French getting another round of "inshallah"

[Renegade One]

The Constitution isn't a suicide note. It was meant for domestic consumption. Hell, Lincoln shat all over it for the sake of national survival, and he has a god damn greek temple built in his honor that I drive past every morning............just saying.

Agree, but let's hope life doesn't imitate art and come to this:

"Good morning. Today with the invocation of the War Powers Act by the President, I am declaring state of martial law in this city. To the best of our knowledge we are opposed by no more than 20 of the enemy. He is hiding among a population of roughly two million. Intelligence tells us that he is most likely Arab speaking, between the age of 14 and 30, narrowing the target to 15,000 suspects. We can further reduce that number down to those that have been in this country less than six months. Now you have 20 hiding among 2,000. If you are one of these 20 young men, you can hide among a population of similar ethnic background. Unfortunately for you, you can only hide there. And that population, in the classic immigration pattern, is concentrated right here in Brooklyn. We intend to seal off this borough, then we intend to squeeze it. This is the land of opportunity, gentlemen - the opportunity to turn yourselves in. After sundown tonight, any young man fitting the profile I described who is not cooperating will be arrested and detained. There is historically nothing more corrosive to the morale of a population than policing its own citizens, but the enemy would be sadly mistaken if they were to doubt our resolve. They are now face-to-face with the most fearsome military machine in the history of man, and I intend to use it and be back on base in time for the playoffs. Thank you for your time." ~ General William Devereaux (The Siege 1998)

 

[Spekkio]

You do realize that not all Muslims believe that that's an OK thing to do, right? And that no one person or group has a monopoly on interpreting Islamic law? And that some Muslims are very devout, while others might enjoy the occasional beer or bacon cheeseburger? Because they're mostly just imperfect people like you or me?

I didn't say all Muslims believed it, but you're delusional if you don't think that is part of Arabic culture. My wife's dad immigrated from Egypt because Christians there are basically treated like the Jews in Nazi Germany, to include mandatory identifying tattoos. The only thing they are missing is the concentration camps, and Obama's support of the Muslim Brotherhood has made things even worse.

If you think for a second the majority of of these Middle Eastern societies would welcome you as a Christian with open arms and treat you as an equal then you are grossly mistaken. But the biggest difference between their beliefs and ours is that violence against non-Muslims is sanctioned by the Islamic faith.

 

[Spekkio]

I generally respect Pew. I just wanted to see the question. Even after reading through the document, I'm not sure how I feel about the results, or how to interpret the responses.. If someone asked most Americans, "Do you agree with the use of terrorism if America is under attack?" I don't know that we wouldn't see similar numbers, but I am not sure that means the respondents are generally violent or extremists.

The word terrorism was used by me. The question posed by Pew was whether they believed that suicide bombings were justified. I challenge you to find 1 in 4 Americans who think that strapping dynamite to your chest and blowing up a mall full of innocent people is a justified measure to take when you don't like the government.

 

[picklesuit]

The nice thing about our Constitution is that it doesn't apply once we leave our borders. I'm not worried about the 4th amendment as a squad of Marines kick in the door of some dirtbag in Mosul (again) to start the march northwest via Sinjar into Syria in order to high-five his Russian counterpart in Raqqa.

That is what it will take to end this. With some diplomacy with characters we traditionally dislike working with (Iran, Turkey, Russia) and the support of Jordan and Saudi Arabia (the weakest link in this idea) we have the Daesh army encircled.

Guess what, working with all of the aforementioned countries are better than accepting a safe haven for the Islamic State.

We've worked with all of them before, we can do it again.

That is my solution. A cleansing of the militant Islamists followed by the creation of a Kurdish state to fill the power vacuum and/or the extension of the borders of Turkey and Iran to cover the area they liberated for the current Iraqi "citizens."

If you can't defend it (looking at you Baghdad) you don't deserve to keep it.

Pickle

 

[sevenhelmet]

I don't think there is a quick solution short of genocide, and even that would hardly solve the problem (not to mention creating a host of new ones.)

I think the best solution is to prevent the group claiming to have a caliphate from expanding, and bleed them slowly though airstrikes, sanctions, and actual blockades. This will deny them their mandate to expand, and gradually undermine their legitimacy with potential recruits. Combine that with their own brutal practices, and grassroots support for them will gradually weaken over time. Their ideology is such that no amount of military setbacks, negotiation, or intimidation will get them to back down (they interpret military setbacks as vindication of their end goal: the apocalypse). This is nothing like the Towlie-ban or Al-Quackda.

I think the key to success for us will be to have military and political leaders that understand the ideology of what we're up against, and plan accordingly. Unfortunately, I see very little evidence of that outside of the current protracted air-to-mud campaign (which is effective over the long haul, but also extremely expensive...)

 

[Rugby_Guy]

Must not be too hard to close boarders in Europe. These countries did it for national security.

 

[Brett327]

Or because they're hardcore Sunni governments.

 

[villanelle]

The word terrorism was used by me. The question posed by Pew was whether they believed that suicide bombings were justified. I challenge you to find 1 in 4 Americans who think that strapping dynamite to your chest and blowing up a mall full of innocent people is a justified measure to take when you don't like the government.

"When Islam is under attack" is not the same as "when you don't like the government", so that's not what the poll said.

And you're right in that I substituted "terrorism" for "suicide bombings" because I was too lazy to pull the poll up again. But would many Americans support suicide bombings of some Muslim (or other) group if they felt the US government was truly threatened and in imminent danger of toppling? I think they would. 1 in 4.5? I have no idea. The threshold for "under attack" is pretty muddy and leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which I think makes the poll less meaningful than it might otherwise be. That's all I'm saying.

