Military plots a 'long war' on terror

well,i personally will feel better when bush is gone,maybe Mcain.since he was a prisiner,for what turned out was for nothin,will not let it happin again,and he will let the U.S military kick some islam ass

well,and people got to get over saying stupid things like:islam is a "devine religion"

That 12 million is from an estimate of 1% of the worldwide population of muslims.

Don't make me LAUGH.

It's 30% at least who support this stuff. 1% is the number who committ ACTS

McCain/Giuliani ticket would be the way to go. Let's hope.

This analysis comes as no surprise to me. In fact, I think it's the "politically correct" version of the real thing. I can not for the life of me believe that generals would seriously utter a statement like "divine religion" unless they were trying to quell fears in the Islamic world while at the same time prescribing the solution.

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Where is Patton, when you need him?

yes McCain/Giuliani,would be the way to go.i think it is funny when i hear people say goerge bush led us through the aftermath of 9/11...what a joke,i tuned my T.V in whenever Giuliani was gunna talk.if anybody led america through it was him.

The damning phrase: "We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist [sic]."

That's quite a box we've constructed to think inside. Nearly impervious to thinking outside it.

Forget the nest. We are going to wipe out the ants by stepping on them one at a time.

It is indeed a major statement dressed up. "Cannot discredit a whole religion so..." They know. They really know. I wasn't sure.

"We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist."

The United States Military Complex is unable to deal with the truth, and we American's must demand that our politician's find their back-bones. George Bush failed to name names in his "War on Terror" and now the USMC in stating that 'we can't discredit all of Islam' -

Clearly I tell you, the whole of Islam is at war with the Infidels; and we're just to stupid to see it.

Time to start Expelling them from Western Lands!

Let them walk the desert with their camel and eat dates.

McCain/giuliani got my vote,bush was better than gore/kerry but lets face it he's a bible hugging crusader, too much religion Is a sign of weak personal constitution.
The U.S. needs some real leaders with a backbone
now more than ever.

"Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing."

However don't expect the dean/moore/pelosi/kerry crowd to treat it that way. Bombers will be prosecuted, leftist lawyers will send messages for them from prison, the academia will train upcoming generations to think like them, the media will focus on 'reconstructionists.'

If that side wins the next election.

Yes that represents the military component of this war against the world aspirations of Islam.

The other and possibly most critical component of fighting this war is the need for western societies to clearly understand and have a knowledge of the differences in the ideologies. To understand what Islam along with its suppressive sharia law brings with it, denegration of women, no freedom of expression as clearly demonstrated over the past several weeks by the cartoon riots.

With this knowledge you can see through the sometimes subtle practice of taquiya and kitman that is used to gain a foothold with the infidel in attempts to dhimmify him.

It is sites like Jihadwatch that can clearly show the differences every single day between the Ideologies vs western values. The never ending articles alone speak volumes for all to see.

This is a fight with an ancient people. Think outside the box. The symbols of the savage's religion must be discredited or destroyed so that the adherent will question the god he is praying to. Traditionally, ancient wars were over when the savage's temple was occupied and its idols were smashed. The war is over when the loser considers that its gods are not as strong as the loser was led to believe. I leave the particulars of this strategy to be worked out by our war planners, other vigilantes and agents provacateurs.

Only Muslims think Islam is a "divine religion," indeed, what you believe on that matter is the defining destinction between Muslims and Infidels.

So does that mean the Joint Chiefs of Staff planners have converted already?

Only Muslims think Islam is a "divine religion"...So does that mean the Joint Chiefs of Staff planners have converted already?

Yes: the Joint Chiefs of Staff (along with Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al.) have converted -- to PC.

In my view, the only way to win this war is to ween ourselves off of oil. Did anyone see 60 minutes last night, or maybe it was last week- most respectable scientists agree that the polar ice caps are thinning at an alarming rate, with dire consequences on climate, including storm patterns. I for one, think we should at least try to kill two major birds with one stone- as Robert has suggested, the time has come for a MANHATTAN PROJECT like approach to getting off of Saudi oil. Then we can tell the fornicating cousins of Saud, the only other true Superpower on earth, where they can take they oil.

Why can’t they discredit an entire religion? What wrong with calling a spade a spade?

I’m anxiously awaiting the day when a leader (either in the US, Britain …Denmark, even …ANYWHERE) steps forward and makes a speech that basically announces that there have been forces at work in the shadows for much longer than we’ve wanted to admit, even though there is evidence building daily to the contrary of what we’ve been told. That the cold war versus communism was nothing compared to the devious minds that have fooled us for generations upon generations. That there is an ideology which represents itself on the surface by masters of reality-warping language as peaceful is, in fact, a cult of death-worshippers who wish to see the West and its way of life dead.

There’s nothing wrong with self preservation. There’s nothing wrong with coming out and admitting that you’ve been wrong on a subject. There’s definitely nothing wrong with having a set of balls, putting them out for the world to see, and saying what many know to be truth already –we just need some politician with a little bit of clout and a whole lot of balls to take the lead, here.

A few key things would need to be said and the American people would stand behind them, I’m sure. Before any of it was spoken, behind the scenes there should be a massive wave of mosques closed, Saudi interests in this country seized, and the deportation of many, many ‘radicals’ and even average Muslims should begin. Once cleaned out, this person in question should feel free to speak out about the truths of Islam: everything from the deplorable human rights violations, the barbaric treatment of women, the life and times of the man they see as ‘perfect’ whom they base their entire religion around, Muhammad, and the complete absurdity we’ve held in the past that Islam would be compatible with democracy. The simple fact that there cannot be a separation between church and state in Islam should be enough to see the differences.

This person needs to stand up and list everything, starting with what Islam means (not that ‘peace’ sh*t we’ve been force-fed, but the truer translation of ‘peace through submission to God’ …or replace ‘God’ with ‘thugs’ or ‘ruffians’ or whatever word you prefer to describe these folks) and explain the religion’s tenets, and the overall desire to force the entire world’s inhabitants to live under sharia law. Your average American, upon finding out that his football, his cold beer, and many other numerous items and pleasures of daily life would be cut off from him in such a world, just wouldn’t stand for it.

The entire religion can be discredited much easier than they think. All they have to do is publicly hold up a mirror to the many Muslims who spout filth to their own people and two-facedly tell us that it’s ‘peace, peace, peace’. They need to publicly recite the hatred in the Qur’an and let the world know that they view us as pigs and apes and their God tells them to kill us and subjugate us –"How does that make you feel, America? You’re 'unclean' pigs to them and their God" I can almost hear this person saying on TV. They need to speak to the thinking, modern persons of this world who view human rights and freedoms as the highest attainable rights which should be afforded each and every person.

There’s just so much more. So much.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the president coming onto national TV and telling the obvious: while we were busy, here in the United States of America, making a new country on a new continent away from British rule …while we were learning about sciences and technology and creating a modern civilization and growing …while we have been so closely focused on helping humanity the world over by creating drugs and pharmaceuticals to help ease the burdens of others and to cure diseases …while we were closely working together and creating an entire society of different individuals from different backgrounds with varying abilities, divergent ideas, and forward-thinking intellectuals who’s apparent goals were to advance humanity, explore the unknowns of our immediate solar system and, hopefully one day, the galaxy and enhance living conditions and expand the human awareness, there has secretly been this entire religion which views EVERYTHING as evil that we see as good. Everything we fight for, they fight against. Everything we cherish and hold dear, they see as blasphemy. When we worship life and hold life as precious, they blatantly have been screaming at us that they worship death.

Simply put: now that the world has been connected up the way it has been and nothing goes on anymore without someone witnessing it, reporting on it, and the rest of the world knowing immediately what’s happening, there just isn’t room for the both of us. It’s us or them. It’s modern humanity of brutal savagery. It’s looking forward or looking back. It’s visiting the very stars themselves or digging a hole in the ground and lying in it. It’s life or death.

I, and others on this site, vote for life. The Muslims have voted for death -even those quiet moderates by not speaking, say volumes as to where they stand. Isn’t it about time that someone with some power out there says what we’re all thinking? If there’s a clash of cultures about to take place, let’s at least educate the average American who’s too addicted to American Idol and Survivor know what’s at stake.

Hello all,

I find this an lnteresting thread. For once your generals know that it is a going to be a long war.... but do they know how fight it and what to fight.

They are preparing for an Al-queda type of war...a bomb here...one there...a building gone here...another tanker exploded over there.

Yes this type of thing will happen...while the Osama strategy prevails. But that is old Islam...soon new Islam doing things in a smarter way will take over...and your generals will be playing catchup once again or be retiring.

Bombs may happen where things get into a rut...but mostly the war will be an intellectual one ..fought through will power, PC and faith, one where there is no place for weapons and bombs.

It is lack of will and drive that will cause the West to lose....Islam cannot win the west on it's own .....but then they don't need to.

For example, why take out sky scrapers ....when all they have to do is wait The skyscrapers will be ours anyway, why knock 'em over? ....the mountain comes to us.

Things are changing fast, In the U.K. more Muslims than Christians attend religious services each week. You have lost your way....your faith....by using freedom of speech ...you have destroyed what is sacred for your childrens.

Islam sees this danger ...and will not allow this sacred link breakage to happen to them....that is why 45, 450, 4500, deaths seem to be worth it. If after this ...cartoons can be published no more ...Islam has won...a small price to pay indeed....and won through will power.

Also the West chose to give power to the woman...a "woman's right to choose," ..whether she wants childrens ....when she wants childrens....your Western women are delivering your societies into the hands of Islam....We see this and Islam will want to make no such mistake...they (the women) can have power once we have Dhar-Al_islam...*then* they can choose.

Eurabia will follow like Nigeria first ...and then Egypt. The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone....the self-extinction of the races who shaped the modern world and replaced with Islam & sharia.

It is interesting to note that new empires usually success because they are superior in some way ...better weapons....better trained, more stable.

For the 1st time none of these will count....and once Globally there is Daar-Al-Islam ...Islam will most assuredly keep it.

Yes indeed...your generals are ready to fight Al-Queda...but the wuslim has already left you behind..there will be no conventional war for them they fight...they will grow old waiting".

Also take away "the right of the woman right to choose" replace the CIA (is not worth the money)...replace these before USA is the ISA (Islamic states of Amrika).

The question is "do you have the collective will?"

naseem,evan IF(and thats a big-fuckin if)you do beat the government,you will still have to deal with the american people.no figgin way,were gunna listen to a buch of dweed's,will will wipe our hiney's with you and islam

soory,i meant to say friggen,buy you get the idea

he wouldnt take an american long beat the hell out of you(oops,i meant islam)so come on over naseem

The question is "do you have the collective will?"

