At your command, BigAl. In fact, my first post will feature you. A couple weeks ago I asked for everyone, but especially liberal readers of this blog for their positive ideas on what America should do now to counter the jihad that is being waged against us. After a false start, and to his great credit, BigAl was the only one to come through with a concrete suggestion. Here, to get the discussion started, it is:
Don,
I’m back with the positive ideas you requested. I’ve said these things in a previous post and no one commented. I really don’t know enough about effective war tactics to say that my ideas are perfect…but I think a sincere listener knows what I’m saying (especially compared to the current strategy).
I just know that Sun Tzu said that the biggest key to victory in any war is the use of spies.
I hate any and all wars, but if I were a war mongerer, and truly believed the Iranians are going to kill us all if we don’t stop them..I would do the following:
1) Remove the US military from the population centers (cities and towns) of Iraq to military bases in sparsely populated areas and on the borders. This will allow us to maintain a serious military presence and be ready to guard against interference from Iran, Syria or any one else in the ME who may try to mess with the situation.
AND it removes the bulk of the members of the military OUT of the middle of a civil war but still in a position where they can help if help is needed (in Iraq or anywhere in ME). This will reduce the number of deaths and/or casualties significantly.
2) Use the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and the elite special forces to conduct the brunt of the war–in an undercover/stealth fashion. If the special forces/CIA/FBI/ Special Forces is not equipped to handle fighting the brunt of the war–then we need to change that quickly.
They should receive the full support of the Air Force, Navy, and Army for anything they need at any time. But do everything possible to limit the combat missions–along with intelligence gathering to members of special forces/CIA/FBI, etc.
No more US military members driving around or standing around (in uniform) in the cities to be used as target practice for insurgents and/or terrorists.
Also, I know special forces are a part of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. I am just saying that ONLY special forces –with help from and along side of the CIA, FBI, NSA, ETC should be used to conduct combat missions.
To win this war (especially the propaganda war), we need to keep a low-profile in the middle-east.
3) Talk to the enemy (Iran). Face to Face. Show the world we are the ones playing fairly and not being deaf to what everyone else is saying.
4) At the same time, send in special forces, CIA, FBI, to Iran, if necessary–and start making sure they will never develop nuclear weapons that threaten everyone (especially Israel). Publicly deny any and all claims by Iran, Syria or anyone else that we are conducting secret military operations. Keep the war small by pretending like there is no war going on.
DQ again. I was surprised at this response. Essentially, BigAl is suggesting we carry out the entire war with the kind of covert operations that conservatives generally love and liberals general hate. I don’t even know if such a thing is possible; I seriously doubt we have enough covert operatives (special forces) to pull it off, but at least it is a highly original idea.
So what do you all think? Is BigAl on to something? Or what should we do? Not just what should we do about Iraq, where it appears there are no good options. What should we do about the entire jihad being waged world-wide against Westerners, non-Muslims and our values and our way of life? I look forward to your ideas.
del.icio.us
digg itFiled under: Bits and Pieces |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
Just wanted to say that was the best thing of BigAl’s I’ve read here. I’m not saying I’m going over to your POV but that was good.
I agree that BigAl is onto something. However, the danger is that all these covert operations will be blown by the MSM. I think that, in order for BigAl’s ideas to work, some new laws would have to be written and some acts of treason prosecuted. Frankly, it is a very dangerous thing to be an undercover agent for the U.S., these days: one never knows if one’s identity will be exposed in the NYT or LA-Times.
I’m going to sit this one out, not because I’m disinterested but because everyone already knows I’m opposed to war. So go wild, but this time not at my expense.
HelenL, where you seem to misunderstand us is to believe that we don’t “oppose” war – we do! It’s just that when it happens, we deal with it. Just wishing something away doesn’t make it so. In fact, averting your face to war is more likely to make it happen. As someone once said, “you may not like war, but war likes you.”
No, this isn’t something. I’ve been doing this military stuff for 18 years now, and one of the lessons learned is that the best way to convince the locals that we’re not bad guys is for them to have exposure to us. That means our boys need to be around. If we’re keeping a low profile, there is no reason for them to learn that we aren’t the hated swine the regional and international media tells them we are. We get good intel from people who decide to trust our soldiers, throwing that away is the second surest path to defeat I can imagine.
Next, the CIA is of little use in providing targetable information. That isn’t their focus. They do the big picture stuff, not something that lets you plan missions. The FBI doesn’t do that sort of work at all, the NSA is only really of use against targets that use the electromagnetic spectrum. We do in fact use our SOF, and they act on information which is developed by the whole force.
Next, talking? Umm, praytell, what has been occurring? All of those negotiators we and the EU had running around, were they just there for the frequent flier miles?
If I wanted to run a deniable war in Iran I’d think about Baluchis, Sunnis, Kurds, Sufis, Tadjiks and assorted dissidents.
Guerrilla warefare is a known quantity with lots of history. From the Indian Wars to the Moros to the VC, both the US forces and western militaries as a set have plenty of experience. In fact, when we invaded Iraq, I pulled out histories of Roman invasions to predict what would happen next. It’s been interesting trying to see how modern media is changing things from two millenia ago.
I think helen might be refering to how people get on her case concerning particular beliefs she has written of here before.
You will have something more important to take care of after you cede control of the urban population and territorial controls over to the enemy. How do you think you are going to fight a covert war when 95% of the territory on which people live in, is controlled not by you but by the security forces of the enemy?
You can send spies and saboteurs into Iran, but that is a high risk deep recon job that has a rather high fatality rate should things go badly. And things will go badly as was shown by the SEAL teams in Afghanistan, crossing over to Pakistan.
You will have no defensive positions amongst the local population, either for defense or for local intel, so you will be blind to enemy operations on your doorsteps. Therefore any operations you conduct from your military base in Iraq to enemy territory, will have already been penetrated by the counter-intel agents in Iraq.
Intel is not a weapon, it is an aid to the weapon. Intel by itself doesn’t do anything. You could accomplish things better and at less cost with nuclear bombardment and MOABs than assassins and saboteurs.
No more US military members driving around or standing around (in uniform) in the cities to be used as target practice for insurgents and/or terrorists.
See, most people think the US adopts a defensive posture and they see this as bad. Which means that they advocate that the US adopt a fortress mentality like the Iraqi police had, setup a place and fortify it, and then never come out. The reason why the US makes patrols is to push the perimeter out via offensive operations and data collection. But BigA seems to believe that a covert war will be less costly if only because the media won’t see the bodies. That doesn’t get anywhere.
You can destabilize Iran by giving weapons and nuclear devices to Kurdish rebels in Iran and Turkey and Syria. There is no particular reason why you would need a homegrown force, and there is no particular reason to believe that you could even collect such a force in time for the destabilization to be effective.
Also, I know special forces are a part of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. I am just saying that ONLY special forces –with help from and along side of the CIA, FBI, NSA, ETC should be used to conduct combat missions.
You’re cutting away the entire military, so why even have an army in the first place? People use covert actions usually because they don’t wish to escalate things, most of the time because they are incapable of doing so since they lack the power. You’re purposefully limiting the ability of American power projection. Do it the other way around, have the Special Forces use conventional US military power to destroy the enemy.
Hi Helen,
I hope you will reconsider. The question is how we are going to react to the war (jihad) that has been declared against us. It is most important that those who oppose responding by waging war back reveal how they think we can successfully deal with those who have declared war on us. I know you opposed war, but war has been declared against us. From your pacifist viewpoint, what should we do? Please share your views with us. Thanks, DQ
We are in a war. Our enemies started it and they have to end it. The way to convince them to end it is to defeat them. To defeat them they have to know they are beaten — which means no more b.s. about avoiding collateral damage or maintaining a low profile.
What we need, frankly, is a WWII-scale war on Iran. When cities are rubble, bridges are scrap, oilfields are afire, armies are dead or fleeing, and the leaders are either in prison or dead, then people _know_ they have been beaten. Being nice to them in the middle of a war just convinces them you’re not serious, and that a few more IEDs will make you go away.
DQ, I’m not ignoring you. I’m busy. Maybe later.
Quickly, the fallacy I see in what Trimegistus says. Terrorists attacked the US. The US attacked Iraq. We started the war. Terror is not a nation we can fight. It is a condition we must defeat.
I will be gone. . . . so attack away (at what is obviously true).
Go warmongers!
