"I don’t really want to derail the thread with an in depth discussion of grand strategy but suffice to say I don’t think the war can be ended in any other way than how I have described. If imposing unconditional surrender is beyond our capabilities then we will lose the war because they will never give up otherwise. "
That would be worthy of a thread of its own SM.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Oh, I see. When you said “demand for surrender”, what you really meant was “extermination”.
[/quote]
Did Churchill mean “exterminate” when he demanded unconditional surrender? No he didn’t. In fact his maxim was:
“In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.”
Despite the atrocities of the Japanese in WWII, I bear Japanese people no ill will whatsoever. In fact I admire a great deal about their culture. I look forward to a time when I can say the same of the Muslim world.
[/quote]
Churchill at least had an idea of from whom he might demand unconditional surrender. And indeed, after Hitler’s suicide the Nazi war machine ran out of steam.
As for the Japanese, yeah, they were atrocious bastards in the Pacific. The Taliban, Boko Haram and Al Qaeda have got nothing on the Japanese Imperial Army in terms of rape, murder and beheading of prisoners and civilians. And when the going got rough, even though they were supposedly resolved to fight off the invading barbarians down to the last elementary school student with a sharpened bamboo pike in hand, once the Emeror said it was okay to stop being belligerent, they turned as docile as lambs.
This is an important point: It wasn’t “total war” that did it. It wasn’t the firebombing of Tokyo, the destruction of the fleet, not even the incineration of two cities by atomic bombs. It was a skinny little gray-haired guy in the Imperial Palace getting on the radio saying, “okay, the war is over: we can stop fighting now.”
The Muslim world hasn’t been unified since the dissolution of the Osmanli Khalifate. While keeping them all fragmented has had certain advantages (the prospect of a global Muslim empire with most of the oil, nuclear weapons, and a population of three billion scares the piss out of Russians, Chinese, Europeans and Americans alike…but perhaps not Australians: those bastards aren’t afraid of anything), looking only at Iraq as an example, we see how having a brutal dictator in charge can be beneficial: say what you will about Saddam: he kept the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Ba’athists and the Kurds, all of whom bitterly hate each other, under control. Something the United States found somewhat difficult to accomplish once he was dangling from a rope.
If only there was a Caliph. Sure, he’d be a murderous bastard, just like Saddam was a murderous bastard. But if, like Saddam was at one time, he was our murderous bastard, then we’d have no trouble with terrorism. The Caliph would be able to do what the Japanese Emperor did in 1945, and what no Muslim leader has had the power to do since Mehmet VI: let the people know–all three billion of them-- that the Jihad is over.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
I disagree. Religious terrorists seek to rectify what they see as the pervasive influence the West has upon the Islamic world, a hopeless dream that would effectively mean reversing the tide of globalization. It does not equal the nationalistic der Wille zur Macht of the Axis powers.
[/quote]
Hitler’s goal of lebensraum is analogous to the Islamic fundamentalists’ goal of a global caliphate. Just as the Nazi’s sought conflict and conquest wherever they could so too do the Islamic fundamentalists. The ancients’ ideal of conquest was rooted in personal and to a lesser extent national glory. The Islamic and Nazi ideal of conquest is rooted in a utopian concept of one world government; the one based on racial superiority, the other on theocratic.
[quote]
Also, I thought you disdained Nietzsche? [/quote]
I do. I was using the term in reference to the Nazi adoption of the term.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Churchill at least had an idea of from whom he might demand unconditional surrender. And indeed, after Hitler’s suicide the Nazi war machine ran out of steam.
[/quote]
That’s true. But had Hitler died before the end of the war he would’ve been replaced by another leading Nazi or the General Staff and the war would’ve continued. It was the utter destruction of the German military, industrial and civilian infrastructure that was the principle factor.
And it was the course of the war and the atomic bomb that caused the Emperor to surrender.
That would be ideal but the Islamists want a confrontation with the West and see leaders who avoid confrontation like the house of Saud as traitors.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Hitler’s goal of lebensraum is analogous to the Islamic fundamentalists’ goal of a global caliphate. Just as the Nazi’s sought conflict and conquest wherever they could so too do the Islamic fundamentalists. The ancients’ ideal of conquest was rooted in personal and to a lesser extent national glory. The Islamic and Nazi ideal of conquest is rooted in a utopian concept of one world government; the one based on racial superiority, the other on theocratic.
[/quote]
I dunno. Alexander was all about Lebensraum: carving out living space for the crowded Greek middle classes, under the banner of spreading Greek culture and civilization. Hitler had more in common with Alexander than with bin Laden.
