Hard Thoughts about the War

The American Thinker ^ | August 10th, 2006 | Steven M. Warshawsky

[Condor 63]

Two recent articles on National Review Online demonstrate what I consider to be the two biggest failures to date in thinking about the War on Terror: a studied refusal by most westerners—including American conservatives who support the war—to admit that we are in a clash of civilizations with militant Islam, and a comcomitant failure to recognize that America and her allies have not fought this war with anywhere near the ferocity required to win.

[Sans-Culotte]

How can Kurtz be so sure the enemy cannot be defeated? We haven’t even tried.

The fact that we have not tried, and probably will not is the source of Howie's malaise. The author makes some good points, but he fails to accept the fact that the West lacks the fortitude, determination and courage to stop the Islamic scourge. Yes, it can be done. Unfortunately, it won't be.

[jwparkerjr]

Let's not forget the law of unintended consequences. It's likely Iraq will take its new found freedoms and figure out a way to use them to further their primary goal of destroying Israel. Just like when you ban guns from the playground, the first thing the little boys do is pick up a stick and let their fertile little minds turn it into a gun, running around pointing it at anything and everything and saying "bang, bang, bang! You're dead". I don't doubt that it's the desire of most people to be free. But what they choose to do with that freedom is another matter!

[andy58-in-nh]

Good article. I'm afraid that reality will have to keep slapping us in the face repeatedly until Americans wake up to the truth about the nature of the threat facing us. I particularly liked this:

The truth is, to date, we have not made any effort to destroy the forces of militant Islam. We have only engaged in limited conventional actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and (supposedly) covert ops worldwide. That’s it. We haven’t mobilized the American people for war. We haven’t destroyed Iran and Syria. We haven’t closed radical mosques or shut down the jihadist propaganda networks. We haven’t conducted targeted assassinations of jihadi leaders across the globe. We haven’t made it clear to the terrorists and their supporters that they cannot win and that they will die.

Neal Boortz had a similar observation on his website this morning:

Right now, there are people in the world that want to kill you. These people are fanatics. They're fanatics of the worse kind .... religious fanatics. They're intelligent. They have money. They have resources. They're determined. They don't care if they die ... and they're very very patient.

Their goal is to bring the entire world under Islamic law ... or do die trying. Either way they believe they will receive the reward of eternal paradise.

How do you fight an enemy like that? They will never stop trying to kill us. We say negotiations, they hear appeasement. We say peace plan, they hear surrender. We say peaceful coexistence, they plot to grow their numbers and their strength while we're wallowing in our own political correctness.

There is only one way to address radical Islam, and that is to completely and absolutely destroy it. We seek the Islamofascists throughout the world. We locate them, and then we destroy them.

This global war on radical Islam is a fight for our Western civilization and culture. It's a fight for our very way of life.

[jwparkerjr]

I see it as a race. The enemy is intent upon our destruction and will use every means at their disposal to bring about that outcome. At some point they will use a tactic, 9-11 SHOULD have been that point, that will convince us that our only defense is to dispose of them before the can dispose of us. The "iffy" part is will we come this realization while there's still time, and a means, to deal with them, or will what have to do at that point result in the destruction of both of us.

Every day, every hour, that we put off dealing decisively with our enemies is working against us. We can no longer let our concern for the 'peaceful' Muslims allow the jihadists among them set the terms of our battle.

[RJS1950]

This recognition is essential, but not forthcoming in the absence of another major attack. The fact that this threat is almost entirely from a "religious" source rather than a political/national entity clouds the attitudes of the western nations. Islam is and always has been a political movement of conquest with a "religious" face and no political borders. The west views religions with the filter of what we understand a religion to be. The west has forgotton that until very recently Christianity had very political and militaristic components. It was all about conquest of land, conversion by force if necessary and political control. The west moved on and changed, Islam did not.

There were plenty of Germans who were not nazis, plenty of Japanese who did not support the overall war effort. In world war two we did not take the time nor should we have taken time to sort out the "good guys" from the "bad". This is because we were fighting nations with geographic and political boundaries we could recognize. We view the WOT through a prism of "religious tolerance" and understanding, but our view is flawed because it is from a western perspective. The west has to face the fact that this is a war against Islam, a so-called religion that acts as a political entity whose tenants include conquest and conversion by the sword. We need to view the enemy as a whole and sort the "good guys" out when we have prevailed. When that happens I think we will find that a lot of the "good guys" were no different than the Vichy French.

[Sans-Culotte]

The so-called "peaceful Muslims" are like the Lebanese, who are little more than doormats for the Hezboes. The west should tell the "peaceful" ones to get rid of the jihadis/wahhabis in their midst if they don''t wanna go down with them when we loose our terrible swift sword. It should not be our job to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Never mind. It ain't gonna happen.