Hi Helen,
The fallacy in your argument, of course, is the assumption that wars may only be fought between nation states. Wars can be fought between any two groups of people. Only the tactics change.
But let’s not get hung up on labels. The issue is not how we defeat the “condition” of terror (no condition ever bombed anyone) but how we defeat the terrorists. That is the question posed by this post and the question I’m very much hoping that you and others who share your beliefs will help to answer. Trimegistus proposes a concrete solution, as does Big Al. What is yours? (If you really think we have to defeat a condition, then how can we do that?)
And, please, folks, I’m imploring Helen but I hope everyone will join in the discussion. We are at a critical crossroads (where have you heard that before!) and the more discussion we have as to what we should do now, the better chances of our choosing the right path.
Terror is not a nation we can fight.
But terrorists need nations like Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq to actually plan, train, and mount attacks on the US. They can’t do it on the ocean you know. Or even under it.
The human condition can’t be defeated. There is no utopia here.
I favor the material done by Grim and other sources on blackfive as to what to do in this war.
There is something so appealing about the idea of a “few” covert warriors fighting our battles for us. I suppose it is fueled by such TV dramas as “24” and “the Unit”. Unfortunately, it simply does not get the job done in real life.
Covert and Special Operations have their role; and we seem to have gotten a lot smarter in employing them effectively. But, I don’t think any thoughtful person expects them to carry the entire burden. Well, maybe I should modify that statement since Clinton seemed to think that minimal manned air power and cruise missiles could do just that. On second thought I did say thoughtful.
The appeal of winning wars with minimimal effort from the population at large is really seductive. That previous Administration bought it hook, line and sinker. Forget it.
Just one more word. The idea of using proxies to fight your wars has its own history of problems. We did a pretty good job of training and equipping the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Some Alarmists warned at the time that we were creating a monster that would come back to plague us. They were correct.
Maybe the answer to the larger question of defeating worldwide jihad can be seen in the smaller arena of Iraq. The gagging and defeatist phenomenon of political correctness has invaded everywhere, and hence in war we are trying to fight the enemy and make nice at the same time. Soldiers should be killing the enemy first and leave building schools to contractors who arrive after VI-Day.
It would help to decide: Does the strongest, most powerful nation on earth want to vanquish the enemy and WIN? Or does it want to make people like us? I see the over-arching question that DQ presents as a test of our willingness to do what it takes to be respected – not liked. It is a long-term struggle and people who are shocked – shocked! – that we’ve been in Iraq as long as WW II better get real because we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
One more word.
I do propose a solution. Here it is:
Turn the current fight over to very smart and experienced professionals. I nominate General Petraeus.
Give him the goals, the mission, the resources to win, and get the politicians out of the way.
Win the fight we are engaged in. Send a message to the Jihadists that we will take them on and beat them each and every time they threaten us. Make it abundantly clear that we have the will, the stamina and patience as well as the resources to inflict terrible defeat upon them any time we are forced to take up arms.
Then smile and receive with beneficence all who approach us in peace.
Don, you got all the positive solutions you can handle right here.
People should read it and analyze it based upon its merits. If what they want are positive solutions.
I have a Liberal friend who was opposed to the Iraq war before it began. She completed 4 years college, 3 years law school, and an LLM degree.
I gave her a detailed, factual argument why we should endeavor to create democracy in the Middle East. I explained my views on offering a competing path to power for Middle Eastern men who are contemplating radicalized Islam.
This educated woman, who did not know what the Cold War was(!)could only offer as an argument: “I just feel that way”. No facts, did not know history, just parroting some opinion that someone else told her was correct.
Is this woman unique among Liberals? Or is she indicative of liberal political thought?
In my own personal experience Liberals in person, on the media, and on the internet never seem to bring many facts to a political debate. They bring anger, disbelief that others could hold a different opinion, insults, conspiracy theories, weak statistics, examples of bad things Republicans do, and ways to change the subject of the debate. It is exceedingly rare that I hear facts or offerings of better ways to proceed.
I am not trying to insult anyone and I respect BigAl for proving me wrong in this instance. I just suspect that too many Liberals hold pre-cast opinions that merely funnel facts into a set vision of how the world should be and not how it actually is.
The question remains: Can Liberals factually, historically, and honestly explain a better plan of dealing with the war in Iraq as it exists today and explain how their plan will effect the Middle East over the next 5 years?
But BigA is a self-labeled promoter of conservative thought, not of the Left. Although I do admit that the difference becomes harder to see concerning one segment of conservatives.
I see a problem. “Liberals” are being asked to provide an alternative to war without using any “alternative” thinking: “just the facts” is all I hear. How does this work? Labeling each other is of little importance. In fact, we’ve already done that. But realizing how we think is more important than any “solutions” that we come up with but have no power to implement. How do we find “new” solutions with “old” thinking? How does conseravative (or reactionary) thought move us forward? And why do “conservatives” (read, warmongers) really think this war is any different from the last 200 wars? Thinking war brings peace has been disproven since Adam and Eve.
Since I am absolutely not of the Liberal/Left, I hardly feel qualified to respond to D. Reid’s post…other than to say he perfectly captures my frustration in trying to understand the L/L’s world view.
Concerning what I’ve read of Chomsky and Al Franken, I tend to believe that there is a select elite amongst the Left which I call the spiritual leadership. The spiritual wing as opposed to the military or political wing of a revolution.
The objective of the spiritual wing is to manipulate the emotions of the flock, but they only do so using facts and a sort of internal logic which makes the facts look undeniable. But all facts are deniable and open to interpretation, except to the Left.
If something happens, say an event, then that becomes a fact, except that fact also contains within it the interpretation of why that event occured and what that event caused. (Vietnam for example) It becomes a fact to them, something that cannot be challenged or else the house of cards would fall.
Therefore Chomsky and Al Franken do use a sort of internal logic and reason, but the objective isn’t to educate or make people question certain beliefs, the objective is to get people to believe in their hearts, on faith even.
The followers of the Left has a need for order and safety in this world…. clear cut enemies and goals to be achieved… and so the spiritual wing gives it to them. Without any need on the part of individuals to find it for themselves.
Many people on the right came about their beliefs through individual research. Meaning, they truly question authority while the Left simply parrotes that line. This results in more critical thinking, which is more beneficial than any number of Chomsky inspired sources.
Before the internet and google, such individual research was hard, so political philosophy was primarily based upon learned history through childhood, family connections, traditions, and media perceptions. So such cases as neo-neocon was easier to come by after 9/11 and google, because not only did people have the means to satisfy their curiosity, but also the motivation as well. Even for the beliefs engendered through colleges and universities, there was a kind of stagnancy and stasis that wasn’t as free flowing as the internet and the numerous diversity of views present on such a scale.
Which brings up another point. When the Left engages in conversation either on the net or on television, they do so in a sort of sermon like fashion, with self-appointed themes that they hit upon. This is different from the material that I’ve seen of the literature produced by the spiritual leaders of the Left.
Victor Davis Hanson might also be seen as the Left’s spiritual counter-part. Although the differences are rather manifestly clear. VDH encourages his readers, if only implicitly, to become interested in ancient history, in history itself, and the lessons it may teach us. He writes books, but there are boatloads of net sites that offer histories on the Peloponessian War and the 2nd Punic Wars of the Romans that people could use to more clearly understand the troubles of today’s world.
I remember when I first started learning about history, that forming connections was very important to me. The timelines and dates didn’t matter to me until I could attach names, events, lives, and sorrows to it. Knowing about WWII is one thing, knowing what happened before it and after it, something else. Also reading Sun Tzu and other materials wasn’t enough, because I did not have the background knowledge or understand to make sense of the words that I was reading. It was sort of like when I started reading philosophy, my vocabulary was not up to the task, so I only understood maybe every 3/5ths of a sentence. Building the background knowledge to make the proper connections with new information takes time. But once started it is like a exponential growth equation. The more you have, the higher you increase. Material I obtained from Neo concerning psychology and Vietnam, I connected to guerrila warfare, which I then connected to political movements and power grabs. The more knowledge you have, the more curiosity you acquire, and the more connections between such data are made.
The best way to remember something is to tie it into as many facets of your own existence and values as you can. A process artificially induced by pneumonics or was that mnemonics.
