Gates: "The task confronting the US and Europe is to fracture and destroy Islamic extremism 'in its infancy' and deflate its ideology"

"...major Middle Eastern government." He's talking about Saudi. Good for you, Gates. I guess the White House wouldn't let him use the word "Wahabbi" in his remarks, so that's the only way he could pass the censors. (My speculation only.)

There is only one way to fight the threat in the American and Western view:

US sees Palestinian forces needing billions in aid

American officials estimate billions of dollars needed to train and restructure PA security forces; only $86 million spent so far. None of funds garnered from Palestinian donor conference earmarked for security overhaul

Reuters Published: 02.09.08, 17:07 / Israel News

throw money at the problem and give them weapons so they can shoot our soldiers.

That's what you get when you try to apply logic, reason, and/or common sense to people whose worldview is based on magical thinking.

For all I know defeating them in Afghanistan may increase their feelings of persecution and victimhood. It may just make them try harder. I'm not saying we should not do that -- just saying the results may not fit our picture of what is predictable, logical or sensible.

Last point: if the last 1400 years denotes their 'infancy' then we *are* in for a rough ride.

Does Palestine invest in anything besides weapons? They sure haven't used the jizya to better the conditions of their people. I have zero sympathy for any of them.

Fine, so we're fighting to maintain a Sharia-based Afghan regime that would kill blasphemers. Going from Taliban to Taliban-lite is not my idea of anything worth fighting for.

Gates is at odds with his administration.

GWB & his emissary, the colorful Condi Rice, are all about 'Freedom & Democracy'- and don't forget that 'light upon the Muslim nations...!'

The moment they established 'Democracy under sharia' this whole idiotic adventure was lost. But who bought into this nation-building thing anyhow? When America went into Iraq there was no talk of nation-building, anybody remember how that came about?

“US Defense Secretary Robert Gates Sunday warned that failing to stamp out Afghanistan's resurgent Taliban would boost Islamic extremism worldwide…”

I think this is basically right because Islam itself (not just “Islamic extremism”) promises, per the Koran, that it is the faithful Muslims that are always the winners of their conflicts in world. Now with their feeble brains anesthetized by Islam most male Muslims can’t quite recognized what pathetic losers Muslims have been in the world for centuries – the women probably have a better sense of it but say nothing to avoid large bruises – but with a continual hammering in the Dar-al Islam from the ”Infidel” many can begin to wake up. A perceived victory by the Taliban would only encourage jihad and validate to Islamic lunatics everywhere the demonic 7th century flim-flam that inspired it.

I think Defense Secretary Gates makes some excellent points here, particularly in regards to the creation of perceptions, and propaganda.

There should be more expo'ses by informed Western leaders that speak to how really destructive Al Qaeda, and other Islamo Fascists are to the majority of the umma.

Do we see Armies in Egypt,Saudia Arabia,Syria,Indonesia, Algeria,Libya,Azerbaijan,Bahrain,Maldives,Senagal,Gambia,Malaysia,Sudan,Somalia,Sierra Leone,Morocco,Nigeria,Chad,Tunisia,Yemen,and yes even Turkey among many others getting ready to march their armies against the west? No we don't.

Yes there is sabre rattling going on in Iran but there are 53 countries that are predominatly Muslim and are not raising the hint of using their armies against us.

"and deflate its ideology"

Wouldn't they need to know where from and what that gas was inflating it first?

"infancy"

DARPA's got a time machine in testing?

"destroy Islamic extremism "in its infancy" and deflate its ideology"
-from the article

From here, it looks like Islamic extremism is in a healthy adolescence. The time to destroy it was immediately after the Iranian Revolution, almost thirty years ago.

The French, Italians and the US made a half-hearted effort to contain it in Lebanon a few years later but retreated in the face of Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Only Muslims can defeat Islamic extremism. If they don't see it as extreme they won't fight it. If they won't fight it then our only choice is to fight (or at least contain) Muslims and no western leader will introduce policies based on religion.

Sorry it's OT.

PMK,

Please accept my apology for assuming that you knew the answer to the question. I am sorry to say that I have nothing else to say to help Americans. What facts I have in regard to Obama's religion, I have stated above. His police records in Indonesia say it all in my posts yesterday.

