Monday, July 11, 2005

Two Points of View

Two points of view on the London attacks are put forward by Michael Ledeen and the blog In a State of Flux. State of Flux analyzes the modus operandi and possible actions of the tube attackers in considerable detail. Michael Ledeen urges his readers to avoid being hypnotized by minutiae and focus on the larger picture. He argues that the fixation on Iraq and whether or not OIF has "made us safer" or "made us targets" has obscured the relevant question.

... I’m afraid that those who are doing it are looking too hard at a single event, and not hard enough at the overall situation. Policemen are being beheaded in Thailand, Christian missionaries are kidnapped in the Philippines, some of our finest fighting men are being killed in Afghanistan, and bombs are going off again in Turkey. Indeed, it would be most surprising if the terror masters were cutting back on their jihad, at a time when rising oil prices are pumping vast sums of money into their war chests. The mullahs and the Assads are rotten with cash, and a lot of it is going into the war against us. The theory that our splendid military performance in Iraq has shrunken the pool of terrorists available for operations in the West doesn’t convince me, in large part because we know from their past performances that the terrorists set up these actions years in advance. ...

Unfortunately, the overall situation remains very dicey, precisely because our focus is too narrow. By concentrating compulsively on Iraq, we are failing to take the battle to the enemy, who finds haven, money, weapons, training and intelligence in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran.

Without commenting on Michael Ledeen's proposition, it is interesting to consider why our war against terror seems critically dependent on the strategic focus of the national leadership while terrorists never seem to be in danger of giving up, even when they are divided. Hardly a week goes by now without the media reporting some clash between factions of terrorists in Iraq. But no one wonders whether whether the dispirited Jihadis will stop attacking the West as a result. On the other hand the father of an Afghan Special Forces soldier wrote privately to say:

Mr. Bin Laden did not miscalculate, not if his calculation was based on things other than the professionalism of the US combat soldier. Neither the west's elected officials nor many of its citizens may be counted on to hold when all about them is falling apart. However, the US - and for that matter Australian - combat soldier is another matter entirely. During a phone conversation this weekend, my son noted a Navy SEAL has never surrendered. It will reassure him that such is still the case.

There was, in this deeply moving private email, the unstated fear that national leadership might not keep the faith -- or as Michael Ledeen suggests -- be imprisoned by myopia -- the tyranny of the soundbite, the goad of the public fixation du jour. The Jihad after all, does not seem similarly vulnerable to the vacillations of their leadership. Even if Osama Bin Laden were arrested today or were he to convert to evangelical Christianity the Jihad would be unlikely to die down. He could not "sell out" his cause in the same sense that Spain's Prime Minister Zapatero could. The obvious difference is that Western countries are constitutionally governed. Their militaries, civilian agencies, even the bulk of their citizens follow, whether they agree or not, the lawful orders of their leaders. And if their lawful leaders said, 'lay down your arms' they would. The Islamic terrorist bomber is not similarly constrained.

Lee Harris argues in Tech Central Station that the underlying reason for Islamic extremism's implacability against the West is that it is really a "blood feud". (Hat tip: DL) By attempting to understand its primitive urges of revenge and conquest in terms of declarations of war, the Geneva conventions, deterrence, etc the West has fundamentally misled itself. Harris says:

Immediately after 9/11, the general consensus was that we were at war. And yet this evocation of the concept of war bothered me because it did not quite fit. Wars were things that Westerners did. They were fought for economic reasons or for territorial expansion; they were instruments of policy; they had a point and an objective. You knew when a war started, and you knew when it was over. ... when I wrote "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology," I argued that war was not the appropriate model to employ in order to gain an understanding of the enemy that we faced ...

In the blood feud, the orientation is not to the future, as in war, but to the past. In the feud you are avenging yourself on your enemy for something that he did in the past. Al Qaeda justified the attack on New York and Washington as revenge against the USA for having defiled the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia by its military presence during the First Gulf War. In the attack on London, the English were being punished for their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the blood feud, unlike war, you have no interest in bringing your enemy to his knees. You are not looking for your enemy to surrender to you; you are simply interested in killing some of his people in revenge for past injuries, real or imaginary -- nor does it matter in the least whether the people you kill today were the ones guilty of the past injuries that you claim to be avenging. In a blood feud, every member of the enemy tribe is a perfectly valid target for revenge. What is important is that some of their guys must be killed -- not necessarily anyone of any standing in their community. Just kill someone on the other side, and you have done what the logic of the blood feud commands you to do.

In the blood feud there is no concept of decisive victory because there is no desire to end the blood feud. Rather the blood feud functions as a permanent "ethical" institution -- it is the way of life for those who participate in it; it is how they keep score and how they maintain their own rights and privileges. You don't feud to win, you feud to keep your enemy from winning -- and that is why the anthropologist of the Bedouin feud, Emrys Peters, has written the disturbing words: The feud is eternal.

"The feud is eternal." Hence, the Jihad, unlike the war waged by the West, can never be surrendered. Only the West can surrender. But blogs like In a State of Flux, though guilty of Ledeen's indictment of narrowness, are an important indicator that the feud is becoming symmetrical. Western citizens are still focused on the 'larger issues' but personal loss and anger are making the war less abstract. They want to find particular people who attacked them on specific occasions for the purpose of visiting upon them individual punishment. For many, the war is no longer business, it's personal.

One route to victory, the ugly route, is to match the entropy within Islamic societies with a corresponding entropy within the West. The rising resentment against Islamic immigrants in Europe and the growing willingness in the West to see Islam and even Muslims as the enemy, are all early signs of the transformation of war into a corresponding blood feud. One of the constant themes of the Belmont Club is how this development is undesirable because it will, at the limit, result in the destruction of Islamic society and make us all murderers. The alternative route chosen by President Bush, but only half-heartedly pursued by mainstream politicians, is to decrease entropy within the Islamic world by making those countries functional, modern and free so that the "blood feud" concept becomes as anachronistic in Riyadh as it is in Cleveland. Thomas Friedman argued in the New York Times that a Muslim problem needed a Muslim solution:

the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. ... The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden. ... The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

He forgot to add that this Muslim problem did not have a Muslim solution unless it were given to them. But if the last four years of combat shows anything, it is that it is possible for the Muslim world to rise above the "blood feud". CNN describes how Afghan villagers sheltered a Navy SEAL who managed to evade the Taliban.

Afghan villagers sheltered a U.S. Navy SEAL wounded in a battle last month with the Taliban until they could get word to American forces to rescue him, a military official said Monday. ... Military officials said a rocket exploded near the surviving SEAL, knocking him off his feet and down a mountainside in steep terrain. He then managed to stay out of sight of the insurgents, officials said. The commando suffered multiple leg wounds but was able to walk about two miles (three or four kilometers) through the mountains to get away, according to a U.S. military official, who insisted on anonymity.

An Afghan villager found the SEAL and hid him in his village, the official said. According to military accounts, Taliban fighters came to the village and demanded the American be turned over, but villagers refused. The SEAL wrote a note verifying his identity and location, and a villager carried it to U.S. forces, the official said. The note indicated to U.S. troops that they wouldn't be entering into a trap. The commando was rescued July 3.

One wonders whether the Western Left would have risked as much to protect the SEAL as these Muslims in a dirt poor mountain village in Afghanistan. Those who would not would probably refuse on the grounds that 'we have no right to turn Muslims in Gunga Dins'; no right to reduce the entropy in Islamic society; no right to alter the ethnographic museum that they find so quaint, so attractive and so anti-imperialist. Until then, the bombs will explode in London and the blood feud will grow like a serpent's egg in our bosoms.

201 Comments:

Blogger sam said...

This kind of puts the Seal loss in perspective:

U.S. media have said the deaths of eight Navy SEALs aboard the helicopter and those on the ground, were the heaviest ever losses in a combat operation for the 2,400-strong elite force.

Hundreds of people have been killed, many of them guerrillas, since the Taliban and allies stepped up violence in March.

http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG4_sub.asp?ccode=ENG4&newscode=110978

7/11/2005 07:00:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Okay, fans. Time to pony up.

I got in on the basement level on a previous thread, the one where Wretchard outed himself. It was so far down that I don't think many people saw my comment. However, since it's the most important comment I've made on this blog, it bears repeating. So here's the second edition, for your edification:

Y'all could've gotten Wretch's secret identity very easily: make a donation to the site thru PayPal and up comes his name. It comes up after your donation goes through.

Sooo...to all the grateful freeloaders out there who have just outed themselves by being so surprised: get with it and click the donate button, hmm? ;)

~D


I'm serious. Just go count the "awesomes" and "excellent" and "never miss it" on the previous thread. Think of Wretchard as a public trust and then hit the 'donate' button. To do any less is to take advantage of an incredibly prescient, intelligent and humble scribe.

I donated because it was Wretchard's work which gave me the courage to blog. I'm not in the same category; blog progeny aren't as good as their progenitors. But I'm grateful nonetheless and if you read him regularly you are, too. And if he has to quit to do something that makes money, we'll all be the poorer.

Just saying.

~D

And that means you,too, Doug and Buddy.

7/11/2005 07:08:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Increasingly, we see the jihadists focusing on fellow Muslims as their victims. Although the Western media focused on the deaths of Americans, Australians and British in the explosions and massacres that started in 2003 in Saudi Arabia, I am reading now that the vast majority of the dead in those assaults were Arabs and Asians -- and that the Saudi jihadists felt fine about killing those people living in the compounds on the grounds that since they associated with Westerners, they weren't Muslim enough and were therefore also "kafir" and suitable for killing as well.

When they kidnapped and murdered the Egyptian diplomat, the Iraqi terrrorists released a statement, "he was a friend of the kafirs and the law of God was applied to him."

Now, in London, we see what also seems to be a deliberate targeting of "moderate Muslims" who have assimilated into that society -- they were "friends of kafirs and the law of God was applied to them."

I like the idea of a blood feud. It resonates psychologically. (I think I disagree with Wretchard that if we kill Muslims we will be murderers. If you want to go back to the concept of war, we would be victors and not any more murderous than the Americans who dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and stopped a bloody war.)

But I'm wondering if the blood feud thing is spinning out of control when the jihadists run out of sufficient soft targets who will sit still and allow themselves to be blown up, and so therefore they turn upon their own and begin killing fellow Muslims who they declare aren't sufficiently anti-everything.

If you live in the Middle East, your government will be telling you the VERY most important thing to strive for is peace and stability ... which coincidentally also makes you what is perceived by your terrorist neighbors as a "a sitting duck".

Unless every single Muslim in the Middle East aspires towards suicide, it seems to me the population as a whole might become alarmed about this development sooner or later, and move to do something about it.

Maybe our Western media should start headlining it and bringing it to their attention in a, "Psssst! Look what's sneaking up on you from behind" sort of way, since it would be counter-productive for the government of Saudi Arabia, for example, to let its citizens in on the secret that they're being served up as sacrificial lambs on the altar of religious war with the west.