I cannot really say that there is a remarkable lack of curiosity on the Left, but it does seem like that doesn’t it. They are curious to read Chomsky and Co… but they don’t actually go back to primary sources of historical or original views. Some do, but it just simply seems to reinforce their preconceptions. MOrei nformation doesn’t seem to break them out of their paradym.
I attribute this to the self-contained logic of Chomsky and Al Franken. Chomsky for example uses a rather interesting trick like quoting from the New York Times to back up his claims and thesis. However, he must know that the the NYT not only wrote such pieces based upon his views already, but did so espousing the same things based upon the same source that chomsky used to backup his other points. It is like a self-contained universe. When they talk about the reality based community, perhaps that is what they mean.
It is all inter-connected, and if you didn’t pay attention to the inconsistencies and comparisons to other conflicting views, then it would seem very reasonable to you. But how do you check it? And if you do check it, how could you do it justice if your thoughts and views of logic have already been influenced by the self-contained model of the Left?
I’ve mentioned before that Al Franken’s book was persuasive to me, even with what I know. So obviously I can imagine how powerful it can be to the uninitiated.
It is not precisely brainwashing, but it is perhaps telling people what they wish to be true. And manipulating their emotions in that manner. There is a strict lack of innovation in colleges, where you are rewarded for memorizing and parroting the views of the material you are given. After all, there is no need for you to figure out mathematical proofs or reinvent DNA sequencing, others have already done it, you just have to learn it by paying attention to… authority. That is the kind of mentality that is rewarded and produced in American education systems. Not everywhere, but in enough places to matter.
If you combine the lack of initiative and revolutionary thought with the political desire to believe in peace and what not, you have the perfect storm hybrid. The inability to resist mental suggestions, combined with the desire to believe.
I’ve noticed how fake liberals and the Left behave on tv. In some respects that is due to the limitations of the spoken forum, as Neo described before. But their writings, Daily Kos, are no different in my view.
So my observations are that they start off on the self-contained world views of the authority, meaning the spiritual leaders Al Franken, Obama, Hillary, Clinton, and Chomsky. Although a couple in my list are actual political leaders, with spirituality… a perhaps distant second or third. Then after starting off on that road, the conclusion is then rose tipped emotions. Or was that rage tipped. The course seems to be, beliefs first, emotions second, and action third. But somehow these people get stuck on the second stage and never fully mature or recycle the phase.
Maybe the first spiritual leader was Karl Marx in the sense of the Left anyways. And such reactionary beliefs seemed to have arisen during romantic beliefs and steamrolled during the 19th century, Victorian era.
While the US was fighting the Civil War, Karl Marx was leading as a spiritual leader. (May 5, 1818, Trier, Prussia – March 14, 1883, London)
I do have to say that I did not read his material personally, since there are many philosophical texts and sources I have not gotten around to reading. Plato, Aristotle, and John Milton having a slew of material. I know only peripherally Hegelian dialect, thus my understand of such historical-spiritual-philosophical views can only be seen from the historical perspective. Meaning, while the US was fighting for freedom and unity, Europe was doing something else entirely. Some things don’t change you know, no matter how much time passes.
In that vein from wiki.
In 1855, the Marx family suffered a blow with the death of their son, Edgar, from tuberculosis.[8] Meanwhile, Marx’s major work on political economy made slow progress. By 1857 he had produced a gigantic 800 page manuscript on capital, landed property, wage labour, the state, foreign trade and the world market. This work however was not published until 1941, under the title Grundrisse. In the early 1860s he worked on composing three large volumes, Theories of Surplus Value, which discussed the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo. During this period, Marx championed the Union cause in the American Civil War. In 1867, well behind schedule, the first volume of Capital was published, a work which analyzed the capitalist process of production. Here, Marx elaborated his labor theory of value and his conception of surplus value and exploitation which he argued would ultimately lead to a falling rate of profit and the collapse of industrial capitalism. Volumes II and III remained mere manuscripts upon which Marx continued to work for the rest of his life and were published posthumously by Engels. In 1859, Marx was able to publish Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, his first serious economic work.
In one respect, this thing of class warfare between slaves and whatevers, Marx seemingly favored the unslave economy. However, the Union economy was one of capitalism de facto if not de jure. And yet the 20th century philosophy of communism became nothng more than a sentiment that enslaved millions to the spiritual leaders of the cause.
So all in all, history provides with us countless connections, contradictions, and numerous pathologies even. Always arising, always falling, but ever eternal.
How much of it does the Left really delve into? How much of this material, ancient or current, do they actually make sense of to supplement and perfect their theories?
My observations on the case is that they don’t use nearly as much as VDH and the conservatives, neo-con or otherwise, have. It is not enough for someone on the Left to simply remember history as someone else has told them it is, they have to form their own personal connections. I see a lot of this kind of initiative on the part of neo-cons. Neo being the foremost example perhaps, but not the only one. Do I see it from the Left? Kind of.
The Left does tend to acquire material, but they don’t seem to do anything with it. They just get it, and then mold it like clay into a reinforcement of their own personal beliefs. It does not strenghten it so much as make it baulkier and less prone to invasion.
There is also the problem of basic philosophical axioms. I always thought that best use of axioms was to take one, assume it is true, and then act as if it is, hoping that events and history will prove you right or wrong. But the Left doesn’t do that, they don’t question or seek to see whether their assumptions are correct. They act as if it is, but even if something occurs that challenges their views, they shrug it off. You can see this in how they somehow self-rationize everything that occurs as Israel and America’s fault and then blame their enemies for being doctrinaire.
That brings up projection and psychological disorders. Which in two of my recent posts at my blog, were featured as Narcissism. So no need to go into it here at this time.
What do we do now? Fight like we mean it.
Problems with Al’s proposal:
Isolating the military on bases off in the middle of nowhere simply makes their supply lines vulnerable, and slows their reaction time. Those bases would also make pretty good targets.
The CIA and NSA are intelligence-gathering organizations, they have no fighters.
The FBI, ATF, etc. are cops – and not especially good cops at that. Their job is the mafia, which, after 75 years of their efforts continues to thrive. They would not be an asset on any battlefield.
Covert, elite units are elite: there are not a lot of them. Nowhere near enough to carry the fight. Great for specific missions, great for quick strikes (raids, really), not so great at taking and clearing ground. Or cities. It isn’t their expertise, nor are they equipped for it.
So you come back to the first sentence: fight like you mean it. First thing, change the rules of engagement. There is no reason to wait for a demonstration of hostile intent before firing back. People will die in that initial demonstration. If you see something you don’t like, shoot first. Put the covert units to work at what they do best: specific targets (individuals) that/who represent a problem.
Marguerite is right: your shooters are shooters, not plumbing contractors. Anybody in country who isn’t a shooter doesn’t belong there. The area is not yet stable enough to rebuild, so the hell with that.
Return to the original Powell Doctrine: bring overwhelming force to bear. Petraeus seems a good man for this. Give him everything he wants and let him do it.
But the big thing is change the rules of engagement.
And maybe kick the press out of the country for six months, because war is not friendly, it will never be friendly, and there is no way to portray it kindly. (Although it could be portrayed honestly. But it isn’t being so portrayed, so they had their chance, throw them out for a while. All of them.) And, as those of you who are in contact with people over there already know: it does not do our kids ANY good to have to hear and read this crap that the MSM puts out.
Give them the tools, let the professionals do what they do, and don’t put anybody in their way, physically or emotionally.
I think people get a sort of pleasure from solving things for themselves. But Franken almost imitates it when he makes the connections for you. If a person can fool you into believing that your thoughts are your own, and not because of the manipulation of that person, then you will carry out his instructions while believing you are in control.
It is a rather insidious way to influence a person’s actions and beliefs.
If you think that you connected the pieces yourself, when you didn’t, then how would you “reproduce” that pleasurable feeling when you encounter new data? Why you would go back to the old tried and true method, which is to listen to Franken while believing that you are solving the obstacle yourself. It engenders a sense of self-deception, and it perpetuates itself the more you do it.
The pieceo f information I am using to form such views were actually originally derived from war strategy, war philosophy, and how to win psychological warfare conflicts.
Because spycraft/tradecraft practices require certain manipulation of the facts and of the human psyche, when translated into an observation of the practices of the Left, new insights can be obtained.
So it is unlikely that a person who is not of the spiritual leadership caste, and who dislikes war to the extent of not studying it as a student of history (or war, humanity, cultures) is able to protect themselves against that which they Do Not Understand.
