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Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

What Baghdadi’s Death Tells Us About the Real Terror Threat

Nov 1, 2019 2:00 pm By Daniel Greenfield

Always look for the country behind the curtain.

What’s the best place to look for the terrorist leader of a defeated Islamic terrorist group? When his men are on the run, look for his hideout in or near the country that sponsors him.

We didn’t find Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, but in a compound in a Pakistani military city. And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former Caliph of ISIS, wasn’t hanging out in his home turf, but in an area controlled by Turkey and its allied Islamist militias right off the Turkish border.

Osama bin Laden’s death confirmed the reports of his ties to Pakistan, and Baghdadi’s death confirmed the rumors of the links between ISIS and Turkey. Those links may not as run as deep as those between Pakistan, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda, but when Baghdadi wanted someplace to hide out with his family, he didn’t huddle with his forces, but picked a location under the shadow of the Turkish military.

As Robert Spencer, an expert on the theology and geopolitics of Islamic terrorism, noted, “It strains credulity that Turkey, with its interests in northern Syria, did not know he was there. Al-Baghdadi was killed in Barisha in the Idlib province, a town of no more than 2,500 people right on the Turkish border.”

Where did we actually find the Caliph of ISIS? Allegedly, he’d been living in the home of Abu Mohammed Salama, a Hurras al-Din leader. The Islamic terror group, whose name means Guardians of Religion, had been listed as Al Qaeda in Syria in its Specially Designated Global Terrorist designation. Hurras al-Din had formerly been part of Tahrir al-Sham which has been cooperating closely with Turkey.

One of Tahrir’s four components was the Al-Nusra Front, which was formerly the official Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. While the US bombs Tahrir al-Sham, Turkey, a NATO member, works with it.

If a NATO member is openly working with an Al Qaeda faction, how can it possibly be trusted?

Both Hurras and Tahrir play a dominant role in Idlib. They, supposedly, don’t get along. And they, likewise, supposedly are hostile to ISIS. Except that Baghdadi’s death tells us that’s a sham.

While ISIS was calling Hurras “apostates”, and Tahrir was supposedly hunting Baghdadi, he was living under their protection, not those of his own men, which he wouldn’t have done without a deal. And there wouldn’t have been a deal unless it was part of a much broader operational arrangement. It’s hard to believe that Turkey would not have been clued in on a deal involving its own Islamist terrorist allies.

Earlier this year, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the head of Al Qaeda, had ridiculed Jihadist groups in the area for operating under Turkish authority. Al Qaeda’s Jihadists have been debating whether to accept Turkey’s support. Baghdadi’s death tells us how it all played out. Turkey worked with Tahrir while ISIS worked with Hurras. The two Al Qaeda splinter groups pretended to be feuding, but were really a pipeline.

ISIS connected to Hurras which linked in to Tahrir which is under Turkish authority. That’s why Baghdadi was in Idlib. Meanwhile the Al Qaeda splinter groups in this drama were pretending to fight ISIS.

It’s the same old story.

There are no lone wolf terrorists or lone wolf terrorist groups. Like Marxist terror groups, Islamic terrorist organizations don’t exist in isolation. Even ISIS, despite its insistence that Baghdadi was the sole source of legitimate Islamic authority, was not without its state sponsors. Much like its Al Qaeda parent.

The root cause of the problem is not Islamic terror groups. It’s Islamic terror states.

September 11 would never have happened without Pakistan’s ambitions for Afghanistan, and Qatari and Iranian backing for Al Qaeda. ISIS would never have become a major terror threat without Assad’s use of Al Qaeda to attack American soldiers during the Iraq War, and the entire Arab Spring project by Qatar, its Muslim Brotherhood allies, the Gulf states, and the region’s motley assortment of Islamists.

On the Shiite side, every Islamic Jihadist group, from Hezbollah to the Houthis, begins in Tehran. And Iran’s backing has kept even, supposedly, hostile Sunni groups like Muslim Brotherhood terror organizations, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda afloat.

Islamic terrorism is not something that happens because teenagers watch videos on the internet. It doesn’t happen because of a few guys in a cave. Those are the end products of state sponsorship.