Posted by: Naseem

The answer "You bet your burqa we got the will"

Maybe our leaders are just playing the same game C.A.I.R. plays,only in reverse.

DP,

I think the real damning phrase is:

"Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing."

I'm surprised people are hung up on this document referring to Islam as a "divine religion" this is an unclassified document that would be released to the public.In theory the US is not fighting Islam but a "tiny minority of extremists".That is the public position. I'm sure "classified" documents paint a very different picture of Islam.Given the recent hysteria over 12 cartoons I doubt even the average American considers Islam a "divine religion".Allow Muslims to continue being Muslims praising violence, marching against free speech, asking for special treatment and handouts. Muslims will do more to discredit Islam in the infidel world then the US government ever could.Communism was discredited and defeated when people who lived under that system realized it was a failed ideology. Muslims are going to lose the opportunity to immigrate, travel and study in the West as people are getting tired of immigrants in general and Muslims in particular.Watch what happens when people are actually forced to live under Islam with no escape hatch.

Naseem,

Allah-assum lickum to you! Glad to see you here trolling once again.

Quite simply: yes. We do have the collective will. We may not be showing much of it just yet, but I suspect that once the majority of the US population understands the truth behind Islam and the current tidal wave of taquiyya which currently defends it, then you’ll eventually see the American will become sharp and focused. We’ve already seen the loose threads unwinding all over cartoons …the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword has quite a bit of truth to it, doesn’t it? Besides –there is nothing that will stop the truth. The truth always beats out lies, so it’s simply a matter of time, my burkah-clad princess...

I know Robert deplores the talk of bombing Muslim holy sites, and I don’t condone it either, but it’s a sad fact that, should Islam continue threatening and menacing humanity as it continuously does, there are going to be lots of crispy-fried individuals in the Middle East who are going to see that Allah is not who you’ve all thought him to be for so long. You can take all of the silly little potshots at us all you want –we’re stronger than we’ve let on. You can lie to our faces all you want, but one utterance of the truth will blow all of your lies away. You can continue beating your heads up against the walls, getting your panties all in a bunch over a few well-placed squiggles on a piece of paper, but you all ultimately look so funny, so comical, infinitely intolerant and ignorant beyond all belief. There’s no reason to do anything but mock and scorn Muslims because they demand our respect, they do not earn it. When you come here to JihadWatch, you also invite that same scorn.

You’re right, though. Things ARE changing fast …but not the way that you perceive it. The UK is waking up, there have been deportations and trials and …hey, why even try arguing the facts with a Muslim? Especially a woman. As a Muslim woman, you should know your place, you should cover up and shut up. You’re likely very uneducated and definitely shouldn’t be allowed to do much else besides tending to your master …umm …husband.

Get lost. Go back to your forums and boards that embrace Islam where you’re wanted –you’re never going to win converts here. There’s becoming less and less room for your kind in this world and there’s even less room for you here on JihadWatch. You’re simply wasting your time here.

Roxane and dms,

If this were 1956, I'd be more inclined to have faith-without-evidence in the unclassified wisdom of our military. But this is 2006, and 50 years have passed, and PC irrationality has become socioculturally dominant in the meantime.

illustr8g8r:

I do not know who you are or what your profession is but you expressed many of my feelings very well.
I also wish a world leader would step forward and say what needs to be said. Over the past couple of years I have learned a lot (not as much as most on this site, but more than the average Joe) about the teachings and Laws of Islam. It has never evolved from the 7th century. The more I read, the more I fear for the future of my grandchildren. All of the Radical Imams who teach their radical "pedophile" (pbuh) doctrines of intolerance and hate to the young should be placed on an Island with no means of escape where they can have their Sharia Laws with no Western interference.

If they all rise from the same swamp, maybe we should drain the swamp? Of course, I'm not a flag grade US military officer honed to fighting edge at the Naval War College. What do I know?

By the way, what do they teach at the War College ... gender studies? Group dynamics? Advanced body language?

We are not getting good value for our investment in the Defense Department.

Dr. Pepper,

Whether it's 1956 or 2006 I wouldn't expect the US military to reveal it's entire strategy in an
unclassified document.

Naseem:

It's wonderful to see that all the things I imagine about how muslims think is being confirmed by you. 'Know your enemy' as they say... :-)

naseem,sorry didnt know you were a woman

but lets get a woman's point of veiw

if a 50 somethin old man came up to you and said i wanna marry your daughter,would you be like aisha's dad and say go ahead,orwould you fight to the death to protect your daughter,Thats the differance between us

Patriot,

Naseem is not a woman though it pretends to be. Naseem is several people who login to this site using the name Naseem. In other words Naseem is a troll.

since islam preaches it o.k to sleep with 9yr olds,i say they should all have to wear ankle braclets(those are tracking devices,naseem)and register as sex afender's.thay way when the time comes we know where to start the cleansing of america

o..o.k,

thank you,roxane

The deception campaign appears to be working. The military seems to have deceived some Americans into thinking they are stupid. The U.S. military cares nothing about divinity, politicians or the msm. They have sworn to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign or domestic. Only a fool stands up and shouts his intentions to the world. Anyone come to mind? These guys are good!
Liberty or Death

but,aint they all woman,they all where dress's,and scarves on there head,i dont know any men like that,woman yes

or,how about"i have one regret,i have one life to give to my country"or i really like one that benjiman franklin said"he who's gives up freedoms fo security,deserve neither"

sorry cant seem to spell today,but i think you got it

This respect for a belief-system that has been called, for want of a better term, a "religion," needs to end. Islam is not merely, and not even mainly, a religion. It is a system of organized belief for world-conquest. It originated in the need of conquering Arabs (who did not emerge from the Arabian desert, a sword in one hand and Qur'an in the other) to present those they were already conquering with a belief-system that looked familiar (and was familiar -- it had bits and pieces of misremembered Christian and Jewish lore mixed in with pagan Arab lore, all of it a confused jumble), and that would appeal to some of them because of those recognizable elements, and that would both justify present conquests, and forever promote future conquests, until the entire world fell under the rule of Islam.

Of course a large part of the world -- formerly inhabited by, possessed by, every kind of Infidel, from Jews and Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, to Zoroastrians in Sasanian Persia, to Hindus and Buddhists in India, the East Indies, and Central Asia -- was conquered. And Islam battened for a while on those non-Muslim civilizations, and even on those non-Muslims who were such a fructifying influence, when still permitted to be, in early Islam, or on those recent converts to Islam who still retained the modes of thought of the non-Muslims from whom they were only a generatioh or two removed. But once stopped militarily, the forces of Islam survived, continued to leach support for the Muslim state from economic exploitation of the non-Muslims forced to pay the Jizyah (or, as in India with the Hindus, simply killed by the tens of millions, their riches simply looted outright, until a kind of Jizyah was substituted as a surer way of guaranteeing to the Muslim rulers a steadier income), but sank into intellectual and economic stagnation. Farming was despised by the desert Arabs and remained so in the lands they conquered (it was only in modern times that agriculture was revived in a significant way, by Jews in the Ottoman vilayets that later formed Israel, and by the French in North Africa). The razzia, or raiding party, and the loot to be obtained after a successful raid, was a chief method of wealth-acquisition among Arab tribes, and has hardly ended even today, though the methods may be subtler. For today one's tribe may be called the "Al-Saud" and they may simply help themselves to the lion's share of oil revenues coming to what they have renamed, after themselves, "Saudi" Arabia. The ruling tribes in Kuwait and the constituent sheikdoms of the U.A.E., Bahrain, and other Gulf statelets are no different -- the tribe grabs power, distributes some of the wealth to allies, but keeps the power, and hence the major wealth, to itself.

The Pentagon really needs to take a little lesson in how by indirections you find directions out. Perhaps a lecture might be given:

How To Say It.

Begin, then, with a little note-taking. The word today, generals, is Synecdoche. We mention only part of something, or something that naturally makes us think of something else, so that we can allude to that major something without quite mentioning it.

The word apparently to be avoided using forthrightly is the word "Islam." Many have shown a reluctance to learn about Islam, a desire not to have to look into the texts or the history too closely, lest they might have to come to some unpleasant and troubling conclusions.

And so many, now no longer able to deny that there is just "something" about Islam that disturbs, though they can't quite say what it is, perhaps because they haven't taken even ten minutes to read Sura 9 of the Qur'an, not to mention the other 100 Jihad verses, or the hundreds of "authentic" Hadith that give even greater insight into Islam, or the biography of Muhammd, keep looking, looking, looking, for some way to describe Islam other than using, nakedly, that word "Islam."

One solution is the portmanteau word "Islamofascism." This is the word favored by those who think of themselves as Fighting the Good Liberal Fight, superannuated members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, whom no one should dare to confuse with all those right-wing crazies at places like -- well, possibly Jihad Watch (even though at Jihad Watch the modern American politicians who have consistently received the most praise are Senator Henry Jackson and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia). So if you are of Village-Voice-and-New-Schoolisant bent, whether a reader of lucid Paul Berman or the perennially confused Christopher Hitchen (qui fait son petit Orwell), you will find soothing the word "islamofascism." Use of the word "fascism" in any distancing or denunciation makes you feel morally cleansed of any suspicion of prejudice. You are morally uplifted in your warnings of a menace. And you feel no need to explain just how this "Islamofascism" differs from Islam straight up, Islam as understood not only by "Wahhabists" and "Salafists" but by the ordinary Muslims anywhere, in Reading or Rawalpindi, in Karachi or even in New Canaan,
Connecticut. Those who want to read more aout this might google Ibn Warraq's essay examining to what degree "Islam" -- not "Islamofascism" -- meets the 14 criteria which according to Umberto Eco, may be said to define "Fascism."

If you prefer to go the adjectival route, there are other ways to avoid impugning "Islam." You may simply slip in, a choix, the epithet of your choice: "radical" Islam or "extremist" Islam. You need not tell us exactly what constitutes an "extremist" or a "radical," but you can imply that this is a very small group.

You may also be more specific in your attempt to avoid using the word "Islam" and attributing what are the central doctrines of Islam, unmediated by the effect of constraints on Islam (whether the constraints are those imposed by local rulers -- Ataturk in Turkey, Habib Bourguiba and his successors in Tunisia, or by local conditions -- the presence of large numbers of Christians in Lebanon, and even in Egypt; or by local conditions (a recognized dependence on outside Infidels for support) or by another "identity" that may serve to soften the Islamic one -- as for Kurds and Berbers, whose enthusiasm for the "Arab religion" has been to some degree curbed or at least curdled by the Arab mistreatment even of fellow, but non-Arab, Muslims. The cultural and linguistic imperialism of the Arabs, a natural development from the Arab supremacist ideology contained within Islam, is one of the main points of resentment, ripe for exploitation by Infidels, within Islam itself.