Comprehension and understanding is not after all a one time deal. It continues itself, it propagates itself. Once you understand one thing, you are able to start understanding thousands more of that one thing. But again, back to the beginning, what if your understanding was false? How would you stop the chain or go back? It is possible, Neo has done it. Bookworm has done it. Many neo-cons have done it.
In most cases neo-cons did not reform their axioms and become “warmongers” as the popular sentiment is. They have believed as they have always believed, which is rather opaque to their critics. Which is that neo-cons are classical liberals who now realize that war is the solution to tyranny. And classical liberals have always been against tyranny, it was only the fake liberals that used it.
Teddy Roosevelt is a good example of a warmonger classical liberal progressive. And he is one of the greatest Presidents of the US. So “warmongering” is not a title that is exactly accurate or perhaps, even consistent. Or bad.
When people talk about facts, they should be very careful in separating out what they mean. Because axioms, facts, conclusions, logic, and interpretations of facts are not the same things all in all.
I disagree about kicking all the press out. I want to keep Michael Yon and allies in, which an administrative feat would not do. There are specific violations of imbed what nots, ethically speaking if not legally. Kick those people out, outlaw the New York Times from imbedding. Basically kick them where it hurts, the media only hurts if you deny them access, which denies them market share, which promotes their competitors. Which would be Fox more or less. Give Fox all the exclusives and embed rights. Anyone else? Either ban or put up restrictions for them.
Reward your loyal allies and punish your enemies, That is a basic method that I think works always.
The Powell Doctrine is inconsistent and also inapplicable. Meaning it isn’t what it says it means. It isn’t about bringing overwhelming firepower. In fact Powell complained to norman that he was using too many multi million cruise missiles. It is a doctrine for a conventional war, not an unconventional one, JJ. Mobilize a large force, move into enemy territory, accomplish the objectives, and then get out. That is the Powell Doctrine. It is not able to cope with nation-building, terrorism, or any kind of guerrila activity.
There are many good comments here on winning the battlefield war, but we also need to talk about the ideological war. We really need to understand these jhihadi recruits to develop arguments and strategies to defeat their recruiters. We need to find how to shame fathers for allowing their sons to be taken in by semiliterate imams. We need to stop kowtowing before barely disguised islamist intellectuals and meet their arguments head on.
By “meet their arguments head on” do you mean we should talk to them?
expat.
Are you serious about winning the ideological war? This is not a rational ideology we are confronting. This ideology, as you call it, is not only centuries old, it is religion based. We are not going to change the hearts and minds of the Jihadists. They are completely convinced that they are on the path to heaven.
But, we can make the environment so difficult that the cultures that supports and nurtures Jihadism are faced with stark choices. Perhaps then, if main-stream Islam is truly a “Religion of Peace”, the spiritual leaders will ostracize and marginalize the Jihadist elements. If they do in fact begin to preach the proclaimed “true tenents” of the religion, then in a few generations the Jihadists may disappear.
Not holding my breath.
expat.
Are you serious about winning the ideological war? This is not a rational ideology we are confronting. This ideology, as you call it, is not only centuries old, it is religion based. We are not going to change the hearts and minds of the Jihadists. They are completely convinced that they are on the path to heaven.
But, we can make the environment so difficult that the cultures that support and nurture Jihadism are faced with stark choices. Perhaps then, if main-stream Islam is truly a “Religion of Peace”, the spiritual leaders will ostracize and marginalize the Jihadist elements. If they do in fact begin to preach the proclaimed “true tenents” of the religion, then in a few generations the Jihadists may disappear.
Not holding my breath.
I am talking about those folks who already have access to the Western media: CAIR, the Muslim Council of Britain, etc. We need to counter the arguments. I am not recommending an endless “dialog of the cultures.” I am talking about standing up to outrageous demands and defending our own culture. I am talking about showing AQ types for the thugs they are: “brave men who hide behind babies and dstroy their own people in pusuit of personal power.
About a month ago Charles Krauthammer said:
What is missing is a fourth alternative, both as a threat to Maliki and as an actual fallback if the surge fails. The Pentagon should be working on a sustainable Plan B whose major element would be not so much a drawdown of troops as a drawdown of risk to our troops. If we had zero American casualties a day, there would be as little need to withdraw from Iraq as there is to withdraw from the Balkans. We need to find a redeployment strategy that maintains as much latent American strength as possible, but with minimal exposure.
We say to Maliki: “Let us down, and we dismantle the Green Zone, leave Baghdad and let you fend for yourself; we keep the airport and certain strategic bases in the area; we redeploy most of our forces to Kurdistan; we maintain a significant presence in Anbar province, where we are having success in our one-front war against al-Qaeda and the Baathists. Then we watch. You can have your Baghdad civil war without us. We will be around to pick up the pieces as best we can.”
This is not a great option, but fallbacks never are. It does have the virtue of being better than all the others, if the surge fails. It has the additional virtue of increasing the chances that the surge will succeed…
You can read the rest HERE.
It is easy for Krauthammer and other pundits to sit behind their microphones and dictate milestones and time limits to Maliki. I don’t know how Maliki will turn out in the long run. I do have sense enough to know he is in a swamp full of alligators. I wish him success in drainging this swamp and killing the alligators. I also know that the most valuable commodity, and the most scarce right now, is patience. It simply boggles my mind that so many presumably intelligent people have such ridiculous expectations.
I wish that the people with all of the “easy” answers would go on over there and solve the problem.
I am reading an inspiring and gut-wrenching book entitled “Masters of the Air”. It is a story of the Eighth Air Force in WW2. It is inspiring because of the heroism. It is gut-wrenching to read of all the mistakes that cost thousands and thousands of brave young lives. They lost twenty-six thousand of them in the bombers. They never turned back and they never quit going until it was finished.
There is no road map for any war; there are no easy answers. There is only determination, patience and sacrifice. There is victory or defeat.
There are no easy answers for peace either. But that’s what anyone who opposed war is immediately demanded to produce.
Vicory v. defeat. There we go with dualism again. 🙂
So? What’s wrong with dualism? You prefer stalemate and stagnation, perhaps. Sometimes the world is shades of gray. Sometimes the contrast is stark. If one is colorblind, or simply refuses to see, you can’t tell the difference.
I don’t follow you, Zhombre. I say there isn’t an exact opposite for everything. And yes, there’s lots and lots of gray. I’m saying there might results other than victory and defeat, at least in the sense they’ve always been seen. Why must there be a winner and a looser? Why not come to an understanding that allows “the enemy” to save face and change?
Hi Helen,
Thanks for taking the time to engage, but I detect an odd contradiction in your comments. First you ask too much of war: “Thinking war brings peace has been disproven since Adam and Eve.” You appear to believe that since war does not bring permanent and everlasting peace it serves no useful purpose. War may accomplish much: gain American freedom from England, remove Hitler from power, etc. and still be worthwhile even though it does not accomplish ultimate peace.
A few comments later, though, you recognize that there are shades of grey, asking, “Why must there always be a winner and a loser?” To this, I agree completely! Americans (yes, even American conservatives) would be quite happy to live in peace and security without anyone being the “winner” or the “loser” of they could do so. It is the Islamic extremists who have declared war and dedicated themselves to the destruction of Western civilization. Anericans (yes, even American conservatives) wopuld love for the enemy, the Islamic jihadists, to save face and change. But they show not the slightest interest in doing so. They see the world only in terms of victory and defeat, a winner and a loser. When faced with an opponent who thinks that way, I know of no other effective way to react except to meet the threat head on (something we have never done against this threat and are not doing today). We know that all-out war as a solution, painful as it is, provides at least temporary peace if successful. We know that limited war, like the foolishness that passes for war in Iraq the last few years, fails, every time. I’m waiting for (and hoping for) anyone to propose a solution besides all-out war that will work as well.
You said something else important. You said, “How do we find “new” solutions with “old” thinking? I agree completely. That’s why I started this thread, to give everyone, but especially liberals, a place to share their “new” solutions, in the hope of breaking free from old ways of thinking. Unfortunately, all you have done so far, Helen, is call conservatives warmongers (for wanting to stand up to those who have declared war against them!)and criticize the old ways for not accomplishing everlasting peace. How about sharing with us some new ideas, new thinking. When faced with a sworn enemy who has declared war on us, how should we react? If you have a better way, share it. If you do not have a better way, then your criticism of the old ways is meaningless.