7/11/2005 07:19:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

A holier-than-thou nag dunning for money for Wretchard is just as annoying as a holier-than-thou nag dunning for money for Kerry.

7/11/2005 07:24:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Let's leave off the money guys. There will be no fund raising campaigns at the Belmont Club. Pretend the donate button doesn't exist unless you really want to see it.

7/11/2005 07:26:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

I may have sounded holier-than-thou, Nahncee, but it wasn't meant that way and I apologize.

The motive for my comment was based on concern --worry, actually. You know how much time blogging and commenting eat up. People quit sometimes because of that so they can do something which makes money. Especially if they have family obligations.

But I also spoke out of gratitude for how much I've learned here and that fueled my soapbox speech also.

At any rate, it's an ouch to be put in the same box with John Kerry, so I'll shut up about it.

~D

7/11/2005 07:36:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

A member of our extended family is a Navy SEAL. He has that esprit that comes with such training and dedication. And so, of course, we worry about him.

It's too long to critique here, but Harris' analysis of the blood feud is like an arrow finding the target in many ways, though I don't agree with his entire assessment. However, if that paradigm helps us to step a lilttle further beyond the conventional warfare argument (we've already moved a ways in that direction), it will be worth hanging onto despite its flaws.

Minh-Duc's details are fascinating...and I trust his way of looking at things given his background.

I don't think this administration will pull the plug. Bush has nothing to gain in doing so and his character seems stubborn enough to hang in there. It's the 2008 election which will be the pivot.

Even if we withdraw, the world wide terrorism won't stop. Anything based on Utopia, of whatever kind, is always lethal for those who don't live in that world view.

Finally, Friedman is wrong. A Muslim problem does not necessarily contain its own solution. The experience in Denmark is proof of that. Muslim families have expressed relief at the stricter laws re immigration and assimilation. Having an impersonal law to turn to keeps the pressure off the family.

7/11/2005 08:09:00 PM  
Blogger Tony said...

Wretchard, please ... not exactly:

The obvious difference is that Western countries are constitutionally governed. Their militaries, civilian agencies, even the bulk of their citizens follow, whether they agree or not, the lawful orders of their leaders. And if their lawful leaders said, 'lay down your arms' they would.

O wait, you mean "Western countries" not counting the Scots-Irish USA.

7/11/2005 08:19:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Wolfgang Bruno has a letter up to President Bush. Here's a part of it:

For you, a devout Christian, religion is something inherently positive. Perhaps that makes you misjudge Islam. Perhaps you view it as a religion currently beset by many problems and aggressive groups, but still one that can offer comfort and moral guidance to millions of people. That is a fundamental mistake. Islam is not an addition to the American diversity rainbow. In fact, it wants to scrap the diversity rainbow and replace it with an Islamic cave. Ataturk’s Turkey has tried for generations to enforce Western-style democracy and secularism, and the experiment is failing. You should listen more to the likes of Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina and Robert Spencer, and less to Bernard Lewis

Advice to President Bush

7/11/2005 08:22:00 PM  
Blogger Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh said...

>>One wonders whether the Western Left would have risked as much to protect the SEAL as these Muslims in a dirt poor mountain village in Afghanistan. Those who would not would probably refuse on the grounds that 'we have no right to turn Muslims in Gunga Dins'; no right to reduce the entropy in Islamic society; no right to alter the ethnographic museum that they find so quaint, so attractive and so anti-imperialist. Until then, the bombs will explode in London and the blood feud will grow like a serpent's egg in our bosoms.<<

Well, we are now standing at something of a fork in history, aren't we? Bush's policy depends on two things: one, that you are right, that the muslim world is not fated to remain in this incredible rut; and two, that the west still has enough self-confidence to help Islam make its peace with modernity.

If we ourselves no longer believe in liberal democracy, if we have grown so rotten at the core that we can no longer defend our values, much less help others adopt them, then it seems less than likely that the muslim world will become anything other than the dysfunctional basket-case it is now.

I actually think the outlook is reasonably positive. In reply to cornelius, the recent elections in Iraq and the upcoming ones in Afghanistan are a real sign of hope that the average muslim has no real desire to devote their children's futures to an ideology of self-immolation. American domestic will seems slackening, but I still don't see massive street protests calling for a precipitate withdrawals either. I have real fears of British resolve, but if we (meaning the United States) can still hold the line, then I think we'll manage.

We shall see...

Regardless, I liked Richard Brookhiser's citation of Marcus Aurelius at NRO's "The Corner"--something to the effect that whatever form fate might have, we must still strive to do what is right. Whatever our destiny or lack thereof, I personally don't think we can give up on the notion of universal freedom, that peoples are not fated by history, culture, race, whatever, to the sort of psychotic despotism we saw in Saddam or in the Taliban. There is an obvious tension here with "conservative" political thinking (look at Derbyshire's clashes with Brookhiser at the Corner), especially for someone like me with a strong "realist" bent, but if Bush isn't right that we can solve terrorism through the triumph of our ideas, then where are we left?

In the position of being left with either Wretchard's nightmare of true total war, with tit-for-tat reprisals from the west's larger store of WMDs, or bin Laden's theory that the west has become so rotten to the core that it will cravenly capitulate. I am not sure which prospect gives me more distate; all I know is that I'd rather have Bush's gamble that we can avoid both.

I for one will put my trust in the idea that all peoples crave freedom and self-government, and that they will seize it when given a reasonable chance.


WWSH

7/11/2005 08:27:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"Maybe our Western media should start headlining it and bringing it to their attention in a, "Psssst! Look what's sneaking up on you from behind" sort of way, since it would be counter-productive for the government of Saudi Arabia, for example, to let its citizens in on the secret that they're being served up as sacrificial lambs on the altar of religious war with the west."

I personally like the idea of an infidel-Muslim book drive, with an extra emphasis on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, etc...

7/11/2005 08:30:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

Terrorism lessons from 1870. Fools Crow, a novel about the travails of the Pikunis, a small band of the native American Blackfeet tribe, in 1870:

In Fools Crow, there are moderate native Americans. However, they, too, are paralyzed. Their failure to restrain a small group of terrorists is what leads to the massacre. Perhaps James Welch, writing from the native American point of view, can offer some insights into the reasons for this paralysis. Here are some ideas that I took away from the novel.

1. The native Americans felt they were in a no-win situation. They saw fighting the white man as futile. However, they saw peace with the white man as being on terms that would make it impossible for native Americans to pursue their traditional way of life. For many of the Blackfeet, this is unacceptable. One character says, "the day will come when our people will decide that they would rather consort with the Napikwans (white men) than live in the ways our long-ago fathers thought appropriate. But I, Three Bears, will not see this day. I will die first."

2. Moderate native American chiefs were viewed as weak and unmanly, particularly by younger men.

3. Even though the native Americans viewed Owl's Child (the terrorist leader) as wicked and detrimental to their cause, they could not take the humiliating step of turning one of their blood brothers in to the white soldiers.

4. The native Americans did not have the cultural and institutional foundation with which to cope with the crisis.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/071105A.html

7/11/2005 08:32:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Andrew corrected me in the previous thread Hugh corrected the MSM on his show, and I'll correct us here:
It was SEALS and Army Special Ops.
I paid homage to the Marines, as I assumed they played a large part in securing the area, but I haven't reread the articles yet to make sure:
Really doesn't matter, the are ALL regularly showing incredible heroism, and all are brothers.

7/11/2005 08:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

One reason the MSM likes to mention the SEALS is because it is a record.
This struck Hugh as evidence of their sickness and was outraged by it.
He is right.

7/11/2005 08:35:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"It's funny - or is it? - that the biggest beneficiaries of that "decrease of entropy" in the Middle East, if such really eventually happens, would be Europe with its millions of discontented Muslims in its midst - yet Europeans have been the ones most opposed to the Iraq war and similar strategies. Or have been so far. It might change after the umptenth bomb attack. Or people might just turn to more radical solutions such as vigilante-ism and other forms of incremental entropy?"

IMO those who would benefit from the destruction of Al Qaeda are the Arabs/Muslims themselves. Even setting aside democratic pluralism/capitalism, the vast majority of even those who admire Bin Laden sure as heck wouldn't like to live under him Taliban-style. Unfortunately, like the Sunnis of Falluja, they're enteraining the idea of marrying a devil who isn't easily divorced, and is impossible to live under.

7/11/2005 08:38:00 PM  
Blogger TonyGuitar said...

There is no backing off the pressure.

Withdrawl from Iraq or backing off anywhere will have Al Qaeda dancing a victory dance on Al Jezera TV, declaring the West are cowards.

All those demanding a pull-out must be willing to sign a contract of engagement with Al Qaeda, in the event Al Qaeda decides to intensify bombing rather than suddenly becoming peacenicks.

Whaaat? no takers? 73s TG

7/11/2005 08:42:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I, like Ledeen, think we often tend to see things too narrowly.
Popa brought up FUNDING in the previous thread.
I will retrieve his excellent link to an article on bin Laden and repost here.
To me the Sauds don't fit the model of a blood feud.
That article finally has me firmly convinced that bin Laden does have his eyes firmly on the future as well as the past, in that he thinks we are here for the taking.
And he could damned well be right if the left has it's way!

7/11/2005 08:43:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

This struck Hugh as evidence of their sickness and was outraged by it.

Couldn't agree more. Doesn't sit real well with me either. Kind of has a bizarre celebratory ring to it. Just some information I found to put for comment.

7/11/2005 08:55:00 PM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

It seems to me the idea of a blood feud is very applicable.

The students I taught (and it is possible one of the 9/11-19 came through my institution) were probably at the most two generations removed from being born in the desert. The older ones among them certainly were born in the desert, before the petrodollars really started to roll in.

Blood feauding was definitely a part of the life in the Bedu desert culture. A good read regarding this is bu Wilfred Thessiger an explorer of the empty quarter, the UAE & Oman. His explorations were in the late '40s to the mid-'50s (he passed away within the last five years or so).

Thessiger relates a story where a man from Tribe X was killed by a member of Tribe Y. A member of Tribe X then went to avenge the killing and caught a mother and her son from Tribe Y. Well, guy from Tribe X litterally eviscerated the mother and the boy. Not pretty but it was the way it was.

What I think Wretchard fears is Europe is going to keep pretending nothing serious is happening and then when they finnally realize the situation is serious they will explode with horrendous destructiveness because there is no choice. That is from stupid passivity to an H-Bombathon.

President Bush is trying to break the West from waiting until it requires dire measures to survive sort of thing.