Some like to handle the "must-not-speak-about-Islam-directly" problem by attributing the whole menace to those "extremists" and "radicals," as noted above, but then endowing the whole thing with greater plausibility by being specific -- no longer is it merely "extremist" Islam and "radical" Islam, but now it is "Wahhabi" Islam or "Salafi" Islam or "Wahabi-Salafist" Islam (mix n' match to taste, add salt and pepper to taste, and serve up all over official Washington, from Fox Hollow dinner parties to sessions of Congress to policy-planning meetings at the Pentagon. One has to forget, of course, or at least ignore, that Abd el-Wahhab got his start in the early 19th century, so that the Muslim conquests of Infidel lands, and subjugation of Infidels everywhere, so remarkably similar in time and space, and all the acts of enslavement (of black Africans, of Slavs and Georgians and Circassians in the east, and of all kinds of European Christians seized . in raids up and downt the coasts of Western Europe), and subjugation of non-Muslims, had been going on for a thousand years before the appearance of the Wahhabis, or the Al-Saud tribe arose in the Nejd to see rough Islamic justice done. (Please see the description of the "sturdy yeoman of Nejd" etc. as presented by Aramco propagandists for decades, as so humorously offered by J. B. Kelly in his celebrated Encounter essay "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies."). The same is true with that other favorite -- "Salafi" Islam.

Others will hint that the Shi'a are the good ones, or have the potnetial to be so, and this has been a theme of Reuel Gerecht and Stephen Schwartz and other Shi'a-boosters at My Weekly Standard. They love Sistani, without studying too hard what Sistani thinks or understands. They hate Khomeini, but present him much as Germans would later present Hitler -- as a crazed individual, who somehow obtained power and who so misused the poor trustingness of Germans ("and we were his first victims, you know -- we Germans suffered so terribly").

But Khomeini was not a sport. He did not represent himself alone. The historic treatment of non-Muslims in Iran was not as Ms. Nafisi or Amir Taheri may have allowed themselves to dreamily think it was, possibly basing their views not on reading of Arakel of Tabriz or any other non-Muslim chronclers of life in Iran, nor on the work of such recent students of minorities in Iran as Lawrence Loeb ( Jews) and Mary Boyce (Zoroastrians), but on a reading back into Iranian history, and to rural Iran, from life in Tehran under the late Shah Reza Pahlevi. Aytatollah Khomeini was a learned Muslim theologian, not a sport, and not a lone crazed individual. He also became the head, and with popular acclaim, of a country of some 60-70 million people, almost all of whom seemed deliriously happy, and certainly loyal, to his regime and his ideas. So this "Shi'as good" idea (and Fouad Ajami, who avoids the subject of Islam but is an influential Muslim-for-identification-and-careerist-purposes-only Muslim, is a Shi'a, as are all of those Iraqi exiles who helped inveigle the Administration into its Democracy-Is-On-the-March project in Iraq), is merely one more fashionable evasion, which allows us to pretend that it is not the texts, not the tenets, not the attitudes and atmospherics to which those texts and those tenets naturally give rise, that remain the immutable problem, but rather "Sunni" Muslims.

And then there are those who think that the "real" Islam consist of the love poetry of Rumi, possibly supplemented by a jug of wine and book of verse borrowed from Omar Khayyam, through the medium of Edward FitzGerald. A lot of confusion reigns. The "Sufis" are supposed to be "otherworldly" according to so many of their young or not-so-young admirers. Why, wasn't Hesse's "Siddhartha" all about Sufis? It wasn't? Yoy mean the Buddha was not a Sufi Muslim? Well, live and learn. Yes, it is popular confusion at that level of total idiocy that plays such a powerful role in the formation of attitudes. Never underestimate sheer idiocy. Whole lot of it going around.

There is a way to talk about Islam much more truthfully.

And this is the way: Synecdoche.

Better Living Through Figures of Speech.

If the Pentagon would like guidance on the matter of How To Talk About Islam, then impecunious experts, worth their weight in diamonds, with the weight of the treadmill on which they tread thrown onto the scale as well, are right here at JW.

Truly, this could save a few hundred billion dollars. Why not learn how to talk about Islam iin the most effective way that is under present conditions permissible?

Operators are standing by.

The war on "Terror" / Islam will be defined on how hard we fight it. First of all, we need to deport illegal Muslims out of America and stop Muslim immigration totally to our lands. Then through legal means, declare Islam a seditious political enemy, and ban it and the Koran.

Jeff

Naseem,

If you are implying that there must be a war with Islam;

Islam is prone to the most simplistic of emotions, anger; and therefore it will lose.

Islam sees this danger ...and will not allow this sacred link breakage to happen to them....that is why 45, 450, 4500, deaths seem to be worth it. If after this ...cartoons can be published no more ...Islam has won...a small price to pay indeed....and won through will power.

So it all comes down to Wille zur Macht. How very holy!

This seems to owe more to Nietzsche ("Nothing is more timely than weakness of will") than to the Prophet. Of course, Nietzsche may have been right to point to weakness of will as characteristic of the modern West, as the Spectator recently decided to remind us:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/blog/index.thtml#1007

But let's not get fixated on the issue. And let's not imagine that the reverse somehow holds true. Inadequate conceptions of the world aren't going places merely because they're coupled with resolve.

Actually, Naseem's is an interesting post - and, in its own way, it strongly echoes this piece from Mark Steyn:

The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone.

However, to return to the obvious weakness: "Islam sees this danger ... and will not allow this sacred link breakage to happen".

This personalized "Islam" that is doing the "seeing" here - IOW, the Islamists - is deluded if it thinks it is merely a matter of "allowing" or "not allowing". The "will" cannot shield the intellect idefinitely from recognitions that it half-senses and would rather not come to.

To quote the wise Dr. Dalrymple:

"Islam in the modern world is weak and brittle, not strong: that accounts for its so frequent shrillness."

IOW, it would be a error to underestimate the movement and I'm sure it can do grave damage yet. But in the long run it seems hardly plausible that it can smother the intellects of its adherents in perpetuity - and certainly not in a connected age.

Roxane, Patroit, and some other folks,

I know that it is really hard for you belive that a muslim woman can be intellegent and articulate as well as a business woman.

But you are gonna have to get used to it , I am Naseem ....Ahmadi woman...educated (to degree level) in the UK, married & living in Lahore over the past 20 years. I have never said anything else...why you want to make something else of it I don't know.

Note that Naseem (me) models herself on Khajida (May Allah shower peace upon her), Muhammed's astute business woman wife.

no,i do beleive there are intelligant muslim woman(of,course they arent in muslim lands)but MS.intelligant,would you,or would you not,let a 50 year old,marry your daugheter.

come on talk about aisha,she was doomed by your kind,cant ya at least admit it?

and hear is a lovely cartoon for ya,it proves we can get along,naseem

i forgot to mention,but you allready know,aisha was 9 when her and muhomad did the nasty

http://media.www.thestrand.ca/media/paper404/news/2006/02/16/Editorial/To.Print.Or.Not.To.Print-1614362.shtml?sourcedomain=www.thestrand.ca&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com

lol,fogot to paste the link for the cartoon

well said.goldenrod

"Note that Naseem (me) models herself on Khajida (May Allah shower peace upon her), Muhammed's astute business woman wife."

As yes, the elderly rich Christian woman who kept her toy boy under her thumb. You could all indeed do worse.

well,she didnt tell the whole story then,imagine that a muslim who leave's out the parts they want

Yes, the "Divine Religion" part is a shocking false assumption to make based on what is available at the click of a mouse to anyone who wants to actually read what is contained in the Qur'an and Hadith. But to set aside that major blunder, the rest of the report is a pretty good summary.

The good news is: There are massive numbers of Muslims in the world, but there is little danger militarily to the West from the Islamic nations.

The bad news is, there are militarily powerful nations who, for whatever reason may assist the jihad. Not out of a shared belief in the moral purity of Muhammad, but for other reasons barely discernable: why does Russia continue to offer nuclear assistance to Iran? Is it their poor economic status, or national pride, or Machiavellian manoeuvering, or latent reflex action from the Soviet era, or who knows? China would like very much to increase their influence in Asia. If the jihadists were able to divert the attention of the U.S. via a massive WMD attack, it might provide a wonderful opportunity to make some long awaited changes.

And more bad news is that the jihadists don't need to defeat the U.S. militarily. They will attempt death by a thousand little cuts, destroying the economy here, erasing our personal freedoms there, until we move ever so slowly from "How do we stop them?" to "What have we done to make them hate us?" to "What is so bad about joining them?"

From president Bush's 2006 State of the Union Address "...the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death..."

Divine religion, noble faith, same thing.

Naseem,
Philip. 2:10 (NIV)
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth, Philip. 2:11 (NIV)
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It is not too late for you, one day you will bow before Jesus weather you like it or not. Try taking it the easy way by calling on him now.

Salam Alikum

"We cannot discredit all of Islam"

In a sense that is correct - as a government they couldn't do this.....

But maybe we can – discredit or moderate Islam!
______________

This is were the problem lies on both sides - out of a respect for the religion [and in this case its dangerous beliefs] - perhaps the media and governments around the world are prevented from completely pulling this whole thing apart.
______________

But there is nothing to stop the people from committing such an act. Most of us believe that it is the unquestioning belief in this ‘divine’ religion that is the cause of most of the world's troubles. So there are a few things that the normal population can do in this respect – to either moderate the belief and or discredit it.

- Islam is nothing without its dedicated following - and so spends a good portion of its time trying to convert either, by way of example (the moderate) or by the use of force (the sword wielders). Many of us feel that the more - recruits - following this doctrine unquestionably equals more trouble for the rest of the world.
_____________________________
Unfortunately - More Muslims means More Problems.
_____________________________

But by presenting the Koran from another prospective

1) We can possibly influence the rate of those joining - with the intention of significantly lowering that rate. [See Universities & Prisons]

2) We can also persuade those who wish to continue to practice Islam - to question the religion from a new perspective, by offering them a variant view of the Koran or Islam, the follower will then see – that their religion is not ‘perfect’, but they still wish to practice it. Chances are good that this person will not become a radical suicide bomber.