To be sure, I’m not asking for ultimate solutions. No one has a solution that will bring everlasting peace. But I am asking for fresh ideas — ideas that effectively deal with the immediate threat (the jihadists) and have at least some chance of ending that threat on a more permanent basis.
Dear fellow bookwormroom readers,
Below is from the site http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260 . It is long and I apologize for pasting so much of it here but I think it is required reading. I promise to never post such a long tract again. Please read. It offers an explanation of many of the themes we explore and argue about today.
Gramscian damage
Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use “extremist” as a negative epithetic. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.
We don’t expect ideas to matter — or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the “root causes” of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists’ very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.
By contrast, ideological and memetic warfare has been a favored tactic for all of America’s three great adversaries of the last hundred years — Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. All three put substantial effort into cultivating American proxies to influence U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy in favorable directions. Yes, the Nazis did this, through organizations like the “German-American Bund” that was outlawed when World War II went hot. Today, the Islamists are having some success at manipulating our politics through fairly transparent front organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
But it was the Soviet Union, in its day, that was the master of this game. They made dezinformatsiya (disinformation) a central weapon of their war against “the main adversary”, the U.S. They conducted memetic subversion against the U.S. on many levels at a scale that is only now becoming clear as historians burrow through their archives and ex-KGB officers sell their memoirs.
The Soviets had an entire “active measures” department devoted to churning out anti-American dezinformatsiya. A classic example is the rumor that AIDS was the result of research aimed at building a ‘race bomb’ that would selectively kill black people.
On a different level, in the 1930s members of CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA) got instructions from Moscow to promote non-representational art so that the US’s public spaces would become arid and ugly.
Americans hearing that last one tend to laugh. But the Soviets, following the lead of Marxist theoreticians like Antonio Gramsci, took very seriously the idea that by blighting the U.S.’s intellectual and esthetic life, they could sap Americans’ will to resist Communist ideology and an eventual Communist takeover. The explicit goal was to erode the confidence of America’s ruling class and create an ideological vacuum to be filled by Marxism-Leninism.
Accordingly, the Soviet espionage apparat actually ran two different kinds of network: one of spies, and one of agents of influence. The agents of influence had the minor function of recruiting spies (as, for example, when Kim Philby was brought in by one of his tutors at Cambridge), but their major function was to spread dezinformatsiya, to launch memetic weapons that would damage and weaken the West.
In a previous post on Suicidalism, (1) I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:
• There is no truth, only competing agendas.
• All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
• There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
• The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
• Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
• The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
• For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
• When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.
As I previously observed, if you trace any of these back far enough, you’ll find a Stalinist intellectual at the bottom. (The last two items on the list, for example, came to us courtesy of Frantz Fanon. The fourth item is the Baran-Wallerstein “world system” thesis.) Most were staples of Soviet propaganda at the same time they were being promoted by “progressives” (read: Marxists and the dupes of Marxists) within the Western intelligentsia.
The Soviets consciously followed the Gramscian prescription; they pursued a war of position, subverting the “leading elements” of society through their agents of influence. (See, for example, Stephen Koch’s Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals; summary by Koch here) (2) This worked exactly as expected; their memes seeped into Western popular culture and are repeated endlessly in (for example) the products of Hollywood.
Indeed, the index of Soviet success is that most of us no longer think of these memes as Communist propaganda. It takes a significant amount of digging and rethinking and remembering, even for a lifelong anti-Communist like myself, to realize that there was a time (within the lifetime of my parents) when all of these ideas would have seemed alien, absurd, and repulsive to most people — at best, the beliefs of a nutty left-wing fringe, and at worst instruments of deliberate subversion intended to destroy the American way of life.
Koch shows us that the worst-case scenario was, as it turns out now, the correct one; these ideas, like the “race bomb” rumor, really were instruments deliberately designed to destroy the American way of life. Another index of their success is that most members of the bicoastal elite can no longer speak of “the American way of life” without deprecation, irony, or an automatic and half-conscious genuflection towards the altar of political correctness. In this and other ways, the corrosive effects of Stalin’s meme war have come to utterly pervade our culture.
The most paranoid and xenophobic conservatives of the Cold War were, painful though this is to admit, the closest to the truth in estimating the magnitude and subtlety of Soviet subversion. Liberal anticommunists (like myself in the 1970s) thought we were being judicious and fair-minded when we dismissed half of the Right’s complaint as crude blather. We were wrong; the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss really were guilty, the Hollywood Ten really were Stalinist tools, and all of Joseph McCarthy’s rants about “Communists in the State Department” were essentially true. The Venona transcripts and other new material leave no room for reasonable doubt on this score.
While the espionage apparatus of the Soviet Union didn’t outlast it, their memetic weapons did. These memes are now coming near to crippling our culture’s response to Islamic terrorism.
In this context, Jeff Goldstein has written eloquently (3) about perhaps the most long-term dangerous of these memes — the idea that rights inhere not in sovereign individuals but identity groups, and that every identity group (except the “ruling class”) has the right to suppress criticism of itself through political means up to and including violence.
Mark Brittingham (aka WildMonk) has written an excellent essay (4) on the roots of this doctrine in Rousseau and the post-Enlightenment Romantics. It has elsewhere been analyzed and labeled as transnational progressivism. (5) The Soviets didn’t invent it, but they promoted it heavily in a deliberate — and appallingly successful — attempt to weaken the Lockean, individualist tradition that underlies classical liberalism and the U.S. Constitution. The reduction of Western politics to a bitter war for government favor between ascriptive identity groups is exactly the outcome the Soviets wanted and worked hard to arrange.
Call it what you will — various other commentators have favored ‘volk-Marxism’ or ‘postmodern leftism’. I’ve called it suicidalism. It was designed to paralyze the West against one enemy, but it’s now being used against us by another. It is no accident that Osama bin Laden so often sounds like he’s reading from back issues of Z magazine, and no accident that both constantly echo the hoariest old cliches of Soviet propaganda in the 1930s and ’40s.
Another consequence of Stalin’s meme war is that today’s left-wing antiwar demonstrators wear kaffiyehs without any sense of how grotesque it is for ostensible Marxists to cuddle up to religious absolutists who want to restore the power relations of the 7th century CE. In Stalin’s hands, even Marxism itself was hollowed out to serve as a memetic weapon — it became increasingly nihilist, hatred-focused and destructive. The postmodern left is now defined not by what it’s for but by by what it’s against: classical-liberal individualism, free markets, dead white males, America, and the idea of objective reality itself.
The first step to recovery is understanding the problem. Knowing that suicidalist memes were launched at us as war weapons by the espionage apparatus of the most evil despotism in human history is in itself liberating. Liberating, too, it is to realize that the Noam Chomskys and Michael Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.
Brittingham and other have worried that postmodern leftism may yet win. If so, the victory would be short-lived. One of the clearest lessons of recent times (exemplified not just by kaffiyeh-wearing western leftists but by Hamas’s recent clobbering of al-Fatah in the first Palestinian elections) is that po-mo leftism is weaker than liberal individualism in one important respect; it has only the weakest defenses against absolutist fervor. Brittingham tellingly notes po-mo philosopher Richard Rorty’s realization that when the babble of conflicting tribal narratives collapses in exhaustion, the only thing left is the will to power.
Again, this is by design. Lenin and Stalin wanted classical-liberal individualism replaced with something less able to resist totalitarianism, not more. Volk-Marxist fantasy and postmodern nihilism served their purposes; the emergence of an adhesive counter-ideology would not have. Thus, the Chomskys and Moores and Fisks are running a program carefully designed to dead-end at nothing.
Religions are good at filling that kind of nothing. Accordingly, if transnational progressivism actually succeeds in smothering liberal individualism, its reward will be to be put to the sword by some flavor of jihadi. Whether the eventual winners are Muslims or Mormons, the future is not going to look like the fuzzy multicultural ecotopia of modern left fantasy. The death of that dream is being written in European banlieus by angry Muslim youths under the light of burning cars.
In the banlieus and elsewhere, Islamist pressure makes it certain that sooner or later the West is going to vomit Stalin’s memes out of its body politic. The worst way would be through a reflex development of Western absolutism — Christian chauvinism, nativism and militarism melding into something like Francoite fascism. The self-panicking leftists who think they see that in today’s Republicans are comically wrong (as witnessed by the fact that they aren’t being systematically jailed and executed), but it is quite a plausible future for the demographically-collapsing nations of Europe.
