Factoring fear into strategy

When the late shah of Iran was asked why he did not imitate the Swedish monarchy, he responded: "I will act like the King of Sweden when my subjects behave like Swedes."

In the end, the shah was persuaded by President Jimmy Carter to act like the king of Sweden -- whereupon he ceased to be a king of any kind.

Isn't it funny how all the hysteria and fear mongering about the situtation in Iraq comes from " press experts" here in the US and not from any of the people on the ground in Iraq? Seems to me this is just a replay of the "Bogged down" Media hysteria from last year. Perhaps all these self-appointed "experts" should sit down and shut up and let the ground commanders get on with it. Since the ground commanders have been right 3 out of 3 times, perhaps it is time for the experts to admit they have NO clue about what is going on in Iraq

What happened yesterday? An Iraqi force on the road to fight insurgents in Fallujah, turned tail and ran when fired upon, with the lame excuse that they hadn't signed up to fight Iraqis. Either they're cowards or nitwits. What do they think life will be like if totalitarians end up in control in the days after June 30? Freedom doesn't come cheap, even when someone else does the fighting for you at first. Sooner or later, you have to prove you have what it takes. So far, the Iraqis haven't done that.

He gives the obvious solution - the first - which has been described and advocated here on FR already. Then he just calls it "draconian" and dismisses it as something a democracy won't do unless it thinks the enemies are Nazis. This is strange, since not one of the steps involved in the first involves any violence to any innocent person.

It involves administrative measures, certainly - and violence against those who resist them, certainly. But curfews and internment to triage the terrorists out of the rest of the population are hardly equivalent to e.g. carpet bombing whole towns. Nobody who complies is hurt by them. Nor even detained for long.

Is it convenient normal civilian life going on? No, but war and the terrorists prevent that anyway. It is surely more humane to anyone not interested in fighting, to observe a curfew and spend a week in a camp, than to be hit by a stray bomb, or shot by terrorists as a "collaborator".

Yet for some unfathomable reason, these entirely practical measures, measures actually envisioned by international laws on warfare as the humane way to deal with such problems, are supposed to be unthinkable. What is unthinkable about them?

Is there some new fundamental human right to be treated as indistinguishable from a terrorist? Or are terrorists themselves held to be killable but not subject to arrest? Sorry, I don't see it. It would appear some vague associations with fascism are supposed to paralyze thought. One might as well denounce use of tanks in warfare.

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