Posted on 03/11/2012 12:12:06 PM PDT by tobyhill
At least 14 youths have been stoned to death in Baghdad in the past three weeks in what appears to be a campaign by Shi'ite militants against youths wearing Western-style "emo" clothes and haircuts, security and hospital sources say.
Militants in Shi'ite neighborhoods where the stonings have taken place circulated lists on Saturday naming more youths targeted to be killed if they do not change the way they dress.
The killings have taken place since Iraq's interior ministry drew attention to the "emo" subculture last month, labeling it "Satanism" and ordering a community police force to stamp it out.
"Emo" is a form of punk music developed in the United States. Fans are known for their distinctive dress, often including tight jeans, T-shirts with logos and distinctive long or spiky haircuts.
At least 14 bodies of youths have been brought to three hospitals in eastern Baghdad bearing signs of having been beaten to death with rocks or bricks, security and hospital sources told Reuters under condition they not be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I agree with the 2nd part of your above comment – we haven’t defeated the Taliban, at all. We simply managed to overthrow their ‘official’ rule, they dispersed, and largely moved to Pakistan only to re-group.
The Taliban (Islamic) ideology was conceived in Pakistan during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. It was taught to them in mosques and madrassas in Pakistan at the time. They were trained & equipped with guns by us (remember Brzezinski and his doctrine of Islamic Green Belt around communist/socialist USSR). Moreover, they were funded by the Saudis (our allies), and further aided by Pakistan’s ISI (another one of our allies). What we have witnessed since 2001 has been, largely, our own doing. Since 2001, we’ve been fighting, ineffectively, a monster that we created some 25 yrs earlier!
I can’t see a valid comparison with Germany or Japan of WWII. Neither culturally, nor ideologically, nor militarily. The Nazis and the Japs never fought a guerilla type war. For one thing, the Taliban doesn’t wear a uniform. Secondly, the ideology it espouses (Islam) is much more potent, more tenacious , more resilient & more deadly than Nazism, Communism, Socialism combined. It fights a guerrilla type war because that’s the only way it can exist & possibly win over a long period of time versus our military might. We in the West don’t fight a guerrilla type war. That is not our strength.
I firmly believe that if we want to effectively fight the Taliban, we must fight or at least not feed the ideology i.e. ISLAM itself. Killing them or fighting them military is not enough. Not only referring to the Taliban, but also when it comes to the average Ali, Mohammad, etc… in Afghanistan - that’s something we haven’t done. In fact, we have helped grow… not only in the moslem world, but also in the West!!
True that fighting ‘their’ style of warfare isn’t what we are best at. But then again, (if one assumed a WW2 style military leadership) we don’t have to be. Our might could level the place without nuclear weapons. The problem is that for a long time now, we have lacked the will to employ that might to the best of it’s capability.
An unfettered Patton in charge of today’s military would end all but the faintest remnants of terrorism in a matter od months. The only terrorists remaining would be so marginalized, and hunted, that there effectiveness would be about zero. Granted, one could always get lucky, but the fear as one poster on FR said of ‘fire from the sky’ and white skinned demons’ would be so great that only the most fanatical would attempt it...and they are usually the stupidest of the lot, adding the odds in our favor.
But we are stuck with cowards; and those who aren’t are hamstrung by those who are. And the public expect war in which no one is hurt or killed thanks to decades of liberal propaganda. How one gets to a mindset where hundreds of thousands of soldiers shoot, bombs explode and so forth without actual death entering the picture, eludes me, but that seems to be the way modern America thinks.
Yes, that's another way to cleanse the system.
Personally, I would not have any problems w/ that approach when it comes to those "Taliban-like" grps, regime & individuals who are plenty in places like Iran as well.
But, I still think that we have to uproot Islamic ideology completely, even if gradually.
As for the media and liberals, well, we just have to manage them as well as (if not better) than they have managed a lot of ordinary folks around the globe so far..
I totally agree. Islam as an ideology must be erased for any permanent success to happen. We did it in Japan and we did it in Germany. The number of Nazis or ‘Imperialists’ is so small as to be almost non-existant. In another 50 years, they will both ‘history’.
With muslims, it will be MUCH harder going. You would have to raise a number of generations westernized and instil in them a lifetime of the evils of Islam - then install them in power. As for the general muslim population, you’d have to outlaw it under penalty of death - then carry it out, while simultaneously giving them an in-place ‘westernizing’.
Which of course is impossible as long as liberals exist. So that leaves few options indeed.
When Carter cowered in the face of the hostage crisis, it definitely was a green light for the rest. Granted, there were other incidents prior, but that one was indeed the beginning.
If Reagan would have had a crystal ball, I think he would have made a number of different choices. But he didn’t. Carter on the other hand, would have done even more to get the ball rolling.
Just a side note to my Japan statement. While I don’t doubt the spirit of the Samurai lives on there, it’s well controlled by the people themselves. I’m no expert of course, but when I look at the pre and post WW2 culture, it does not even seem like the same people. They adopted and enjoy many aspects of that era’s American culture - for better and worse - that NEVER could have existed before. To this day the infamous ‘schoolgirl uniform’ based on American sailor uniforms is still a part of their culture. They celebrate Christmas in a primarily Buddhist/Shinto country with no problem. They embrace many aspects of today’s American culture and adopt it with a twist. They were forced into a different way, took it, made it their own and have been going gangbusters every since.