But perhaps the larger point, and one I am loath to admit, is that the US is applying our own morals and values and behavior models on peoples to whom it doesn't necessarily apply. Again, not all Muslims/Syrians/refugees/whatever. But we expect them to value the same things we do and behave in similar ways. It's not unlike Russia. I have a friend who spent several years living in Russia as a violinist. While she's no sociological expert, her take on Russian events in the news is always fascinating. The very over-simplified gist of her thoughts is pretty much always that the Russians want, more than anything, to be relevant. We assume the don't want to be hated, because we don't. We assume they'd like to appear good and helpful, because we value that. When really, they are just happy any time someone is saying "Russia", even if it is followed by a string of pejoratives. Not that this is news with the Russians, but I think it's an example of this kind of mistake in foreign policy.

We assume these extremists want peace. They don't. We assume they value basically what we value. They don't. I think if we want to get traction in this fight, we need to do a better job of meeting them where they live, perhaps figuratively and literally, and of not assuming motivations like our own. I don't know if the American public is ready for that. But I'm not sure we're ready for Paris 2.0 either.

 

[Spekkio]

If you want to hang your hat on 'when Islam is under attack,' (how does one 'attack' an intangible thing?), I challenge you to prove that 1 in 4 Americans identifying as a religion other than Islam would support suicide bombings of civilians when their religion came under attack. You won't. And while we're quibbling over the phrase in the question, the question didn't ask "against Christians," it said "against civilians," i.e. basically anyone who happens to be in the area, regardless of whether or not they belong to the group attacking Islam.

But perhaps the larger point, and one I am loath to admit, is that the US is applying our own morals and values and behavior models on peoples to whom it doesn't necessarily apply.

Our morals do apply when people immigrate into our society. But yes, when it comes to Arabic Muslims abroad, we have to start the conversation recognizing that their moral compass is significantly different than ours instead of trying to claim that they are just peaceful little flowers oppressed by big bad racists in America.

I think the best solution is to prevent the group claiming to have a caliphate from expanding, and bleed them slowly though airstrikes, sanctions, and actual blockades. This will deny them their mandate to expand, and gradually undermine their legitimacy with potential recruits. Combine that with their own brutal practices, and grassroots support for them will gradually weaken over time. Their ideology is such that no amount of military setbacks, negotiation, or intimidation will get them to back down (they interpret military setbacks as vindication of their end goal: the apocalypse). This is nothing like the Towlie-ban or Al-Quackda.

Isn't this the current status-quo and U.S. strategy toward ISIS (despite your assertion in the next paragraph that it isn't)? I think a side-effect of the protracted tactical bombing campaign is that you are going to have a higher risk of attacks like in Paris. We can also probably expect an increased frequency of these kind of attacks as they get more desperate over time.

At some point someone is going to have to send forces on the ground into the region to establish a new government and displace ISIS. It's also going to have to be a nation in the region since we can't have a perpetual occupying force in Iraq/Syria.

 

[Brett327]

This has the potential of morphing into October, 2001 in Afghanistan. I hope we're able to apply what we've learned from that experience, but I'm not buoyed with optimism. On the other hand, I can see the administration making another incremental (and ultimately ineffective) plus-up of forces and just riding out the last 14 months of their term without making a big policy shift (most likely COA).

 

[Spekkio]

This has the potential of morphing into October, 2001 in Afghanistan. I hope we're able to apply what we've learned from that experience, but I'm not buoyed with optimism. On the other hand, I can see the administration making another incremental (and ultimately ineffective) plus-up of forces and just riding out the last 14 months of their term without making a big policy shift (most likely COA).

Policy wise it seems like the U.S. only likes to play ball in a coalition where it is either leading the way or has separate command structures. But then that also entails committing the most amount of personnel and resources. It would be nice to see France would lead the way on this one and if we could stomach playing a support role for them.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Policy wise it seems like the U.S. only likes to play ball in a coalition where it is either leading the way or has separate command structures. But then that also entails committing the most amount of personnel and resources. It would be nice to see France would lead the way on this one and if we could stomach playing a support role for them.

That would be nice. On the other hand, I remember how quickly the EU got tapped out during Libya...

 

[jmcquate]

This has the potential of morphing into October, 2001 in Afghanistan.

Do you mean a bunch of spooks with a bag full of cash looking for the "good hajis"? My guess is that train has already left the station.

Oops sorry, you meant the whole NATO thingy.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Isn't this the current status-quo and U.S. strategy toward ISIS (despite your assertion in the next paragraph that it isn't)? I think a side-effect of the protracted tactical bombing campaign is that you are going to have a higher risk of attacks like in Paris. We can also probably expect an increased frequency of these kind of attacks as they get more desperate over time.

At some point someone is going to have to send forces on the ground into the region to establish a new government and displace ISIS. It's also going to have to be a nation in the region since we can't have a perpetual occupying force in Iraq/Syria.

Yes, I did not make my point very well, which was that our current leadership's misunderstanding of what this group claiming caliphate will lead to ill-defined and inappropriate strategic goals (which are...? I haven't heard any clearly stated, other than comments like "the JV team" and "the threat is contained".) Clearly it is contained, Mr. President. Yes, our current air campaign is the best of our military options, but how long will it continue? What's the end-game strategy?

 

[picklesuit]

If only we had a precedence to follow of a foreign country/people that were inherently militaristic, tried to export their brand of nationalism and way of moving violently, had no problem fighting to the last man and conducting suicide attacks.

If only we had defeated these people by taking the fight viciously to their country at a disparate cost to their lives and infrastructure and completely annihilated their ability to conduct any offensive military action and forced their leaders into unconditional surrender and capitulation.

If only this had happened in the last century so we could remember how to deal with an enemy so inherently vicious and uncompromising as to merely understand force and power.

If only...