By for example explaining to everyone you know in Islam - safely - that Islam’s pre-history is based more in the Quraish or the religion of Mohammed's father than in the bible and that before Mohammed, Allah had three daughters [a historically based fact]- if you're are still alive after - you may have nullified a radical element of that religion.

3) Of course, presenting this new information on Islam - may cause some of this religion’s followers to leave the religion all together - [last I checked Buddhism was still very peaceful - if they are looking for peace] [Then of course there is Christianity and the Hinduism religions - which might catch their eye – if they want religion at all.]

Moderate them – as if we were spreading a religion !

tgusa -

Nicked your britches, eh? We need leaders with the courage to say: "The problem is islam".

... and to draw up the appropriate target list.

My friends...
As long as our economy is controlled ... and yes, it is controlled... by OPEC and our "friends" the Saudis, we cannot truly win this war. We like to say there is only one superpower, I disagree again, Saudi Arabia is an economic superpower. It is one thing to talk the talk about our war with islam- and yes, we are at war with islam- but the extremist mindset in Islam is FUNDED by the Saudis. Even the American president must Kowtow to the Saudis. THe real Question is who will have the balls to stand up to them, and can we live with the Saudi retaliation for such bold action. Unfortunately, right now, NO ONE is willing to stand up to them- the Bush family is in business with them, and that is part of the problem. They may well have US by the balls, and NOT the other way around. Any feedback is welcome.

"The United States cannot be defeated militarily,"

Yes, perhaps. But the US so far has been anything but focused, it has not even identified the enemy and it seems the administration is still far from doing that.

With the universities and the MSM being heavily influenced by Arab propaganda the hearts and minds of our own people are poisoned.
We have no leadership, we have 'administrators'...

The US is self-defeating (and self-destructive) by not taking on mainstream-Islam.

There are no 'moderates...'

A long war ? Once the gloves do indeed come off as they will, we shall see.

I believe the appropriate target list has already been drawn up,but it's going to take another large attack here in the USA before the gloves really come off.When this happens it will be a totally different ballgame not only militarily,but the American citizens will be a much more proactive in this fight against the mohhamadans.

Pass It On said

We can also persuade those who wish to continue to practice Islam - to question the religion from a new perspective

It's an innovative and ambitious idea, but how can we hope to convince the Muslims themselves of the inherent violence in Islam? It's hard enough to convince our own government and media and Joint Chiefs of Staff. If I'm going to proselytise, it'll be among my own friends/family/local politicians. The Muslims are on their own as far as I'm concerned. Let their vast majority of "moderates" convince the jihadists that they are following a "false" Islam. It's time to batten down our own hatches.

Iraq presents the very best opportunity, to exploit the 1350-year-old hostility between Sunni and Shi'a Islam. And nothing need be done -- all the Americans have to do is do nothing, is merely to leave, and things will take care of themselves. For nowhere else are Sunnis and Shi'a as evenly matched as in Iraq. In all other Muslim countries except Iran, Sunnis overwhelmingly prevail. In the Shi'a Islamic Republic of Iran Sunnis are completely outnumbered and must mind their step. But in Iraq, though Shi'a Muslims outnumber the Sunni Arab Muslims three-to-one, the Sunnis are more tenacious, ferocious, and militarily experienced. The Sunnis ran Iraq, and ran Iraq's military, during modern Iraq's entire history. It is only in the last few years, thanks to the Americans, the malnourished, poorer, less experienced Shi'a have begun to receive (inadvertently, possibly, because the American military trainers say they are training, an "Iraqi" army, when 70% or more consist of Shi'a volunteers, carefully acquiring the military skills they will need to use against the Sunnis once the Americans leave).

If the American government continues to work against the very outcome it should ardently desire -- a permanent Sunni-Shi'a split within Iraq that will attract from outside men, materiel, and money, in a kind of proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of iran -- then it really does not comprehend, at the highest levels, what needs to be done, and what offers itself, in order to divide and demoralize the camp of Islam, and to do so at the very moment when one wishes to dampent Sunni Arab fury at any possible attack on Shi'a Iran. and if Shi'a Iran is seen as being on the march in Iraq, then the scared Saudis, whatever they say publicly, will not be quite so furious when the American (or other) bombs and missiles are used to destroy Iran's nuclear project.

One would like a little less sentimentality about how everyone "yearns for freedom" and a little more icy analysis of what needs to be done. Less Hallmark-Card People-Are-the-Same-the-Whole-World-Over sentiments, more craft and cunning in policymaking, would be welcome. Would, in fact, cheer us all up.

"To win the war on Terror you need to win the heart and mind of the moslim world."

Incorrect.

To win the war on Terror we need to fill the heart of the Ummah with defeat and its mind with depression. The Ummah must see that the reason for its Jihad is worthless. Its idols must be destroyed and its temple must be leveled. This indeed, is the lesson of History.

The ummah must be shown that its Example For All Times is both unworthy and unable to help it. It must be shown that Allah doesn't care what happens to them one way or the other and is helpless to support the Ummah. The all-knowing macho allah surely wouldn't let disgrace go unanswered.

The sheep must be shown that when the belief, the ritual, the Prophet and the Allah himself are put to test, those things they hold dear are worthless.

Project Samson - destroy the six pillars.
Delegitimize, disrespect, disintegrate, defile, destroy.

Educate the Infidel - counteract the stupid infidel.
Never stop talking. Never give up.

Kill the ideas.
Prove it to them.
Enough of the ummah will come around some year.
but
No moderate will ever be able to either a) survive or b) change the agenda.
Make sure the infidel knows this.

It can't be reformed - innovation is a sin.
It is a closed system and must be destroyed from the outside.

Pull the six pillars of Islam down.

I don't believe the poster above who claims to write under the name "Nassem" is the same Naseem we've come to "love"/hate (especially hate) here at Jihad Watch. I think the person above who claims to be "Naseem" above is an imposter.

The Naseem we know is not one to blatantly declare the truth of the world view of the mohammedans as set forth above. The Naseem we know is one who will lie and be deceitful. The "imposter Naseem" posted above is one who spouts the view of islam's long term conspiracy against western civilization. This is how we know she/he/it is not the Nassem known to regulars of this site.

Those of you who have responded to "Naseem" above have been taken in, or at least so I believe. I'm willing to bet heavily on my hunch. Any takers?

Can the moderator of this site confirm or deny my accusation?

Okay -- I'll admit it, I am only half way through the comments, but I have some stuff to say so I'll just start and then come back when I've made it all the way through.

First -- McCain/Giuliani -- Man would I like that ticket! I would vote for it, you should vote for it, you should tell all your friends to vote for it!

Second -- The whole Divine Religion thing -- Last April or May there was a HUGE article in the Washington Post Weekend magazine thingie -- like 12+ pages. The main point of this article was that Bush has a messiah complex. Now, the article thought that was very, very bad -- but, on the up side -- do you really think BUSH buys into Islam is good and peaceful? In the very first speech after 9/11 Bush said
"If our enemies will not come to justice, then we will bring justice to our enemies"

Still firmly in the sway of my academic ivory tower and yes, sigh, I admit it, even *leftist* friends -- I was shocked. How, at the Presidential level could such words be issued without SOMEBODY being aware of the similiarity in structure and meaning to "If Mohammed won't come to the the mountain, then the mountain must come to Mohammed" -- they couldn't. And Bush used that sentance in the same speach where he got in so much trouble for using the word crusades...

The man knows what's up. I am not certain he's got it all together (DO you all know our ports are about to be handed over the United Arab Emirates???I am quite certain that topic deserves its own thread so I will leave it there for now) -- but I think, classified, away from public ears -- call me an optimist, but I think a handful of our leaders get it. But we have become so PC. How are they supposed to speak?
(And frankly, communication isn't Bush's strongest point -- I have heard him speak and I get his meaning only because I study this stuff all the time -- people who care less have no idea what he is talking about -- he needs MUCH better speech writers...)

So, we need to be politcally incorrect.
Frightening isn't it?
Shunned by your leftist friends. Threatened by the enemy. All for speaking the truth -- that at best there is a HUGE enemy hidden within Islam.

But, we need to do it. Somehow - we need to start letting our leaders know that we will back them if they tell it like it is. Start anonymous web polls - and then tell us all where to find them -- make them one vote per IP so liberals can't slam them. We need to do something and we really are running out of time.

Woo. That was long and rushed! Out of breath! lol

omvi,

Hey, I don’t know if it’s the real Naseem or an imposter, but I just like saying “Allah-assum lickum” to our fun muzzie-wuzzie friends! Everyone reading this: let’s start a movement of degrading them with this twisted version of their own greetings! If anyone else has any others (I’ve heard “Allah snackbar” before …that’s a good one, too!) be sure to post them and let’s all have a little fun with them!

Maybe they’ll get upset, riot, and kill each other! Whee-! What fun!!

I went to the website below and it seems to be down for maintenance..hmm? I wonder if some intrepid hacker after seeing the pictures from the NY protest caused a little terrorism of their own.
Anyway, my thought on this is that we should go to that website and see if we can sign on to comment. Stir up a little frustration on their site.
Anyone with me?

http://www.islamicthinkers.com/index/index.php

Tangent Topic

How does a new topic/newslink get started.

This ports going to the The U.A.E. needs some attention. You need to tell your reps that you do not want this - that you want them to support the bill making it illegal to let foreign countries control our ports. It is to be voted on in the Senate within a month.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/US/story?id=1640734&page=1

templar:

One in every eight ounces of gold bullion produced annually goes to Dubai--over 500 tons last year, and its increasing.

See this link from the Arab Press:

http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=6&id=3705

Emerson

"Things are changing fast, In the U.K. more Muslims than Christians attend religious services each week. You have lost your way....your faith....by using freedom of speech ...you have destroyed what is sacred for your childrens.

Islam sees this danger ...and will not allow this sacred link breakage to happen to them....that is why 45, 450, 4500, deaths seem to be worth it. If after this ...cartoons can be published no more ...Islam has won...a small price to pay indeed....and won through will power.
"

You folks may not like what Naseem is saying -- but Nasseem is correct in this assessment; and if the West, starting with its leaders who supposedly represent the interests of their respective electorate -- don't start finding some collective intellectual spine; Naseem's dire conclusion may jolly well ring true!

GEORGE! Get your fingers out of your ears and start listening to YOUR OWN PEOPLE -- THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED YOU TO OFFICE !!!!

Clinton; Gore, Kerry, Kennedy -- just SHUT UP!