Muslims on the other hand seem to lack any desire to do anything but pray to a moon god and a dead pedophile. No matter how many times they get pounded by whatever culture, they spring right back - to the 7th century and go no further.
You wrote:
I firmly believe that if we want to effectively fight the Taliban, we must fight or at least not feed the ideology i.e. ISLAM itself. Killing them or fighting them military is not enough. Not only referring to the Taliban, but also when it comes to the average Ali, Mohammad, etc… in Afghanistan - that’s something we haven’t done. In fact, we have helped grow… not only in the moslem world, but also in the West!!
We fought a several hundred year guerrilla war with a large assortment of Indian tribes. We fought it to the finish because it was fought over who would own the land.
Muslim warriors aren’t particularly tenacious. Iran quit the war with Iraq after less than a million dead. Iran’s population is 80m. Germany lost 8m out of the same population base, quitting only foreign troops were in a position to annihilate the German people to the last man, woman and child. The Japanese, while less stoic than the Germans, lost about 4m out of 70m before crying uncle. The reason they did not resort to guerrilla war was because they were out of cannon fodder - the 18-28 age bracket of young ‘uns who think they will live forever was severely depleted.
No way the Muslim world can take more punishment. Like I said, Muslims aren’t tougher - we’re just too squeamish to inflict the kinds of punishments for post-surrender hostilities that we dealt out during the conflict in the Philippines-American War - heck during the Civil War. Heard of the burning of Atlanta? Here’s a passage describing what went on in the Philippine Islands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War#Guerrilla_war_phase
The shift to guerrilla warfare drove the US Army to a “total-war” doctrine. Civilians were given identification and forced into concentration camps with a publicly announced deadline after which all persons found outside of camps without identification would be shot on sight. Thousands of civilians died in these camps due to poor conditions. [64]
Atrocities were committed on both sides.[86] United States attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns[71] in which entire villages were burned and destroyed, the use of torture (water cure[87]) and the concentration of civilians into “protected zones”.[88] In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:”The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog....”[89]
[edit] American soldiers’ letters and response
Throughout the entire war American soldiers would write home about the horrors and atrocities which the United States committed in the Philippines. In these letters they would criticize General Otis and the U.S. military; when these letters reached anti-imperialist editors they became national news and forced the War Department to look into their truthfulness. Two of the letters went as follows:
A New York-born soldier: “The town of Titatia [sic] was surrendered to us a few days ago, and two companies occupy the same. Last night one of our boys was found shot and his stomach cut open. Immediately orders were received from General Wheaton to burn the town and kill every native in sight; which was done to a finish. About 1,000 men, women and children were reported killed. I am probably growing hard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger (Benevolent Assimilation, p. 88).”[90]
Corporal Sam Gillis: “We make everyone get into his house by seven p.m., and we only tell a man once. If he refuses we shoot him. We killed over 300 natives the first night. They tried to set the town on fire. If they fire a shot from the house we burn the house down and every house near it, and shoot the natives, so they are pretty quiet in town now.”[90]
However, General Otis’s investigation of the content of these letters consisted of sending a copy of them to the author’s superior and having him force the soldier/author to write a retraction. Then, when a soldier refused to do so, as Private Charles Brenner of the Kansas regiment did, he was, remarkably, court-martialed. In the case of Private Brenner, the charge was “for writing and conniving at the publication of an article which…contains willful [sic] falsehoods concerning himself and a false charge against Captain Bishop.”[49] This is not to say that all American soldiers’ letters home explained the atrocities committed by the U.S. so as to bring about the American public’s and General Otis’s displeasure. Many portrayed U.S. actions as the result of Filipino “insurgent” provocation and thus entirely justified. One such letter home was written by Private Hermann Dittner and was titled “the trouble with the nigs”. It went as follows:
“It then became apparent that a fight was imminent. So on February 3 we posted our sentry at the same old place. The insurgents kicked but without avail. Our colonel was down there and an insurgent called him a s – n – -b – h. Of course this made Stotsenburg mad and he gave orders to arrest the lieutenant as soon as they could catch him.”[91]
Not necessarily harder, but depends on which moslems in which country. In Iran for example, they've had 1st hand experience with Islam for the past 33 yrs. Most hate their experience, especially the younger generations. The ones 45+ yrs, I'm told are mostly depressed along with many younger ones.
You know, when Iran was invaded by Arab-moslems centuries ago, they took a cruel approach with Zoroastrian Iranians (and other religious communities in Iran). In addition to killing a lot of them, they converted, and indoctrinated them as well, often through various forms of pressure.
The moslem-arabs destroyed books about a variety of subjects. Only the koran was acceptable to read. They cut off tongues of those people who spoke their native Persian language, they burned the Zoroastrian priests in particular, often in pyre of books, and so forth...
