Daily Roundup Feb 15, 2008
After the Read More! What was Mughniyeh up to? Michael Totten looks at Barack Obama's policy in Lebanon. The US Army's new FM 3-0, due for release in February, will contain new concepts. What Iran Fears: John McCain and George Soros? Who knew? The Astute Bloggers continues to follow the Copenhagen Intifada. Al-Qaeda wants its enemies to burn in the fires of hell, literally.
Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post
raises the possibility that Imad Mugniyeh was killed to pre-empt an attack he was preparing to undertake. The possible targets included truck bomb attacks on Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin and Rome and a possible assault on the Vatican.the "truck stopping points" aligned with information the French had received the week before from Beirut. There, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah had convened a conference of his senior terror leaders where he ordered them to activate Hizbullah cells throughout Europe to kidnap senior European leaders.
If true these reports raise two questions. Mughniyeh had come a long way from being a Task Force 17 thug for Yasser Araft, who as you will recall, received the Nobel Peace Prize. And of late he has been doing jobs for Iran but dealing with al-Qaeda. But his allegiances were uncertain; so who was he working for now? The fact his he could stay in Damascus implies that his employer was known to and OK with the Syrians.
The second question is why his reported targets were European? The operations Glick quotes would have been the equivalent of a European 9/11. But changing away from targeting America might have been occasioned by two considerations. The need to avoid energizing the Republicans and the probable fear of an American response. While attacking the US has the effect of energizing conservatives, experience has shown that outrages in Europe stampede voters to the Left. Plus, Europe lacked the power to strike back. Or so Mughniyeh thought. If he was preemptively assassinated then their fangs had not been drawn as much as he imagined.
Who's behind Mughniyeh has become somewhat clearer as Reuters reports from Damascus indicate that "joint investigation into the bombing by Syrians, Iranians and Hezbollah was well under way and suspects had been arrested in the Syrian capital, the source said." Only somewhat because "joint investigations" occasionally suggest that the investigating parties are actually investigating each other. Mughniyeh's successor has been appointed.
"A successor to Imad Moughniyah has been appointed, which is natural," said the source, who requested anonymity. "That's how Hezbollah works, they move quickly to choose successors of fallen leaders."
The source said the successor was not one of the two names being circulated in the Israeli media. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has threatened Israel with "open war" in retaliation for the killing.
But not so open that Hezbollah can't help but keep its leadership names secret.
Writing in Commentary, Michael Totten wonders whether the strategy of containment and pulled punches, a path already attempted by Ehud Olmert, will work against Hezbollah. Totten contrasts this approach to the 'pulling up weeds at the grassroots' approach of Gen Petraeus in Iraq. Totten says indications are Obama's strategy will be pure Olmert.
“Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq,” says a statement on the senator’s Web site. “He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.”
The Small Wars Journal mentions some of the salient points in the Army's new FM 3-0
Some aspects are evolutionary (strategic context, operational environment, full spectrum operations, command and control, etc.). Other aspects are revolutionary (stability operations co-equal with offense and defense, emphasis on information engagement, requirements for leaders to be competent with both lethal and non-lethal (soft power) applications of combat power).
Some may immediately object that that this represents a shift away from the traditional military focus on kinetic warfare. Others will reply that "information engagement" and "soft power" actually make kinetic warfare more usable in the 21st century world, where it would otherwise be precluded by political constraints.
My own reaction is that FM 3-0 is an indictment of the other branches of government's inability to generate a full spectrum of capabilities against the enemy. There is a crucial difference between hosting a combined arms capability organically within the Armed Forces and creating a combined arms capability in a society as a whole. What is missing is a wider plan to mobilize national resources to bring them into the fight.
MEMRI has a transcript and translated video of "a new public service broadcast, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry urges Iranian citizens to use its new 113 hotline to report suspicious activity.
To underline its message, the broadcast features a seven-minute computer-animated tale in which a White House plot by "John McCain, senior White House official who orchestrates numerous conspiracies against the Islamic Republic of Iran," George Soros, "Jewish tycoon and mastermind of ultra-modern colonialism," and others is foiled by a vigilant Iranian woman who uses the new hotline to turn in her brother.
In terms of production values, it's like a Lego version of "24". But the messages it contains reveal what the Iranian leadership really worries about. Young people dreaming of life in America. View the video here. It ends with the slogan "we are the guardians of your information". I thought that was the function of journalism? Just kidding.
The Astute Bloggers writes, "The nightly skirmishes of arson and vandalism are beginning to be noted outside of Denmark, but unless blood is shed it may not make it to the MSM. Last nights crimes in Kokkedal, Nivå, Birkerød, Farum, Brønshøj, Ballerup, Glostrup, Gladsaxe, Ishøj, Greve, Hundige, Ringsted, Kalundborg og Århus began at 10 pm and were coordinated by SMS.
