The war on terrorism

[bignaf]

our times are like the crusades, but the other way around.
at the time, the fundametalist dark-age christians started a war with the more advanced and elghitened muslims. the muslim won, but as a result of the violence they engaged in returned to the more militant stance of their early years. they also startedslipping backwards technologically.

nowadays the roles are reversed. will the Western world become more barbaric as a result of these wars? probably.

[OperaTenor]

Journalists need to learn discretion. So do those who brief them.

the Journalists won't, so those who brief them should. it's all these anonymous sources.

So, what do you propose be done about them?

[BigJon@Work]

Death penalty, as I suggested in the Katrina thread?

[OperaTenor]

Death penalty, as I suggested in the Katrina thread?

Karl Rove gets the death penalty?

[GreatCarouser]

Neil George

"The best way to control terrorists is to do what we’ve been avoiding: Identify the real threats to our safety and security, then go after them directly. So far, the bulk of our security resources at the FAA and TSA continue to go toward widespread screening of all passengers, including nice, little old ladies, babies and regular, law-abiding citizens."


Interested readers will find links to more of Mr. George's terror stuff.

[jamiebk]

[quote="bignaf No one thinks they can eradicate radical Islam. that is not the objective. the objective is to render it impotent.[/quote]

And again, that (rendering them impotent) will not happen unless Islam itself becomes the catalyst for change and gains control of their "juveniles", as Analog referred to them (radical Islam)

[bignaf]

Journalists need to learn discretion. So do those who brief them.

the Journalists won't, so those who brief them should. it's all these anonymous sources.

So, what do you propose be done about them?

are there any anonymous sources in Iran? no.
why not?

[bignaf]

[quote="bignaf No one thinks they can eradicate radical Islam. that is not the objective. the objective is to render it impotent.

And again, that (rendering them impotent) will not happen unless Islam itself becomes the catalyst for change and gains control of their "juveniles", as Analog referred to them (radical Islam)[/quote]
not really. killing lots of them will make them much weaker. there will be new ones, but killing the most immediate threats will ensure out safety. also not allow them to transport weapons between the sources (Iran) and the terror destinations.

[OperaTenor]

Journalists need to learn discretion. So do those who brief them.

the Journalists won't, so those who brief them should. it's all these anonymous sources.

So, what do you propose be done about them?

are there any anonymous sources in Iran? no.
why not?

Indeed. Why not?

Now we hold Iran up as a sociopolitical model?!

[jamiebk]

[quote="bignaf No one thinks they can eradicate radical Islam. that is not the objective. the objective is to render it impotent.

And again, that (rendering them impotent) will not happen unless Islam itself becomes the catalyst for change and gains control of their "juveniles", as Analog referred to them (radical Islam)

not really. killing lots of them will make them much weaker. there will be new ones, but killing the most immediate threats will ensure out safety. also not allow them to transport weapons between the sources (Iran) and the terror destinations.[/quote]

Great solution Bignaf...we kill lots of them, they kill lots of us. Where does it stop? Unfortunately, unless the force is so completely overwhelming that the enemy is totally annihilated, war only hardens the resolve...and creates the fuel for even more hatred. So far, the US seems to be the one that's impotent in dealing with these guerrilla tactics. Half the time we do not even know at whom we are shooting.

[OperaTenor]

Starting to sound like Armageddon talk...

[analog]

I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you'll feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.

leonard cohen, 'the future'

http://www.anxietycenter.com/islam/truebeliever.htm :
"The 21st century has inherited all the leftover problems of the 20th and added a new one, the Islamic holy war. The United States of America has emerged from the last century as the lone superpower, but it can only remain one if it is willing to assert that power. Half measures do nothing but prolong problems."

I'd love a world free of military superpowers.
Alas, we're just not there yet.

[Haggis@wk]

OT,

” Starting to sound like Armageddon talk...”

Are you sure it isn’t? The word Armageddon is thought to be derived from the Hebrew words “Har Megido”, meaning "Hill of Megiddo". The referred site is a valley plain called Megiddo in Israel.

Recall the speech of the President of Iran referring to Israel

l“Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement’

Couple that with his soon to be realized goal of becoming a nuclear power and maybe we do have the beginnings of Armageddon

Re: my use of the word "fascism" to describe the type of radical Islam we are fighting.