7/11/2005 09:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Here's Papa Bear's article to the bin Ladens and the "Golden Chain."
---
Do a google for "Golden Chain" Osama. ____here____ is the first article to come up. The real structure of international terrorism seems to involve the money men (Golden Chain) funding and supporting groups like Al Queda, who provide organizational and training support to local jihaadists
---
And here's a short Joel Mowbray article about a congressional cover up of an arab terror funding bank.
Shortchanging Arab Bank’s victims.
Though Arab Bank denies it was ever knowingly involved in terror financing, the public record appears to contradict such assertions. Various jihadist web sites openly raising funds informed prospective donors to direct contributions to numbered accounts at Arab Bank.
But even more openly than that, advertisements in prominent Palestinian newspapers told families of “martyrs”—suicide bombers—to collect money from Arab Bank. One February 2002 ad listed names entitled to receive $5,316.06 from the “Saudi Committee.”
The “Saudi Committee” referenced is likely at least part of the reason that the feds are hustling to shield Arab Bank, despite the wealth of evidence that led to the partial shuttering of the institution’s New York branch.

7/11/2005 09:08:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

sam,
Neither Hugh nor I suspect you of being an MSM Agent! :-)

7/11/2005 09:10:00 PM  
Blogger Red River said...

At its smallest level, Islamofascism is an individual thing - its picked up, promoted, and acted out by individuals.

Who are these individuals and how do they get into this?

We never say Jeffrey Daumer was a Radical. But what's to say he was not one in reticulum?

Is Islam, or more closely, Arab Islam, a breeding ground for disaffected young men who are borderline Sociopaths?

How can a human being climb aboard a bus with other people and blow them all up?

If most bombers are Islamic, how can Islam at its core claim to be about honoring God?

These would be horrifying questions for a Christian or a Hindu to ask of their Faith, yet Muslims must begin to ask this, and recoil at the answers.

There is a global supply chain here - a parallel one to that of commerce - with ideas flowing one way and Johnny Jihad the other.

To win this War is to attack this supply chain on all levels.

But until the ideas short-circuit themselves - it will not end.

If we cannot win the drug war, but won't lose it either, then what is to say we can win the GWOT - but can we lose it, too?

There IS a third point of view - Palmer's Raids in the 1920s were a response to Terrorism. They were a selective roundup of men who met a certain criteria. It is an alternative.

You round up any man known to have first hand association with terrorists and those who support them materially or ideologically.

You administer specific psychological and biological tests to see if they meet DSM criteria for Sociopathic behavior. If they meet the latter, then they are locked up until they turn 50.

Anyone who continues to exhibit behavior with known markers for terrorism are put away as well.

If a man get his degree, gets a family, and acts normal, then who cares. Any radicalism will make them suspect, though.

7/11/2005 09:12:00 PM  
Blogger Karridine said...

Again: at the core of Islamic being, in the Koran and in Hadith, Muslims are enjoined to recognize and obey The 12th Imam, the Qaim.

He was supposed to come in the year 1260, but when the Holy One came, Muslim clergy denied He was the One, and had Him killed July 9th, 1850.

When America starts disseminating leaflets to millions of Iraqis and Afghanis to inform them of the fulfillment of THEIR OWN organic prophecies, the instigation of a widespread, PUBLIC examination of the coming of the One, promised by Jesus, at the time promised by Jesus, with the transformative message promised by Jesus, will catalyze such a change in the Muslim world that nothing in the past can be found to have been its forerunner or to have presaged such a mighty, rapid and wide-spread convulsion in humankind.

The resultant state of affairs, with die-hard bigoted Muslims and their clergy being abandoned by 90% of their former co-religionists (in favor of the Love of God brought by The Glory of God!) will leave them singularly disempowered and irrelevant.

7/11/2005 09:22:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"American domestic will seems slackening, but I still don't see massive street protests calling for a precipitate withdrawals either. I have real fears of British resolve, but if we (meaning the United States) can still hold the line, then I think we'll manage."

A personal theory of mine is that part of the leftist conscience is actually working against the withdrawal minded Democratic leadership. A portion of the Democratic voting base didn't support the mission, but is so touchy feely that they think that because we "blew up Iraq" [ignoring 30 years of Ba'athist rule and indigenous idiocy], we now can't leave unless we make nice and rebuild it. It of course makes little sense, since we mostly aren't responsible for the Iraq's current state, but it still works in our favor.

7/11/2005 09:29:00 PM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

The capture of Osama is very high on the list of the left. This captures very nicely their law enforcement round hole.

7/11/2005 09:34:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Marcus Aurelius --

What I think Wretchard fears is Europe is going to keep pretending nothing serious is happening and then when they finnally realize the situation is serious they will explode with horrendous destructiveness because there is no choice. That is from stupid passivity to an H-Bombathon...

More like the Iranian first move on Israel unless someone intervenes.

Someone....

7/11/2005 09:41:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

Is Islam, or more closely, Arab Islam, a breeding ground for disaffected young men who are borderline Sociopaths?

Tyson converted. That should say something.

Doug, thanks. Just wanted to clarify myself there. Close one. Thank Hugh for me too, please.

7/11/2005 09:41:00 PM  
Blogger Barry Dauphin said...

Although the Harris idea of a blood feud has some appeal, I think it is basically mistaken. I believe Harris is ignoring that bin Laden has laid out very broad strategic goals in many proclamations over many years. Yes, it is about the past for him, but an active return to his version of the past. The Islamists do want land, do want conquest, do want conversion of the infidel. These are war goals, not blood feud revenge acts. bin Laden has spelled this out clearly, not the act of a blood feud, but of a messianic leader.

So it is a war, even if the enemy is not a specific nation-state or states. The idea that bin Laden could actually be successful at achieving his goals strikes most people as crazy or unserious, as in "he can't be serious." So, too often his words are not taken seriously and carefully enough, and time and again people (even Harris) are saying this must be about something other than what bin Laden says. This is war, not a blood feud.

7/11/2005 09:45:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

Good post Mr. Dauphin.

7/11/2005 09:53:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Barry,
I agree with you. I think that the Islamists are using the tactics of a blood feud, but have a long term "war" strategy in mind. They use the blood feud idea to recruit, but their view is clearly "big picture."

7/11/2005 09:58:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

"To bring symmetry to this asymmetric fight explosions need to occur in a high percentage of these mosques during Friday prayer services."

Personally I think this is a terrible idea but there is an ever increasing probability that something like it will happen some day. Vigilanteism often happens when the state abdicates the use of its police power due to political considerations. So I'm thinking to myself in Australia just what people will do if some Islamic yo-yo blows up a car bomb in Olympic Park when 80,000 people are watching a rugby game. This is place where Muslims are Indonesians, for which I could, when the light is bad, be mistaken for. How do I explain, when they're stringing me up, that I've been up against these Imam Hooks for longer than they can imagine? About the only thing likely to save me is that most people take me for American around here because that's how I sound.

The irony will be that half the lynchers are going to be Leftists gone hysterical from fear and for once I wouldn't blame them. But then again, I always had a bad case of gallows humor.

7/11/2005 09:58:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

A blood feud is a war, but with different objectives. As Harris says, a WEstern war is about specific battles in which territory is won or lost, there are specific engagements of increasing complexity and/or intensity, and then there is a winner and a loser, or plurals of same, with formal conditions of surrender, etc.

That's not going to happen here. In blood feuds, it's about revenge for past injuries, not future arrangements. This is talion law, not deliberative Western justice.

What's particularly interesting about blood feuds, though I don't remember if Harris mentions it, is that members of the tribe are interchangeable. Thus, if your brother kills my father, I can kill your sister with impunity. Not only that, but I can still demand some additional compensation.

Another thing: it is never, ever over. Like the Hatfields and McCoys it goes on till the people die out.

7/11/2005 10:00:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

And if their lawful leaders said, 'lay down your arms' they would.
...and...
Wretchard is afraid, they will explode with horrendous destructiveness because there is no choice.
...and...
pushing the envelope on a new kind of warfare, which is being evolved and developed right now as we watch.

Wretchard says, "steady as she goes" and firmly denounces the concept of vigilantism. Even goes so far as to call the West winning "murder", which is an odd concept when we're fighting a life&death war.

And I ask what is wrong with the citizens taking power back from their government if that government has become over-burdened, and starting to mete out a "jury of your peers" sort of neighborhood justice.

Saying that historically citizen militias have done a fairly good job in both enforcing the law and keeping the peace, because they are the closest to being able to see clearly what needs to be done, and done NOW.

Or would an empowered citizenry "taking the law into its own hands" and facing down radicalized Muslims bent on terrorizing them tip over the edge into the blood feud idea ... which I'm not necessarily sure would be a bad thing to have happen.

7/11/2005 10:09:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

Cedarford - stealing my thunder.

7/11/2005 10:19:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Bloomie, if it's a war, it is one without generals, nations or grand strategies. Or even objectives, beyond disrupting things a few train bombs and SEALs at a time.

There is chaos in the anthill and it looks like purposeful movement, but in the long run, is it?

They managed to annex Pakistan from India, but that was an old, old argument. The conflict with the West is just envy with a lot of paranoid resentment and random evil.

There are too many unknowns to predict how it will all turn out. So much depends on "unknown unkowns" that all we can do is guess. But it's not a future in which we can predict things based on past behavior because change occurs too rapidly for any one person or entity to keep up with what it causes.

7/11/2005 10:22:00 PM  
Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

I think that Harris has some insights in his application of the blood feud toward understanding Islamist terrorism, but he needs to make a distinction between tactics and strategy.

The blood-feud concept fits some of the tactics and might explain the episodic pattern of Islamist killings.

But to forget that this is jihad is to miss the strategic goal of world domination.

In the jihadis' minds, the war will not go on forever. Eventually, Islam will prevail everywhere.

Or so they say.

7/11/2005 10:55:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Wretchard: I admire Harris, and agree that the blood feud may be a decent way to understand how the enemy views the current pace of fighting, but it is not an can never be a comprehensive paradigm.

Horace is on to something, but I do not even think that we are talking about tactics. We are talking about capability. The Islamists come at us from a position of weakness. They glorify their terrorism as raids because it resonates with their target audience and makes them feel like they are part of something great and holy, but they talk of grievances and look to the past because from their weakness they can only extrapolate blood and revenge. They simply cannot fathom inflicting on us total defeat. However, were they to acquire the means to wage Western-style war, their eyes and appetites would turn forward, and their minds would dwell on victory.

The inevitable trajectory of conflict has been well studied, and it correlates to technological know-how and how it accrues to the battlefield. A society must become increasingly organized and well-structured to survive this Darwinian game. Blood feud is primitive conflict constrained by resources and organizational capability. It is the lowest level, the stratus of weakness. It only happens in static societies consisting of equally-empowered tribes that are primitive and unproductive, where the cost -- and risk -- of total victory might be dispositively high. It is a conflict that does not necessitate great organization, planning, or skill. This is why it is eternal. The only way to end the cycle is for one party to "pony up" and take a great risk; in essence, to conduct all-out warfare.