These riots by largely Muslim minorities apparently have a large street crime component to them and are probably as much an indictment of welfare system as anything else. Two nights ago I attended a talk featuring a very knowledgeable person on Australian aboriginal issues. The aborigines of Australia live in ethnographic museums in a sinkhole of alcohol, drugs, pornography, community rape, hunger and violence. There's no escape from the reservation. And the nearest cops are 150 miles away. But Australia is so vast that you can detonate a nuke in the Outback with nobody noticing. The British in fact tested their first A-bombs in the Australian desert. However, the Danes don't have the same space. So when the welfare system magnifies the cultural weakness of their immigrant communities the result is carbecues rather than a sudden surge in kids being found in plastic garbage bags on some distant desert dump. The reservation kills. But just try convincing the Left of that.
Fox News describes an al-Qaeda video clip showing what happens to its prisoners. It "shows five insurgents standing behind three blindfolded prisoners kneeling at the edge of a burning pit." Then a voice intones:
"And now that we have captured these scums who committed this dreadful crime, we will burn them with this fire," the Al Qaeda leader says in Arabic. "The same fire which they committed their crime with. "And I swear by God almighty that, I swear by God almighty that we will have no mercy on them," he continues. "Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar."
As he speaks, two of the insurgents pour liquid on the blindfolded prisoners. Then they push the bound men into the pit, where they are engulfed in flames.
According to the summary — in Arabic and German — included in the nearly 15-minute video posted on Google, many of the clips were found in Diyala, Iraq. The makers of the film say that the originals were "passed to us by others."
One of the arguments often advanced to justify treating the al-Qaeda as regular prisoners of war is that it will encourage them to reciprocate by treating Coalition prisoners according to the Geneva Convention. But there's no evidence to indicate that al-Qaeda's treatment of prisoners is a function of anything but their own medieval cruelty. Still, I wonder how long it will be before someone suggests the ghastly fate suffered by these men is in retaliation for 'waterboarding' or humiliation.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/15/2008 10:42:00 AM
28 Comments:
I find it hard to believe that Syria and Iran would initiate surrogate attacks on Europe at this time. Right now events are going their way and time is on their side. Iran and Syria are free of any real threat of sanctions or war. Iran faces no resistance to its nuclear or missile program. All they need is time (an not much of that) to complete it. In addition, Syria and Iran have very effectively stunted the Cedar revolution. Also, Israel is in no mood or position to initiate military action against either. It is in their interests to keep things relatively calm.
So, why send forth their minions to potentially stir-up a hornet's nest with the EU? I agree that the EU is just as likely as not to act like Spain after 3/11 - but why take the chance that they don't when the EU isn't threatening Iran and Syria or their interests in any way?
Much as I like Caroline Glick, her hypothesis does not add up. Moreover, so may people had so many reasons to kill Mughniyeh that they would not have tied it to an impending threat. My guess is that the killers simply took advantage of a rare opportunity. Good on them.
- "killed to pre-empt an attack he was preparing to undertake"
- killers simply took advantage of a rare opportunity
Alternatively, the targeting of Mugniyeh and others may be intended to elicit a specific response
For all I know, Imad Mugniyeh could have let himself become overconfident as he rigged another car bomb. Or some shopkeeper in Damascus may have gotten annoyed with the advances Mr. Mugniyeh was making toward his daughter. Sometimes the reason for a man's death is simple and petty. One should not assume an intelligence agency was involved.
Good riddance, though.
Last summer I was in Orlando on business. after the conferences I decided to go over to disneyworld. I've never been there. They had a nice roller coaster. I used to love riding on the things when I was a teenager. It was very exciting. I came away from the big steep rides exhilarated.
That was a long time ago. I hadn't been on one since.
The roller coaster at Disney world is quite tame compared to what's out there today.
Yet to me that ride went on for an eternity. I thought it would never end. I was desperate to get off that roller coaster. So much so -- I was ready to confess. Yes confess. I would have confessed anything had there only been someone to confess to... but noooo. Everyone was otherwise engaged. They were having fun.
To me that roller coaster was not fun. It was torture.
There ought to be a law.
Syrian security forces have arrested several suspects in the assassination of senior Hizbullah commander Imad Mugniyah in Damascus on Tuesday night, a Lebanese security source reported Friday.
According to the report, the suspects arrested were mostly Palestinians residing in Syria. The source did not say how many people were detained.
Who'd a thunk it? The Palestinians did it.
A poster on a Lebanese blog says: the info running now is the death of that Mughniyeh in syria is the tip of the iceberg. It reflects a serious internal struggle inside hizb conerning its control. The iranians do not trust the syrians anymore and believe they are going to give up hizb in return for a deal concerning the IT....
If any of this at all is true then there should be more blood in the streets soon.
Wretchard wrote:
"My own reaction is that FM 3-0 is an indictment of the other branches of government's inability to generate a full spectrum of capabilities against the enemy. . . What is missing is a wider plan to mobilize national resources to bring them into the fight."
Absolutely. There is a strong tendency in America to think of warfare as being almost exclusively kinetic. And even when we talk about vague notions such as "winning the peace" we frequently assume that these activities should be carried out by the organization built to carry out the kinetic functions.
More on this please, Wretchard.