The entire existence of ISIS is due to the nature of Islamic terrorism as a defining state institution.

When we tried to shut down Saddam Hussein’s support for Islamic terrorism, the Sunni and Shiite parts of the country fragmented into dueling Islamic terror groups. Saddam’s old Sunni loyalists poured into what would become ISIS. The Shiite majority built up Islamic militias under Iranian control.

The Arab Spring had the same effect, shattering countries like Libya into their defining components. And those components are tribal identity groups with Islamic militias as their offensive and defensive arms.

Islamic terrorism is a fundamental feature of Islamic civic life at every stage of development. That’s why Islamic terrorism doesn’t go away. The names of the groups change. The leaders and the fighters die. But the endless war goes on because it’s an expression of Islamic tribal, religious, and state institutions.

Pakistan will keep on backing Islamic terrorists because that gives it influence and control over parts of its country, of Afghanistan, and over the United States. Iran will keep on backing terrorists because that’s the best way for a Shiite Islamic minority state to project its power. Qatar will keep backing Islamic terrorists because that’s the only way for a miniscule rich state to gain enormous territorial influence. Turkey will keep backing Islamic terrorists as long as Islamists who dream of rebuilding their own Caliphate are running the show in Istanbul. That’s why the terrorists will always keep coming back.

This is a problem that goes back to the founding of Islam. Mohammed and his followers started out as the original Islamist militia, leveraging tribal alliances and conflicts to take over a big piece of the world. The Islamic State, like so many Jihadis over the centuries, was just trying to follow in his footsteps.

We can’t fix the problems of Islamic societies. But we have to recognize that this is the root cause.

Islamic theology transformed tribal warfare into a religious experience. It made killing, raping, and enslaving enemies into a meaningful way of life, not just for those who partake in it, but for the countless millions who support them. Exporting democracy to the region was always a fool’s quest. Islamic societies already have their own form of democracy. Its ballots are bombs and bullets.

Power struggles aren’t settled with political compromises, but the old-fashioned way, by war.

That’s the endless war.

Americans have constant elections. Muslim societies in the region are constantly fighting. There’s never a final settlement, just as there’s no final election that determines once and for all who runs America.

Instead of exporting our way of settling differences to the Muslim world, they’ve exported their way of settling differences to the United States and to Europe. And, instead of convincing Muslim countries that multilateral diplomacy is the way to channel their global ambitions, they have managed to enlist us and involve us in their traditional form of multilateral diplomacy, supporting multiple terror groups.

Fighting Islamic terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or ISIS as if they were an isolated phenomenon is as pointless as insisting that every single Islamic terrorist is really a lone wolf. It ignores reality.

Islamic terrorist groups can’t be defeated without dealing with the states that sponsor them.

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Filed Under: Featured, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Tagged With: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi


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Comments

  1. Flavius Claudius Iulianus says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 2:14 pm

    “White Helmets plotting to stage new chemical weapons incidents in Syria – Russian Foreign Ministry”

    https://www.rt.com/newsline/472363-white-helmets-stage-chemical/

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 1, 2019 at 9:46 pm

      I don’t always trust RT, but this is certainly possible. The “White Helmets” links to Jihad are disturbing.

  2. Flavius Claudius Iulianus says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 2:15 pm

    “‘Thank God for Deep State’, ex-CIA boss says. Still think it’s a conspiracy theory?”

    https://www.rt.com/usa/472398-deep-state-ex-cia-boss/

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/10/31/former-cia-acting-director-on-impeachment-inquiry-thank-god-for-the-deep-state/

  3. Flavius Claudius Iulianus says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 2:15 pm

    “Vandals Profane 100 Christian Tombs in French Cemetery”

    https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2019/11/01/vandals-profane-100-christian-tombs-in-french-cemetery/

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 1, 2019 at 9:47 pm

      Could be run of the mill vandals–but probably Muslims. Vandals are seldom so intent.