The point is that they re-programed the people in Iran to accept Islam (as as the mullahs' regime has tried to do in the past 3 decades, and the Soviet 'revolutionaries' did to the white Russians after the Bolshevik revolution)... not suggesting that we could or should do or be as brutal, but you understand my point that the moslem-arabs achieved their goal of changing the culture or trying to. In fact, I think the reason they weren't and still their descendants, in the form of the Mullahs et al in Iran, have not been totally successful is because you can't simply win with cruelty or brutality. Re-education is part of the equation, which brings me to your other point below.
Which of course is impossible as long as liberals exist. So that leaves few options indeed.
An Iranian during the latter parts of the Shah's era told my father something akin to: "if you want a good capitalist, send them to the Soviet Union, not the US. Because in the USSR they would experience communism and its rotten fruits firsthand, but in the US they (liberals) simply can not appreciate the values of freedom, capitalism, democracy, and so on... they are living the good life and it is simply a theory that they have to work against and dispute out of ideology, not out of firsthand experience..
I think a lot of problems in the US stem from the education system and its ideological inclinations. It is very idealistic & theoretical, rather than realistic and practical, I mean that in every sense of the words.
We fought a several hundred year guerrilla war with a large assortment of Indian tribes. We fought it to the finish because it was fought over who would own the land.
The 1800s, and fighting to 'own the land' aside, can you give me examples of the US during and post-WW2 fighting a major & prolonged guerrilla warfare and winning? In modern times, on foreign soil, guerrilla warfare is not a US strength. That was my point. Maybe am wrong...
Iran quit the war with Iraq after less than a million dead. Iran’s population is 80m.
I know people, Iranians who were in Iran and some who fought during Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, a few are still alive and are not moslems, but are Iranians. The population of Iran in 1980 was 35 million, not 80 million.
Saddam initiated the attack on Iran in September 1980 when he attacked Khuzestan province of Iran, which borders Iraq. Saddam offered truce in 1982. Khomeini refused and prolonged the war by 6 yrs. That is despite the fact that almost ALL Arab countries were supporting Iraq, at least morally & politically, and were on Iraq's side. And that Iraq had significant military support and weapons from certain western countries, including the US.
The US also sold weapons to Iran, as did Israel. Of course, it was during the same Iran-Iraq war that Israel bombed Osirak nuclear site in Iraq. Thereby, if not directly intended, indirectly helping the mullahs regime in Iran.
Now, Khomeini simply prolonged the war with Iraq to help consolidate his revolution in Iran. You know, a foreign enemy comes in handy. At the end, Saddam withdrew his troops from Iranian territories. The war ended not as Iraqi victory, but as a draw. -- Iran-Iraq war -- I know it is wikipedia, but the article there is well referenced to other sources.
Muslim warriors aren’t particularly tenacious.
Not saying that moslems are particularly tenacious, even if they've successfully fought wars for the last 1400 yrs (Gates of Vienna and push back from there and eventually Spain aside), conquered all of the ME, North Africa, and spread all the way to even parts of Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, parts of India and even certain Eastern European countries such as Albania, etc.. and in the last 4 decades made inroads into Western countries.
Whether moslems are tougher or not was not my point. My point was that Islam is a more potent, tenacious and resilient ideology than Nazism, Communism & Socialism combined. The other point was that the Taliban (Islamics) employ guerrilla warfare because it has much more of a chance of winning against the US military might. If as you say the reason is because the US is too squeamish, then the end-result is still the same, i.e. what we've seen in Afghanistan so far.
Just read this post of yours. Yes, absolutely, you’re on the mark and very astute observation/analysis.
A Japanese who has been a friend for some 20 yrs, originally from Osaka, often says the same about Japan. I visited her family with her in Japan several yrs ago. In my assessment, the Japanese do cleverly mix aspects of American culture with their own traditions. More so among younger generations.
A reason is that the US dominated the war & won, very clearly. The Japs were subdued & in a way humiliated. But, similar to moslems they admire strength (power) and those who have it and can prove it. The Japs in turn, mostly, saw the results of their aggression and accepted their mistakes. Since then most of them have moved on. They even have a tradition of annually apologizing for the war they started. Furthermore, since WW2 and their defeat they’ve had significant direct help from America to rebuild and to ‘westernize’ their society and even economically. Frankly, Iran under the Shah was like Japan today and could’ve been even more so had he been allowed to continue his reign.
The same history, rebuilding, series of events, and, more importantly, Stability (politically, socially, economically) over the decades, do not apply to most moslem countries.
Also, I haven’t heard of many or in fact any Shinto/Buddhist ‘priests’ preaching against Westernization or Americanization. I guess, they don’t have the so-called catalysts who would incite anti-American or anti-Western sentiments. Nor have they had an Shinto/Buddhist gov’t, say, unlike Iran since 1979.
Islamic ideology is very tenacious, resilient & active, not passive (unlike Buddhism). It has a very long history of being bloodthirsty, right up to present day. Additionally, as I said in previous posts, I believe, unlike the case with Japan, over the decades, the West, especially the US has not discouraged Islam itself, but in fact has fed & encouraged it, in the moslem world as well in the West.
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