But things have changed. Nowadays, when one party to a blood feud consolidates power, makes the leap from the 13th century to the 20th, it becomes genocide (Hutus and Tutsis). That is the natural ending of blood feuds today.

I also am skeptical of Harris's thesis that warfare is about aims while blood feud is about grievances. Saying blood feud is about grievances is almost a tautology, for the primitiveness and powerlessness of the feud precludes any overarching aims. Or, to put it another way, the addition of power and capability to a feud structure acts to midwife those strategic goals of conquering and glory that are attributed by Harris to warfare. So again, blood feud is warfare without power and capability.

The Jihadists do not "raid" because of their cultural proclivity. They attack this way because they know themselves, and know us, a strategy Sun Tzu would recognize. They use their weakness as strength, and our strength as weakness. Whether you say blood feud or assymetrical warfare, it is a distinction without a difference.

So, to conclude, blood feud is only apt in analogizing the current pace of conflict to historical precedent, but adds nothing to the discussion as a strategic paradigm. As the Islamists gain power and capability, their focus will necessarily change from past to future, from grievance to goal. In fact, it is already happening. But don't worry, the blood and carnage that we will see will be more than enough to remind the West that we are, in fact, in a war.

7/11/2005 11:02:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Dymphna: is this war truly "without generals, nations or grand strategies. Or even objectives, beyond disrupting things a few train bombs and SEALs at a time."?

Generals are easy to find. Zarqawi, Zawahiri, KSM, etc.

Perhaps not nations, but we are definitely dealing with organizing principles. We have the Constitution, they have Sharia, for instance.

Grand Strategies: the preservation and/or domination of each.

Objectives: hearts and minds, territory, acquisition of weaponry, etc.

No, it is just that we are fighting a dispersed enemy that is particularly weak, parasitic, and motivated. That is why you do not recognize it.

7/11/2005 11:16:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Like every model attempting to explain the complex world, Harris' paradigm has its uses and limits. I don't imagine that it explains everything or predicts everything. But at base, he is describing a broad antipathy by one civilization toward others -- I will not say "another" mindful of how Middle Eastern Christians, the Eastern Orthodox and the Hindus were regarded -- and its consequences. The Jihad has consequences, has had consequences, will have consequences. This is datum. What will we do about it?

Whether blood feud or not, grand plan for conquest or not is not terribly important. Either case implies that we must either proceed with the collision or persuade a religion with a billion adherents to give up the game of chicken. Either that or put the pedal to the metal.

I am not convinced this can be done by making more apologies for the 'Crusades', granting radical Islamists politically protected status. I am not even convinced it can achieved by capturing Osama Bin Laden and all his lieutenants. At some point the ideological engine that drives this antipathy towards the the non-Muslim must be turned off. They have defined the game as "us versus them" and as long as we are stuck with those terms we must live, or perhaps I should say die, from its implications.

7/11/2005 11:17:00 PM  
Blogger neuroconservative said...

This debate seems much like a Rorschach, as each viewer struggles to make sense of the limited and conflicting data available to tell a coherent story. In this case, our own styles of manifesting anxiety might tend to lead us to give greater weight to the evidence suggesting a cunning enemy (State of Flux), or a blood-thirsty and unstoppable enemy (Harris), or an enemy with much reserve strength (Ledeen).

I do not write this to denigrate any of the views noted above; in fact, I find much of value in each of the three analyses. One previous commenter also noted that the enemy may be multifaceted, which makes a lot of sense to me. There may be key differences between an educated Jihadist from Hamburg and a 16-year Islamist fighter brought into Iraq from the West Bank by way of Syria. Most importantly, I am not taking such a "nuanced" view that there is no enemy, or that we merely misunderstand him and need to accomodate his grievances. I feel perfectly comfortable judging both types of terrorist to be equally evil, even if we understand them differently. By contrast, I think the explanatory mode of denial and self-blame manifest by the some on the Left misses the mark altogether, as I have written about previously.

While I think these efforts to understand the enemy are important and necessary to decide on our next tactical move, I think the larger battle is still within our own society, as I discussed yesterday. Strategically, we are in the position of the poker player holding 4 aces, who can only lose if he convinces himself that his opponent has a straight flush. We will only lose this war if we fold, and I analyze the Battle of London as a tactical defeat for the enemy, as it (fortunately) has not led to a weakening of our resolve.

7/11/2005 11:28:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

" They simply cannot fathom inflicting on us total defeat."
---
If we extrapolate present trends, bin Laden and the House of Saud win:
Funding to incite further hatred continues at high levels.
Worldwide deaths due to terrorism are around 5,000 now versus ~2,000 3 years ago.
The courts and the left continue to emasculate our ability to defend ourselves at a frightening pace.
The left continues to deliver full time propaganda for the enemy, multiplied a thousand fold by their allies in the media.
---
To imagine that the bin Ladens would have to be nuts to entertain visions of victory, is to deny the obvious.

7/11/2005 11:35:00 PM  
Blogger neuroconservative said...

I might add that, even if we understand the vast difference in backgrounds of the educated Hamburg Jihadist from the 16-year old Palestinian, the same strategies might apply to fighting both: We must be both the physical (military) and ideological (memetic) "strong horse." A blood feud can only be maintained if both sides share the same horizon of imagination. What George Bush seeks is to open a new horizon of imagination to the Muslim mind, one that is more compatible with our continued existence.

7/11/2005 11:36:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The raw materials for the London bombings probably cost less than $500.
The internal Al Queda budget in Saudi Arabia is $500 million!

7/11/2005 11:38:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

How do we force evolution upon an ideology whose tenets are so impervious to it? The answer does not lie in the conceptual arena. You must change the facts on the ground. Bush understands this.

But we are racing against time.

Morality, in its essence, is the art of living together. It is the life-affirming paradigm. Under this banner all things can be justified if the results preserve and extend life -- freedom, justice, charity, and war.

My gut feeling is that Wretchard is right. The path we are on leads to destruction. However, in my mind at least, if it comes to us (hope and life) or them (hate and death), the right decision will be a moral one.

Muslims everywhere would do well to heed Hunter S. Thompson: "Buy the ticket, take the ride."

7/11/2005 11:51:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Bloomie,

Good point. But "we" covers a multitude of cases. Back in the 1990s the US intervened to keep a bunch of Serbs, armed with nothing much in particular, from exterminating Muslims in the Balkans. Every now and again the 'international community' had to keep Israel from blowing up Yasser Arafat's headquarters. I never could understand how everyone could accept the possibility that Muslim private citizens could secretly build an A-bomb and dismiss the prospect of rogue Israelis, Hindus or Americans doing the same thing. Or some Serb. Vengeance is a dish whose recipe every nation understands.

When you come right down to it Islam is on a suicide mission by embarking on this Jihad. There is no way in hell they'll conquer the world while there are Russians and Chinese or Hindus on it. Or an America with one or more of its cities lying in nuclear ruin. This is as nearly certain as anything can be. But there is a way out. We are winning this war. If you consider how far we've come since 911 one could not have believed it then. We've just to keep our eye on the donut and not upon the hole.

7/11/2005 11:55:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Doug: To my understanding, the tension between Bin Laden and Zawahiri is where to focus in the short term. UBL wants to focus on Western withdrawal, Z-man wants to shore up his base. Both in the end want to subjugate the West.

I probably misspoke when I said they couldn't fathom inflicting total defeat. They fathom it quite often. It is just that their plan looks strangely like the Underwear Knomes' from Southpark:

1. Steal underwear
2. ???
3. Profit

7/11/2005 11:55:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Gnomes, of course

7/12/2005 12:00:00 AM  
Blogger sam said...

Terrorism and the markets. This guy says look at the Dow as an indicator as to how the war is going:

The message of the markets is that we now have a very different measure of what we are up against from the one we had late in 2001. The adversary is not quite the combination of omnipotence, implacability and invisibility that we once thought. For some reason, the more closely one scrutinizes the thoughts of a Zarqawi, a Zawahiri, a bin Laden or a hate-spewing imam, the weirder they seem. A menace, to be sure, and one that needs to be stomped out. The threat they pose deserves to be taken with utmost seriousness. But they and their views certainly don't. They are where they belong, in hiding, cackling among themselves over their fantasies. They haven't got a prayer. It will be a great moment when mainstream Islam is rid of them.

This more balanced assessment, it seems to me, is what's reflected in the more recent market response. Of course, the market is not dispositive. Anybody who concludes on the basis of skyrocketing real estate valuations that Washington is safe ought to take note that the price of office space in the World Trade Center did not decline in the runup to September 11. But the market response is indicative. It reflects a more measured assessment of who they are and what they can do -- and who we are and what we can do.

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050711-084134-1788r.htm

7/12/2005 12:18:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

imho its no coincidence that the imman/mullah revolutions in saudi arabia and Iran occured in the same decade of the 70's as the time of the first world wide oil shocks and the start of the decline of US oil production.

Nor do I think it will be a coincidence that the whole of the moslem world goes quiet when the cost of hydrogen production storage and use crashes through the cost of gasoline. Nor do I think that's long in the future.

There is no physics/chemistry/materials research government/private/university lab in the USA that is not working on some aspect of the problem. Most of the rest of the world is really starting to bear down on the problem too.

The tools to make this happen too are all available and in motion. That's why GM say's they'll cut the cost of electrical output for fuel cell for their cars by a factor of 10 in 5 years.

There is immense confidence in the research communities in their methodologies.

7/12/2005 12:48:00 AM  
Blogger truepeers said...

Like Wretchard, I find it hardly imaginable that the Islamicists can win. Yet maybe they are more cynical in their fantasies than naive or simply suicidal. On the view that they are more Jihadists who want a single Islamic world than aimless blood feudists, maybe they know their only hope is a very long shot. Maybe they think that their only hope is to attract a nuclear hell fire on their "own peoples'" heads; they will a mass death in their own lands, at some time down the road when there are more Muslim bombs, to clear out decadent ways of life, and to allow for the collapse of the world into guarded forts which, in the aftermath of nuclear war, are largely isolated, with global trade practically destroyed (starving many millions) and nuclear fallout and other side effects causing various hardships and organizational/technological collapse. Could it be possible that what passes for strategic thinking among Islamicists is the desire to effect just such a dystopia in which the surviving Muslims can descend from the hills and find themselves an elite in a world of theocratic gangs, a world now playing their game, an elite slowly expanding its domain in a war weary and morally corrupted world? Or is my imagination getting the better of my insomnia?

7/12/2005 03:09:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

ADE,
You left out $10 RPG's, Fertilizer Bombs, Garden Size Mini Bombs, and etc!
And the biggest bomb of all:
Left Wingnut Suicide Sabotage Bombs.

7/12/2005 04:06:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Muslims can descend from the hills and find themselves an elite in a world of theocratic gangs, a world now playing their game, an elite slowly expanding its domain in a war weary and morally corrupted world? "
---
He has seen the future, and it is,
AFGHANISTAN!
(Just Ask Tony)

7/12/2005 04:09:00 AM  
Blogger goesh said...