  4. CogitoErgoSum says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 2:19 pm

    Groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc, all stem from the same root — Islam. To kill a weed, the root must die. But, yes, as any gardener will tell you, it’s an endless war.

  5. Voytek Gagalka says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 2:21 pm

    So the solution is simple: END OF STATES SPONSORING terrorism. It was proposed and called for by some bright minds immediately after 911. The only problem is: HOW? The deep state will never do it: they like to play “games” with us, keeping us under “control” which is terror of the sort and thus RULING over us.

    • CogitoErgoSum says

      Nov 1, 2019 at 2:28 pm

      I think it will take more than just destroying certain states. Islam requires no state — at least as we would define a state. I think maybe they would call it the “ummah.”

      • underbed cat says

        Nov 1, 2019 at 3:53 pm

        Agree, a Quran, a mosque, iman and community is all that is needed to remove the secular leader and replace it as a member of the ummah a terror state.

      • gravenimage says

        Nov 1, 2019 at 9:49 pm

        True, CogitoErgoSum.

  6. underbed cat says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 3:45 pm

    This argument confuses me. I think it is the problem of terror taught from a book in mosques that conquers states, that eventually removes or converts a secular leader, It may take years but they are like busy bees….working to cause disruption from within and wear the leaders and population out by terror and deception. It can happen easily if the population is not armed or does not become cohesive to block the growth. It is a clever doctrine and the social customs bring unity as they try to move into societies that are peaceful, don’t have clue about the doctrine, and who will for a time be peaceful, have no fear until it is too late.The first known terrorist….or warrrior of Islam did he not conquer Saudi Arabia? 1400 years ago….it started to show its strenght and conquered countries bit by bit while declaring victory that used terror, deception and the next day an explanation they were the victims. So I agree with Cogito Ergo Sum, they require no state, to conquer and it is happening in all western countries. So maybe we should start at home before it is too late for America.

  7. Michael Copeland says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 4:10 pm

    “A permanent war institution” is how Al Azhar teaches Islam.
    http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2010/06/01/nonie-darwish-brennans-lesson-on-jihad/

    Western leaders do not listen.

  8. Angemon says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 6:38 pm

    If a NATO member is openly working with an Al Qaeda faction, how can it possibly be trusted?

    Indeed.

  9. Daniel Triplett says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 7:41 pm

    As always, a brilliant and articulate essay from Daniel Greenfield.

    Our clearly self-declared enemy is Islam and its 1.8 Billion adherents, the Ummah, who all pursue submission, enslavement, or death for every Kafir on Earth.

    At a minimum, every Muslim is guilty of Conspiracy for Murder and Sedition, since they all pledge fealty to the Koran and Sunnah, which is sacrosanct, eternally immutable, and mandatory in compliance. All are required to emulate Muhammad, the perfect man, and comply with his Islamic doctrine. Together this justifies forced Islamic proscription. We’re not required to tolerate religions, ideologies, and peoples who pursue our extermination.

    This is a zero-sum conflict. They’ll continue waging this 1400-year existential Worldwide War of Islamic Manifest Destiny until the World is either 100% Islamic, or 0% Islamic.

    Worldwide forced Islamic proscription therefore, by definition, is the only objective that ends the War and gives us victory.

    The longer we wait to pursue this objective, the more difficult and desperate its pursuit will be. We’d be wise to do it now, while we still hold an asymmetric technological advantage. To wait 10, 100, or 1000 years until the Ummah is well-armed with nukes would be to let an evil genie out of the bottle, with staggering consequences.

    __________________________________________________

    The War Plan in a nutshell, (summary of comprehensive essay):

    1. Form alliances, doctrine, and objectives with Kafir nuke states. Define the two sides of this conflict. Clearly define the only terms and outcome the Kafirs will accept. Every state on the globe must choose a side.

    2. To send an overwhelming show of force to the Ummah, and to prevent a catastrophic first strike against us, we vape the Iranian nuke production facilities and existing arsenal, and confiscate or vape the Pak arsenal, all on Day One. Force Iranian regime change, to demonstrate to the Ummah what happens if they resist. Replace senior leadership with Iranian apostates we develop and select.