I would recommend reading UBL’s 1996 and 1998 Fatwas, respectively.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military-july-dec96-fatwa_1996/
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm
[quote]Bismark wrote:
I would recommend reading UBL’s 1996 and 1998 Fatwas, respectively.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military-july-dec96-fatwa_1996/
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm[/quote]
I’ve read them before. I suggest you read the most important and influential work amongst Salafists: Sayyid Qutb’s Signposts on the Road.
The community may start in the “homeland of Islam” but this is by no means “the ultimate objective of the Islamic movement of Jihad.” (p. 72) Jihad must not merely be defensive, it must be offensive, (p. 62) and its objective must be to carry Islam “throughout the earth to the whole of mankind.” (p. 72)
Obama administration supplying Stinger missiles to the Taliban. Chinook recently shot down by Taliban with Stinger missile provided by US to Qatar then given to the Taliban:
"…the Stinger fired against the Chinook was part of the same lot the CIA turned over to the Qataris in early 2011, weapons Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department intended for anti-Khadafy forces in Libya.
They believe the Qataris delivered between 50 and 60 of those same Stingers to the Taliban in early 2012, and an additional 200 SA-24 Igla-S surface-to-air missiles.
Qatar now is expected to hold five Taliban commanders released from Guantanamo for a year before allowing them to go to Afghanistan.
But if we can?t trust the Qataris not to give our weapons to the Taliban, how can we trust them with this?"
"Desperate to empty the Guantanamo Bay prison by the end of his term, Obama quietly is giving “get out of jail free” cards for the flimsiest of excuses.
One al Qaeda suspect captured in Afghanistan is considered reformed because he took up yoga and read a biography of the Dalai Lama. Another is eligible for release because of his “positive attitude.”
SexMachine, your take on the war on the terror and the strategies we should be employing is so far off-base as to be comical. You completely misunderstand the nature of the enemy, which is a critical mistake, as General Maxwell Taylor can attest to.
Fundamental Islamists are motivated by ideology, by a mindset. You don’t kill a mindset with guns and bombs and missiles. Muslims don’t give a shit how many of their own have been killed by other Muslims when they’re being bombed into the Stone Age by the U.S. Americans kill more Americans every year than anyone else killing Americans out there. Are we not justified in getting pissed off when some wackos from halfway around the world start crashing jets into our buildings?
I didn’t have time to read any of this thread but I take it we all unanimously agree we traded 5 terrorist to get back one deserter turned sleeper agent who is sure to blow up some federal building within the next decade?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
SexMachine, your take on the war on the terror and the strategies we should be employing is so far off-base as to be comical. You completely misunderstand the nature of the enemy, which is a critical mistake, as General Maxwell Taylor can attest to.
Fundamental Islamists are motivated by ideology, by a mindset. You don’t kill a mindset with guns and bombs and missiles.
[/quote]
Pithy one liners don’t have universal application. You cannot negotiate a peace settlement with fanatics who are willing - nay eager - to die in the furtherance of their cause. And you certainly can’t negotiate a peace settlement with every one of them from South East Asia to the Balkans.
Islamic fundamentalists place no value on human life and couldn’t care less about civilian deaths whoever causes them.
A ridiculous analogy for many reasons. Not least of which the US never launched an unprovoked attack on civilians and Islamic fundamentalists don’t think the way normal people do. I find it amazing that people have so little understanding of human nature. I guess that’s why so many people are taken in by grifters.
SM:
One, I never said anything about negotiating with terrorists, so I don’t know why you would throw that in there. Actually, I do know why. It’s because your argument is benign and you must add things to my argument so that you have some sort of weakness to attack, the sign of a Sophist of the most despicable nature.
I don’t know why you believe that negotiations with a side willing to die for their cause is impossible. Every single one of the enemies that we have fought have been fanatics who were willing to die for their cause. I would argue that the same applies to all of our soldiers. They are fanatics for freedom and liberty and are willing to die for that. The Japanese, Germans, and Italians were all fanatical to varying degrees and were willing to die. We have certainly engaged in negotiations with an enemy that used suicide bombers (kamikazes in WWII) as a means of attack.
Now, we had soundly defeated these enemies before forcing them to the negotiating table, which was a one-way street for obvious reasons. But how do you soundly defeat the current enemy? What does that entail? It entails defeating a mindset. It entails ending all reasons for young Arabic men to take up arms against this country. It doesn’t involve anything as simplistic as what went on at the end of WWII.
If you had even the faintest inkling of man’s true nature, you would understand that this is an objective that isn’t necessarily fought with armies and tanks and jets and so forth.