As to Bush's view of Islam, I could say it simply this way, "It's purely politics." No one in politics will speak their mind, lest it's used against them later. No president in the US will be stupid enough to speak honestly about the evil of Islam because he knows that he would have to apologize or would be pressured to resign his post.

I appreciate that you would like to help the people with their voting, but I have given all I have about Obama's true religion, Islam. People need to decide who they want for president.

"Gates doesn't seem to have explained, either. "US says global Islamic extremism would thrive on Afghan failure,"

You don't need Afghan failure for Islamic extremism to thrive. Afghan courts are beheading people for insulting Islam now. Are we supposed to consider their success against the Taliban a triumph over Islamic extremism?

Not sure if Gates sees the real threat to US from within US, ironically from White House, which is in wahhabi back-pockets. To 'fracture and destroy Islamic extremism 'in its infancy' and deflate its ideology', Gates will have to clean up the (White) House, which funds Islamic terror with US Tax dollas.
Can you see, much less start there, Mr, Gates?

At the very least Mr. Gates, if not others, seems to be receptive and ready for ulterior views about Islam.

Perhaps if Robert and Hugh collaborated on a book, and the message of the book, its style and theme is as if speaking to a Mr. Gates, a George Bush and Condi sitting across the table. Robert and Hugh write the book with a style as if advising the reality of the situation to the big boys and girls pulling the strings of power.

Humble yourselves fella's. The facts are your ingredients to cook and create the palatable dish they will very much want to eat more of. And write as if your words are sure to carry forth for generations to come. It's basically an attitude, a frame of mind while writing things down.

Go for it. God speed.

Are we blind to Islam conquests now being achieved.

Kenya a 90% Democrat Christian nations has been brought to heel by Senator Obama's Muslim Cousin, Odinga.

Chad is falling to the Muslims invading from Sudan and their slaughter of the people in Darfur.

Turkey has already killed off (unknown to the world population) all Non -Muslims and just created the opportunity to force all woman to ware a veil and start Taliban Sharia.

Indonesia, the Philippines. No matter where you look they are killing innocent people and introducing Sharia law. We are at war with these barbarians. Silence from all even this web site.

Islam is Islamism and is a terrorist organization. We must kick Islam out of America now.

Gates: "The task confronting the US and Europe is to fracture and destroy Islamic extremism 'in its infancy' and deflate its ideology."

I submit that SECDEF Gates is incorrect.

Islamic extremism is not in its infancy. On the contrary, Islamic extremism is more analogous to a virulent form of cancer which has spread to viritually every vital organ of the body of Western ciilization, the core being Europe and the US. In Europe and America this Islamic extremism is actually an Islamic insurrection which has been in progress for at least the past 6 decades. Thus, the Islamic threat is quite mature having existed for a total of one-thousand three hundred sixty-seven years.

To the mainstream American observer it might be apparent that SECDEF Gates' stated perceptions of Islam are those of a Westerner who is just awakening to the threat Islam poses to our Judeo-Christian civilization. However, the fully informed observer knows that given his position within the U.S. Government, his level of clearance and resultant depth of briefings, the truth must be that the SECDEF's comments were totally compromised by requisite politically correct public relations pablum due to the same embedded Islamic influences he would seek to "deflate." In so doing the Stealth Jihad of the Muslim Brotherhood is given ample cover.

There is no method by which Islamic ideology can be "deflated." Not in a Muslim nation much less in the United States. Truly deflating Islamic ideology would require the eradication of the basis for Islam - the Quran and the Hadiths. Due to the provisions of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution such an eradication in America can never occur.

Therefore, the goal of submitting the United States to Islam will continue in hot and cold phases for as long as Islam exists. And in Muslim nations like Afghanistan deflating Islamic ideology would mean nothing less than declaring war upon the religion of the masses - which would play directly in the the ideological Catch-22 trap Islam has set as its doctinal basis.