    3. Criminalize the practice or promotion of Islam in Kafir states, with a Worldwide propaganda/education campaign about why we’re doing it. Raze or repurpose all mosques and Islamic Outreach Centers. Force National Registration of all Muslims, under punishment of permanent incarceration if they don’t submit to infallible Oath of Islamic Apostasy.

    4. Encourage and proselytize Christianity, but never force it [Islamic Apostasy remains compulsory].

    5. Carry out counter-insurgency plans to eliminate hostile Islamic insurgency.

    6. Offer surrender terms to all Dar al-Islam states, which go something like this:

    “Within 72 hours, agree to immediately criminalize the practice and promotion of Islam, with compulsory Apostasy, as we’ve done in Dar al-Harb, and in return, you’ll be unharmed, and you’ll keep your power, territory, and resources. If we must force your surrender to our terms, you’ll face violence on an unprecedented scale, and you’ll lose your power, territory, and resources.”

    7. For those Dar al-Islam states who resist Allied terms, we randomly nuke strike 1 target every 72 hours until they no longer resist, at which point we reapportion their state through a combination of redrawing territorial boundaries, installing governments of our choice, annexing some or all their territory to neighboring Apostate states whom didn’t require our kinetic force, and using their natural resources for ourselves as spoils of war.

    This plan is the fastest, least expensive, and safest way to win the war. In my view, it’s the only way to win the war.

    We can force Dar al-Islam states governments’ surrender inside 12 weeks, for under $10 Billion.

    Eliminating Islamic insurgency within Dar al-Harb could take between 6 and 18 months, post-criminalization.

    We’re losing the War badly. Islamic Manifest Destiny continues unabated. Most all Kafir heads of state have thus far refused to even identify our enemy, much less fight back. Ignorance and willful denial guarantee our defeat.

    If we don’t kinetically push back hard, we will eventually perish. Our children will face a much larger more lethal enemy if we don’t win this fight now.

    The Ummah is approaching the capacity to nuke millions of us on a horrific scale.

    The greatest legacy America can render to the World is to liberate 1.8 Billion Muslims from Islam.

    The solution is rather simple and inexpensive. All we need is the Will.

    • CogitoErgoSum says

      Nov 1, 2019 at 8:14 pm

      Well, I’m thinking that’s the kind of plan Judas was pushing for Jesus to follow. You may have to nuke or vape more cities than you think and some of our cites may be nuked as well. True, it may come to all that someday but maybe a policy of containment can work — something like a Truman Doctrine except against Islam instead of communism. Either way I agree with you about needing the will because it will take a lot of it.

      • gravenimage says

        Nov 1, 2019 at 9:53 pm

        Yes–we were almost entirely safe from Jihad when Islam was contained.

        • Daniel Triplett says

          Nov 2, 2019 at 12:06 am

          When were they ever contained, and how? Could those same methods be used today?

          I hear “containment” spoken a lot as an absolute solution that will somehow last forever. But nobody has ever described logistically how that could be done, for just one day, much less forever. I’m interested in hearing more specific details.

          Considering all the elements, contingencies, and long term requirements I’ve described here, how would we contain the entire Ummah? Where would we contain them, what would we do with Ummah among us, and how could we all pull it off? How would this permanently eliminate jihad and nuke weapon threats for our children and our children’s children?

      • Daniel Triplett says

        Nov 1, 2019 at 11:47 pm

        I don’t see what Judas has to do with it. I spent 12 years in the USAF as a pilot; 6 years combat, OEF/OIF. As far as I’m concerned, we were all doing God’s work.

        I estimate 20 nuke strikes, or fewer, would achieve the objective. Fear and panic will set into the populations quickly after witnessing the first few strikes. This is made more effective with today’s rapid digital information transfer, with post-strike before & after HD pics and videos of the targets’ devastation and carnage, all designed to terrify the enemy, and break their collective Will to Fight. There would be tremendous pressure from the people upon their governments to surrender to Allied terms.