The U.S., fortunately, is still on a demographic expansion wave and will be till at least 2050. But if the Islamists achieve their dream of nuking “crusader” cities, they’ll make crusaders out of the U.S., too. And this time, a West with a chauvinized America at its head would smite the Saracen with weapons that would destroy entire populations and fuse Mecca into glass. The horror of our victory would echo for a thousand years.
I remain more optimistic than this. I think there is still an excellent chance that the West can recover from suicidalism without going through a fevered fascist episode and waging a genocidal war. But to do so, we have to do more than recognize Stalin’s memes; we have to reject them. We have to eject postmodern leftism from our universities, transnational progressivism from our politics, and volk-Marxism from our media.
Wow, D.Reid, you can post comments to the Bookwormroom any time and make them as long as you like. That was truly outstanding! Thank you.
DQ, if you think #36 was “outstanding,” there is no hope for peace; if “postmodern leftism in our universities” is the problem (rather than the answer), you don’t want new ways to think; if lasting peace isn’t the goal, then we are putting bandaids on cancer, and I am wasting my time, because you want the 50s where cold war is fine.
Why not come to an understanding that allows “the enemy” to save face and change?
The enemy is not an honorable enemy and therefore does not deserve to save face in defeat. They are not the Japanese, although perhaps they can become like the Japanese.
But that’s what anyone who opposed war is immediately demanded to produce.
We expect you to produce a solution that is better than war, in that it produces peace faster and cheaper. Since you cannot come to an understanding without coming to blows, you have quite a challenge to produce a non-violent solution that would make our enemies give up just like that.
I’m waiting for (and hoping for) anyone to propose a solution besides all-out war that will work as well.
What did you think of Grim’s post, Don?
Joseph McCarthy’s rants about “Communists in the State Department” were essentially true. The Venona transcripts and other new material leave no room for reasonable doubt on this score.
Not just communists but communist spies, but Joe wouldn’t accuse people of being a spy, without the requisite proof.
I was doing some reading on Venona because of a post I read on McCarthy and that sort of went beyond my expectations. There were too many links to post here, so I turned my comment into a blog post.
There’s a lot of material on the CIA website concerning Verona and Soviet espionage decades. It fills in the interesting gap of what was going on during the Cold War that nobody knew about. And also of events closer to home that people view with conventional wisdom.
http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-do-you-get-when-you-cross.html
The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one’s nation’s defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: “everyone is entitled to know everything.”…Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?….
Just an old post that I wasn’t able to get a link to before Neo inadvertently mentioned it in response to someone else quoting the piece.
It is not so much a solution as a warning of events, back in the latter 20th century even.
Oh, come now, Helen, now you are falling into the same duality trap that you accuse others of. You take the position that if I do not agree that “postmodern leftism in our universities” is the answer then I’m not interested in any new ideas at all. That doesn’t follow at all and it’s not true. In fact, much of what I am trying to fight here is the tendency on all sides of the debate to demonize and stereotype those who do not agree with them. I can disagree with you and still be interested in new ideas.
As for comment #36, I thought it was a breathtakingly brilliant piece of analysis. Not surprisingly, you disagree and I’m eager to hear your critique. Where is the analysis in error? Did the Soviets not want exactly what it says they wanted? Do not modern leftists turn away in embarrassment from the phrase “the American way of life”? Do leftists have an effective way of dealing with religious extremists who want nothing more than to destroy them? Certainly, the input of leftists, yourself included, on this blog (and, for that matter, the pronouncements of the Democrat leadership) indicates that they do not.
You have yet to propose a single concerte step toward a solution. If you have ideas on how to deal with the Islamist threat, please share them. They don’t have to be complete solutions, just starting steps would be fine. But don’t just criticize; don’t just attack. Build.
P.S. Of course lasting peace is the goal (though only on terms that allow for the maintenance of Western civilization; peace at any cost is just another name for surrender). The question is how we achieve it. What’s your answer?
http://billroggio.com/archives/2006/12/the_state_of_jihad.php
Here’s a not so old global update on the Islamic jihad. Useful for seeing the bigger picture and deciding what you want to do. From the Futurist of course.
DQ’s initial question has grown exponentially, to state the obvious. As far as Iraq goes, we need much more tactical intel. Who’s planning what where? And then get there first and take them out. This may be happening. NPR had a report this AM on a doctor in Bagdad who exchanged cell phone #s’ with a US army officer for aid in getting to the doctor’s clinic without being shot by insergents. I agree that the CIA, NSA, etc. have little immediate effect here. On the strategic intel level, there is a wealth of data still untranslated in the boxes of documents we siezed from Saddam’s government. That info would help us understand better what Syria, Iran et al are doing to obstruct us. We also need more operatives in those countries.
Soldiers in the US Army should do more than just kill if necessary. The phrase “war is just diplomacy by other means” can be reversed. Building schools and economies is just “war” by other means. Giving Sunni and Shia jobs in the same growing company to put food on their children’s tables has the potential of at least distracting the more moderate citizenry of Iraq.
As far as winning the Iraq campaign, we must get out of the Army’s way and let our guys win it.
Much of the turmoil in the Middle East I think can be traced to the artificial national boundaries created by the victors of WW One. There was little consideration of historic tribal divisions. T.E. Lawrence drew a suggested map based upon his extensive knowledge of the area, but Foreign office ignored it. Possibly that could be revisited in the future.
As far as fighting the Jihad, D. Reid is right. Liberal individualism, as enshrined in the US Constitution, needs to be revived and allowed to flourish. The memebombs need to be exposed and excised from our behavior.
Got to go.
Al
Helen’s reaction to DReid’s loooong post is instructive: she’s horrified by the thought of a return to the 1950s when “cold war was fine.” Okay, cold war is bad. Yet we know she’s equally horrified by the thought of a _hot_ war, so what remains? Defeat, apparently. Any attempt by the West to resist hostile ideologies is wrong by her lights — we can’t stand them off and we can’t fight them.
And it doesn’t seem to matter _who_ the enemy is, either. ALl that matters is that _we_ are the ones defeated. That’s not pacifism, it’s suicide.
I have children (do you, Helen?) — I don’t want my daughter to live in an Islamizing society. I don’t want my son to have to hide his Jewish heritage. And I don’t want either of them to be near Washington or New York when Iran gets nuclear weapons.
Coexistence is a noble goal, but when our adversaries are openly and aggressively opposed to the very idea of coexistence, it is idiotic to hope for. They want to fight. Should we wait until we’re weakened and millions are dead to fight back? Or should we fight now from a position of strength? The fact that anyone could even dispute the answer is insane.
Practical thing to do: Attend a servive at your local mosque (maybe tonight, I’m not sure) and ask some peaceful Muslims about how they see the situation. You may be surprised at what you find.
This will not change the world. But it might offer insight to a given individual. Personal peace matters as well as peace among nations.
Timegistus, I have two sons. One is young enough that a draft would affect him persoanlly, if it comes to that.
(I am busy today.)
“Soldiers in the US Army should do more than just kill if necessary. The phrase “war is just diplomacy by other means” can be reversed. Building schools and economies is just “war” by other means. Giving Sunni and Shia jobs in the same growing company to put food on their children’s tables has the potential of at least distracting the more moderate citizenry of Iraq.”
What the heck do you think is going on? For instance, every unit over there adopts a school to support. There are press releases constantly talking about how the US Armed Forces have opened schools, hospitals, rebuilt infrastructure or coordinated contractors doing the same. My unit flew Iraqi doctors and lawyers to Kuwait to get the advanced training they couldn’t get while Saddam was in charge. Naturally none of this can be allowed on mainstream media, it might convince somebody we aren’t evil villains, but it has occurred all along.
Practical thing to do: Attend a servive at your local mosque (maybe tonight, I’m not sure) and ask some peaceful Muslims about how they see the situation. You may be surprised at what you find.
Helen said this before, which I was reminded of by the bold above.
“It is not so much feelings that matter, as actions.” This is true, if we are logical. But some of the time, most of us are not logical. Feelings matter, because we live there more often than like to admit.
Comment by helenl | February 21, 2007
In response to my words in quote of course.