Europe has shown me that the muslims have a REAL good foothold there. It won't be long till there are two separate court systems, if not already, more churches burned and islamists actually taking over governments. In the U.S. you've got the goofs in the Iowa and Texas state houses praying for the defeat of the great Satan, the U.S., and a list of changes including footbaths in restrooms and no booze or dogs in cabs in Minnesota, a demand to take down Christmas decorations, all helped by the evil ACLU. To me it's a slow eroding of our culture. One might say, well so what, these are things that don't mean a lot. Well they mean a lot to a LOT of people.
I fear it's to late already. Our borders continue to be open for easy illegal entry, and no matter which of the three candidates are elected, he/she will continue an 'open border' stance. It's the wrong direction for our country. I guess it will have to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

What?, Gates didn't get that speech approved by Heshem Islam?

"infancy"

DARPA's got a time machine in testing?

Posted by: Beagle

you said it, Beagle! We're about 1380 years too late to destroy Islamic extremism "in its infancy". Maybe we should talk about its "infantility", since it's still an infantile cult.

Gates said the task confronting the US and Europe is to fracture and destroy Islamic extremism "in its infancy" and deflate its ideology…

Vlad the Impaler, Ataturk, Tito, the Shah, and Saddam were faced with the same task.

And they built Mosques, hospitals, power plants, roads, and bridges for the Muslims, creating jobs and outreach programs that helped the local moms and dads ‘get over’ their secretarian differences. All it takes is cash and a whole lot of nurturing. Maybe a few hundred thousand assault rifles donated to unstable Islamic governments.

You see, to succeed in this task, you need to care.

"For the United States, September 11 was a galvanizing event -- one that opened the American public's eyes to dangers from distant lands." [...]

For some bizarre reason, 9/11 did not galvanize the American public to anywhere near the degree that Pearl Harbor did. In the wake of Pearl Harbor the United States put over 10 million men and women in uniform and it went to war, total war. There are 1.4 million active duty personnel today. While the defense budget today is larger than it would have been if the United States armed forces were not deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, it is really not anywhere close to a wartime budget in the past. Yamamoto's mythical giant is not yet even stirring from its deep and profound slumber.

"It's good to see an American official making any mention of jihadist activity in Europe, and I'm all for defeating the Taliban, but I don't see how doing so will "deflate" the Islamic supremacist ideology".-Robert

It takes awhile to fully understand why Robert is a Johnny-one-note on this. He's right. But few want to accept reality. So he has to do the Yogi Berra "repetition is the mother of learning" thing. There will be no real progress, not in the Mideast, not anywhere, until all (Muslim and non-Muslim) stop the deception and self-deception re the Quran and Islamic theology foundation of Muslim violence and supremacism. "It's the Quran and Muslim theology, stupid".

"For some bizarre reason, 9/11 did not galvanize the American public to anywhere near the degree that Pearl Harbor did". ...SaracensAtTheGates

True, as a matter of fact, many Americans blamed themselves and still are.

There will be no real progress, not in the Mideast, not anywhere, until all (Muslim and non-Muslim) stop the deception and self-deception re the Quran and Islamic theology foundation of Muslim violence and supremacism. "It's the Quran and Muslim theology, stupid".

Frank,
We can't stop the self-deception of the Quran and Muslim supremacist ideology. Muslims are the only ones who can wean themselves from it. We are trapped between Islam and our own ideals of free speech and freedom of religion. Robert also keeps talking about how this is not a fight against all Muslims, but if Muslims won't let go of this ideology what else are we supposed to do? Go gently into that good night? Of course there are some who are Muslim in name only and who don't really buy this stuff, but they're not doing anything about those who do. At what point do we say to every Muslim in the world: either you are with us or you are against us? Why can't we then say: if you are not with us then you are no longer welcome here?

destroy Islamic extremism "in its infancy"

Right. A 1400 year old infant.

Pez said

Vlad the Impaler, Ataturk, Tito, the Shah, and Saddam were faced with the same task.

Yes. And so was Thomas Jefferson, George Washington (in retirement), John Adams, and James Madison.

And earlier, so was Louis VII of France, Richard I of England, Frederick I of the Holy Roman Empire, and Conrad III of Germany.

We've grown and moved on, but Baby Huey is still wearing his diapers. And his diapers are beginning to stink.

...Gates went on to say that success in one place "would beget success on many other fronts as the cancer metastasized further and more rapidly than it already has."

Gate's is insinuating that Islam is a cancer? Bravo! But where is RageBoy? Where is CAIR? Let the outrage begin.