        I’ve emphasized the critical imperative to begin this campaign soon, before Iran develops its arsenal, a devout Pak PM detonates their nukes for Allah, or a Muslim state or mujahidin group figures out how to build, buy, or steal nukes. One or more of these threats is guaranteed to happen, given the time. 1, 10, 100, or 1000 years. Who knows? We can strike first, or we can wait until the Ummah vapes Tel Aviv, Manhattan, or DC. Either way, someone’s getting glassed, so let’s strike first to take a catastrophic nuke strike on us off the table.

        The staggering consequences of allowing the Ummah to gain nuke weapons cannot be overstated. The main threat won’t be state ICBMs. We can defend against those and can even destroy them in flight with good success. But nuke in a van, or nuke in a container ship, not so much. The worst threat will be Muslim states transferring nuke devices to syndicate goon-squads under their purview, then deny responsibility. Such nuke weapons will be nearly impossible to track and defend against. Such a scenario is totally unacceptable.

        And that’s my point. Winning this war requires a grand plan, on an epic scale the World has never seen. Big problems require big solutions. We razed to the ground several hundred German and Japanese cities, killing every man, woman, and child inside. Before we joined WWII, strategic warfare on such a desperate scale may have seemed over-the-top, cruel, and unnecessary. But we had to do it and wouldn’t have won the war if we didn’t.

        The Islamic crisis is on the order of a dozen times larger than WWII. But instead of razing hundreds or thousands of Dar al-Islam cities, I estimate between 8 and 20 nuke strikes will be all that’s required.

        The Truman doctrine advocates for counter-insurgency and containment, but in my view, it doesn’t go far enough. Containment may have worked with the Soviets because they were state actors all contained together in an aggregate geographical boundary. But Islam has both state and non-state actors. And the OIC is not geographically aggregate and has dissimilar boundaries.

        I haven’t heard a containment strategy yet that will work.

        Besides, even if we could contain the entire Ummah inside Dar al-Islam, that would just give the them Safe Haven to plot jihad and build nuclear weapons.

        Isolation and containment gave us a nuke-tipped ICBM armed North Korea, the most ostracized, contained, isolated state on Earth. But unlike the North Koreans, the Ummah really does pursue Worldwide conquest. They’ll nuke us and won’t mind being destroyed themselves if they can spread Islam for Allah in the process. Their nuclear annihilation wins them all a place in paradise.

        Logistically, how do you propose keeping Muslims corralled inside Dar al-Islam, and outside Dar al-Harb?

        Dar al-Islam has a minimum 26,000 mile long land and sea perimeter. It’s a 4000 mile swath stretching from Morocco to The Philippines. How can we possibly contain Muslims within that? We don’t have the military, money, method, and especially the Will to enforce that kind of perimeter for any length of time, much less forever.

        We can’t even prevent thousands of aliens daily from breaching our 1954 mile long Southern border. Even in America, keeping the Muslims out is nearly impossible.

        Europe’s Mediterranean border is impossible to fully secure. The Greek coastline alone is 8498 miles long. Notwithstanding the NGO boats that pick up Muslims in African territorial waters to hand-deliver to Europe, hundreds and thousands of boats make it from Africa to Europe on their own now.

        While the native-European population continues its steep decline, the African population will explode from 1 Billion today to 4 Billion by 2100. If Europe can’t repel the invasion today, how can they possibly repel an invasion four times the size?

        And what about all the Muslims pouring in via land routes from the East into Europe? Europe as it is can’t prevent Muslim border crossings, on top of the EU immigration and “refugee” disaster. The European — Asian land border is 3850 miles long.

        The Ummah has a foothold on every continent. Muslims are in most all Kafir countries. As you know, they come to conquer for Allah. How long before the Muslims already here outnumber us due solely to womb jihad? How about in Sweden, France, India, or Russia? What happens when Muslims control the Indian, UK, French, and Russian nukes? How long anyway before the Ummah figures out how to build, buy or steal nukes?