It sure helps in killing the enemy when one is convinced that God is on his side. That is one advantage we don't and will never have. I would say the notion of blood feud follows the belief that there is a spiritual, moral obligation to eradicate the obscene and blasphemous.

7/12/2005 04:16:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"At the very least, it must include direct action against Imams conducting the Friday hate-in."
---
Instead of the generalized Friday Boom! (Common Cents)
If there were small, but deadly directly targeted booms that resulted in Smoking Iman Remains...

7/12/2005 04:17:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

ladder,
Always good to reference the leading thinkers of the day.
Thanks,

Trey

7/12/2005 04:21:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

And of course, the leader from the spirit world:
Hunter

7/12/2005 04:23:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

Truepeers: Take a look at Afghanistan before we invaded, the one place where the Islamofacsists held complete power, and you will see thier definition of victory: A country too exhausted and poor, too cowed and ignorant, to offer resistance to Bin Laden and Omar's gang of thugs. They don't have to "win" in any sense we would recognize because they desire an end state we would call Phyric, a loss for everyone. Not only will that situation give them immense personal power, but they will have no fear of anyone surpassing them and proving their real worth and competance; envy will not be a problem. As much as anything, Bin Laden and his ilk ae motivated by the sure knowledge that they are not good enough at anything in particular to become leaders in the modern world, even one so backward as the Middle East. For them to stand tall everyone else must be laid low.

7/12/2005 04:54:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"The Saudi Arabian Wahhabites are the luxury version of the Taliban," says Carmen bin Laden.

She rarely saw Osama. She noticed him because he turned away in horror when she opened the house door: "I was unveiled, and he was afraid of the sight." The family saw OBL as fanatically pious -- and he was also admired for the same reason. But Carmen thought he was odd. She says that Osama's young wife, Najwa, was not even permitted to give her baby a bottle when it was very hot, because the merciless father felt that the bottle's nipple was "haram" -- impure in a religious sense.

7/12/2005 04:58:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

That was going to be especially for miklos rosza, but then I read rwe's post!

7/12/2005 04:59:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

That's from the Papa Bear link, btw, a must read.

7/12/2005 05:01:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

ADE:
"Experts say that it would be a mistake to apply Western patterns of thought to Middle Eastern reasoning.
According to the Wahhabite world view, those who declare war on the West and have killed Western civilians can still love their neighbors at home."

7/12/2005 05:04:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

I haven't taken any marketing classes, but came up with an idea for a snack item:

"Smoking Imam Bits"

...sound catchy?

7/12/2005 05:31:00 AM  
Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Thanks, Ladder, for commenting on my remarks distinguishing blood-feud style tactics from jihadi strategy.

You're probably right that it's not exactly "tactics" that captures what the jihadis are doing with their kind of attacks.

It might be "capability," as you suggest.

Or it could just be that the jihadis are trapped in a blood-feud pattern of fighting.

Or maybe it's the ghazavat-style of raids that Amir Taheri sees.

But if it should happen to be tactics, the aim is to foment as much terror and chaos as possible in the kufr societies.

Whatever we call it, the longer-term strategy is Islamic hegemony -- as everyone, really, knows.

By the way, I prefer "Jeffery" to "Horace."

7/12/2005 06:19:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Good discussion...Roger Simon has this on UK response. A 90% public-opinion agreement? Wow!

(BTW Dymph, wrt spanking Doug & me, I've for some time been chipping in, here & at my other favorite blog, Roger Simon--but you're right to remind folks of the overhead. Go Kerry, '08!)
;-)

7/12/2005 06:20:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Good to know, Hodges.

7/12/2005 06:59:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

We learn and forget, as individuals and societies.
Early during the US involvement in Indochina we deployed small teams of men with the indig population. These populations, subjected to years of persecution from both warring sides, became the core of our anti VC program. Success was coming quickly, more villages turned as the lethality of the of the indig troops improved. This success was viewed as a threat by our allied indig government. When our conventional military began it's campaign of increased troop levels and enlarged US footprint, the indig programs received short thrift.
A decade and 50,000 US KIA later our public could no longer stand the stress. Today the costs in blood is much less, but the stress still builds.
Use the indigs, it is their country, their past and their future.
They will find their way, with our guidance and finacing military support helping them stay on track.

If 200,000 native troops cannot secure Iraq, no number of US troops will have a long term effect.

7/12/2005 07:06:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Before we destroy the Iranian Navy it has to be declared hostile.
This has not occured.
As has been mentioned numerous times Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia are NOT included in the WoT.
While Iran is an Axis of Evil partner as well as it's high senority on the funding of terrorist list and the fact it has elected a terrorist to it's Presidentcy. They are not currently on the military menu.
We are four years into this War and we still have not identified who is the enemy.
It is well passed time to get serious.

7/12/2005 07:19:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

wrechard,

First, this was an excellent commentary.

The issue of 'blood-feud' is but one aspect of an important social perspective few in the west grasp. Associated cultural practices include 'first-cousin marriage traditions' (my son will marry my brother's daughter) and daughter-murders (I must execute my daughter if she refuses to marry my brother's son or her actions preclude that marriage). As a group, they represent an insular world view which encourages the nuclear family to wield life and death decisions abandoned in the west about 300 years ago.

Perhaps we should look at the 'war on terror' as a struggle over norms of family succession. At least this that addresses the issues in terms al-queda understand. In other words, does the practice of daughter-murder enhance the chances of your family surviving 10 generations?

You are correct to point out the danger of being engulfed by the 'blood feud' ethos, but engagement also offers the possiblity of rising to great acts of faith. We need not shrink from the test. Discovering what one is willing to die for isn't an entirely worthless pursuit.

7/12/2005 07:29:00 AM  
Blogger The Wobbly Guy said...

KStagger-Don't forget the growing masses of Christians in China. They don't much like the rabid Islamists either, and while they're supposedly communists, they aren't the namby pamby leftists of the West either.

And that's still not counting the millions of Hindus and Sikhs in India with historical reasons to be angry with Islam.

If the West falls, the Chinese and the Indians will be the last bastion, and I think they will be relatively unaffected by the defeatist strain of thought that has somehow permeated Western civilization.

7/12/2005 07:33:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

Charles

I don't think it is the price of oil.

First, put a backward culture into an unholy pressure cooker around 700AD.

Don't lift the safety valve of new ideas for 1400 years.

Then introduce jet travel, then television, and now the Internet. To improve the flavour add cheap Kalishnikovs.

Boom.

ADE
///////////////////////
all true. but I also think starting in the 1970's the moslem world smelled blood in the water. That blood was coming from the west. part of it was demographics and cultural matters. part of it was oil.

when hydrogen gets to be cheap it will take oil leverage off the table.

7/12/2005 07:42:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

I Was Wrong About The Roots of Terrorism--or--How I Came To Understand the Reasoning of Bob Herbert

This ironic writer compares the genius of the NYT to Milestones by Sayyid Qutb, published in 1964.

I wonder what Bush was doing in '64 to make them mad at us?

"The reasons for Jihaad which have been described in the above verses are these: to establish God's authority in the earth; to arrange human affairs according to the true guidance provided by God; to abolish all the Satanic forces and Satanic systems of life; to end the lordship of one man over others since all men are creatures of God and no one has the authority to make them his servants or to make arbitrary laws for them. These reasons are sufficient for proclaiming Jihaad. However, one should always keep in mind that there is no compulsion in religion; that is, once the people are free from the lordship of men, the law governing civil affairs will be purely that of God, while no one will be forced to change his beliefs and accept Islam."

"Those who say that Islamic Jihaad was merely for the defense of the 'homeland of Islam' diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life and consider it less important than their 'homeland'. This is not the Islamic point of view, and their view is a creation of the modern age and is completely alien to Islamic consciousness."


Why can't we all just get along?

7/12/2005 07:43:00 AM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Buddy--

It's good to know you use the tip jar, too. Thanks for the response on that. As someone mentioned, this place enlarges one's vocabulary and ability to think analytically. Sometimes it seems like a Socratic dialogue where Wretch proposes a scenario and everyone riffs on it. Such is the aggregate wisdom of crowds.

Horace Jeffrey Hodges said:

Or it could just be that the jihadis are trapped in a blood-feud pattern of fighting.

I think it's more a world view than just a pattern of fighting. It's the motive behind the fight, the strength behind the fist.

Right now, it doesn't seem like much of a fist. The London bombing was dreadful for the loss of life, but on the whole there's been a decline from 9/11 to 7/7.

Doug mentioned the total killed by terrorists world-wide, something I've been following, too. When you compare it with our own annual traffic fatalities -- 38,000 in 2003 -- you get an idea why people go about their daily lives with such indifference.

There's been mention of market forces as indicators of *our* strength and in this I heartily concur. Our energies emerge from different motives and seek different aims. While Thanatos is always threatening, Eros usually wins (on the macro level). Love is stronger than death, even an OBL-influenced death.

7/12/2005 08:06:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

That besotten extrotsite is writing again, this time at WSJ.com

Commenting on Jeffersonian Democracy. It's spread and basic premises.
Done in his usual pipinsqueak style

7/12/2005 08:36:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Yes, the human impulse is to make things better, and altruism is born implicit. The counter force, apple in the garden, is that it's far easier for a person to surrender their light than it is to scatter their dark. The struggle, the old gods' favorite spectator sport.

7/12/2005 08:37:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

http://www.bartleby.com/104/64.html

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.

Robert Frost. 1875–

64. Mending Wall

SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing: 5
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. 15
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 20
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. 25
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. 30
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him, 35
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me, 40
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

7/12/2005 08:42:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Let's be like London and be even friendlier to people that hate us so we too can have more home grown terrorists.
While the "experts" pondered, I predicted as much.
We're friendly to the left:
They hate us too.
Be Diverse!
Support Treason!
It's SO compassionate!

7/12/2005 08:54:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

The thing we need to realize - as the Islamofacsists surely do - is that the migration into Europe is not being done on an individual level in order to create the Greater European Calipilate, but because the immigrants are seeking to escape from that very philosophy. Bombs in London and Madrid and the 9/11/01 attacks in the U.S. are, as much as anything, message to the escapes that the "Long Arm of Bin Ladenism" can reach them. The immigrants spout Bin Laden propganda because of the rabble rousers that move freely among them and Political Corectness in the west, which enables and encourages separatism on the basis that all cultures are of equal value, and the recent legacy of western meekness. Roll up the leaders, demonstrate the ability of the west to eradicate any culture with no more than a whim, and Islamofacists will be relegated to the caves of distant mountains and will have the same political clout as the Klu Klux Klan or CPUSA does today.

7/12/2005 08:54:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Here comes the end.
I support the "Levin" plan
How could any tinking person not?