I don't recall the military planners during WW II being particularly impressed with the fact that the Imperialistic Japanese had a "divine religion" behind their murderous terrorism and despotism.

Even if the post-war allied planners did allow the "divine Emperor" not to be hanged -for the sake of having an easier occupation and smoother re-engineering of the Japanese society/government/religion, this had nothing to do with "respect" for Shintoism, but was a cool realpolitik.

The phrase "a divine religion" is a highly charged one, and is the most ridiculous form of pre-capitulation to a false and hamstringing war doctrine.

Islam is a source of radical terrorists. Who proclaim their inspiration and strength as coming from Islam. Whatever Islam "is" -in the theological realm- is immaterial to winning a war against its militant murderers.

The violent suras in the Koran need to be exposed and challenged. Merely killing the followers of these dogmas is like bailing a sinking boat without fixing the damned holes.

The hate-filled, violence-instructing, Murder Incorporated suras are the holes.

Plug them, don't just plug the individual terrorists, alone.

I hope the classified planners aren't looking around at the deadly and growing problem of Islamic Imperialism and seeing nothing but their own sphincter, as well.

The conflict must be fought inside the Koran as well as outside on the literal battlefields.

Or they are planning to lose the real war by limiting our ability to address the true fight against the violent tenets of "divine" Islam itself.

A strategy to wake these War College somnabulists?

I think we need to send them highlighted Korans with faux sticks of dynamite taped and wired to them as -symbols of the source of the real danger.

"The hate-filled, violence-instructing, Murder Incorporated suras are the holes.

Plug them, don't just plug the individual terrorists, alone."

I agree; however I question whether or not this is realistic because once you plug these holes you no longer have islam.

Once you "reform" islam to anything other than what it already is, you have something else entirely. Maybe islam 2; perhaps a variation of Baha'i? That's what Baha'u'llah tried to do actually -- steal from Christianity -- steal from islam; stir; new theology with Baha'u'llah replacing Mohammad as the new ordained prophet.

Therefore, I contend that islam can NOT be reformed but must be supplanted by something else. Even the most modest substitution or microscopic change made to make it more appealing to Western tastes -- destroys it.

They know it and will not allow it to happen as Nasseem correctly intimates.

Two things...1. Since when do military men get to decide what is divine and what is not??

2. The many Naseems have one thing in common...they are all stuffed with petrified bovine fecal matter.

The bold-faced propositions at the end of the article are interesting but in error.

1) "We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism." This is statement is incorrect. Any political philosophy can be discredited to reasonable people, and Islam has a strong political current within it. Either we have a separation of Church and State, or we do not. Either we have Freedom of Speech, or we do not. Islam recognizes neither outside of Islam. Islam's fixation on its own entitlements resembles a kind of mass psychosis. This psychosis will spread if the nonsense it espouses is treated on a par with common sense. the Danish cartoons are a important bell weather for the future. More papers need to publish those cartoons.

2) "Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing." Again this is incorrect, largely because the proposition is backwards. Once the people of the West understand the threat to their freedom of conscience, they will insist upon protecting those freedoms. The politicians will then stumble over one another to get to the head of the parade. The main question is one of public awareness. As an example, there was a rather large demonstration in my town by a Moslem crowd protesting the Danish cartoons yesterday, yet there was no mention of it on the local news. Why not? I would have enjoyed observing my Moslem neighbors exercising their right to freely express their opinions, and to remind them that others also have that right.

This fight is all about values. It is a very curious thing indeed when Islam claims to assume the moral high-ground. But the 21st century cannot vanquish the Dark Ages by simply offering indoor plumbing and antibiotics and bombing recalcitrants. The moral core that has been so neglected in the West, through two World Wars and the following years of nihilism and entitlement, must be re-embraced. Otherwise, Islam will continue to do what it has always done: warp the human desire for moral rectitude into a shape meant to serve the basest desires and ambitions of a brigand-cum-"prophet"

witness-

I agree, but they have to start with something.

As they dig deeper into the Koran, I'm hoping the scrutiny causes the entire mass of plagiarized nonsense in the book to unravel, both for the infidels learning it and the Muslims seeing their faith exposed for what it really says.

A lot of Mohammedans have never seriously read the Koran or Hadiths, themselves, as most nominal Christians only know the Bible from a five or six of the Ten Commandments, some movie quotes from "The King of Kings" and "Ben-Hur" reruns and a vague grasp of the Sermon on the Mount.

The generally secular and indifferent mainstream Muslims are in for a shock as they hear the bile of the "holy" Koran reported.

It's the least we can do to help educate them as we educate ourselves.

And provide comfort for all apostates.

1.2 billion pillows embroidered with "Love is Truth" could be kept on hand, to be distributed one by one, as each abandons the pedophile's cult.

Joint Chiefs: "[Islam] is a divine religion"

HOW DO THEY KNOW??? Did God tell them so??? Had they said "It is A religion", I wouldn't object. But people who are too PC to say "Merry Christmas" are bold enough to say Islam is divine.

More proof of my contention that the entire American Establishment is pro-Islamic
-Dococ

I read the Joint Chief's statement of divine religion as diplospeak. It is an easy political sell to refer to war on the islomfacist, that is a known entity to a majority of the populace. However, that majority also (incorrectly) views islam as "just another religion." To discredit the whole of islam would then be to this majority a declaration of religious war, which we know has been declared on us. But for the Joint Chiefs to declare religious war in turn upon the whole of islam would be met with resounding howls of ridicule from across the political spectrum, and all the medieval imagery it conjures.

Here's something that should get some turbans rocking and rolling.

Cartoon has Jesus, Muhammad kissing
University paper stands by controversial image despite outrage from Muslims students, others

Posted: February 20, 2006
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Cartoon published in the Strand newspaper.

A university newspaper in Canada is defending its publishing of a cartoon showing Jesus and Muhammad kissing, saying it's not "an act of hate."

The Strand, the student paper of Victoria University, which is part of the University of Toronto, printed the controversial cartoon Wednesday. It shows the two revered religious figures kissing in the "Tunnel of Tolerance," with Jesus removing Muhammad's robe.

Nick Ragaz, managing editor for the Strand, wrote an editorial accompanying the image addressing the ongoing rage in the Muslim world over several cartoons depicting Muhammad that were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Nearly 50 people have died in Muslim nations as a result of riots protesting the cartoons.

Despite the Strand's decision to run the kissing image and complaints it has received since then, the publication has refused to run the 12 Muhammad cartoons that were first published in Europe.

"Publishing these cartoons seems to do little more than fan the flames of already-existing controversy," opined Aine O'Hare of the Strand.

In a online message, Ragaz said the cartoon was intended to provoke debate, dialogue and thought, and should not be understood to promote violence or hate, reported newssite ekkelsia.

"The cartoon is a sort of Canadian statement on religious tolerance," said Ragaz.

"This is not an act of hate," he said. "It's controversial, yes, but it's no attack."

Continued Ragaz: "We will not be pulling the issues from the stands or withdrawing the cartoon from our website.

"We hope, and this is our intention in publishing the cartoon, to provoke reasoned considerate debate and dialogue about these issues both on campus and, I guess now, off campus."

The president of the university and the student council have supported the paper's decision to stand firm against complaints about the cartoon.

"The editorial in this issue of the Strand provokes and invites discussion, not intolerance," Paul Gooch, president of Victoria University, said in a statement Saturday.

"The decision to print the cartoon was carefully considered in an effort to advocate tolerance," Brian Clow, president of the Victoria University Students' Association said.

But Paul Bretscher, president of the Students' Administrative Council, opposes the paper's decision.

"The Strand has abdicated its ethical responsibility in purposely ridiculing both Muslims and Christians on campus," wrote Bretscher, according to the Toronto Star.

The Muslim Students' Association also opposes the cartoon, calling it "gravely offensive."

"Apart from the same-sex thing, it's the encouragement of portraying the prophet in a demeaning way," said Walied Khogali, 22, a member of the Muslim group.

The "long war" that Rumsfeld, Crumpton, and others are trying to get us to swallow is nothing more than the same defeatist crap we've been experiencing for the past 20 years. Perhaps it could be a shorter war, where the enemy, islam, is identified, where a list of potential targets, including clerics, imams, heads of state, military installations, mosques, and all the way up to the kaabah is publicly specified beforehand, and where any islamic attack on infidels, anywhere in the world, results in the immediate annihilation of one or more of these pre-specified targets, with new ones replenishing the list. If any provocation results in the weakening of islam, the provocations will eventually stop.

Resistance to the present jihad will be lead by those capable of reading and comprehending the history of jihad. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to presently include the political or military leadership, but it may include some of their underlings, and it certainly includes millions of others in dar al-harb.

Learn the lessons of Martel, Decatur, and Kahn. It's a primative cult. It needn't be so complicated.

Bush: U.S. on Verge of Energy Breakthrough
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

41 minutes ago

MILWAUKEE - Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would "startle" most Americans, President Bush on Monday outlined his energy proposals to help wean the country off foreign oil.

1. "We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist."

2. "Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing."

In other words, based on the absurdity* of statement 1, statement 2 suggests that Americans have no reason to be confident that their leaders know what they are doing. Mind you, I'll give the American government credit: They probably know more about Islam than do most western governments (possible exceptions, Denmark and Netherlands). The governments of countries such as Canada, Sweden, Norway, Spain, etc. are hopeless; they have fallen inadvertently into a pro-Islam/anti-west position.

*Other posters have suggested that the U.S. government "secretly" knows about Islam and is just putting out a PC statement to placate the masses (A). If that's what the government is doing, though, it still suggests that they do not have a satisfactory understanding of (a) Islam and (b) how real democracies (should) work.

Real democracies work when there is an informed public and the appropriate mechanisms in place to deal with (i.e., get rid of, disable) bad, immoral ideas. The U.S. government is itself disabled by its inability to criticize a religion, as well as by other PC prejudices. The governments of other western countries are likewise hamstrung by these same prejudices. The government at the very least has a responsiblity to not misinform the public on this issue. No decent law-abiding citizen's security is going to be threatened by knowing the facts about Islam. On the contrary, knowing the facts about Islam is increasingly important for our safety and survival. We need to be able to identify the enemies of our civilization. And it is frankly an insult to the intelligence of the public for the government to continue with the 'tiny minority of extremists' absurdity. About 35% of Muslims in Ontario wanted sharia; at least 40% of Muslims in England wanted sharia...and these figures are higher in the Middle Eastern countries. Sharia is extremism. Sharia permits terrorism against non-Muslims.

