also complain about ‘corruption’ in government, but this might be simple politics where one group accuses the other group of ‘corruption’ so those guys can be removed from office, and other guys installed.

If the US were to permit drilling for oil within US territories, this would reduce our trade deficit, bring more crude to the market place, reduce the price of crude, and reduce the price of refined products. The falling price for crude oil, a major export from Iran, would tip their teetering economy into collapse. The theocrats in Iran would be too busy with food riots in the streets of Tehran to interfere in Iraq, or Lebanon.

If the US was prepared to help the people of Iran, following a collapse of their government, we might well see a return to sanity in the middle east.

Thus, one can understand the frustration felt by so many in the US over the leftist rejection of any sensible energy policy.

Since the ‘huffing and puffing’ of the leftist idealist is so easily predicted, let me point out that increased crude oil production does not preclude continuing exploration for alternative energy solutions, other than the simple fact that even at current ($60+) oil prices, alternative energy solutions are not cost effective.

rockhauler on December 11, 2006 at 3:54 PM

Thank you for an answer. My issue with it is that it’s a long term solution. What do you suggest we do to discourage the flow of resoures from Iran into Iraq that is at least part of the underlying problem we face in Iraq today.

The short answer, drill for oil.

The long answer:
The theocrats in Iran believe in a Stalinist, Socialist economic model. As a result they have high unemployment, inflation, a shortage of consumer goods, and a black market. They also complain about ‘corruption’ in government, but this might be simple politics where one group accuses the other group of ‘corruption’ so those guys can be removed from office, and other guys installed.

If the US were to permit drilling for oil within US territories, this would reduce our trade deficit, bring more crude to the market place, reduce the price of crude, and reduce the price of refined products. The falling price for crude oil, a major export from Iran, would tip their teetering economy into collapse. The theocrats in Iran would be too busy with food riots in the streets of Tehran to interfere in Iraq, or Lebanon.

If the US was prepared to help the people of Iran, following a collapse of their government, we might well see a return to sanity in the middle east.

Thus, one can understand the frustration felt by so many in the US over the leftist rejection of any sensible energy policy.

Since the ‘huffing and puffing’ of the leftist idealist is so easily predicted, let me point out that increased crude oil production does not preclude continuing exploration for alternative energy solutions, other than the simple fact that even at current ($60+) oil prices, alternative energy solutions are not cost effective.

I’m gone.

Anonymous posters on the internet are given to extreme statements that, if confronted, many would back away from, because they are just venting, they wouldn’t seriously nuke mecca if they were made president for a day.

It’s never that anonymous. You show me a pissed off geek, and I’ll show you someone who can track back your IP address to your home address in an hour, steal your credit card information from your trash can, and ruin your credit report inside a week.

I’m getting real tired of this around here. Next time you’re banned. Capisce?

Allahpundit on December 11, 2006 at 1:38 PM

I can’t say we’ve had a history of this around here… but Allah has said that he and Michelle take the heat for it when we “emotionally vent” in that manner.

I know would be sick of getting my nose tweaked every time one of us said something stupid or “vented emotionally”.

So while it may not of been the most diplomatic thing Allah’s done in a while. It is a reminder to keep it within the “community standards” as set forth by he and the boss.

Anonymous posters on the internet are given to extreme statements that, if confronted, many would back away from, because they are just venting, they wouldn’t seriously nuke mecca if they were made president for a day.

Then they are fools. Anonymnity is no excuse for irresponsible speech.

It’s as plain as the nose on your face. It’s scorched earth or putting the brakes on capitalist aggression. Got that?

Next case.

Way to distort what I was saying. Those are obviously not the only choices, those just happen to be outlooks that many people take when venting emotionally on the subject. The reason I mentioned ‘capitalist aggression’ is that that is an alternative that that liberals have which is why you don’t see them saying ‘nuke mecca’ as often as conservatives when emotionally venting on this issue.