"...the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a report on his visit to Iraq last week. It is refreshingly balanced and free of ideology. The good news, Levin said, is that there is "a high level of optimism" among Iraqis that they will meet the Aug. 15 deadline for writing a draft constitution. The bad news is that the "insurgency is not weakening and that the flow of foreign jihadists into Iraq has increased."

What's needed, he says, is a clear American signal to the Iraqis that they must meet the deadline on the constitution. We also need a "road map for Iraqis taking ownership of the risks and responsibility for their own security and survival."

"If there is any prospect of defeating the insurgency," Levin argues, "we need to make clear to the Iraqis that if they are unable to reach agreement on the constitution, we will reconsider our presence in Iraq and that all options will be on the table, including withdrawal."

Levin's call for "measurable benchmarks" is designed to make clear how many Iraqi units "capable of counterinsurgency operations" will be needed "so that coalition units can first withdraw from cities and other visible locations and begin a withdrawal from the country as a whole."

Levin is calling for a policy of achievement, not cut-and-run. As he puts it: "Without adopting and implementing a measured and credible plan, coalition forces could be needed for an indeterminate time. Without such a plan, Iraqis may never assume responsibility for taking back their country from the insurgents and taking the risks and making the compromises necessary to chart their own destiny." ..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071101414.html

7/12/2005 08:59:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Traffic, 38,000.
9-11 ~ 3,000
Terrorism?
No Problem!
Be Happy!
(Subaru is planing a self-detonating nuclear model for the 2008 model run.)

7/12/2005 09:02:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

I tink not, therefore I yam.

7/12/2005 09:05:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Curtis LeMay?
(I fear we may never use one, no matter what.)

7/12/2005 09:09:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

But, as Wretch reminds us, there are the Ruskies and Chicoms.
...at least we will not have died in vain.

7/12/2005 09:13:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

Desert,

All that's left is our fervent promise to support the Iraqis after we leave, should anything go wrong. We'll support them as long as ... the Democrats don't take over Congress.

Was Levin alive in 1975 y'think?

7/12/2005 09:13:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

really?
I have always been afraid we could, indeed would.
Better to fight them on their ground and sustain these light casualties, as we must, than to commmit genocide in the name of liberty.
There are much better ways to proceed than to yearn for the death of millions.

7/12/2005 09:14:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Fernand,
That guy that flew a lawn chair over LAX was a lot more creative and entertaining.
Maybe we need to add a talent requirement to the Darwin Award?
(If they don't meet it, we get to kick them around a bit for fun before they go to Hell.)

7/12/2005 09:17:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Desert,
That was positing that we don't tink more than we are now, and leave it to the Ruskies.

7/12/2005 09:19:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

...and yes, Levin was born at the same time as the rest of us in the Loser Generation.

7/12/2005 09:20:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

(I look over my glasses too, but their normal glasses and I ain't no Levin Loser anymore.)

7/12/2005 09:21:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I know Levin was alive in '75, I was, and he looks MUCH older than me.

Iraq has no claim on perpetual US aid. It is their country and we are there until the 'job is done'
Levin calls for defined benchmarks, a matrix of success.
I am all for that.

What exactly is the "Job"
and how do we know when it's "Done"

How else do we define Victory?

7/12/2005 09:21:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

They're normal,
(speculation alert: "I am too.")

7/12/2005 09:22:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"How else do we define Victory?
"
---
When we confront the enemy here at home like men.
Instead of Eunichs.
(aka metroliberals, tm.)

7/12/2005 09:26:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
When I look in the mirror, I often tink I'm still in college!

7/12/2005 09:29:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

7/12/2005 09:30:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Yeah, we all know that NEOcon, mledeen:
Nuke em, ask questions later!

7/12/2005 09:33:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

What if Horowitz is a really really Rilly clever Soviet Agent?

7/12/2005 09:36:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Another suicide bomber goes off in Israel.
The insurgents / Opfor still fighting there. Police on the scene of the attack.
Not the Army
especially not OUR Army.

Stand those Iraqis up, they will rise to the occasion.

7/12/2005 09:51:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

umm. Its been two or three decades since I've last looked at Frost's poem The Mending Wall.

It doesn't fit here nor is it fitting though its true that that the walls to the south in Russia Europe and America are broken.

Its not fitting because those walls in the past were not walls at all. certainly not walls of stone and mortar.

"no ideas but in things" the poets of the early 20th century claimed. they were wrong.

7/12/2005 10:11:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I wonder about the Afghan villagers who helped the SEAL. They must have confidence that in a month or a year the snake won't double back.

7/12/2005 10:23:00 AM  
Blogger geoffgo said...

Wretchard,

Thanks for your contribution.

Koran 2.0

Troughout the thread, we see many condeming the imams who preach their jihadist insanity, and rightfully so.

If our choices range from "doing nothing" to the "nuclear option," I'd suggest we need to help the Muslim world recognize its peril.

Since it seems that higher priced oil fuels the terrorist movement, it also makes sense to become energy independent ASAP. But, even if we all agreed, it would take years, and do nothing to reduce the funding from the KSA (and elsewhere). And, on the way to energy independence, the mullahs will continually jack the price of their oil, adding mkore of our treasure to their war chests.

Way short of the nuclear option, we need to signal the Muslims that we are very tired of their sitting on the sidelines.

How big a signal will suffice? How do we reach every Muslim worldwide, with our message that they must reject the promotion of jihad from their radical imams?

While I can agree to refrain from the "totally destroy some Muslim cities" solution, my patience is limited ad wearing thin.

As I have posted previously, let's embargo the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina; the Haj.

By quarenteening the two holiest cities, until the terror stops, we might just persuade the "moderate" muslims to step up to solving a problem of their own making, and do it without visiting mass destruction upon innocents.

7/12/2005 11:10:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

C4, do me a personal favor, wouldja, in honor of our past battles, and hold off the anti-neocon jihad when against a commenter whose thoughts happen to be published and in world-wide circulation, and only subject to bending by someone trying to win a thread-contest, okay?

7/12/2005 11:19:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Projecting some guilt there, arn't we, heather

Guilty as charged, we have politcal opponents, gang members, illegal migrants, mobsters, spousal abusers and child molesters all living amongst us.

We do not punish the populations of our Judical Districts when the Judges there allow some miscreant bail and the opportunity to strike again.
Punish the Guilty as cleanly as possible. Leaving the populations as intact as possible. Better they have a chance to convert to modern, liberal living, then US having to resort to killing large numbers of them.

7/12/2005 11:25:00 AM  
Blogger Lanny Nugen said...

Ladder,
I believe it's both capability and tactic since they are coming to us from a weakness position and limited in their weapondries (as you have mentioned) but also they have driven by belief that the West are coward and weak in resolution to fight. They believe that with brutality methods, they will cause the West to call uncle, hence the means fits well with the goal to collapse the will to fight of the West and this belief is enforced daily by MSM, the headless PC crowd and leftist liberals. Nuclear is just another option to escalate their brutality and that will come, I am sure unless we can diverse that option.

W. Interesting that you mention that hysterical leftist crowd will start lynching people when their homes are ruined and smoked for I believe that the cognitive dissonance got them to the point not seeing who is their enemy today will not help them to see who is their enemy tomorrow. I have no hope for the Muslim moderates to solve this problem because as someone has mentioned earlier, that they lack cultural and institutions support. The few people in Afghanistan is exceptional and not the norm. Democracy and liberty doesn't occur overnight. It takes years and years of practices. Iraq & Afghanistan today are still in its infancy and if not allowed to mature, we will go back to square one.

7/12/2005 11:41:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Couldn't more be done on the propaganda front? Couldn't the US fund some modernized film-making by and for Muslim youth, ridiculing the circular logic of worshipping a death-god configured out of Koran interpretations? I see a million videos & CDs flowing out thru Araby--smart, funny, and subversive of fundamentalism's bent spawn.

7/12/2005 11:45:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

do unto others,
what we have done to ourselves

No wonder some of them hate us

7/12/2005 11:54:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

rat, some of us hate us.

7/12/2005 11:56:00 AM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

Heather--

You're right: the necessity for the tribe died out in Europe, but it did so because what replaced it was stronger and more resilient and to the advantage of those in charge (as you say).

But part of what pushed the change was technology and the unquenchable curiosity of Western man. That curiosity was given scope -- okay, limited scope -- and legitimacy by those in power.

The cosmology of the West, be it Greek, Roman, or Jewish (and the eventual amalgam of these) allowed for much more than did/does the collected sayings of one man in a limited lifetime of limited vision.

That's why we'll succeed long term.

Doug: Comparing our traffic deaths and the terrorists' imposed death toll is to point out how hard it is to get our attention when we're so busy with our self-inflicted atrocities. And death by car is indeed that.

~D

7/12/2005 11:57:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

Well, Cederford, I think that you are you are quite right, unbelievably. They do not wish to assimilate - they are not unique in that - but at the same time do not come on a jihad. They come for a way of life that they cannot have at "home." Of course that is because of the very culture that they treasure, and we try to acommodate their wishes.
When the U.S. went to aid Somalia in 1992, our troops found that part of the problem was that the locals sat around all day chewing "kat", the leaves of which acted as a drug, and the ran around all night shooting. The U.S. troops started confiscating Kat and in response one Somali doctor - an educated man - said "You should not keep eopel from using Kat. You are here to help us, not change our culture." But the culture was the main problem.

7/12/2005 11:58:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Places from where hate speech emerges are sooner or later going to suffer property damage, if history is any guide.

7/12/2005 12:39:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"Imam, you silly bitch, look your ignorant murder-ranting has gotten our bloody mosque burned down! Afraid you're sacked, old man!"

7/12/2005 12:42:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Heather
of course the drive to modernize the living conditions in the Islamic world is going to be difficult.
Many of the peoples are hostile to 'liberal' values, more are indifferent, and only a few are actively supportive.
We have been able to assist in transforming both European and Asian societies in the past, whether it can happen in the Middle East, is still open to debate. If we cannot modify their behaviour the numbers of possible dead brought on by real "Clash of Civilization" is substantial.
Most of the dead will not be US

7/12/2005 12:48:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Trish, the locusts could come back, too, don't forget that!

7/12/2005 12:49:00 PM  
Blogger Dymphna said...

These Tribal people hate us because we are rich and successful, and they are poor and powerless. Their hate has absolutely nothing to do with what we "have done to them."

Wash. Rinse. Put on "repeat" cycle until it's over. Why not 'up' their hatred indicators? At this point, what harm can it do?

Ridicule wouldn't hurt, either:
Dhimmi Wash

(Buddy, you'd especially enjoy this, being of the same demented nature as the artist)

7/12/2005 12:57:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Heather said:

>Some historians maintain that when the Blood Feud died,
>and by implication the Tribe, the Middle Ages gave way to Modern
> Times in Europe.