The west's survival will depend on the general public's ability to criticize Islam as a religion. Not just as an ideology--one can criticize non-religious ideologies--but as a religious ideology. People can bicker back and forth over whether Islam is really a religion or a cult or simply a non-religious totalitarian system, or all of the above. But the fact remains that Muslims and the majority of non-Muslims think that Islam is a religion. We need to criticize Islam freely from every angle--as a cult/religion, as a political system, as a social system, and as a set of beliefs established in the neural systems of the brain. We need to dismantle it from all of these angles. And the "don't criticize religion" taboo has got to go. It must be demolished utterly because it is one of the biggest obstacles in this war. It is, in fact, a majo9r liability on our side. The other side has no such liability: They condemn unequivocably and with passion all religions except their own.

Christians and members of other non-Muslim religions need to criticize Islam and must continue to insist, without apology, and using sound arguments, that their religion as practiced today is better than Islam. Skeptics and atheists (such as myself) should focus more of their attention where it matters most--on criticizing Islam. Any atheist or skeptic in a free democracy who fails to criticize Islam, as far as I'm concerned, has committed a major moral failure. Atheists have the advantage of having no commitment to a religious ideology, and therefore Muslims' usual "the Bible is bad too" arguments don't work.

We need to target specific issues. This is the way to get past the usual PC filters and prejudices. If we criticize Islam's penalties on apostacy and blasphemy (freedom of expression), this greatly reduces the chances of PC resistance. Likewise, if we focus on issues in Islam and Islamic history such as subjugation of women, rape, mass slaughter, imperialism, colonialism, slavery and subjugation of non-Muslims, the use of terrorism as a tactic, and so on, this reduces the odds of PC backlash. I think this divide-and-conquer approach is more effective than attacking Islam as a singular, whole concept. Think of it: Compare the potential general-public acceptance of "Islam must be condemned and stopped" with "Islam's subjugation of women must be condemned and stopped." We simply make a list and criticize each problem without necessarily condemning the whole religion. By the end of the list, we will have condemned much of the religion, but we will not have given the overt impression of having done so.

The other thing we need to do is to try to get more of Islam's non-Muslim, and ex-Muslim victims to speak out publicly and tell their stories. Bostom and Warraq and others have raised this issue before: We need more non-Muslim victims to come out. How many victims (survivors) of 9/11, 3/11, 7/7, etc., have gone public in a big way? How many people who have escaped Saudi Arabia or Iran have, once in the west, come out publicly to give their accounts? We need more Homa Arjomands, and our governments need to protect them. We need the surviving loved ones of the victims of Islamic terror and persecution to come out publicly with major projects exposing Islam (or, if they are more comfortable, exposing whatever part of Islam caused their loss: see divide-and-conquer approach, above). We need more Hirsi Alis and Salman Rushdies. Every time a Muslim spokesman appears in the media to give the "Muslim" view, there should be someone giving the "victim of Muslim terror/tyranny/torture/subjugation/persecution" view.

To the extent that we cannot eradictae Islam completely, we need to encourage social progressiveness among Muslims. We need to expose imams with shady backgrounds.

A. The Pentagon document that appeared in December (2005) focussed on jihad fighting as instructed in Islam and made specific mention of Sura 9. Fine, but why were they only getting around to this 4 years after 9/11, and after two wars had already been started? This suggests incompetence. More importantly, the report gave no indication that the more difficult problem with Islam, in the larger scheme of things, is not "terrorist" attacks here and there. The more important issue is the demographic, social, and political jihads attempt to infiltrate and destroy our societies from within. The other important issue is the indoctrination and brainwashing that occurs within Islamic countries which instill hate and which motivate hard and soft jihadists alike to attack us and destroy our way of life. (This means we need to get control over those schools and those clerics. There is nothing more objectionable in doing this than in invading militarily and waging physical war). We need to get control over the infiltration and cult-indoctrination problems. And as many have pointed out over and over, but our governments don't seem to grasp, we have to stop buying oil from the Islamic countries. Once we have solved those, the source of most of the physical threat will have been removed.

Archimedes

You wrote intelligently and what you write is thought provoking, unfortunately it is largely based upon an unsound foundation. I wish, in many ways that it weren't so, but it is.

The fact of the matter is that as much as Westerners (and Americans in particular) tout the benefits of democracy. We don't have one. We never have. We are a Republic and that subtle difference is all too often lost. And, it's a difference that has had a huge impact on the U.S. across the last 50 years.

In days gone by, if our government told us something, we believed it. We then tightened the belt as needed to accomplish the outlined objectives that would steer us back on course. WWII is the shining example.

I can't explain my thought process here without contradicting many of my own beliefs -- hey, I am a product of my environment as much as anybody else and so I believe and hold dear things that are often times in direct conflict with other things I believe and hold dear.

So, get it out of the way upfront -- I am socially liberal. I am, there's no way to deny it. But, I also can't help but recognize that many of the difficulties America is facing in this current crisis stem from problems born of social liberals.

In the 60's older Americans were freaking out. They felt that our society was breaking down. Not so, they were assured by the young, the hip, the optimistic who believed all men could be brothers. It was a beautiful dream that those 60's idealists held, but coming up on 50 years later, the nightmare the older generation predicted has started to become more apparent.

In the 60's people with ideas that were (even if not your cup of tea) certainly not harmful to anyone else (free love, open discourse and debate, the whole sex, drugs, and rock n roll thing) made the mistake of failing to recognize the difference between a democracy and a Republic. They believed that full consensus was required on all big issues. Did they make some changes for the good? I am certain that they did. Civil rights jumped ahead by leaps and bounds during this time and I 100% support that. But, progress granted, their deal came with some baggage.

We no longer trust our leaders. And face it, leaders have always done what they needed to do. Have American leaders become more cruel and less caring about the world at large than they were before the 60's? I don't think so, I think that they just have to answer for it more. Again, not always a bad thing -- but it is killing us in this current crisis.

Our leaders can't do anything outside of the press anymore. Everything is seen and dissected. Again with my own contradictions, but transparency can be great -- but it is certainly no way to win a war.

In days gone by, groups that were seen as threatening were immediately restricted in their immigration, or, in the case of the Japanese, sent to internment camps. That was done because the leaders that we today hold up as paragons who saved the world during WWII thought it was necessary. Can you even imagine if that were considered today?

Americans are a kind and generous people. Unfortunately war is not a kind and generous business. In decades past the government made the hard calls, protected the people from as much of the ugliness as they could, and everyone just moved forward. The PC environment we live in today, combined with transparency, the mistaken assumption that we are a pure democracy, a people who question their own government more than their enemy? How exactly are leaders supposed to move forward here?

The PC thing is already in the water. It runs to deep now to cleverly subvert it by taking Islam apart -- that's how we get into this whole thing were so many people think it is just this tiny % of Muslims (and until fairly recently I was hanging on really tight to being one of those with my head in the sand -- despite the facts I knew, the tolerance is SO ingrained -- and we need to move beyond on that.

It would take generations of tiny glimpses into the truth as you suggest before real realizations were made. Because everytime the point was close to being made the PC'r inside every American close to the epiphany would rear up and they would say "well that's not ISLAM, that's just some people".

Islam doesn't even need a spin doctor. Americans are so good at being PC that we do it for them. And everytime they say out loud that it isn't Islam as a whole, they reinforce that for themselves.

So, it has to be like a breakup.
Taking off a bandaid.
It's gonna hurt.
But somebody just needs to start saying it.

IT IS ISLAM.

And maybe millions of people who follow Islam don't even know that and are blameless. But that doesn't change the fact that Islam is the problem.

You can't fight the PC infection by being PC.

Would that you could. But ya can't. So I at least am not going to pretend anymore.

Our inability or unwillingness to see the totality of Islam as the problem may be our death knell... This is what worries me most! In us, there's a dangerous combination of pure decency, tolerance, fear, and hope. The admixture of these qualities makes it very hard to confront Islam as it should be -- ruthlessly, pitilessly, and TOTALLY. Our human decency, our forebearance, and our hopefulness may be the perfect mixture of traits to make us perfect victims of the blackness of Islam...

On some visceral level I konw we have more people who understand that the problem is Islam in its totality -- but the fear of the heinous consequences of this terrible truth are almost too much to bear for many of our fellow "infidels". We know that the so-called "moderates" in Islam will never save us from the dark side of that religion... And most are coming to understand that the spiritual distance between the Jihadis and the so-called "moderate" Muslims will always be shorter by far than the distance between we "infidels" and those pitifully few "moderates..." But our hopefulness won't allow many in the West from contending with this grotesque reality.

And I think we are far more numerous than we sometimes imagine -- those in the West who know about the menace of Islam, and the totality of the menace Islam poses. But the thought about what we must do to destroy this mortal enemy makes most Western minds shudder and recoil... It is a pure blackness into which few will want to tread -- but in order to survive, I am convinced we must go there.

The enemy has "inherent weaknesses," including "no military capacity to expand their fight beyond terrorist tactics."

I refuse to believe that the military can be this freeking stupid. One loose nuke and that statement is for shiite. They have to know that.

However, I am convinced that Bush doesn't have the balls or speaking presence to make the move that needs to be made. Hopefully McCain/Gulliani (in any order) has what it takes.

Here's a poll from one of Zombie's mirrors that seems to be getting some traction. The questions are very non-PC and so are the responses.

"Fate of Islam" Poll

We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist.

It is good to see that the military is making plans to:

1) Wage a halfhearted battle in the Islamic War.

2) Lose the Islamic War.

Or, they could crack a goddamed book and see for themselves that Islam is not divine, is not moderate, nor is it comparable to communism, a far less formidable opponent than is Islam.

Speaking of delusional behavior, has anybody heard the words Moslem or Islam mentioned in connection with the terrorists or insurgents or whatever the hell you wanna call them?

I took an unscientific personal poll. Having asked hundreds of people what the source of trouble in Nigeria is --- almost all with college degrees and good jobs, the works --- not one has mentioned Islam. They think it's a bunch of would-be warlords.

Reminds me of a real-time rendition of the history of the Ibo eloquently recounted by Fitzpatrick in these pages a few months ago.

Propaganda --- take history -- will be the death of us all. Orwell was one smart dude.

"We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist [sic]."

Oh, jeezus f%ck. It is not a divine religion, it's a psychotic murder cult.

toleranceorappeasement,

I'm not sure what exactly you read in my post, but let me clarify my position:

The goal is to either destroy or disable Islam.

1. I do not advocate a long, drawn out series of partial "tiny glimpses" of Islam. I'm arguing for full exposure of all of the problems. Present it all, ASAP.