Brian if anything the Iranian experience since 1979 is that aggression works, and recently with the Royal Surrender Navy, other surrendering (Britain with Prince Bandar, who killed the corruption investigation by threatening them with terror attacks DIRECTLY) ... all come together to show how much it works.
It works, it works well, and the Iranians have ALWAYS used it.
It worked against Carter. It worked against Reagan (drove him out of Lebanon as an Iranian proxy state). It worked against Clinton (he surrendered part of the Gulf to Iran as a "zone of control" after Khobar Towers). It worked against Argentina which had under Clinton's pressure in 1994 suspended help on Iran's nuclear program -- after which Iran through Hezbollah bombed the Jewish Synagoge and Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires with the loss of 400 lives.
Result? Argentina surrendered and resumed assistance in Iran's nuclear program.
This sort of intimidation works (I have zilch belief that with Obama in the lead that Iranians would not strike the US hoping to get the same results as in Spain -- "all infidels are the same.")
What would Iran get out of it? Patron-status for European muslims. Iran as their "protector" and Sharia in Europe. Wherever Muslims live, there is sharia. Which would trump European law and show Iran's power throughout the Muslim world as the TRUE alternative to AQ.
In the fight between Khomeni's heirs and Osama, the issue is who can kill the most infidels and bring about the Caliphate.
Do Iranians understand Americans? No. I'm sure they believe a mass attack would get Bush turned out and a surrender in Iraq, Sharia in the US.
Don't forget Iranian stupidity. They picked a fight with the US and courted War when first threatened by the USSR and Saddam, and then actively at WAR with Saddam.
As for who could kill Mugniyeh my short list would be the Syrians (remove an embarrassment), Iranians (same), Israelis (forestall an attack) and Delta Force (stop an attack). I don't think besides those four groups any others would have the capacity to kill a man so careful and protected. Israelis and likely Delta are the only Western powers capable. The Europeans are clowns who could not fight a room filled with Kindergartners. The Transgendered spokes-clowns inspire derision not fear.
And that's Europe these days. No more fight in them than toddlers.
Six months ago we had 160,000 troops in Iraq tied down fighting AQI with no allies we felt we could trust. Now we got 160,000 troops in Iraq that clobbered AQI. They did this allied with the Sunni tribes who ran the ratlines out of Syria and live on both sides of the border. Those ratlines go both ways. And the Sunni may want a regime in Damascus more simpatico, you might say, than one allied with Iran. Ditto the Kurds.
Syria may be acting in a way that gets them through the next US election. The US may be loath to take on Iran with 70 million people and a good military and plenty of fanatics. But taking out Syria (in the event of another major terror attack, say) may be an attractive option.
So Assad distances himself from Hizbullah (killing Mr. Mugniyeh is is "a good start") and sucks up to the Democrats.
Hizbullah Blames Hamas for Breach That Led To Mughniyeh Killing
And: mentioned at lgf Kuwaiti Paper: Mughniya Was Killed In "Work Accident"
Needless to say Muggsy wasn't assembling a car bomb while driving his SUV so if he was killed in a work accident then this whole thing is a set up. He wasn't assassinated but died in an accident and then it was made to look like he died in a car bombing in another location.
We'll see.
"Still, I wonder how long it will be before someone suggests the ghastly fate suffered by these men is in retaliation for 'waterboarding' or humiliation."
As far as I'm concerned, they could quarter al-Qaeda terrorists like deer on pay-per-view and display the parts on the steps of the Capitol, and I wouldn't object.
That's the only thing barbarians like that understand.
“What is missing is a wider plan to mobilize national resources to bring them into the fight.”
It’s not a matter of planning but of basic attitudes at the organizational and individual levels. Our society has mentally divided itself into “Doers” and “Sayers.” Doers actually accomplish things while the Sayers think that their role is to tell the doers what to do. This is a result of many factors, including automation, globalization, and the Feminization of Liberalism.
I had a lengthy run in with that attitude today. The phones went down at the office and I ended up spending the day talking to 3 different phone companies. All insisted that it was not their responsibility to make repairs – and that included the company that owned the phone lines and thus was the only one that could make the repairs.
State, Commerce, Health, Education, and even much of Justice, Treasury, Transportation, NASA, CIA, and DoD are of the “sayers” mindset as are virtually all of the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches of government. That leaves very few Doers to shoulder the load, and even they spend a great deal of time figuring out how to retain the authority while dumping the actual work on someone else.
This is all a natural outgrowth of the Washington DC attitude, which collectively does not recognize the very concept of management. Given all of the “must do’s” and PC-urgencies, there is no wiggle room to apply resources in a manner to get something useful done.
I guess that none of y’all out there have ever had the pleasure of standing in a Pentagon bureaucrat’s office at 2000 hours in the evening and had him tell you that resources don’t matter but that the job had to get done anyway.
Perhaps it was arranged by the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). Mr. Sarkozy could make his mark (and accumulate a number of IOUs) by unleashing his covert resources in the mid-east and Iran. A lot more humane than dropping the nuke that his predecessor threatened. And the French don’t suffer from our (U.S.) “sensibilities.”