        What would you do with the Ummah already inside Dar al-Harb? Let them stay, multiply, and amass strength, or would you deport them? Who’d be obliged to take Dar al-Harb citizens? Do you think they’d leave without a fight? What’s your counter-insurgency plan? If we can’t even control and track the 20 Million+ illegals already in the US, how would you control and track Hijrah Muslims on a mission for Allah? Forced Registry? Internment camps? Prison — trading freedom only for Islamic Apostasy?

        Bottom line: Containment won’t work, we can’t stop the hijrah, and diplomacy alone won’t stop their mission for Allah or break their Will to Fight.

        Words and diplomacy alone didn’t even work on our own people in the South. Ultimately, only violence and cruelty could force the CSA to US Will.

        Here’s a quote from General Curtis LeMay, America’s longest serving 4-Star in history; father of Strategic Area Bombing, and later the Commander of USAF Strategic Air Command. He’s the one American credited with the deaths of more people than any other; over 350,000 enemy soldiers and civilians at a minimum:

        “I’ll tell you what war is all about. It’s about killing people. If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting. There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.

        I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that’s been fed to them.

        As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it’s done instantaneously, maybe that’s more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don’t, particularly, so to me there wasn’t much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn’t make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that’s the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.”

        — General Curtis LeMay

        Here’s a quote from our Allied friend, Sir Arthur Harris, Commander of RAF Bomber Command during WWII:

        “The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.
        The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive…should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany.

        … the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.”

        — Sir Arthur Harris

        “You have to do horrible things if you want the war to end.”

        — General Ulysses S. Grant

        “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”

        — General William T. Sherman

        To this day, America still teaches these strategies to all combatant field grade military officers. I’m one of them. This is how wars are won. In this case, losing the war means the loss of our Civilization.

        I don’t know everything and have much to learn myself. Maybe I’m missing a more convenient, tenable, effective forever solution. But I just don’t see it. I never have. I just see the solution I’ve described, which comes from my own military training, war experience, and personal study.

        If you have a solution for the elements and contingencies I’ve descried here, I’d sure like to hear it, for all our sake. Military officers spend their whole lives improving and learning about war-craft. I’m no different, and have a long way to go, and a lot left to learn.

        Stay strong !

        • Chand says

          Nov 2, 2019 at 7:41 am

          Go Daniel go!
          Nuke em! Vape em!
          We want an instant solution now!

        • CogitoErgoSum says

          Nov 2, 2019 at 6:11 pm

          Twenty nuclear explosions, you say? What size bombs would they be in mega-tons? How far would the radiation from all those explosions drift across the Earth? Have you got some cleaner type bombs in your arsenal, Dan, — maybe some that won’t poison half the world? Wars have a way of taking turns you can’t foresee because the enemy is going to make up his own rules as things go along and, in fact, he’s going to break all the rules that already exist. Man, are there even any rules at all when it comes to war? Your idea sounds like Armageddon to me and, yeah, as soon as I posted it I didn’t think you would get the thing about Judas.

          Anyway, would somebody bombing the U.S. make you want to surrender? Doesn’t sound like it to me. It would just strengthen the enemy’s resolve too; not weaken it.

          Maybe the time to make use of nukes was when we were the only ones to have them. When somebody else can use them too, yeah, that scares me. It scares a lot of people. Maybe that’s why nukes haven’t been used against an enemy since WW II.

          Got any other plans, Dan?

        • Daniel Triplett says

          Nov 4, 2019 at 3:19 pm

          CogitoErgoSum

          Nuclear Weapon Numbers:

          Trinity (the first test) = 18–20kt [kiloton]

          Little Boy (Hiroshima) = 12–18kt

          Fat Man (Nagasaki) = 18–23kt

          Total Number of Above Ground Nuke Weapon Tests (all countries) = 521

          Largest Nuke Weapon ever tested Above Ground = Tsar Bomba 50,000kt

          Although most of our weapons are adjustable yield [Dial-a-Death], 200kt is usually enough to achieve the objective. Nuclear ordnance is primarily a psychological weapon. Higher yield weapons don’t necessarily cause proportionally greater fear.

          Hundreds of nuke weapon tests have been performed above ground. The Earth remains unimpaired.

