The Region: Redefine 'collective punishment'

Ironic, isn't it, that radical forces threaten violence, sanctions and other actions against democratic states while insisting - along with their Western apologists - that any attempt by their victims to put pressure on them is useless.

Think about it. Every time someone proposes, say, economic sanctions (on Iran or Syria), an international tribunal investigating its involvement in terrorism (Syria), military operations or killing terrorist leaders (Hamas, Hizbullah, Iraqi insurgents, al-Qaida, the Kurdish PKK, or the Taliban), diplomatic isolation, or even not giving financial aid (Hamas), a chorus of voices says: It won't work.

The extremists, you see, are tough. They believe in their cause. They will not be deterred from their course. So, we are told, we must engage them, hear (and presumably respond to) their grievances. Presumably, thereafter, the West supposedly must give way; Israel allegedly has to make concessions.

The smug, over-"educated," and those trained in "conflict resolution," who never seem to resolve any conflict, view the normal procedures of diplomacy, strategy and power politics with contempt. They maintain that correcting misunderstandings and employing kind words turn adversaries into friends. Pressure only unites the dictator's subjects into unity fueled by patriotic zeal (which sometimes, of course, does happen). But their sole remaining strategy is to give away assets in order to buy (or, more likely, temporarily rent) immunity from imperialist-minded regimes and single-minded revolutionary groups.

Even, however, if one assumes radical forces will not disappear under pressure, sanctions, military operations, and other efforts can achieve a number of worthwhile goals. They can:

• weaken radical forces so they are less able to murder people or destabilize societies;

• discourage states from helping extremists and encourage them to be more cautious in their international adventures;

COSTS HAVE consequences, and they are not merely to make people who hate you angrier.

Radical regimes, Saddam Hussein's in Iraq, for instance, are taught to believe they can continue extremist policies while holding their own people as hostages: "Throw down your weapons or I'll starve my citizens!"

Supposedly, the new rules are that Hamas, for instance, can teach children to view themselves as a master "race" licensed to kill sub-human others and wage war on its neighbor, while Israel must provide all of Gaza's needs or be guilty of war crimes. As if that weren't enough, the demand is for Western governments to subsidize that program.

But, guess what? Living under a repressive dictatorship is the most terrible type of humanitarian disaster, helping to keep it in power is the worst form of collective punishment, and letting it commit aggression against you imposes both of these states on your own people.

If Western people and governments accept this kind of argument, how can the radicals possibly lose? Certainly, Middle East states don't hesitate to use every bit of leverage of their own, especially when it is totally cost-free.

For example, there's the revelation that a high-ranking Saudi officials threatened not to alert British intelligence about pending terror attacks in the UK unless London stopped investigating their personally stealing hundreds of millions of dollars through bribes. Britain acceded, no doubt fearing retaliation or the loss of future trade more than preserving a democratic system of laws.

WHY SHOULD we believe that sanctions only work in one direction, against the West?

In contrast, economic pressures on Iran regarding its nuclear program are really biting. In a report for MEMRI, economist Nimrod Raphaeli analyzes the statistics and concludes that Teheran is doing very badly. Even Chinese banks have joined "almost all" Western and Japanese banks in cutting business relations with Iranian counterparts. The central bank of Iran admits that "no direct foreign investments are coming into Iran."

People in Iran can see that the ultra-radical policies and hysterical threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have a cost. "Operating under the weight of UN, but more potent, US sanctions, Iran is going through hard economic times despite the quintupling of oil prices in the last three years," Raphaeli concludes.

There are costs for Iranians in this situation. "Inflation was running at more than 19 percent in 2007 compared with 12 percent in 2006; unemployment is high in general... 50 percent of the population is poor and more than 20 percent live below the poverty line."

This does not mean the regime or its policies will change, but they are far more likely to be weakened and reconsidered than if no such sanctions were in place. At any rate, it is one of the best ways to combat "collective punishment" by Iran on other countries.

ON ANOTHER front, Syria's apologists say that economic and political sanctions won't work, so we might as well give up and let them devour Lebanon. Yet Syria itself uses economic sanctions as part of its campaign to take over Lebanon.

The US government has just put restrictions on Rami Makhlouf, President Bashar Assad's cousin and Assad-in-chief for corruption. Here's just one of his tricks: Mercedes was barred from bringing spare parts into Syria until it made him sole agent. The regime isn't interested in reforming the economy, only in looting it.

On February 21, the US Treasury "designated" him and other Syrian economic gangsters and their Lebanese accomplices, meaning he cannot do any business or have accounts in the United States. The Syrian regime and its lackeys insisted this was meaningless - though the loudness of their howls showed just how much it hurts them.