Time for a football pool. Trouble is we need to set a reminder to revisit this in 30-40 years by when the truth will have come out.
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A biggie from Islamic Jihad in Gaza just got blown to Hell too!
via Insty & Captain Ed
story here
Coincidence or someone on a roll? We can hope.
If so, any tie back to those underseas cable "coincidences"?
Ari Tai -- how would France operate in Syria? They have no tradition of operating there, and would stick out like sore thumbs.
Syria itself, Iranian Agents, Israel (long tradition of covert ops there), and Delta (amazing capability) could be responsible.
Those are the FOUR actors capable of acting. Which one did it? Pick em.
I will say that this is about the only thing that the West will support, short of a nuke wiping out NYC. THEN it will be kill all Muslims. No one believes the threat and when it comes, the reaction will be to do whatever it takes to survive.
From decadence to pure survival. Ugly.
How would France operate in Syria?
Through Lebanon, where they long had influence.
re: France and Syria.
France was given Syria as a protectorate when the Ottoman Empire was defeated and has significant and long-term cultural, immigrant and business ties (Irrespective of Syria being granted independence by the Free French back in 1943). Look up the Treaty of Sèvres. Ditto for relationships within Iran (where did Khomeini take refuge when he was exiled by Mr. Pahlavi?). The French (and Brits) have many more assets in those areas than we do.
The DGSE is very good, ruthless and secretive. If it turns out Mr. Mughniyeh was about to unleash attacks on Paris, Paris likely unleashed their own dogs of war. If so “Welcome to the fight, now I know our side will win.” (since they do not suffer from our "sensibilities.")
Time will tell. Now I need to figure if I can set a reminder in Outlook for 30 years from today.
The second question is why his reported targets were European?
Two words: Soft. Targets.
Wittingly or not, Spain set a very dangerous precedent.
As to the Iranian video, no nation that is confident about its internal security would ever produce such a screamer. Seriously, Soros and McCain collaborating to bring Iran down, puhleeeeze.
So, we must be doing something right. Furthermore, we should be using the exact methods they portray in the film, if only to make them chase after those wild geese as we calmly use more effective channels.
The French have not had power, influence, and access to Syria since the days of the UAR. They've been cut out since the early 1950's.
To kill Mugniyeh (or however the heck you spell his name), a team had to be in place to surveil him constantly, and find out the best place and time to kill him.
This team had to be able to both evade detection from the Syrians (who are everywhere in their home capital and would immediately detain any obvious foreigners or people who simply look like they don't belong) AND be mobile enough to follow and observe Mugniyeh.
Then, likely a separate team had to place the explosive and observe to detonate it -- to be sure that Mugniyeh was killed and not someone else. Given the man's caution and ability to evade prior assassination attempts.
This team then had to successfully evade Syrian Security who would be on the look out for ANYONE looking out of place. The other team likely also had to evade and escape.
What we are looking at basically is the ability to pose as Syrians who would not arouse suspicion by the Syrian Security forces while surveilling Mugniyeh or placing a bomb or escaping. MY money if I had to bet considering these things would be the Syrians.
The French? Good on their own territory. I seriously doubt they have the ability to do what I described. Given that it's been half a century since they were in Syria and 30 + years since they were kicked out of Lebanon by Khomeni.
One thing to consider -- a man like Mugniyeh could have few loyalties. An offer to pay him, or even the convincing *APPEARANCE* of such an offer (and acceptance) could lead to his death by paymasters who would tolerate no other loyalties. Given that he literally KNEW where all the bodies were buried and who put them there.
Hitler in the 1930's had his spy service appear to "contact" Stalin's best generals and the result was purges of Stalin's best. Leaving the USSR with nothing but third raters during Barbarossa.
Whiskey,
IMO, It's mostly a matter of will. If the Frenchies reeeeealy wanted to get the guy, they could get the guy. They have always considered Lebanon their bailiwick, up to and including the present day. It's likely that Muggsy was behind the Harriri killing. Whether he was or not, it's likely the Frenchies thought he was.
I'll admit that if the Frenchies wanted to get him they would most likely have done it in Lebanon, not in Syria. But it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that they wanted him dead. They certainly would like to send a message to Syria to keep its paws off Lebanon.
Did they have the ability to get him in Syria, only time will tell.
Regarding the Danish intifada:
If Islam has one single dominant character trait, it is that of overreaching itself. Perhaps it reflects a downside to their monumental hubris in that Muslims feel they can do no wrong. More likely, it is a result of their fatalism and sense of predestination.
Whatever the mechanism, Islam consistently overplays its hand. Pretending to hold all the trump cards, they fail to anticipate their opponent's grand slam. The most shining example of this is in how the poorly armed MME (Muslim Middle East) continues to antagonize Western nations who maintain large nuclear arsenals.
As others have noted (particularly Charlemagne and Whiskey_199), the Islamic tendency to act prematurely is probably a blessing in disguise. If this new Danish intifada has one lasting effect, it should be to cement all further perception of Muslims in Denmark as the destructive and non-integrating colonists that they are. Horrid as it may sound, I can only hope that all this destruction and threat to human life will galvanize the Danes into acting against their Muslim interlopers.