Get the psyops people to compose and publish a "peaceful" Reformed Koran and distribute it surreptitiously into Islamic lands on CD's.

Turn all calls to violence into poetic metaphors, change all instigations to external terrorism into a soul-challenge and plea for Muslims to struggle against the internal evils of arrogance and egotism and cruelty and intolerance.

Write the Koran that a loving mind would have produced.

Think: The Beautitudes; The Songs of Solomon; Book of Tao; et al.

(Mr. Gates: Give me a call if you're short the personnel, I'll do it for $3 a "line" [6,666 lines in the Koran] and can have it done by next EID.)

Good for Robert Gates--his words are a start, and certainly more robust and clear-eyed than almost anything else we are hearing.

Still, destroying Islamic extremeism "in its infancy"--let's lobby the Byzantine Empire to get right on that.

"But where is RageBoy?"
Posted by: Xero G

He's still in rehearsals for his forthcoming starring role in the outrage following Wilders' film.

"Gates went on to say that success in one place 'would beget success on many other fronts....'"
-- from the article above

Trimphalism is certainly part of Islam. But right now, keeping the Americans stuck in Tarbaby Iraq (and its central Asian cousin, Tarbaby Afghanistan) is "success." Why? Because it keeps America preoccupied. It bleeds the country -- and apparently few have focussed, in Washington, on how often Muslims in and out of Al-Qaeda mention the "economic warfare" aspect of Jihad. Bin Laden has mentioned in many times, but for some reason this is always glided over in public remarks in this country. If getting the United States to spend over one trillion dollars in Iraq, in order to bring "unity" and "prosperity" to a Muslim country, without inducing any change in that country's Believers, and in fact making the country even safter for True Believers than it was under Saddam Hussein (who was less enthusiastic about, for example, enforcing laws against alcohol, or about clothing, than are the newly-empowered Shia in Basra and the rest of southern Iraq), is not successful economic warfare, than what would be? If getting the Americans to view Jihad as merely a matter of "terrorism" (or, as the Muslims define it, as a legitimate form of qitaal, or combat -- the traditional means of conducting Jihad), and ignoring the need to diminish Muslim oil revenues, and to force rich Muslim states to share their wealth, if the Muslim states without oil are to receive anything, for the practice of supplying the latter with tens of billions of dollars in aid from Infidels is lunacy, and has created a psychological relationship, of Infidel donor to Muslim recipient, that mimics exactly the relationship of non-Muslim payer-of-Jizyah to Muslim overlord.

What would constitue "victory" for the Infidels in Iraq, in Afghanistan? An end to the squandering of our resources. An exploitation, through merely withdrawing, of the pre-existing fissures -- ethnic and sectarian in the case of Iraq, mostly ethnic (save for the Shi'a Hazara, whom the Taliban were attempting to wipe out, until the American invasion cut their plans short). The possiblities for weakening, through dividing and demoralizing, the Camp of Islam, are greatest in Iraq, for the fault line between Sunni and Shi'a cannot, thank god, be repaired, but should be looked at not as something to deplore but to take grim pleasure in. Effects will be felt in eastern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, and even among communities of Muslims living in the Lands of the Infidels. And the effect of a non-Arab Muslim people, the Kurds (who because they possess an identity that, unlike that of the Arabs, does not reinforce but works against the appeal of Islam, are largely less "Islamic" and, of course, possibly open to viewing Islam as what it always has been - a vehicle for Arab imperialism, the most successful imperialism in human history), throwing off the Arab yoke, would have consequences among the Berbers (in North Africa and in France), and among other non-Arab Muslims as far away as the East Indies.

"Success" in Iraq, if rightly defined, can come only by leaving Iraq, and ruthlessly viewing not with alarm but with pleasure, whatever results from the inability of Sunnis ever to acquiesce in their new, inferior status, and from the inability of Shi'a Arabs to give the Sunnis anything like what they demand. For both Sunnis and Shi'a, being Muslim, are not used to the idea of compromise or sweet reason. They are used, however, to the idea of only two conceivable results following any struggle: that one is among the Victors, or one is among the Vanquished. That is something that Western leaders -- or those "taking a leadership role" -- fail to grasp.