[jwparkerjr]

It's a good thing for them that you and I are not running this WOT!

[ansel12]

"The author makes some good points, but he fails to accept the fact that the West lacks the fortitude, determination and courage to stop the Islamic scourge."


Before WWII the western nations were still masculine cultures, with the brand new female voters mostly voting like their husbands for candidates that had not yet learned to appeal to female sensibilities.

Now we live in womanized nations led by the 51% to 54% female voters, with parties and politicians that reflect female sensibilities, and their take on life's problems and the solutions.

I don't believe it is possible for the democratic nations to return to a time of harsh, long lasting actions in an attempt to permanently end a problem.

When we discuss all the difficulties of pursuing a military solution because of the political barriers, think of how much easier it would be, if we could have the entire decision process only within the male part of the population, especially males that had been raised in an atmosphere of a masculine culture, of say America of the past.

[Fishrrman]

From the article:
Two recent articles on National Review Online demonstrate what I consider to be the two biggest failures to date in thinking about the War on Terror: a studied refusal by most westerners—including American conservatives who support the war—to admit that we are in a clash of civilizations with militant Islam, and a comcomitant failure to recognize that America and her allies have not fought this war with anywhere near the ferocity required to win.

Here is a posting I made only yesterday, before reading this article:
==========================

Just as in the wake of the World Trade Center attack - when a few persons of influence began to sense that The West was at war with something much more significant and far-reaching than merely "terrorists" - the time will soon come, certainly within the next decade, in which reasonable people, thinking reasonably, will begin to ask thus:

Is The West truly at war with _Islam_ (the cult/religion)?
If so, what are the possible outcomes?
Could Islam actually win?
What are Islam's chances of winning?
Can Islam be defeated?
If so, is merely "defeating" Islam by changing regimes enough?
Or is something more required?

I believe that ultimately, the only resolution to this conflict can be:
1. The conquest of The West and the subjugation of its peoples and culture to Islam -or-
2. The end of Islam as a religous force that infects human hearts.

This DOES NOT mean nuking them all. What it DOES mean is that the religion of Islam must be recognized for the demon that it is, and, so recognized, purged from the Earth, and the multitudes living under its spell must be given something else to believe in.

The West is not yet ready to face this task. It may never be, even after some western cities, perhaps our own, lie in smoking ruins.

For that reason, I'm not optimistic about the long-term future. Islam _can_ win, because The West is unwilling to fight back with the determination and ferocity necessary to secure its own victory and continuity.

Right now, we are in danger of losing because most of us still believe that this conflict can be solved through "regime changes" in places like Iraq and Iran. Chances are, in the wider war, that will make no difference, because the "regime" we are at war with is not one of men. It is Allah's "regime" which must be changed.

- John

[logos]

When a midwest American farmer discovers that rats have infested his corncrib, he can be counted on to take certain actions, and forswear others.

First of all, he wastes no time trying to understand or sympathize with the rats. He has sufficient common sense and every day experience to realize that rats will be rats ... they are hardwired to do what rats do, among other things, to eat corn. The rats waste no time trying to become cats, nor does the farmer squander any minutes either loving or hating the rats. Rats is rats. Period.

What the farmer does do is anything and everything he can think of to do to eliminate those rats from his corncrib. If poison will work, he puts posion out. If he has a particularly hungry and vicious cat, he pens it up in the crib. If he has a bit of a sporting nature, he sits on a straw bale somewhat removed from the crib, and shoots each and every rat that pokes its head into view. If nothing else works, he'll even move all his corn to some other location, and burn down his corncrib. The one thing he absolutely will not do is stop killing rats until even the very last one is dead. He knows that to leave even one rat means that it will find a mate, and the cycle starts all over again.

Islamist jihadists are rats.

We need more farmers.

[jordan8]

Again, from the top, there is no clash of civilizations because Muslim countries aren't strong enough to confront the West, there is only self-loathing hatred within the West. Governments of every country in the West spend huge amounts of time, energy, and money displacing their own people with foreigners, under the ideological belief that their own cultures, nations, and people are artificial constructs that have no legitimate right to claims on their own territory. Through television, this is the belief of not only the elite, but of the majority of Westerners, even the majority of so-called conservatives, at least objectively. It is the logical conclusion of post-WW2 "anti-racism" and internationalism. How can you defend entities whose members themselves believe they have no legitimate right to exist? Militant Muslims are just the buzzards any clearly dying animal will draw.

[guppas]

Gee, who was that lady that said we should go in, kill their leaders and convert the people to Christianity? Damn, I have the name right on the tip of my tongue. A little thin for my tastes, but beautiful nonetheless.

Consider we are doing those fanatic believers a favor. Killing them makes them a martyr. 72 virgins! Hey, did it ever say the virgins were female?

[Quix]

Excellent analogy, imho.