There is a strange calculus that defines the equation of how Islam and the West interact. Western tolerance permits an influx of Muslim immigrants, a portion of which set about defying all opportunities for assimilation. In order to mask this purposeful avoidance of integration, these Muslims congregate into enclaves and slowly establish no-go zones. Any protest over this is countered with how Islamophobia drives such clustering even as these Muslim districts subsequently drive out all other cultures from their midst. From then on encroachment upon neighboring areas is accompanied by the usual spate of lawfare aimed at insinuating shari’a code into regional jurisprudence.
Muslim intransigence and uncooperativeness intentionally serves to channel all outside efforts at conciliation into forms of appeasement. The question of reciprocation—much less integration or any sort—is routinely quashed amidst howls of victimization. This creates a lopsided hudna whereby Muslims continue to advance their own agenda while imposing a paralytic sense of guilt upon Infidels regarding the total absence of fair play.
The foregoing pretty much sums up how things stand at present. There is some growing dissatisfaction with how lopsided any concessions are between the two groups but nothing has really come of it as yet largely due to ongoing abuse of Western tolerance. From all appearances, that is about to change, at least in Denmark.
A good analogy for this situation is the problem with school bullies. Reluctant to draw attention to their own selves, children (or members of the community), hesitate to make forceful complaints against the aggressor (Muslims). This “Code of the Playground” only serves the bully’s (Islam’s), ends by creating a sense of immunity that thwarts any useful application of discipline (or law enforcement). Be it with one single individual or a group, eventually things are brought to the breaking point. The behavior pattern of bullies literally guarantees this. They will continue to escalate their aggression until brought up short. Nothing else will abate the problem.
This is where America and Europe diverge in their given responses. European citizens—accustomed to delivering up all behavior correction to the state—will more calmly endure the slings and arrows of their tormentors. This over-reliance upon state based solutions permits both undue deterioration of the ongoing problem in addition to evolution of countermeasures that go well beyond the issue’s scope.
Desirable or not, in America the problem is far more often self-correcting. Increasingly, the bully is simply gunned down. While I cannot in good conscience advocate such vigilantism, neither am I surprised or mystified by it. Much as with Islam, most everybody simply hopes that by ignoring it, the problem will go away. This only encourages individual measures and here is where Europe and America are likely to part ways in how Islamic jihad is dealt with in their respective regions.
Largely disarmed and furthermore traumatized by World War Two’s excesses, Europe has demonstrated a pronounced tendency to avoid all conflict, regardless of scale. A lack of vigorous response to the Parisian Banlieues and Dutch insurrections evidence this fact. It is impossible to ignore the conclusion that such reluctance will only invite another over-reaction. Unlike the Holocaust, this one will occur with much greater justification, however needless such excessive force might be were there but officials who chose to perform their duties in a timely fashion.
The American story will likely be quite different. An armed populace has far less patience with predatory members of the community. All indications point towards a volunteer military that will not accept orders to disarm America’s citizenry. Much as with the school bullies, it stands to reason that summary justice will more often be dispensed in this case as well. Most ironic of all is how America’s “gun toting vigilantes” will likely end up incurring a much lower death toll than the cascade or avalanche effect that is so likely to occur on European soil.
Let us all hope that Denmark’s intifada signals a turning point with respect to exactly how much oppression and bullying the Danes are willing to endure. There can be few more sure signs of what awaits any further countenancing of such ridiculous and hostile ingratitude from their Muslim colonists. Either Denmark awakes to the fact that a large—if not unanimous—portion of their Muslim population must be deported, or they will be subjected to increasing levels of unacceptable bullying until a catastrophic breaking point is reached.
zenster,
After reading a dozen or so book on Islam, the Qur'an, and ahadith, as well as historically reliable descriptions of the life, deeds, and character of Muhammad, I came to the conclusion long ago that Islam is completely and irredeemably incompatible with our way of life. "Integration" of Muslim colonizers into our societies really amounts to their self-abnegation. They must become apostates.
However, we cannot rely on that happening, despite any enlightened efforts to effect some kind of pseudo integration that still allows this ideology/cult to have a toe hold in our countries.
I earnestly would prefer that we not get to the wholesale destruction of Muslim populations, if at all possible. The only major writer that I know of who has argued that the truly most wise, moral, and sane policy is a strict separation of the civilizations is Serge Trifkovic. Perhaps having grown up in the Balkans he has seen first-hand how destructive the Ummah has been. What I admire most about him and what he advocates is the grasp of how to do moral reasoning in a sophisticated manner. This entails looking at the extreme positions one can take on this issue: appease and surrender to the Ummah vs. wholesale annihilation of it (mass killing). Neither option, in the current context, if we are to avoid getting to those crisis points, is a realistic or moral option. How do we balance ends and means in such a way that we remain faithful to our Christian ethics and are effective in reducing a deadly threat? Separation and containment remains the best option.