What does it matter what they confess of their feelings, it is their actions that matter. And that is irrespective of logic, their actions would matter if they were illogical or we were illogical because the consequences occur in the real world, independent of emotional poisoning. After all, if the Islamic Jihad truly is illogical, then why talk to them in the first place? Assuming illogic causes feelings to matter, while actions matter for those who are logical.
So, if we are logical, why should we care about what Muslims say? Shouldn’t we focus on their actions, or is there some specific emotion that we should engender in them?
This focus on feelings seems to be rather retrograd. I do not believe emotional therapy will do much for peace. Simply because, if a group of people are unreasonable and believes their emotions matter more than their actions, then they will be easily lead into war and destruction by the mighty and charismatic. You cannot treat everyone with therapy, nor can you do so at the same time.
Naturally none of this can be allowed on mainstream media, it might convince somebody we aren’t evil villains, but it has occurred all along.
Which means it doesn’t hurt to repeat it, when Don brings up the subject of positive solutions, Graves.
If Al had said “let’s continue doing what we are doing and stay the course” do you really think his meaning would be communicated clearly? No, he had to give specifics.
If the Mosques had the solutions to the Islamic Jihad, they would already have solved the problem by now. Given the numbers of Muslims in the world and of mosques.
RE: #48. I’m responding to some comments here that state the military should stick to actual fighting. I know that our fighting units have become construction battalions, and this is excellent. As ymarsakar indicated, this info has not made it to many US media markets. If it had, no one would be talking about an Iraq civil war.
I hate to keep sounding like an old, scratched 78 record, but one of the other things we need to do to combat Jihad is to replace the MSM as the primary source of information. Now that is going to be a task.
DQ, your questions are fiendishly addictive. I left the office at lunch time to continue the discussion. Got to get back to the baby shots.
Al
I am only taking helen’s encouragement to heart. Going wild.
Helen:
Your suggestion that we attend services at a mosque just reinforces what I’ve said. Why not suggest to Muslims that they attend a church or a synagogue? THEY are, after all, the ones with the problem of murderous intolerance.
But no, you don’t suggest that. It’s always _we_ who must accomodate others. We must abandon freedom of religion because tolerance offends them. We must abandon freedom of speech because criticism offends them. We must _allow ourselves to be slaughtered_ because our _existence_ offends them.
Well, screw that, Helen. It’s time Muslims learned some God-damned tolerance. Maybe having their cities and mosques pounded to rubble would get the message across that behaving like a bunch of 7th-century camel bandits is NOT the most effective way to get by in the third millennium. I’m sick of tolerating barbarism.
You and your kind would be tolerant right up to the moment the blade touches your throat amid cries of “allah akbar!” I’m less tolerant — if people state publicly and repeatedly that they want to kill me, devastate my nation, and destroy my civilization, then I CANNOT TOLERATE THEM ANY MORE.
So here’s a counter-suggestion, Helen: why don’t YOU attend services at a mosque. In Iran, or northern Pakistan, or anyplace else beyond the reach of Christian guns. And see how many injuries the “tolerance” of the Muslims leaves you with if you dare to expose your face.
Trimegistus said:
“Well, screw that, Helen. It’s time Muslims learned some God-damned tolerance. Maybe having their cities and mosques pounded to rubble would get the message across that behaving like a bunch of 7th-century camel bandits is NOT the most effective way to get by in the third millennium. I’m sick of tolerating barbarism.
You and your kind would be tolerant right up to the moment the blade touches your throat amid cries of “allah akbar!” I’m less tolerant — if people state publicly and repeatedly that they want to kill me, devastate my nation, and destroy my civilization, then I CANNOT TOLERATE THEM ANY MORE.”
Trimegistus,
Who has destroyed whose nation?
If you can’t tolerate them any more, then why are you telling them they need to learn tolerance?
You suggesting that they should have their cities and temples burned to the ground is as scary as anything any terrorist has ever said.
The UN has destroyed whole nations at the behest of dictators like Hugo and corrupt officials in Euro land.
Trim is saying that he will only tolerate the tolerant, rather than tolerating the intolerant.
Fallujah and Al Sadr cities were great opportunities to be examples to be made. They are still are to a certain extent, but for different reasons.
Oh wait, that would be corrupt officials, don’t mind the geographic reference.
You suggesting that they should have their cities and temples burned to the ground is as scary as anything any terrorist has ever said.
Comment by BigAL | February 23, 2007
Fear is a great motivator for human action. It is what civilization is based upon. Fear of the law. If people didn’t fear the law, they wouldn’t obey it. And then civilization would go poof.
Interesting reading, all of this. I am reminded of a DQ post early in January, last time BW was away, that touched on some of these issues. In that chain of comments, I asked Helen and other pacifists to answer a simple question:
What would you suggest be said to the type of enemy we face these days (Islamic Jihadists) that could possibly convince them to turn away from their stated mission?
Even though there were 109 comments, there was no answer to this question. The problem with relying on talks and negotiations, is that there has to be something the other side wants that your side is willing to give, and vice versa. In the case of Jihadists, what they want is our destruction. Do you think we should agree to that? Of course, it’s absurd.
So, if war is never the answer, and talking is the only approach that’s okay with pacifists/liberals, then I ask again: What do you say at the negotiating table that could succeed in getting the Jihadists to live in peace with us?
Hi Judyrose,
Excellent question. Is there anything that the jihadists want that Helen and BigAl and others would be willing to give and that the jihadists would be content with, short of our destruction? Can anyone reading this blog answer that question?
Please note (in respnse to #53) that this thread is entitled, “So, what do we do now?” not “So what I think they should do now?”
And never, Trimegistus, as in never, never, never, do I plan to abandon my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the obedience to His Word that being a Christian entails because extremists from the middle east fly planes into buildings in New York and Washington or take any other violent and evil action. It’s my country, too, and I have every right (and I think obligation) to try to understand all of our citizens, including peace-loving Muslims, and therefore make my (and your) nation better and stronger. I haven’t joined anyone’s nation except the USA, and I was born here. No one has destroyed my civilization and won’t if I have anything to say about it. I have no intention of leaving my home. I’m not that frustrated. It isn’t me writing in shouting letters nor do I plan to spend my evening arguing. I was pressured to give something we can do, and I did. Finis.
Please note (in response to #53) that this thread is entitled, “So, what do we do now?” not “So what I think they should do now?”
Good point Helen. I posted that in response to DQ because that’s what I would do if I thought we needed to continue attacking the middle-east (which I don’t). If I were a war-mongerer….I would at least get the troops off street-patrols (to help them not get blown up) while keeping a continued large troop presence to guard against Iran cutting off oil supplies or messing with Iraq in a major way. They already mess with Iraq in many small ways even with our presence. Major, in my mind, mind would mean them trying to invade or takeover Iraq or something like that. And we’re already a target, no matter if we’re fortified in a US base keeping our distance or patrolling the streets (i hate to see Americans keep getting blown up during patrols). I would also get the troops better armor, including the new armor which can be fitted on HumV’s which will definitely reduce the number of deaths and injuries due to IED (but for some reason most HumV’s have the same armor they did at the beginning of the war, or no armor at all–and there is no good reason for this). Who is supporting the troops?
But overall, Helen, it is just asinine that we honestly believe we’re in Iraq and maybe going to Iran because they’re going to kill us all if we don’t. Anyone who hasn’t been fooled knows that we are there because of our continued addiction to the internal combustion engine —which is mainly because the internal combustion engine(ICE)industry and all complementary products of ICE HAVE BEEN MAKING PEOPLE MONEY AND KEEPING PEOPLE IN POWER FOR WAY TOO LONG. Has anyone ever thought, for one minute, that maybe the hate of Jews and Christians by radical Muslims (although centuries long in terms of length) has been increased because of our continued military presence for reasons of OIL?
What do you say at the negotiating table that could succeed in getting the Jihadists to live in peace with us?
Say “We don’t need your oil anymore because we are going to develop electric cars on a mass scale over the next several decades. We’ll use our own oil reserves and the reserves of our non-ME allies for the next decade until the transition is complete. Our citizens will make sacrifices and work as team (profit or not) to make sure we never have to be dependent on oil again. We are removing all troops from the middle-east. We are going to arrest the war-profiteers who manipulated our people into believing we could fight a war on terror with conventional methods and weapons. If you are caught trying to commit and act of terror in the USA, we will try you for murder and terrorism, we will give you a fair trial, and we will convict you using evidence….Because that’s what America is all about. We aren’t going to hate you the way you hate us. We are better than that.! If you still want destroy us, we will pray for God to bring peace to your hearts and we will have faith that God will protect us. We are not afraid of you.”