          Hiroshima and Nagasaki were quickly rebuilt. Today they’re thriving metropolises.

          A total of 100 atmospheric (922 underground) nuclear weapon devices have been detonated at the Nevada Test Site, just 30 miles from the nearest town, and 65 miles from Las Vegas.

          We always consider weather and wind patterns when selecting and striking targets. We did for Hiroshima and Nagasaki; we did before then, and we’ve done so ever since.
          Obviously, those who are targeted, along with the Earth to a degree pay a price.

          The bottom line is we have no other choice. A realistic estimate of 20 nuke strikes total, at 200kt each will be required to force Dar al-Islam’s surrender to Allied terms. The planet itself will receive negligible damage.

          So far, a total of 479,103kt of nuclear ordnance has been detonated above ground: Compared to the 4000kt total estimate required to win the war.

          Nuclear weapons are an effective method to frighten the enemy, destroy their vigor/morale, and break their Will to Fight — quickly, with zero Allied casualties.
          No one wants to be near a nuke blast, which is the whole point of the weapon.

          In my view, winning the war will be impossible without including the Strategic Area Bombing operation I’ve described.

          Your plan appears to be surrender, because in your mind fighting our enemies only strengthens their resolve to fight and breaking their Will to Fight is impossible.

          And of course, it’s better to use nukes when we’re the only ones to have them. Have you been paying attention? That’s my whole point – we can either win the war now, while we hold the asymmetric advantage, or we can piss the advantage away and wait for the enemy to begin glassing Kafir cities. If we must use nukes eventually, we’d be wise to use them sooner rather than later.

  10. gravenimage says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 9:55 pm

    What Baghdadi’s Death Tells Us About the Real Terror Threat
    ………………..

    Yes–Turkey is no ally of ours, They should have been kicked out of NATO long since.

    • Infidel says

      Nov 2, 2019 at 11:13 am

      NATO is a demonstration of that old Silicon Valley cliche: if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail.

      NATO is the hammer. Communism was a nail. Islam is glue. You don’t use hammers to attach or remove glue: you use a razor if removal is what’s needed.

      Turkey was a legitimate ally against Communism – that too when it was Kemalist. It’s was never gonna be an ally against Islam – especially under Erdogan

  11. elee says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 9:55 pm

    Well stated as usual Mr Spencer.

  12. Relic says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 11:00 pm

    states

  13. Lydia Church says

    Nov 1, 2019 at 11:34 pm

    Exactly. They think that if one is taken out, the world is a safer place. Well, maybe for five minutes. It is good, but for every one that is taken out, another one pops up. Because the source of these terrorists is the religion called islam. That is the root of the problem. As long as the root is intact, the tree will continue and the branches will grow and the leaves will flourish. It’s good to fight terrorism, yes, of course! But just know, the world will not be free from this as long as islam exists, and all these evils will not go away until after the apocalypse.

  14. Anjuli Pandavar says

    Nov 2, 2019 at 8:02 am

    Another incisive piece of writing by Daniel Greenfield. Thank you.

  15. SamB says

    Nov 3, 2019 at 3:08 am

    While Daniel’s plan seems extreme, there is a context for such thinking. While, the US military budget is under trillion dollars(per year or term?) it is not the lethality of its weapons but the response of its leaders that makes its polity ineffective. From Trump, to Putin, Johnson , Macron, Trudeau , Merckel and others, Islam is not a threat but those that do protest the intrusion on Islam into their domains. If protesters such on this site are Christian, than world leaders see it as a Christian problem not necessarily as the leaderships problem. The mindset of political leaders are the problem and this has to change. Trillions dollars worth of weapons are waiting for an enemy to annihilate but the enemy is in the White House asking education to include Shari’a syllabus to teach Christians, acceptability of FGM, Honor killings, monetary assistance for Hamas, Tehran , Pakistan and even selling F-35 to Turkey.Our leaders are part of them

  16. DDMisra says

    Dec 6, 2019 at 6:49 am

    “We didn’t find Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, but in a compound in a Pakistani military city” sums up the whole thing.

    But who wants to find?

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