But while Gates has failed to understand what would constitute "success" for Infidels in Iraq (he has it backwards, as do Bush, Rice, and others, for they cannot begin to re-think their own policies -- it's for them simply too embarrassing, too painful), he might ask himself if the Administration's policies elsewhere, as with that insensate pressure on Israel to give up still more territory, when Arab Muslim opposition to Israel is not, in any way, to be assuaged by the shrinking of Israel or of the (entirely-unimportant in the Muslim scheme of things) "Palestinian state." What counts for the Muslims is to push Israel back. The rate of that pushing, the tactics and timing, can be the subject of slight differences. And those slight differences have only to do with the greater purity of the Fast Jihadists, whose goal does not differ from that of the Slow Jihadists, but who speak the truth more often, and have been slightly less concerned with the obvious desire by the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, to here and there say a word or two, for Western audiences only, that could be used to justify turning on the tap of aid, and more aid -- as so many Western governments have been straining at the bit to do.

The present Israeli government, like other Israeli governments before it, still refuses to see what it faces, as if naming things correctly would be too painful for its own people, or make "peace" less likely. Not at all. If the truth is told, if it is understood by those who run Israel that the war against it will never end, but is entirely manageable if the Israelis do not retreat any further, do not keep giving up land, with control of invasion routes, and aquifers (and who knows what will happen as the seas rise, and part of coastal Israel possibly goes under water -- then where will the Israelis go if not to Judea and Samaria, as the "West Bank" was known since before, and during, and after by about two thousand years, the time of Jesus) to those who, slowly or quickly, wish to eliminate that Infidel nation-state.

If one wishes to deny the Muslims a victory everywhere, as Gates says, then that should certainly include a victory over the Infidel state of Israel.

"If one wishes to deny the Muslims a victory everywhere, as Gates says, then that should certainly include [denying them] a victory over the Infidel state of Israel" - Hugh Fitzgerald.

Hugh - YES!

I appreciate that you would like to help the people with their voting, but I have given all I have about Obama's true religion, Islam. People need to decide who they want for president.
Posted by: ssa

Thanks, I appreciate it...I found your information...helpful...

Drudge report... Nancy say's surge not working.
Under that it say's Al-Qaeda in Iraq is in total collapse, and fearful.
Add those two together and what do you get?
Beats me, I missed the first half of the movie...

Robert,

Deflate is not the same as eliminate. One of the central beliefs of the Islamists worldwide, that they use in order to justify their attacks, is that the United States and the West are weak. Defeating the Taliban, while not ending the longing for Jihad and the overthrow of Western governments and imposition of Sharia by Islamists, could cause them to rethink the wisdom of their attacks against the West- if only for the time being.

Outstanding article, Hugh, as always.

Imagine if Al Qaeda could cause one trillion dollars of damage to the US economy. That'd be a stupendous victory to them. The mother of all victories. Destroyed bridges, cyber terror attacks on banks, hospitals overrun with victims of a terror attack, sabotaged utilities, numerous false attacks causing gridlock to the US cities, etc.

Well, folks, that's what's happening in Iraq right now. A trillion dollars have vanished from the US economy: pissed away in the desert.

A trillion is such a vast number it's difficult to even barely visualise it's size. Well, Idaho has a population of around about a million, so give every man woman and child in the state, a million bucks. As the price tag of the Iraqi debacle escalate, simply replace Idaho with a bigger state/city. Get the picture?

And if we factor in indirect costs then we're talking many trillions.

Get out of Iraq now.

That's not going to happen of course. That'd mean admitting to a colossal failure and today's politicians put their egos above the country's well being.

So, the dollar collapses, China buys up the US debt, the US economy continues to leak trillions in the Sunni triangle, and the Iranians, Al Qaeda, the MB can't believe their luck.

They're laughing all the way to the mosque.

I give Gates huge leeway on this. The remarks had to go through the White House for approval, I'm sure. No Medal of Freedom for him!

Gates: "would beget success on many other fronts as the cancer metastasized further and more rapidly than it already has."

Go Gates!

Stop the spread of cancer - I mean Islam - and soon!

My prediction is that the EU will say "no" to Gates and his very important platform against the global jihad--if only because he is from the United States.