And the doubters will say that will not work. And that’s OK. They said we could win the war on terror by invading and bombing countries, and that has not worked either…so their credibility is really zero.
And they’ll call us liberals or pacifists or conservatives or whatever the current popular term is denoting someone WHO DOES NOT AGREE WITH THEM OR BELIEVES THERE’S A BETTER OPTION THAN THE STATUS QUO.
And they’ll say, “so how are you going to do this and why is this going to work?”
And I’ll say “that’s funny, because I asked you that exact same question when you said it was a good idea to invade Iraq, and you never gave me a good answer, so screw off”
BigAl I disagree with your statement below:
“I would also get the troops better armor, including the new armor which can be fitted on HumV’s which will definitely reduce the number of deaths and injuries due to IED (but for some reason most HumV’s have the same armor they did at the beginning of the war, or no armor at all–and there is no good reason for this). Who is supporting the troops?”
The following is from a soldier in Iraq. His description with pics gives a totally different story.
“I would first like to point out that this is just one more attempt by the liberals to take an extremely complicated situation, look at one small aspect of the story, and then invent the story that they what to tell. We have over 70,000 M1114 Up-Armored HMMWVs in theatre right now. With that said, it is remarkable that we would be able to retro-fit this number of vehicles with armor in this short of time period while still conducting 24 hour combat operations.
The short version of the story is that they call this upgrade to the Armor, FRAG5 because it is the fifth such armor upgrade to this one vehicle in just the four years of the war. This number of upgrades does not include the turret upgrades and unit driven upgrades. The number of upgrades per truck sits now at a minimum of eight, with only five being manufactured for the body of the truck. A little quick math and that works out to two per year for just one vehicle type, which we happen to have over 70,000 of.”
Read the whole thing with pictures: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/2007_02.htm
Is there anything that the jihadists want that Helen and BigAl and others would be willing to give and that the jihadists would be content with, short of our destruction? Can anyone reading this blog answer that question?
They do want a nuclear device, so we should probably give them one.
And booby trap it before.
Then there is dhimmihude, I am sure they will tolerate believers of the Book or whatever, if you pay a tax and obey Islamic Jihad, publicly that is.
I would also get the troops better armor, including the new armor which can be fitted on HumV’s which will definitely reduce the number of deaths and injuries due to IED (but for some reason most HumV’s have the same armor they did at the beginning of the war, or no armor at all–and there is no good reason for this). Who is supporting the troops?
Do you know how heavy that add on armor is, and you know that factory manufactured humvees with that armor can’t be dismantled?
Humvees won’t get much mileage efficiency with that much weight on it. And what does that mean? It means if you are patrolling, you might run out of fuel during an ambush. Which would be bad, and not only for the environment either.
Weren’t you talking about oil or something over on another thread? So you want us to burn oil up more, right when it suits your purposes? How does that make you any different from the rest of us then?
If protection was the priority, people would be always in tanks and APCs. But you know the range on APCs, right.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006917.htm
Btw, ask yourself this. If people are willing to do that to their own families in the link, what do you think they will do to YOU when the Islamic Jihad comes for your head?
You people (I’m refering to people who use lack of uparmored humvees to say that Bush/Co doesn’t support troops) aren’t paying attention, because you aren’t attempting to solve the real problems. military bloggers like blackfive posted long ago this armor, and you don’t even mention it. Why? Because you aren’t paying attention to real solutions to real problems.
http://crunchgear.com/2007/02/06/grizzly-man-in-financial-ruin-selling-halo-suit/
If all those on the Left spent their energies solving real problems instead of making them, things would be going a lot better for people, and not just the military.
Hi Helen,
You make an excellent point and I thank you for your contribution. I actually had in mind asking what we as a nation should do, not what we as individuals should do, but I did not make that clear at all. The fault is all mine. Sorry you felt pressured, but I figured if you had time to come on here and take pot-shots (calling all conservatives warmongers, for example), you might have time to contribute something positive, too.
I haven’t attended services at a church in 30 years, I’ve never set foot in a synagogue in my life, and I’m not about to visit a mosque, but perhaps you could tell me what the peace-loving Muslims would say, assuming I could find any. Would they tell me how they have attempted to defeat the warmongers in their own ranks? Would they tell me they are ready to join me in the fight for religious and cultural tolerance and love, against 7th century intolerance and hatred? Would they tell me they share my values or the values of the jihadists? What would they tell me about woman’s rights, or freedom of religion, or separation of church and state? Would they listen and believe me if I told them I wished them no ill-will? Would they understand I oppose only those who would destroy my country, my freedom, my way of life? What would such an exchange accomplish? What effect, if any, would a million such exchanges have on the jihadists?
What effect, if any, would a million such exchanges have on the jihadists?
It would get those who talked with you, executed. As collaborating with the enemy, as the Palestinians do to anyone that even hints at supporting Israeli efforts.
Pacifism in the face of evil is immoral. For many in America it seems it is almost impossible to imagine what it is like to live under true oppression as a rightless victim. War has ended slavery and liberated death camps. In World War II, Swiss and Swedish neutrality (pacifism) was immoral. Their national policy was to be indifferent to Nazi barbarity and genocide. Their pacifism made it national policy to not make moral distinctions between a gestapo state and those who opposed it. War is horrible and many innocent people die and suffer, but sometimes it is necessary. Imagine Helen or BigAl that you were standing behind the barbed wire, absolutely powerless. Would you not be praying for the American, or English or Russian armies to come and liberate you? Come on, you can’t possibly believe that the SS would have a change of heart, sing kumbaya, and skip off hand in hand with skeletal inmates. To Switzerland and Sweden it made no difference as long as they were left alone. That is morally wrong.
Have you read the ideology of jihadists? Have you seen their pledges, heard their speeches, their announced goals and objectives? If you haven’t, you can’t offer solutions because you don’t understand the danger we face.
This isn’t about welcoming nice Moslems. Tolerant people are not the problem. This is about understanding, facing and dealing with a murderous, intolerant, bigoted ideology of extremists that promotes suicide bombing, hides bombs in a baby’s bottle, dances in the street when people are murdered, and thinks mass murder is a path to divine enlightenment and heavenly sexual rewards.
If someone mugged you would you hope that they would have a change of heart, understand their rage and placate- hoping it wouldn’t escalate, blame yourself for belonging to an oppresser group,or would you fight back in self defense? And if you saw evil being done to another, would you be passive, or would you help?
There is a distinction between murder and killing. There are things worth fighting for. Evil must never be allowed to prevail due to pacifism.
Well said Lulu. You make a point worth remembering, and you make it with exceptional clarity. Who was it who said, “The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men (and women) to remain silent?”
Too many of us, perhaps infected by the intellectual viruses listed in D. Reid’s excellent post (#36), have forgotten that there are things worth fighting for.
War is terrible, but tyranny is far worse.
It helps to remember that peace is a result, not a goal. Peace, ironically, is the result of being willing to fight when necessary. Whenever peace is made into a goal, tyranny is the result.
Peace is ethically neutral. It shouldn’t be made into something that always good. peace is not always good. There was peace during Saddam’s reign, if only because people who fought died at his command. There would be peace if Stalin and Hitler had won, but it would be the peace of the grave. you would go silently into the night… isn’t that peaceful? The Nazis were not cruel, they wished to exterminate a large group of people in the most efficient manner, they did not practice cruelty in the sense that if they had a choice between a more painful and efficient execution compared to a less painful execution with the same efficiency, they would choose the more painful one. Although there would probably have to be a higher efficiency index for the less pain execution for most Nazis to prefer that over the other. The Germans loved efficiency.
Peace is not always good. Just like is not always bad.
But if you go with pacifism, then wouldn’t you have to believe that peace is always good and war is always bad? That kind of duality is perhaps in conflict with what helen said about not all things being of a dualistic nature. All things are not, it is sure, but what does that mean? It means you better be careful in picking out which are dualistic in nature and which aren’t. Helen believes peace is always good, war is always bad. Dual nature. But it isn’t dual.
like war is not always bad
Bravo, Lulu (#67)
This is a subject near to my heart thanks, found you through Bing.