But if radicals disregard Western pressures, it is due to optimism, not bravery. They think the West has no guts or staying power. Muhammad Habash, one of the Syrian parliament's sleaziest members (competition for that title is intense) mocked: "We are expecting a lot of such measures in the next six months, but this will not affect Syria's policy... There is no solution with this American administration, and we have to wait for the next president."

A sure fire solution to Islamic terror
First off, the West must abandon a false reliance on a patently error-ridden rejection of the notion of Collective Guilt.
Collective guilt has existed from the beginning of time, and has been employed in every armed conflict and revolution through out history.
Collective Guilt is an effective deterrence, a socially redemptive act of self preservation well documented in history as a societal control to protect one nation from another who has attacked and intends to destroy and supplant the civilization being attacked. .
Let me explain. Islamic jihadists come from extended families, clan and tribes (See the Saudi Royal Family below)
Here is the just application of collective guilt as the only effective deterrence against savage, indiscriminately violent, jihadist killers.
Let’s invent Wali, age 24, one of seven sons and 11 daughters fathered by say, one father and several wives. The father is himself one of a dozen or so siblings from several grandmothers and perhaps one grandfather.
Each of the uncles’ and aunts also have large extended families intermarried often to a first cousin .
Others are interrelated by marriage and or blood to their third, fourth, and fifth cousin and through as many as five or six generations. Average age of a first birth is 16.
Let’s survey collective guilt as applied throughout both modern and ancient history. Dresden, Cologne, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, London, Ploesti, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Nanking, Hanoi, Syracuse, Athens, Rome, Berlin, Constantinople, Alexandria, Nineveh, Tyre, Babylon, Jerusalem, Carthage; you get the picture, right?
Was collective guilt an application of mass destruction on an industrial scale or was the case for punishing collective guilt a survival mechanism justified existentially due to an overarching compelling basis for engaging in unrestricted warfare against a collectively guilty population dedicated to your society’s destruction?
Historically the only correct answer is the latter. Wars are not ended. Wars are won or lost—there are no middle solutions that have failed to produce further conflict—conflict that has extended generation upon generation.
Let us now return to the suicidal Islamic Jihadist, Wali, age 24. Upon Wali’ successful mission of murdering both Arab and Israeli and any number of visitors’ to the site of the attack, Wali, is afforded a stipend for his family, a martyr’s place of honor, a recruitment video and print and broadcast media to celebrate his death, and to perpetuate the violence.
Let’s consider collective guilt—the joyous response of the Islamic world filed and archived across the entire Islamic Ummah. The celebratory sermons in Mosques in every country cursed to house a mosque—the chants of Death to America, Death to Israel, Death to all who insult Islam, and a violent promise to conquer and subjugate the entire planet until all humanity is buried under the dead hand of Islam.
Here is Wali’s family tree: X for Father x for brother O for Mother, o for sister, GP for grandfather, GM for Gandmother, PU for paternal uncles, Po for maternal aunts, CM for male Children, CF for female Children, MN for Male nephew, FN for female Niece, MC for male Cousins, MF for female Cousin
GP-GM
PU PU PU PU X-OOO PA PA PA PA PA PA
Wali CM CM CM CM CM CM CF CF CF CF CF CF CF CF
Wali’s Childern; nephews and nieces plus Walis wife’s nephews and nieces at five each or 155
Ecluding second, third and fourth cousins lets count the collective group in the one nuclear family
as186 collectively guilty in just one small nuclear family—The Saudi national family is approximately 10,000—all fabulously wealthy, all funding the worldwide Jihad with our own oil revenues.
What to do?
Arrest, sentence t o death, confiscate all property and holdings and re-distribute all collective wealth and real property and provide same to the victims of the jihadist act of Wali. Do this consistently, without exception. In a few years there will be no more collective guilty to punish. All perpetrators will be either dead, dispossessed, or in hiding in fear and trembling in other countries. There will be no printed or broadcast results of this policy—only the universally posted elements and consequences of the policy and the absolute mercilessly execution of same.
The War on Terror will be won as wars have always been won—a clear victor and a vanquished and despoiled loser.; one unlikely to ever challenge the West again, one sure to beg for mercy and madly rush to renounce their bloody death cult of a religion. A pacified people—much like the Japanese—freed to modernize and rebuild their lives in to a humane and rational society. Feed form the dead hand of a false god and perverted pedophile warlord, who understood terror and nothing but terror to achieve his worldly pursuits- Oh his own deathbed, Mohammad wept and feared to meet God—he had no assurance; only dread and terror. This is the end of he prophet as recorded in all four hadiths chronicling the life of a mass murderer. Collective Guilt. Jehovah invented it and will use it at the time he has chosen. In time Collective Guilt will be the instrument God will finally purge the earth of Sin and restore the Universe to the perfection and perfect justice before the rebellion and fall of Lucifer and the tricking and enslavement of the earth by Satan to his way of rebellion rather than to God’s perfect justice and love. Christ will rule as all will be put once again under his authority.

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