Anonymous posters on the internet are given to extreme statements that, if confronted, many would back away from, because they are just venting, they wouldn’t seriously nuke mecca if they were made president for a day. Similarly, as much as liberals talk about how evil Bush is, most of them wouldn’t kill him if they had the chance. Punch him in the face as hard as they could? Yes I could see many of them doing that, once again because it would be a means for them to vent all this pent up emotion and anger they have.

The Kurds are doing great. If nothing else, we can at least take pride in the fact that we saved the Kurds from Saddam, and they are being mature enough to move on and develop both politically and economically. The Kurds are a success story. Read Totten’s posts about visiting Iraqi Kurdistan.

Most Shiite areas are peaceful. The Sunni areas generally aren’t but why? Because we threw THEM out of power and they are fighting back to recapture that power. They’ve been doing this for years now, since shortly after the shock of us wiping the floor with them in the initial invasion.

and now the ‘bad’ news…

We wanted the Iraqis to handle their own security right? WELL BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. The Iraqis ARE handling security, and part of how they handle it is to lay the smack down on the Sunnis. Most Iraqis are Shiites, so it figures that the shiites are policing the sunnis, and that all this conflict is an outgrowth of that. We have Kurd units that do very well, and some shiite units too, but then there are also less disciplined shiites who want to fight old school like how Saddam did and eveyone else did in the old days before people gave a sh*t about the geneva conventions and all that.

What is the worst that could happen? A civil war? Well… maybe. The sunnis aren’t going to be able to do more than they’re doing now. Even if the Saudis equip and fund them. The shiites are simply too powerful, too well organized, and too mobilized now to be stopped vis a vis the Sunnis. The sunnis don’t know this, and think they are superior to the shiites, kindof like the how the whites used to be in south africa. The difference is, of course, that the shiites have had years to mobilize themselves economically, politically, and militarily, so they will wipe the floor with the Sunnis if it came to that. The sunnis don’t have saddam’s fedayeen and republican guard protecting them anymore, and their terrorist tactics might work to get America to leave, but will NOT work against a Shiite offensive. If the aggressors are willing to fight dirty, insurgencies invariably are crushed at great loss of life to the insurgents’ side.

So let’s say this all happens. Let’s say things get ugly and the Shiites take over and subjugate the Sunnis, then the Shiites proceed to run a democracy on their terms. Is this a defeat for America? I think not.

(1) Iraq will be a democracy. It won’t be pretty, it wasn’t what was promised on the neocon brochure, but America’s primary objective will have been accomplished.

(2) A major US enemy, Saddam Hussein, will have been defeated. Not only that, but his entire support base will ahve been crushed and subjugated by those whom they previously repressed. This will have accomplished the goal of deterring enemies of the US from seeking WMD, EXCEPT that the media will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, spin this as a defeat of US interests, and embolden US enemies. However, the facts on the ground at the end of the day will be that the US kicked a*s, took names, and pulled off regime change in a way that ended up completely screwing over the former elites. This reality won’t be lost on other nations where elites repress others. These enemies will see that, at the end of the day, the sunnis lost. America didn’t kill them, their own countrymen did. These countries should not fear America, but SHOULD fear that America will create a situation wherein their domestic enemies will be able to turn the tables on them.

(3) WMD. Iraq won’t have any. A major future proliferation risk was eliminated.

(4) Human rights? Well it will be better than under Saddam, though not by much in the near term. 10 years from now? Well, a democracy being what it is, human rights will follow to some degree. Don’t think Iraq will look like the West, but maybe something like Turkey.

I might be playing myself to be an optimist, a euphemism I detest, but I have faith that there is a solution out there that both the US and the Iraqi people can live with.

…

The Kurds seem fairly reasonable.

Make that… the Kurds seem fairly reasonable for Iraq…

It’s a trick question because if you look at the politics, it’s neither but if you look at the people, it’s some of both.

Buzzy on December 11, 2006 at 2:40 PM

The Kurds seem fairly reasonable. And just because you aren’t backing the militias doesn’t mean that you aren’t backing the people.