2. I'm not opposed to military action. I'm in favour of it wherever it is justified (e.g., Afghanistan, where we are now, and Sudan where we should be, and Iran where air-strikes on the nuclear facilities may be needed).

3. Using military action alone, without getting control over the schools, clerics, and media in the Islamic countries that pump out Islamist hate-mongers is, as I believe someone in this thread said, like bailing out a boat without fixing the leak. We have to go after the source.

4. I believe you are underestimating the role of an informed public in democracies. An informed public will not elect people who have an ignorant PC attitude toward Islam. We need an informed public. The U.S. government managed to get a high percentage of public approval to invade Iraq based on a very flimsy case; surely they can get approval to make a comprehensive attack on Islam based on the abundance of evidence already made available. In fact, after 9/11, leaders such as Bush and Blair and others were talking about doing precisely the multi-faceted attack which I suggested above. This has not happened. Our leaders are not going to do it. The only way we can put pressure on them to do it is by educating the public, and that mass of the public will influence them. Of course, educating the leaders and their advisors is also important, but it is ultimately the public which decides who gets into office and which issues are most important.

Finally, if you have a better proposal, let's hear it. You talk about ripping off a band-aid. What does that mean in real terms? What concrete proposals do you bring to the table?

Archimedes,

I agree with much of your penultimate post; however I also agree with tolerance: this is not merely about creating an "informed public". That implies that the mere presentation of information will suffice. Besides the lack of data the public has, there is a powerful PC filter that will screen out and deform much of the data that gets through to them. Merely funnelling data their way will not be enough. We have to get at the PC filter that stands in the way. And that filter is in their hearts and minds.

I know you think that merely demonstrating that Islam goes against PC should rationally suffice to break down that PC filter; but I think you sorely underestimate the fact that we are dealing with a sociocultural pathology, not merely some technical communications impediment. Thus, a PC pathology will receive the data that Islam is anti-PC, but will irrationally deform that data and turn it against the communicators ("you're a racist" "you're an Islamophobe" "you're a hysterical neo-con", etc.). People deformed by PC regularly think in self-contradictory ways. This is a much deeper, mass-psychological, cultural problem we find ourselves in.

This isn't to say that your prescriptions won't do some good; I just don't think they will do the quantity of good you think they will. Nor do I think it will be as easy as you think it will be. Nor do I think it will take a short time.

Your argument that we should stop fixating on trying to deconstruct Islam-as-religion is a good one: but it reveals a Catch-22. One major reason why that deconstruction is counter-productive is that our dominant PC mentality will not permit it: the idea that Islam is a religion -- indeed a "great and noble" world religion -- is far too deeply ingrained in the PC consciousness. To agitate for the re-definition of Islam as a non-religion would be as fantastic as to hope that we could deport all Muslims. It's not going to happen under our current PC climate.

Jihad-Watchers can continue spinning their fantastic wheels and call for all kinds of ludicrously improbably measures ("stop calling Islam a religion", "deport all Muslims", etc.), and I bet they will still be doing that 5 years from now, after Muslims have left another string of mass-murderous atrocities and our next President is still calling Islam a "religion of peace" and the enemy a "minority of extremists" trying to hijack it.

We need to figure out realistic ways of dealing with this, or foment a mass revolution and overthrow our government (I'm not calling for that -- but that's about the only thing that will result in implementing the outlandish wishes of most Jihad-Watchers).

Pepper,

Again, I'm not sure either you or tolerance has read most posts carefully. I covered a lot of bases there. In any case, put up some better proposals or some additional proposals and we'll have a look at them. All I see from you guys so far in your responses to my posts is cynicism and hopelessness. Concrete proposals, guys, I'm all ears!

Let me ask: Do you think we shouldn't try to educate the public? Do you think we shouldn't try to get some control over the Islamic clerics and the schools and the Islamic anti-infidel propaganda machine?

McCain/giuliani got my vote,bush was better than gore/kerry but lets face it he's a bible hugging crusader,

too much religion Is a sign of weak personal constitution.

The U.S. needs some real leaders with a backbone
now more than ever.
Posted by: general pershing

General Pershing your leftist liberal dogma is showing. You need to research the name that you use and the leaders through out America's history concerning religion and the formation and growth of America because of Christianity and Judaism in America.

It is comments like yours that the leftist liberals utilizes to drive wedges between Americans that are working together to defeat the Islamic threat.

If you think that the war with Islam can be won by just the non-religious in America then you need to surrender now to Islam. It will take everyone in America to defeat the Islamic threat.

General Pershing you are either part of the solution with Christians, agnostics, Jews, atheists and the infidels in America, or you are part of the problem. You need to decide.

The Texican.

Freedom. The only choice at any cost

I think we've been down this road before. No, not the Crusades, but about two and a half centuries later. The expression "Holy Toledo!" comes from it. That's right, the Inquisition conducted by those Inquiring People wearing red or brown robes depending on their rank. While we hear the most about the one in Spain after the fall of Granada, it was conducted throughout Europe in various forms for about 250 years and even picked up by the Protestants in the form of witch trials. So, here we are again, only this time it is Sharia being enforced by those inquiring Mullahs.

Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing."

The nation of Islam is no different than Germany or Japan. Neither surrendered until they were utterly destroyed.

From their destruction, Germany and Japan were reborn and joined the modern world.

The Islamic countries that form the nation of Islam will have to be utterly destroyed so they can be reborn and join the modern world.

When the war with Islam starts, it needs to be swift and completely overpowering across all of Islam. This has to be a war where there is only one victor and that is not Islam. If this is not done, then the war with Islam with continue into the far future.

The war with Islam is inevitable.

Prepare, be armed be ready.

The Texican.

Freedom. The only choice at any cost.

Archimedes, your ideas don't seem ludicrously improbable or wildly outlandish to me, they sound simple, rational, and constructive. Add in the suggestions by Hugh in many of his writings, and the Campaign to Save Western Civilisation becomes a rather banal affair. Some suggest that the Administration has a secret plan of pretending to misunderestimate Islam; but there are so many simple concrete steps that we could be taking and we are not. Not wild-eyed, crazy "nuke 'em all" self-destructive steps, but simple boring steps that no-one, PC or not, could argue with.

Who could argue against energy independence? [Well, maybe the insanely profitable oil corporations and those with personal ties to the oil corporations and to the Saudis, but they'll be out of power in a few years regardless] Who could argue against American companies being in charge of security at our ports instead of Saudi or UAE or Syrian companies? Defending ourselves is not outlandish or crazy, it's actually fairly mundane and obvious.

Archimedes,

"Let me ask: Do you think we shouldn't try to educate the public?"

As I said, it's a worthwhile thing to try; but I think it's not going to have nearly the effect you think it will.

"All I see from you guys so far in your responses to my posts is cynicism and hopelessness. Concrete proposals, guys, I'm all ears!"

One can't get to concretely effective proposals if one persists in underestimating, and misunderstanding, the obstacle. When Florence Nightingale saw the state of the military hospital, which she was supposed to reform and administrate, in the Crimean War Theater, she said (to paraphrase): "I don't know how to run a hospital; but I can see how not to run a hospital!"

"Do you think we shouldn't try to get some control over the Islamic clerics and the schools and the Islamic anti-infidel propaganda machine?"

Yes. I also think we should try to convert millions of Muslims to modern Western secularist principles. But both proposals (with some slight differences in degree) would be like trying to reason with a mental patient who sits in the corner thinking he's Napoleon.

Reactionaries can be defeated through military means if you can promise them greater power after the transition. Much like Japan during the Meiji Revolution. They went from 1600 to 1870 in about ten years because Adm. Perry showed them the power of Western civilization.

We already tried the top-down approach to Islamic secularism, and that spawned the Ghaddafis and the Baathists, and the mother of all bugaboos, the Shah. Now we are showing the people of Islam that they can live a better life by living in a secular society, whether they be in Europe, North America, Israel, or Iraq. Democracy is the key to converting a reactionary peasantry to modern values, and the Muslims can go from 600 to 2000 in a short period of time (admittedly longer than the Meiji period).

What is needed is a great secular Muslim leader. India would not have had a stable democracy (and I mention India because it has defied political scientists' dictum that a middle class must be present for democracy to flourish) had Ghandi not been so heroic. Ghandi came from the Indian diaspora and grew up in Durban, South Africa, which was essentially a British settler colony. Likewise, I hope a Muslim leader will emerge in Europe of North America who can bridge the two cultures.

Of course Islam will be unique, and talking about Japan and India is of dubious value. But there seems to be a lot of pessimistic determinism on this board, as if Muslims are incapable of common sense. But we are doing our part by imparting the rule of law and democracy on the Arab nation most ripe for reform, Iraq, much as the British did to India. And our footprint is much larger, allowing a compressed time scale.

The other area most in need of reform is the Western university system, which celebrates post-colonial scapegoating and breeds intellectuals committed to undermining Western civ rather than bolstering it. If we are to produce an Islamic Ghandi, we need to teach our children, of all races, to love pluralism and secularism.

Pepper,

I challenged you to provide concrete proposals. You provided none. I would have thought, by now, you would have come up with solutions to the PC menace. Instead, you continue to use the strategy of telling everyone else that they are underestimating the PC problem. All this does is annoy people. Now you claim that I am underestimating the PC menace. For the record, if this has not already been made clear in my previous posts, I believe PC is a major problem. What more can I say?

I'm with special_guest on this. I don't think the ideas I posted were terribly exciting or original. They're not even 'my' ideas. They're just simple straightforward ideas that have to be implemented. I was merely enumerating them. Can we continue to allow Muslim schools to contain the anti-infidel curriculum? No. Can we continue to allow clerics to preach destruction of the west in their sermons every Friday? No. (and so on; I could go through each of my proposals)...Anyways, if these ideas are so hopelessly naive and faulty, it should be easy for you to propose something better. What do you bring to the table?

Americans should not be committed to any war. How can anybody have confidence in the leaders like those ones?
I am sad, because it is our fault. We should be responsible for making them our leaders.
It is not similar to the Cold War. They are blind or totally stupid. Russian government never had any intention or plans to attack US. Russian people looked up to US and there was no hatred, rather an admiration for the Americans and everything American. At the pick of the Cold War there were no communist fanatics in the SU. An aggressive war with US would have finished the regime in the SU, and their leaders knew that. Any criticism of the US was extremely unpopular in Soviet Russia. There was no 5th column in any Western country.
Now we have 100% of population in muslim countries supporting terror against the West.
And why not. Terror works. Look at Palestine. The war on terror does not to be a long one. All we have to do is to win just one battle. Afghanistan and Iraq are lost. Palestine is the only place. Remember: if we lose there, everything is lost.