Some people think deportations are awful and brutal. Please consider the alternatives and tell me that they are truly wise. We can preserve our liberties and our civilization without having to go apes**t against the Ummah, for now.
However, I fear we may be past the point of this Nicomachean avoidance of the extremes. We seem to have slid more in the direction of appeasement, but we never will truly go the whole distance with that before the pendulum swings to the opposite side in reaction to the inevitable Muslim overreach and brutality. To preserve ourselves and our way of life we will have to temporarily become beasts.
Fred: I came to the conclusion long ago that Islam is completely and irredeemably incompatible with our way of life.
I, too, have had to confront this simple fact. There is no possible "middle ground" with a group whose sole objective is global domination by force. Especially so when they have granted themselves the right to lie, cheat, steal and deceive whenever it suits their purposes.
"Integration" of Muslim colonizers into our societies really amounts to their self-abnegation. They must become apostates.
Agreed, too. The changes required in order for Islam to be even the least bit compatible with Western civilization render it wholly alien in comparison to its current state. Any follower of Islam who altered their belief structure to accomodate peaceful coexistence with the West would no longer be a Muslim.
I earnestly would prefer that we not get to the wholesale destruction of Muslim populations, if at all possible.
I also hope that it can be avoided. However, Islam has no such worries and cheerfully prods its believers towards the nuclear precipice. Somewhere deep inside, Islam knows that its time is very quickly running out. What has persisted as an ongoing conflict for the last millenia or more must now be escalated into total war if Islam is to have any hope of surviving the inexorable onslaught of modernization.
There is no other way that this barbaric and Neanderthal cult can retain the least hope of survival save by changing the equation to fit its own data. Reality is so totally in contradiction of all that Islam holds true that nothing short of abject self-deception can possibly allow any further semblance of stability or cohesion.
Please never forget that it is Islam with its fatal obsession over martyrdom and global domination that frames this entire conflict in all-or-nothing terms. There is little that the West can do to alter that basic context.
If Islam is to survive this battle, it will only do so by altering its own antagonistic profile. Nothing can preserve it in its current form. Whether or not American and Europe successfully defeat Islam matters not in the least. Neither Russia or China—not to mention India—will have anything to do with a global caliphate. As Wretchard notes in his "Three Conjectures", none of those three will be in the least squeamish about annihilitaing the entire MME (Muslim Middle East) should that be required.
This is what makes Islam's insanity so completely surreal. They have absolutely no chance of overcoming global resistance to their campaign of totalitarianism, yet they refuse to understand that persisting in such a pursuit will be their collective death knell.
The only major writer that I know of who has argued that the truly most wise, moral, and sane policy is a strict separation of the civilizations is Serge Trifkovic.
Again, I'm really glad you've had the chance to review Trifkovic's work. I find him to be one of the few outposts of sanity. While I would rather see an attempt at containment preceed total devastation in the MME, there are some compelling reasons why containment is not viable.
Without massive multi-national participation it would be impossible to cordon off the entire MME. There would still have to exist programs of intervention to prevent further MME development of WMDs as well. Finally, even the best military cordon could not possibly prevent the odd terrorist escapee from perpetrating some sort of atrocity in Western lands. The basic nature of Islam's asymmetrical warfare guarantees this. It is one reason why I continue to advocate a policy of massively disproportionate retaliation for all terrorist atrocities. Only by instilling a sense of overwhelming fear—terror, if you wish—in Muslim populations will there be any hope of dissuading them from their continued support for terrorism.
How do we balance ends and means in such a way that we remain faithful to our Christian ethics and are effective in reducing a deadly threat? Separation and containment remains the best option.
You, Fred, as a compassionate and religious man must surely recognize that allowing Islam to continue in any form at all perpetuates its heinous abuse of human rights. Even if we save the West from Muslim predations there will still remain the fact that women will be mutilated, prisoners of conscience executed, children strapped into bomb vests plus any number of other disgusting and barbaric practices.
In the long run, this profound crime against humanity must be halted, no matter what. Without the catastrophic dismantling of Islam such savagery will continue to murder untold MILLIONS of victims, Muslim or otherwise. There is no moral justification for allowing Islam to exist. Period. It is simply unacceptable. This is why assimilation, integration, deportation, repatriation, internment, reverse immigration, containment and a host of other seemingly humane alternatives really aren’t really so very humane after all. Islam—by its very core nature—is supremely evil and must be undone for all time. NOBODY of good conscience can countenance such moral filth and ignore the obvious betrayal of humanity required to remain unmoved. All of us have an obligation to HUMANITY to put an end to Islam’s vicious and cruel predation upon mankind. I invite you to please persuade me that there is any other decent alternative.
We can preserve our liberties and our civilization without having to go apes**t against the Ummah, for now.
Exactly how long shall we permit Islam to continue committing its ongoing crimes against humanity? How many more hundreds, thousands or millions must die before action is taken? We both know that Islam WILL NOT reform or moderate itself in any way. How much closer should we allow it to approach a global caliphate that would see BILLIONS die?