I deliberately considered and used the word “fascism” to denote what I think is the driving force behind radical Islam. “Clerical fascism” is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition. The term has been used to describe organisations and movements that combine religious elements with fascism, support by religious organisations for fascism, or fascist regimes in which clergy play a leading role. Since the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan there are no more nations that are ruled by clerical fascism although I could make a good argument that Iran is one in fact if not in name.

"I dunno, Jamie ... It seems the Japanese no longer regard their emperor as a diety. Of course General Macarthur had the sense to let it come about gradually. "

Forcing the Emperor to go on the radio and announce to the Japanese he wasn't a god didn't seem so gradual to me.

OT,
I challenge your assertion that the war in Iraq somehow weakened our effort in the war against terrorism or that that war and the war in Iraq isn’t part of the same war.

Simple point; before we went into Iraq, there were terror attacks and planned terror attacks, mainly aimed at us but also aimed at others, on average almost every 18 months throughout most of the 1990’s

World Trade Center 1993
(The attempted) Bojinka Operation of 1995.
Khobar Towers 1996
Nairobi 1998
East Timor 1999
USS COLE 2000
Then…

New York City 9/11/01
New York City 9/11/01
Washington, DC 9/11/01
Bali 2002

And remember the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, during which Abu Abbas murdered wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer then took refuge in Iraq.

Or the 1983 Bombing of American troops, in their barracks, in Beirut.
And, in my opinion, the seminal event that convinced our enemies that we would never respond regardless of the provocation; the taking of American hostages, in 1979, held for 444 days.

I haven't seen one sucessful terrorist attack on the U.S. since 9/11. I don't think that fact and the war in Iraq are unrelated.

jamiebk,

” Unfortunately, unless the force is so completely overwhelming that the enemy is totally annihilated, war only hardens the resolve...and creates the fuel for even more hatred.”

Sorry, that’s just nonsense. If your premise were correct we’d still be fighting the Civil War not to mention the previous World Wars.

As I said, wars are won when one side kills enough of the other side. Go back and read the quote from Londonistan. We haven't even begun to fight the war with the strengths available, we're reluctant to do so. But there will come a day when we will.

As for the “create the fuel for even more hatred” meme that’s been hung out to dry as well, consider the following:


April 1986. An explosion at a nightclub in Berlin popular with American service personnel kills three and injures 191. Two of the dead and 41 of the wounded are service personnel. The Libyan government is held responsible.

5 September 1986. Abu Nidal terrorists hijack a Karachi/Frankfurt Pan Am flight, and divert it to Cypress, demanding the freedom for three convicted murderers in exchange for the lives of the passengers. They eventually kill 22 of them, including two Americans.

9 September-21 October 1986: Three American citizens, two of them associated with the American University in Beirut are kidnapped. Two of them are held for 5 years by Hisbollah.

20 October 1987. An Air Force NCO and a retiree are murdered just outside Clark AB, in the Philippines. (I was one of the investigators, the crime was by Philippino Muslims)

27 December 87. An American civilian employee is killed in the bombing of the USO Club in Barcelona, Spain.

17 February 1988: Colonel William Higgins, USMC, while serving as part of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization in Lebanon, was abducted by Hisbollah. The US refused to negotiate, and Colonel Higgins was excecuted.

21 December 1988. Pan American Flight 103, from Frankfurt to New York, was blown up over Scotland by agents of the government of Libya. Most of the 259 passengers are Americans. Another 11 people are killed on the ground.

21 April- 26 September 1989. An American army officer is assassinated in Manila, and two military retirees are murdered just outside the gates of Clark AB, the Philippines.(ditto, above)

13 May 1990. Two young enlisted men are found murdered, outside Clark AB, the Philippines. (ditto, above)

7-18 February 1991: Members of a far-leftist Turkish group kill an American civilian contractor at Incirlik AB, and wound an Air Force officer at his home in Izmir.

28 October 1991. An American soldier is killed, and his wife wound by a car bomb at a joint Turkish-American base in Ankara. The Turkish Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

October 28, 1991, Ankara, Turkey. Victor Marwick, an American soldier serving at the Turkish-American base, Tuslog, was killed and his wife wounded in a car bomb attack. Two more car bombs in Istanbul kill an Air Force NCO, and an Egyptian diplomat. The Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attacks.