RE: Russian government never had any intention or plans to attack US. Russian people looked up to US and there was no hatred, rather an admiration for the Americans and everything American

This comment can't be real, did I miss something in the above post?

I read that Report on Friday and looks like the Times left out a lot and there was 1 paragraph that made me Happy??

Guess you will have to read the whole damn thing to understand what the was!!

And for those of you who have your panties in a twist Never heard of any Genaral putting their war plan in the press??

As for RINO McCain better look for a real warrior not someone who wHines about Prinsors??

No RINO McCain is not the man to carry this country through this war!!

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER AMEN

Archimedes said

I don't think the ideas I posted were terribly exciting or original.

That's putting it rather harshly. I just meant that when talking about Islamic jihad (or the subcomponent, the jihadists' attempt to destroy Israel), many people try to claim that to take any steps to halt either one is genocidal, racist, Islamophobic, and/or crazy. Even as you spend (waste?) time explaining that you're not talking about any of those things, you're just talking about doing the same things we have done in every war. Just simple common-sense things. It's not Armageddon, it's just another group of people who see themselves as the Master Race and have declared war on us, it's happened before, it'll happen again. If you insist, then your ideas are not "terribly exciting", but I'm glad you posted them. Sometimes we just need a reminder how manageable the situation is, if we just decide to manage it. Outlandish and Crazy Ideas need not apply.

Archimedes,

I'd like a solution to this problem as much as the next guy.

The merit of an appraisal of an obstacle is not vitiated by the fact that the appraiser doesn't have a solution to that obstacle. Nor does the optimism of another appraiser who has a solution to that same obstacle necessarily endow his solution with merit.

There seems to be three problems, or a three-tiered problem:

1) Islam as menace
2) PC pathology as whitewashing naivete re: #1
3) Anti-Islamists who underestimate and misunderstand the breadth and depth of #2.

(Note: "to underestimate" does not necessarily mean to completely fail to appreciate; "to misunderstand" does not necessariy mean to completely fail to understand (thus your, and a while ago, Spencer's appeal to the fact that you do appreciate the problem of PC is beside the point: It's a matter of degrees, and degrees matter -- and the issue is what degree is insufficient and what degree is sufficient to be effective.)

Alaric7 said

Likewise, I hope a Muslim leader will emerge in Europe of North America who can bridge the two cultures.

An outbreak of "moderate" Islam would be a welcome surprise. But one glaring difference from Japan and India is that they didn't have the codified, immutable word of god declaring that all followers must smite at the neck of everyone else. I just cannot imagine how Islam could possibly abrogate all those violent exhortations in the Qur'an and Hadith and still be able to call itself "Islam". Take away all the murders, child-rapes, wife-beatings, slave-takings, thievery, vindictiveness, and rage away from Muhammad, and you're left worshipping Papa Smurf (ie. it's not Muhammad anymore). Maybe I just have a lack of imagination, but in the meantime, it's time to batten down our hatches.

Archimedes

First let me say, in case it didn't come clear in my first post, you and I ARE on the same page. I fully get that you see the problem, I think you are just more optimistic than I am about our ability to fix it without some staunch decree that as a nation, we are no longer going to hold the line of "most Islam is peaceful".

Even if that line were true, accepting it costs us the battle before we begin. To weed out whatever percentage is causing the problem we need to accept that minority or no, those extremists have control of the movement. So we must be completely against the movement.

I also admitted in my post, that I recognize that I (and people like me) are part of the problem. Because we pussy foot around the issue.

How many times have I myself stood in front of a room of students and said things like "while there are certainly some extremists within Islam, not all Muslims believe those things" OR how many times have I been forced to present the introduction to Hamas by saying "Hamas is considered to be, and is listed as, a terrorist organization by the United States government -- however, other peoples around the world consider Hamas to be a freedom fighting organization".

Too many times...

At first I said them because it was in line with required course content and seemed an objective world view. Later I said them soley because it was part of the required course content. Finally, I said them because the Arab Defamation League had started making a lot of trouble for anybody who said anything else.

On a national level, we need our government to say -- HEY! Hamas IS a terrorist organization. That's how it's labeled by the government and that is what our students should learn at every level of their education. The government should step in and stop the Arab Defamation League from bringing suit because Muslim students (and I happened to find my Muslim students kind, considerate, delightful people) are offended when you leave out the disclaimer that other people consider Hamas a freedom fighting organization.

On a national level, our leaders need to say loud and proud that Islam is being run by elements that have targeted the west in a war. Until such time as it is proven to our satisfaction that this is no longer true, we have no choice but to acknowledge that we are at war with Islam.

(And it goes without saying that I get the injustices here, I cringe at them, I hate to see innocents suffer or any religion infringed upon, but there's just too much to ignore now -- the balance of the scale is tipping for me)

Our leaders need to speak the truth. Our educators need to be allowed to teach it.

I DO NOT believe in teaching hatred of any kind. This stance was a very difficult one for me to take. But I watched, and have sadly contributed to, the numbing of young minds. We need a leader to stand up and say what's what.

And it needs to be direct and simple.
That leader, should we ever get them, will be slammed for being so non-PC. Will be called hate filled and prejudiced. Will be called an enemy of religion.

We need someone strong enough to do it anyway.

I know that isn't as concrete as you would like.
But that's my ripping off of the bandaid.

Nightly News
"This just in, the government has declared war on Islam"

Please don't think that I am disrespecting you or your ideas. The frustration that comes through in my post is at the PC situation and the fact that it is so multi-leveled and firm at this point that it is part of our schools and universities. The frustration is at the role I myself have played in that. And that recognizing it, still doesn't leave me a way to fix it.

My frustration is that the legacy of the social liberals has created the very weakness that threatens us now. And, that those social liberals whose way of life will most change should radical Islam prevail, by and large REFUSE to acknowledge it. They are so set in their ways, so sure that their way is best, that they can't see that their way is about to leave this society open to becoming more shut down and repressed than it ever was.

I whole heartedly agree with you that we could talk about the injustices of specific incidents of Islam -- you suggested that as a way to get around the PC filters -- but I just want that particular PC filter blown away rather than circumvented, and I think that can only be done full on -- and right now, we need permission and protection from the government to do so. We need permission in regard to changing mandated public education. We need protection from lawsuits when someone speaks their own opinion. We need (as noted elsewhere on this site) publishers to stop allowing non-objective groups to edit their textbooks for sale to schools...

The government has to take the lead here, because until they do the rest of us are very much at risk if we try to do it ourselves.

Just look at the cartoon fiasco.

Okay, I feel I am starting to ramble in an attempt to express what I am hoping for. Know though, that I am glad that you are out there, your post does make clear that YOU get the problem, I just don't think that we are free enough to educated (in a structured or more personal forum) others. And until we are, we set ourselves up to fail. And, since you are a bit more optimistic about the state of things and how things could be handled, I sincerely hope that on our few points of difference you are right and time proves me to be very, very wrong.

Special_guest,

Thanks. I actually did not take any offence at all.

Pepper,

I've been aware of the problem of political correctness for the past approximately 16 years. I've actually cited PC as a problem in several of my previous posts at this site. Thus far, in terms of information, you haven't yet told me anything that is not common knowledge. But your continued, repeated, and hysterical insistence that myself and others at this site "underestimate" and "misunderstand" the problem of PC is, increasingly, annoying and counterproductive.

I should also add that what I've proposed is in this particular thread is not meant to be taken as the only and sufficient solution to PC.

I'm also waiting for you to provide a single concrete solution, including partial solutions, to the problem.

toleranceorappeasement,

I agree 100%. Islam is not peaceful. To paraphrase Ibn Warraq, there are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. I also believe that, world-wide, those moderate Muslims are in the minority, not the majority. This is most clear on the cartoon issue and the Israel issue.

"but I just want that particular PC filter blown away rather than circumvented, and I think that can only be done full on"

I agree with this, but not the "only" part. This won't happen all at once, so we should be engaged in (a) getting past PC barriers in various clever ways (such as they continue to exist), and (b) pursuing the project of explicit, direct criticism of PC, thereby weakening those barriers. I don't see this as an either/or proposition. In other words, attacking Islam and attacking PC are joint projects. I didn't state that in my first post, but I agree, we need to hit PC directly.

One thing the cartoon controversy has done is not only further expose the problems with Islam to the general public, but has also has exposed the PC standards of our media.

"...exposed the PC standards of our media"

i.e., re-exposed, and in dramatic fashion.

While I have been long moving (slowly, so slowly) towards the stance I am now in (but still trying to get comfortable with) -- it is in fact the cartoon aftermath that has forced me to deal with reality.

It's rather like an abusive relationship isn't it?

A good person doesn't want to have to acknowledge that they are in one -- it's going to be such a mess to deal with, easier to just deny it and hope it gets better.

But then, one day something happens that is so in your face, so over reactive, that there is no way you can buy the BS anymore. You recognize that your actions didn't bring about their actions. They are psychotic and dealing with them will only bring about more of the same.

The west has been reduced to an abused spouse.

I am glad about the cartoon fiasco. (Not for innocents injured or killed of course). If it forced me out of my denial it has to have done the same for many, many others.

Alaric7: But there seems to be a lot of pessimistic determinism on this board, as if Muslims are incapable of common sense.

Not determinism, just realism

SpecialGuest: It's not Armageddon, it's just another group of people who see themselves as the Master Race and have declared war on us, it's happened before, it'll happen again.

Except for one big difference that these idiots will get their hands on a nuclear WMD in probably 5 years or less. And they'll be stupid enough to use it.

SpecialGuest: Sometimes we just need a reminder how manageable the situation is, if we just decide to manage it. Outlandish and Crazy Ideas need not apply.

How exactly do you intend on managing terrorist nuclear explosions? There will be no such thing as a too Outlandish and Crazy Idea of retaliation once a western city is incinerated.

Islam is on the path of reaping the whirlwind. We should make an honest effort in trying to explain that to them in terms that they understand. (i.e. If we go Boom! then you go 1,000 Booms!) I am most certain that they will ignore our warnings. When the day comes that a billion of them must die, it will have been them that set the hangmans noose, not us. It is their problem to solve, not ours. All of us probably have am average probability of about 1 in 1,000 chance of dying from a terrorist WMD. If you're Islamic, you probably have a chance of about 1 in 2 of dying from a WMD retaliation strike. I'm at peace with that scenario.