The charade is over. The farce has ended. Islam has played out its pretense as the Religion of Peace. [spit]
It is up to the decent and humane portion of mankind to make sure that Islam does not claim a single other innocent human life. Were we to act now, untold thousands would still perish before Islam could be dismantled. Any delay only ups that number into the millions. All Islamic countries must be overthrown by military force, the practice of Islam halted, shari’a law banned and the Koran burned worldwide until it exists only as a museum artifact. Mosques must be bulldozed, mullahs executed, clerics jailed, so-called Islamic “universities” and madrassahs dynamited and—if needed—Mecca and Medina reduced to so much rubble. Either that or simply be done with it and reduce a swath of this world from Morocco to Malaysia to a radioactive wasteland. There is no middle ground. Remember:
Islam simply will not have it any other way.
If the West does not set about doing this right away, we will witness some of our most revered accomplishments blasted into dust. Notre Dame Cathedral, Washington D.C., Westminster Abbey, Hoover Dam, The Golden Gate Bridge and countless other marvels will be destroyed until we summon the courage to begin crippling Islam’s ability to make war. It will involve killing MILLIONS of Muslims in order to avoid slaughtering all ONE BILLION of them. No matter how much we wish it might be otherwise, Islam gives us no other choice. Never has Western civilization been more clearly confronted with a binary situation of “Us or Them”.
To preserve ourselves and our way of life we will have to temporarily become beasts.
Word. We defeated the Nazis without becoming them. We will defeat the terrorists without becoming them as well. We have come too far to ever revert back to the bestial nature of our Islamic foes.
If I wanted to kill off big-wig terrorists who really like their bombs and homemade rockets, and I didn't want to go to the trouble and expense of inserting boots on the ground to do it, I'd start making sure they received shipments of pre-formulated gun powder (or whatever they use to make their ticky-tacky little car bombs with).
It would look the same, cost the same and feel the same, but it would act totally different when you hooked up the red wire with the white wire, just like you'd done a gajillion times before.
I'd make sure there were barrels of it carelessly left along the borders of countries like Syria, and I'd make sure there were people willing to sell it in the towns along the border of Gaza for the times when the wall came down. I'd sell it to well-known gunslingers so they could turn around and re-sell it to their favorite customers. I'd parachute bags of it into deserted oases in the Saudi desert.
It might take a while, but sooner or later very bad people with lots of explosive experience would start to mysteriously blow themselves up.
And what's even better, the very bad people would start looking at each other sideways and tossing each other into flame-pits just because they can't trust each other any more and everyone knows that waterboarding doesn't work.
I appreciate the comments, Fred and zenster, but I find they are missing important elements. The structures in logic that they depend on are two dimensional, when reality contains a few more dimensions, and therefore more options, than you have considered. It might be instructive, for instance, to compare the zeal of the currently radical fundamentalists, with the zeal of the Catholics during the Inquisition... including, as a passing note, that the west has been resisting the same Islamic expansion during, since and before the time that Spaniards were leading their church to impose a similarly strucutred theocracy.
The truth is that there are now instances where the best current tactical option is to isolate the parties in conflict to prevent them from trending toward worse. Kosovo and the Israeli wall are instances.
At the same time, there are instances where the only useful option is to kill the perpetrators, and reimpose a functional system based in law to impose order. Iraq, today, is a different place than the headlines of only 6 months ago would suggest it could be, and Afghanistan is not the home for the problem today that Pakistan is.
The third option, short of killing or containing and isolating everyone in separate societies, is to recognize that the process of radicalization is not inevitable. Historically, the Inquisition and the French Revolution, as well as the modern tyrannical impositions in Nazism and Communism, tended to contain the seeds of their own undoing, but they were not undone without deliberate and structured resistance. Religion is but one facet of human life. Islam tries to subject all to a single facet, while requiring surrender, as did the Spanish church. Reformation is not incompatible with Islam in society, only with radicalism. To the degree that Islamic societies are structured in such a way as to encourage and be unable to resist radicalization, you are correct that the path has one direction. To the degree that other paths are possible, because our lives and experience include features with aspects other than the religious, it is also possible for societies to choose to take them. The supposition that the best option for containment of the tendency to religious excess within an Islamic context is to suppress it with dictatorship... fits with the Islamic perception, but that is incompatible with an expanded awareness of the real nature and complexity of life and our choices.
Mine is not intended to suggest that the worst case outcomes they discuss aren't possible outcomes, which they are, mine is instead intended to point out that there are more options for avoiding worst case outcomes that do not involve surrender. When Islamic societies are willing to resist radicals, without depending on surrender to tyrannical authorities to protect them from themselves, progress is possible.
When you observe societies where the moderate Imams are being targeted at a higher rate than others, you will see those Islamic societies terrorizing themselves into submission to the radicals. When you see terrorist leaders and radical Imams blowing up more frequently than radicals, you may see the reformation gather steam. It is an inherent weakness in an open "movement" that distributed leadership limits the potential, while aggregation of leadership engenders sectarian strife. External aggression and internal sectarianism are not isolated expressions of conflict. No social movement can survive and expand when it incorporates that level of volatility in its foundation... as long as there is any level of organized resistance operated by those within our outside of those societies who understand the context and the big picture.