5 July 1992. In a series of incidents in southeastern Turkey, the Kurdish PKK kidnaps 19 Western tourists, including one American. They are all eventually released unharmed.

26 February 1993. A bomb in a café in downtown Cairo kills three. Two Americans are among the injured.

8 March 1995 Two gunmen armed with AK-47s open fire on a van belonging to the US Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. Two embassy staffers are killed, one injured.

4 July 1995. A Kashmiri militant group takes six tourists, including two Americans hostage, demanding the release of Muslim militants held in Indian prisions. One of the Americans escapes, and the militants execute a Norwegian hostage. Both the American and Indian governments refuse to deal. It is assumed the rest of the hostages were killed in 1996 by their captors.

13 November 1995. A car bomb in the parking lot of a building that houses a US military advisory group in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills seven person, five of them American citizens.

25 June 1996. An explosive-laden fuel truck explodes outside the Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 American military personnel are killed, and 515 persons are injured. A group identified as the Saudi Hizbollah is held responsible.

12 November 1997. Four American employees of an oil company and their Pakistani driver are murdered by two unidentified gunmen, as they leave the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi, Pakistan.
.
7 August 1998. Car bombs explode at the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and at the US Embassy in Dar es Sala’am, Tanzania. 292 are killed in Nairobi, including 12 Americans and injured over 5,000. The Dar es Sala’am explosion kills 11 and injures 86. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network claims responsibility.

28 December 1998. Sixteen tourists, including two Americans are kidnapped in Yemen. One hostage and a Yemeni guide escaped, and four hostages were later killed when local authorities closed in.

12 October 2000. A small boat laden with explosives rammed the USS Cole. The explosion kills 13 sailors and injures 33.

See a theme here? There was more than enough hatred of us to go around long before we did anything “to make them hate us” It just that we chose to either ignore it or pretend it was a law enforcement issue and not what it was, all small battles in a war centuries old.

[Haggis@wk]

Michael Barrone

Says it better than I can

” In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. ***

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.

[T]he default assumption of our covert enemies is that in any conflict between the West and the Rest, the West is wrong. That assumption can be rebutted by overwhelming fact: Few argued for the Taliban after Sept. 11. But in our continuing struggles, our covert enemies portray our work in Iraq through the lens of Abu Ghraib and consider Israel's self-defense against Hezbollah as the oppression of virtuous victims by evil men. In World War II, our elites understood that we were the forces of good and that victory was essential. Today, many of our elites subject our military and intelligence actions to fine-tooth-comb analysis and find that they are morally repugnant.

We have always had our covert enemies, but their numbers were few until the 1960s. *** They have propagated their ideas through the universities, the schools and mainstream media to the point that they are the default assumptions of millions. Our covert enemies don't want the Islamo-fascists to win. But in some corner of their hearts, they would like us to lose.”

[Shapley]

Richard Cohen

Apparently, Richard Cohen thinks the Jews should have stayed in Europe, where they were loved, instead of trying to forge a homeland on Arab soil. It's not like they have any historic ties to the region, or anything like that....

V/R
Shapley

[piqaboo]

"loved" ? :arched eyebrow:

[Shapley]

I've not understood Richard Cohen for some time now. I think he is In-Cohen-herent.

He says the establishment of Israel was a mistake. It was established on land that was 'first' a colony of the Turks. I believe it was a colony of Rome before that, but I could be mistaken. I also think it was a kingdom before that, although I can't quite remember the name of the group that dwelt in that kingdom...

V/R
Shapley

[jamiebk]

I found it absolutely remarkable that even GWB himself admitted in his news conference of yesterday that there was no connection between Al qaeda and Iraq... So, now we have managed to ignite a total inferno for what reason?

[GreatCarouser]

I found it absolutely remarkable that even GWB himself admitted in his news conference of yesterday that there was no connection between Al qaeda and Iraq... So, now we have managed to ignite a total inferno for what reason?

I find no reference to any such remark other than certain 'satirical' websites. Would/Could you quote your source, please, jamiebk?

[Shapley]

GC,

Thanks. I've been Googling since I saw that post, and I find no reference to it, either.

I did find a 'blog' that is about two years old which makes that claim. However, they claim the President denies a connection between Iraq and al Qeada, when the question posed to him was whether or not there was a connection between Iraq and 'the men who attacked us on 9/11".

V/R
Shapley