Keep in mind the technical change involved at this time period. Gunpowder allowed masses of tradesmen to overcome knights (men trained from birth to kill). Knights and blood-feuds go together like hand and glove.

It isn't clear to me that the internet isn't tilting the balance between 'massed tradesmen' and individuals trained from birth to kill. True, the modern 'knight' cannot match up with a mechanized military unit (made of young tradesmen), but they need not pick that battle field. Their battlefield involves the use of urban environments, mass media, selective photogenic bomb blasts and disenchanted wannabe warriors with a suicidal bend.

The propaganda about the caliphate is simply hot air. The goal of the jihadi leader is little different than of any arab raider (and is typically medieval): women, ransom and tribute. Hey, its just a family tradition.

7/12/2005 12:57:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

trish
The breakupp of Iraq has always been on the table. It appears that much of the 'go slow' approach implemented by Bremer & Company was an attempt to save Iraq in some form of Federal System.
I have always been skeptical that Iraq could function in that manner w/out a 'reckoning'. To much blood has been shed over the last thirty plus years to let bygones go 'bye.

7/12/2005 12:59:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I married my cousin 'cause she's beautiful.
Like me.

7/12/2005 01:12:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Lyndie England?

7/12/2005 01:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I just read last night somewhere that Democracy is unraveling in Turkey.

7/12/2005 01:24:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Those wonderful Turks.
Armenia and Kurdistan, examples of their love of freedom, liberty and human rights.

7/12/2005 01:28:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Some people... they take your money in the form of bribes or payoffs for over fifty years, a faithful retainer, until the day comes you need their help, passage through their property, a simple overland transit.
VISA DENIED
ENTRANCE PROHIBITED
YANKEE GO HOME

7/12/2005 01:36:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

yes, dan obi wan
there is always hope
three steps forward, two steps back

7/12/2005 01:40:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Douglas Skyraider.
(558)

7/12/2005 01:42:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Oops,
I thought the Rocket Plane was the skyraider.
I am Batman.

7/12/2005 01:44:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Skyrocket"
Just call me "Sky."

7/12/2005 01:45:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

First there was Lab Rat.
Then Desert Rat.
Now comes SPACERAT!

7/12/2005 01:46:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Imam Ali doug el Belmonti
hail hail
the gangs all here

Or are you the walrus
coo coo kachoo

7/12/2005 01:47:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Original Rocketplane .
. Plane of Fame .
(I had the 558 right.)
But then, I tink therefore I Yam.

7/12/2005 01:54:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Plane of Fame

7/12/2005 01:56:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

That's me taking off in my Big Rig.
(Things turned out poorly.)

7/12/2005 02:00:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Couldn't the US fund some modernized film-making by and for Muslim youth, ridiculing the circular logic of worshipping a death-god configured out of Koran interpretations

I'm pretty sure that's what the Internet is doing. Any literate English-speaking Arab who logs onto the Internet in any way must have run smash-boom dead up against rejection of his history, his religion and his assumed superiority in no uncertain terms these past three years in the form of playful (and thoughtful) Westerners being delighted to let him know what a pathetic barbarian he is considered to be by the rest of the world.

Interesting that no one ever seems to comment upon the singular lack of humor or jokes in the Middle East. Doubtless laughter -- like everything else -- is also forbidden by the Koran. But how can they call themselves a mature civilization withOUT humor?

I think of it as the Chinese water torture method of Pavolovian reflex training, that the first cartoon you send to a Saudi of a jet chasing a jihadist on a camel might not get through, but maybe the 331st cartoon, joke, or sly remark will find a target. And a sudden smile of recognition.

You know all the educated (and dreadfully ignorant, too) newspaper editors, opinion-writers and conference attenders in that part of the world also get regularly deluged via their computer screens with comments, history, factoids and derisive raspberries from the West with great regularity.

I think it's great that after the London bombing, Pierre posted a link here on Belmont to a picture of a man holding up a sign reading, "You call *that* terrorism!?!" and making fun of such a piffly little effort at horrifying the world. If anything can make Zaqarwi gnash what's left of his teeth, I'm pretty sure that being laughed at would do it. That humiliation/honor thing, you know.

7/12/2005 02:04:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

disaster - to say the least
master of - clearly not

The London bombers "are people not thinking clearly" - Fox News

7/12/2005 02:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Clearly.

7/12/2005 02:08:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The correct person to ask about Afghanistan is Tony, Trish.
Comeon, Tony, let it rip.

7/12/2005 02:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The idea is that the lure of freedom breeds the intolerance of the clan system.
If all the women were armed, it could not fail!

7/12/2005 02:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

How many of us have personally learned via the Nahncee method?
(trying to think of my equivalent of the F-16/Turban Combo Comic.
Obviously I will not disclose here.)
Maybe that's why guys learn better than gals?
(Locker Room Learning)
...and gals do a better job at covert ops?

7/12/2005 02:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

My short version of Dan's excellent post, Trish is:
What is the (your) alternative?

7/12/2005 02:26:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Imam al Space_Rat"

7/12/2005 02:31:00 PM  
Blogger truepeers said...

Heather,

I like your rubber band analogy. But I think the essential forces in eroding western tribalism have been Christianity and the nation state. If the band holding today's multiculti nihilism snaps, I imagine we westerners will be returning somewhat more to Christianity and nationalism than to tribalism. such a return need not imply a loss of liberal freedoms, quite the opposite perhaps. However, given the facts that we westerners no longer reproduce ourselves at a replacement rate, and that we need so many years of schooling to operate in the knowledge economy, i think there is going to have to be some greater official deference paid to family units and their economic and reproductive needs than has generally been the case in our history. I am thinking, e.g., of the long history of the (medieval) church eroding the tribe or clan by encouraging membership in the family of Christ through proscribing marriage to cousins, writing inheritance laws in its own favour, celibate priests, etc. Followed by the nation taxing and monopolizing powers in its name. But now something must be given back to the family if it is still to provide people for the state. Immigration is only a short term answer.

7/12/2005 02:43:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

But that's what I meant Trish:
That leaves what TO DO?
("Don't bother." Means Bill Clinton, unless I'm missing something.)

7/12/2005 02:48:00 PM  
Blogger James Kielland said...

I'm rather stunned and disappointed to see so many people seriously thinking that nuclear weapons are in any way appropriate for this conflict.

With the blood fued notion in context, we would be wise to keep in mind that in the future (and the future of this conflict may last decades or even centuries) destructive weapons will only continue to decrease in size and potency. We're now dealing with bombs in backpacks. There are already all sorts of nasty things that can fit in backpacks, and the pace of biological engineering will only increase what can be shoved in there.

I'm not at all convinced that a nuclear attack on Mecca would reduce the number of Muslims willing to die to strike back at the West. It would be not all that different from a nuclear terrorist attack on a US city: enough to kill a lot of people, enough to really upset a lot of people, but certainly not enough to take the US out of the fight. It's not a conclusive knock-out blow. In the same way, "nukin' the bastards" would not bring about a conclusive end to this "blood fued."

Consider the consequences of a nuclear detonation. In addition to the hundreds of thousands dead in the initial blast, there would be the agonizing spectacle of the slow deaths of thousands more. The tracking of radioactive debris throughout the atmosphere. And you could be sure that the vast majority of these people would have nothing to do with terrorism or Al Qaida. As random and directed at the innocent at 9/11 or 7/7, but on a scale infinitely more vicious.

And afterwards we'd be no closer to having destroyed Al Qaida. Perhaps a few fundraisers would be caught up in the firestorm. Maybe a few tacticians or logisticians. But unless you're talking about nuking the entire muslim world there's nothing to suggest that AQ would be seriously hobbled or that Islamic terrorism would cease. If you are talking about nuking the entire muslim world you're talking about a genocide so horrific, so unjust, so vicious, and so completely random that it would make the holocaust of WW2 look both reasonable and minor.

7/12/2005 02:49:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"As I have posted previously, let's embargo the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina; the Haj."

Not only do I think the left in this country will not allow it to happen [and the consequent political blowout will damage us beyond the payoff], but I can't see our soldiers firing into the inevitable crowds [unarmed as well as armed] that attempt to break the blockade. It seems an invitation to put us in very uncomfortable positions.

7/12/2005 02:51:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Think how much more of a lure we would represent if men of the west were not described as no better than bin Laden by the Multicult Set.

7/12/2005 02:51:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

No Imam I
though in the desert I do thrive
Away to Vallhalla in the sky
Where all men can drink and drive

7/12/2005 03:00:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"Couldn't more be done on the propaganda front? Couldn't the US fund some modernized film-making by and for Muslim youth, ridiculing the circular logic of worshipping a death-god configured out of Koran interpretations? I see a million videos & CDs flowing out thru Araby--smart, funny, and subversive of fundamentalism's bent spawn."

The problem is our almost complete credibility problem, making everything that originates from us completely suspect, and submerged by ridiculous rumors and strains of thought that pass for serious thought. If Europeans are from Venus, and Americans from Mars, the Muslim world is in another galaxy.

7/12/2005 03:04:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Not sure if you were referring to ADE, James, but his concluding paragraph starts with what seem to be reasonable first steps imo.

"Some facts on the ground need to be explained – why did the Arab Street not go berserk when the hajib was banned in France – (ans – because the girls wanted to get rid of it too) why has the Egyptian Arab street not gone berserk about OIF? – (ans - because they want to change also).
We must help them change, ie wreck the culture
"

...as does Nahncee's joke post:
The Antithesis of PC:
SouthPark!
(In WWII, known as common sense.)

7/12/2005 03:04:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I didn't get your solution, Triah.
(But I've only asked 20 times, so why should I expect one?)

7/12/2005 03:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Trish

7/12/2005 03:06:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

Sometimes there isn't a 'solution,' only the opportunity to muddle through.

7/12/2005 03:14:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

One idea doug
Instead of following Powell's "You break it you own it" policy we move to a
"We broke it, you fix it or we'll break it again" policy
In that way we could maintain the offensive 'mo' and could be well on the way to finishing the war.
Victory before rebuilding
or have we already won?

7/12/2005 03:16:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Cutler,
Your response to Buddy to me represents a scathing indictment of what PC has done to us.

7/12/2005 03:16:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

True, Cutler,
But my complaint is that if you constantly knock one policy, seems you should at least have an outline of an alternative.

7/12/2005 03:19:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"Your response to Buddy to me represents a scathing indictment of what PC has done to us."

What do you mean, Doug?

7/12/2005 03:20:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Cutler,
It's hamstrung us in a million ways.
(even if my connection between your post and Bud's is faulty.)
I still like my observation that SouthPark like humor was regarded as common sense to the WWII generation.
(at least of the non-pointy headed set: ie the folks that did the job.)

7/12/2005 03:25:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Hey, I'm just reading along here and i got scathingly indicted?

7/12/2005 03:26:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

PC:

.Truth Held Hostage.

7/12/2005 03:27:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

It only hurts in some places.