The addition here doesn't suggest there aren't roles for, or a need to use, the tools you discuss, but there are more tools than those few, as the level of success in Iraq makes more and more clear. What radical Islam cannot tolerate or survive, whether that of Iran or the brand found in Saudi Arabia, are clear and timely demonstrations of its failures relative to the alternatives... which, when combined with freedom to choose, also focuses people on features of successful societies other than the religious.
tom,
What do you mean by "the zeal of the Catholics during the inquisition?"
Also, define and explain the term "radicalism."
Was the Spain of Fedinand and Isabella aspiring for a theocracy?
What is a "moderate Islam" and what is a "radical Islam?"
You've made a claim that the grand view of portions of history in your response adds a "third dimension" to the analysis of the current situation. And the key link that textures that third dimension, which zenster and I lack in our understanding of Islam, hinges on that phenomenon called "radicalism."
Define it, clearly and completely, and then we can proceed with further discussion.
One final question, tom, and then I think we will be able to advance this discussion.
If the words, letters, the very language (Classical Arabic), punctuation, and grammar and syntax of the Qur'an are held to be, by every traditional scholar of Islam, the eternal, uncreated, perfect, and literal words of Allah, HOW DO YOU REFORM Allah's words and commands? Also, Muhammad is considered to be the Perfect Man and is to be imitated in every respect by faithful Muslims.
I mention these things because the reform of Islam that you contend is very possible will have to deal with those FACTS. It also hinges on your belief that secularization, akin to what took place in the West when that awful Catholic Church was put in its place, will take place within the Ummah. But first, the understanding of apostasy in the Qur'an will have to be abrogated somehow. Right now, Muslim secularized apostates are not running the show.
Last I checked, both Iraq and Afghanistan's legal codes are based on Sharia Law.
Tom: the west has been resisting the same Islamic expansion during, since and before the time that Spaniards were leading their church to impose a similarly strucutred theocracy.
The one small difference being that, until now, Islam didn't have access to nuclear weapons. This one fact compresses all time scales by orders of magnitude.
The truth is that there are now instances where the best current tactical option is to isolate the parties in conflict to prevent them from trending toward worse.
Isolation is a stopgap measure, at best. Any such policy of containment will still require intervention to prevent acquisition of WMDs and cannot prevent—as previously noted—incidents of "leakage" whereby any military cordon is circumvented in order to commit new attacks.
You mention Israel's policy of containment while neglecting to note how Hamas rocket attacks continue and the IDF is still obliged to conduct sorties into Gaza.
At the same time, there are instances where the only useful option is to kill the perpetrators, and reimpose a functional system based in law to impose order. Iraq, today, is a different place than the headlines of only 6 months ago would suggest it could be, and Afghanistan is not the home for the problem today that Pakistan is.
[Emphasis Added]
As noted by Fred and also myself on numerous other occasions, Iraq and Afghanistan are currently subject to shari'a law. Disregarding America's utter insanity for allowing this to happen, do you nonetheless argue that shari'a represents "a functional system based in law"?
ANY nation that is ruled by shari'a law is nothing but a terrorist manufactory and so distant from all definitions of "functional" as to give chaos a crystalline appearance.
Reformation is not incompatible with Islam in society, only with radicalism.
In case you missed it, Islam has recently undergone "reformation". It has become even more puritanical, xenophobic and intolerant than in the last few centuries. Please explain how you think that any other sort of reformation is possible. All previous historical records have generally shown Islam to migrate towards increased militancy and aggression whenever circumstances allow for it.
To the degree that other paths are possible, because our lives and experience include features with aspects other than the religious, it is also possible for societies to choose to take them.
Which has exactly ZERO pertinence to Islam. It is what distinguishes Islam from Nazism, communism and even your odd comparison to the Inquisition era Catholic church. Only communism remotely approached Islam's near stranglehold upon the daily life of those held in its thrall. Islam allows no "features with aspects other than the religious". This is precisely what makes it so incredibly dangerous and difficult to counter without the use of overwhelming force.
What radical Islam cannot tolerate or survive, whether that of Iran or the brand found in Saudi Arabia, are clear and timely demonstrations of its failures relative to the alternatives... which, when combined with freedom to choose, also focuses people on features of successful societies other than the religious.
Save that there is no "freedom to choose", which might allow the sort of refocusing that you suggest. As I noted, Islam is on its last legs. However, instead of being some doddering and decrepit senescent geriatric, it is more like a thrashing and vicious wounded beast lashing out at all who surround it, even those intent upon saving it. In these throes it is grasping after whatever means possible to stave off the inevitable surcease that awaits. Given half a chance, Islam will rend any and all around it to gain even temporary breathing room in its bid for more time. Its fevered imagination regards nuclear weapons as an ideal way of obtaining new freedom of latitude.
We must prevent this and treat Islam just like any other terminally rabid animal.
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