7/12/2005 03:28:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Therefore?

7/12/2005 03:30:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Not a fatwa from Imam Ali doug el Belmonti, I hope.
Salman is still on the run
After his publisher sold the rope
No where was safe under the sun

7/12/2005 03:33:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"he was either normally stupid or being deliberately obtuse"

7/12/2005 03:34:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

To be scathingly indicted
is so very uninvited;
what did I do
to Duke Kahanamoku
to make him so mean and short-sighted?

7/12/2005 03:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...but look at his wife!

7/12/2005 03:35:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...not Duke's but she was probably fine, also.

7/12/2005 03:35:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

If you became PC you'd find out!

7/12/2005 03:36:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Maybe I'm missing something here:
Has Trish given her alternative?

7/12/2005 03:39:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

"Cutler,
It's hamstrung us in a million ways.
(even if my connection between your post and Bud's is faulty.)
I still like my observation that SouthPark like humor was regarded as common sense to the WWII generation.
(at least of the non-pointy headed set: ie the folks that did the job.)"

Whenever you can't even name the enemy, for fear of offending not only the enemy, but your own citizens - you've got problems.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1438482/posts

That is the mark of unserious people. So too is the carping about Gitmo. If the neo-conservative effort fails, we'll eventually have to try more brutal methods, a la Desert Rat's above. The increased bloodshed will be at least partially on the hands of the people who handicapped and sabotaged plan A. Not that they'll care anymore than the boat people, they'll be too busy opposing our newfound brutality, oblivious to the fact they helped necessitate it.

7/12/2005 03:48:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

*Not that they'll care anymore than they did about the boat people, they'll be too busy opposing our newfound brutality, oblivious to the fact they helped necessitate it.

7/12/2005 03:52:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Cutler, that's the ole double whammy again: first mess up Vietnam, then mess up OIF because "it's Vietnam!"

7/12/2005 03:52:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Trish,

"was a modern, wealthy, industrialized, technologically and scientifically advanced"

So was Iraq.

7/12/2005 03:53:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Well said, Cutler.

7/12/2005 03:54:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

ex helo,
I saw five minutes of video of Baghdad on the internet a long time ago and realized my conception of the place was totally wrong.
Same for Iran.

7/12/2005 03:55:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Can we do monumental HUMINT in the age of PC?

7/12/2005 03:56:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Hey that could be a legacy at home for the GOP:
"The Grand Flush"

7/12/2005 03:57:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

The Church Committee said we don't need no steenkin' humint.

7/12/2005 03:59:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The colleges said it's evil to do it.

7/12/2005 04:01:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Churchill's the Righteous Path.

7/12/2005 04:01:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The Church's Say We're Evil.

7/12/2005 04:02:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Remember,
One of Wretch's points is the monumental humint we get from engaging.

7/12/2005 04:05:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

We did get a lot in Afghanistan.
Wish we had an Army of Special Ops.

7/12/2005 04:07:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Smith" say's he's doing that when he gets back from Iraq.

7/12/2005 04:08:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Why hasn't Rummy already finished?

7/12/2005 04:10:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Rummy good.

7/12/2005 04:21:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

o/t--but i just saw Sen. Kerry--now looking even better-botoxed--saying in re Rove, "...the administration's credibility is at stake!"

What? The folks you've been calling liars for lo these many years, are in danger of losing their credibility? Oh, ha ha ha ha! Dumbass. How could be so dumb?

7/12/2005 04:29:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"How could be so dumb?", me want know.

7/12/2005 04:30:00 PM  
Blogger geoffgo said...

James K., you oppine: And afterwards we'd be no closer to having destroyed Al Qaida. Perhaps a few fundraisers would be caught up in the firestorm. Maybe a few tacticians or logisticians. But unless you're talking about nuking the entire muslim world there's nothing to suggest that AQ would be seriously hobbled or that Islamic terrorism would cease. If you are talking about nuking the entire muslim world you're talking about a genocide so horrific, so unjust, so vicious, and so completely random that it would make the holocaust of WW2 look both reasonable and minor.

A. Perhaps it’s nuking just enough of the “entire muslim world” to make them quit terrorizing the rest of the world.
B. From your comment, I’d guess you think the two nuke solution for Japan was genocide. If the American public was given the chance to vote on that solution; i.e., 5000,000 of our personnel, versus 500,000 Japanese civilians and 50 Japanese soldiers, and adding in a modicum of “shock and awe”, how do you think it would have turned out? You will recall that it took two to really get their attention. At some point survival gets very basic.
C. It’s an “unjust” solution only if we don’t warn them again; but this time in a very much more straightforward fashion.
D. Yes, it’s “horrific” and such action might be considered “vicious”, but only by our enemies, and that’s the fundamental idea.
E. Precision guided weapons are no longer "random."
F. As tragic as it was, WWII was not the holocaust. The German extermination of millions of Jews was the holocaust; let’s not get confused.
G. I’ve paid taxes and therefore funded the construction of nuclear weapons for 46 years. I was assured they were designed to be a deterrent against major threats to my safety. At what point am I less than sane, in asking/demanding they be employed? Should I wait for a nuke to go off in NYC? And, how would we know the perps had only one device?
H. This is a muslim problem, and they need to fix it, fast; because they leave us ever fewer “reasonable” responses. After all, we are simply asking them to stop their terrorists, whatever it takes...a "minor" demand.
I. This war can stop only when all “moderate” muslims take out their trash. By that I mean those surviving muslims, who’d rather live peacefully.
J. I’d venture to say wiping out several cities where the terrorists hang out, would be a significant inducement for the moderate muslims to creat Koran 2.0. If we are really lucky, two nukes will be enough to get their attention, as it was with Japan.

7/12/2005 06:09:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Doesn't have to be a terrible loss of life. Give notice--two days, a week--let the people evacuate first. It'll still stop terrorism.

7/12/2005 06:18:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Nuking an Arab city would not stop the war in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Georgia, Uzbekistan or any of the other 'stans. UBL would still be in his mountain lair if Damascus was a sheet of glass.
He would not be deterred, nor would his European operatives. They would redouble their efforts. The bad PR and PC campaigns you decry now, would be nothing in comparison to the fallout from blazing Medina.
You guys are loosing your minds if you believe one or two nukes could turn this tide.

7/12/2005 06:33:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

rat, you think vaporizing an evacuated city--only after an extreme provocation of course--wouldn't send streams of emissaries from the other cities out into the holds of the jihadis, to turn them or finish them off? The pressure of vast property loss is immense. Just announcing the policy would have a huge effect--might never have to enact it.

Speculating here, of course. What to do if the jihad gets intolerable.

7/12/2005 06:59:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

How many votes in Ohio, again Bud?
63,000 shift?
No Blood for Ohio,
No Blood for Ohio!

7/12/2005 07:07:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Yesterday I remembered I had about 50 posts warning of Ohio!
---
...and Bud was in a state of shock reading poll numbers.

7/12/2005 07:09:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Would the loss of Chidago stop US. I think not, we would double down. Get ever more serious.
I think if you nuke Medina or Damascus or any other city the results would turn ever more against the West. A Nuclear strike, like burning down the house to kill the termites. The termites in the other houses are unaffected by the flame and heat. Any Muslim demanding surrender or accomadation with the West, after a nuking, would be a Kafir, or worse.
That would Radicalize a generation

7/12/2005 07:09:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"You guys are loosing your minds..."
Won't be the first time for M. Larsen.

7/12/2005 07:11:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Rat,
Do the Israelis ever shoot flaming gasoline into the tunnels like our WWII GI's did?
'Nam, too, right?

7/12/2005 07:14:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I'm sure you're right, rat. but look for it, look for the cries for it, if something really bad happens.

Doug, only half that number plus one, has to shift.

7/12/2005 07:17:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

If we nuke them, isn't that the will of Allah, and they brought Allah's wrath upon themselves?

7/12/2005 07:26:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Nahncee, that's why the Christmas Tsunamis and Earthquakes that happened to hit Muslim populations so hard got Imam-blamed on USA/Israeli secret experiments.

7/12/2005 07:44:00 PM  
Blogger James Kielland said...

Geoffgo: Addressing your comments as you listed them:

A. Just what do you suspect would be "enough." And who would you kill first in order to make sure "they" get it?

B. There was nothing in my comments that in any way implicated the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki to be a genocide.

C. This kind of logic is often used by the other side. "We warned them." By this reasoning, the WTC strikes on 9/11 would have been "just" because AQ had warned the American people over and over again. According to OBL, the American people are ultimately responsible for the actions of the American government. You seem to be arguing that random people in Medina, Riyadh, or anywhere else are responsible for British citizens of Pakistani birth.

D. "only by our enemies?" I think a few others would fall into that group.

E. Precision guided weapons may not be random, using them on people other than those who have done us harm most certainly is.

F. I wrote "of WW2" just to give a historical time reference, as people seem to use the term "holocaust" a bit much lately. I did not mean "the holocaust that was WW2." But I could see where my words may have caused confusion.

G. You wrote: "I’ve paid taxes and therefore funded the construction of nuclear weapons for 46 years. I was assured they were designed to be a deterrent against major threats to my safety." They may have been designed and built for that purpose, in another time and facing different threats, but just because something was designed to achieve something does not mean that it will necessarily function to achieve that result. As for your NYC example, do you have any reason to suspect that us nuking "just enough" of the Muslim world would in fact make NYC any safer from nuclear attack? Or would it just create that many more people who would view such an attack as perfectly just and their life's mission?

H. Agreed.

I. Agreed. I wonder, though, would nuking Rome, London, or NYC help to get the more "moderate" Westerners to get the "crusaders" under control? Or would it only further embolden us?

J. Which cities are places where "the terrorists hang out?" Excluding London and Madrid, of course. I'd guess you could wipe many of the major Muslim capitals off the face of the Earth and still be left with a largely viable network of Islamic terrorists.

7/12/2005 08:03:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Beside, rat, if we lost Chitown, and knew if we didn't quit we'd lose Denver and then anothe and another everytime we tried to retaliate, and if we had no way of launching actual retal MAD strikes on warning, we might have to quit.

7/12/2005 08:46:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

You'd love to meet Colonel Happerset, bloomie. He's been there and done that.
Tough love, that gets my vote.

7/12/2005 10:07:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

bloomie,
clik the little garbage can and it will go away.

7/13/2005 02:56:00 AM  
Blogger CPA said...

Awesome post. This is a little late, but I've linked to your post on our Lutheran group blog here.

7/13/2005 08:01:00 AM  
Blogger CPA said...

I do have one nit to pick: jihadi is a pseudo-Arabic made up word. The Arabic word for someone who engages in jihad is mujahid (plural, mujahideen). The formation is just like "islam" (submission, NOT peace!) and "muslim" (plural muslimin) "one who practices submission (to God)."

7/13/2005 08:13:00 AM  

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