Your assessment of Islamic fundamentalists’ value on life is laughable. Do you know all Islamists? Are you aware of what motivates all of them? Many of them are indeed motivated by what they feel is an unjust loss of life. You may hate Obama, but you’ll rage even harder against a foreign army trying to take your freedoms than you would against the Obama administration. That’s how humans operate. It’s one thing to be under the thumb of your own leaders; it’s another entirely for a foreign entity to be telling you what to do.
You may think that my analogy was ridiculous, but you would be wrong. Do you really think that Islamists look at their children’s mutilated bodies after another drone strike that killed three al Qaeda operatives and the six civilians who happened to be across the street and then decide that they had it coming, therefore they have no reason to feel genuine remorse? What are you saying, that we have the right or the justification to feel angry at the loss of innocent American lives, but that they don’t have the same right to look at the loss of civilian life at American hands in the same manner Who doesn’t understand human nature now, big boy?
And I laugh at your pathetic claim that the U.S. has never attacked civilians unprovoked. My Lai? What about the attack on civilians and their democratically-elected PM, Mossadegh, in Iran in the early years of the Cold War? And what is unprovoked? Who gets to decide what is provocation and what is not? You do realize that we have been meddling in the affairs of the ME for more than a century now, right? Yeah, the same nation that ostensibly stands for self-autonomy and self-determination has a long history of doing the exact opposite when it comes to every other country around the world. So don’t sell me the hooker with the heart of gold, pal. We aren’t exactly perfect ourselves, and until we realize that maybe not everybody wants to hear someone with toilet paper stuck to their shoes tell everyone else how to wipe their asses, we are going to continue to have problems.
“Although many governments say that they will not negotiate with terrorists, in practice they often do. And their rhetoric has prevented the systematic analysis of how to do so best. The goal should be to buttress moderates among the terrorists without strengthening hard-liners – by promising legitimate political involvement, but only if the terrorists eschew violence and accept democratic principles.”
http://m.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62276/peter-r-neumann/negotiating-with-terrorists
You bore me Coop. I’ve been through this gibberish a thousand times with other Paultards over the years. (Sigh…) Okay, one more time for the dummies:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
SM:
One, I never said anything about negotiating with terrorists, so I don’t know why you would throw that in there. Actually, I do know why. It’s because your argument is benign and you must add things to my argument so that you have some sort of weakness to attack, the sign of a Sophist of the most despicable nature.
[/quote]
I made the assumption that you were advocated a negotiated peace. Peace without negotiations? Okay. I’m not sure which is crazier but anyway…
That was my whole point. We waged total war on the Japanese and Nazis and demanded unconditional surrender. That’s not “negotiating.” We threw the Japs a bone and allowed them to keep their Emperor as a figurehead because we knew they were so fucking nuts that they’d prefer to be annihilated than have him step down.
Take a look at how Saddam or the House of Saud keep the crazies under control. If they realise that you’re strong and resolved to annihilate them they won’t be so eager to fight.
Right…and as I stated the reason they take up arms has nothing to do with big, bad Uncle Sam’s behaviour and everything to do with a radical ideology of world domination and theocracy.
Well it’s certainly not fought with unilateral disengagement and appeasement.
Well I’m the one who has spent years studying their ideology and I’m the one familiar with the texts that have inspired them. I’ve never seen a Paulestinian quoting Sayyid Qutb or talking about the history if the Brotherhood.
No they’re not. That’s what they claim in their psychological warfare propaganda just like the Nazis claimed they were motivated to invade the Sudetenland and Poland based on non-existent atrocities against Germans. People motivated by unjust killings of their compatriots don’t have to fake atrocities like Pallywood producers/actors do and like the Germans did at the Gleiwitz radio station. Understand?
Context…it’s important. Flying commercial airliners into skyscrapers or sending a child strapped with HE, ball bearings and rat poison onto a bus is not the same as accidentally killing civilians in the targeted killing of one of the people who organise these atrocities.
A few days ago on June 6 the French dropped a million rose petals on the Statue of Liberty to say thanks for the Americans who sacrificed themselves to liberate occupied France. US bombers killed tens of thousands of French civilians during the war. It did not motivate more people to become Vichy collaborators.
Obviously I was talking about the Muslim world prior to 911. What the fuck does My Lai have to do with anything? Oh right, nothing.
As I’ve stated before the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran hated and despised Mossadegh. You see the IslamoNazis didn’t want a “democratically elected” secular leader. Surprise, surprise. In fact the Ayatollah forbid any demonstrations about Mossadegh and said that if the CIA hadn’t removed him they(Islamists) would have. But historical revisionism is part and parcel of the Paultard world view where we “provoked” the IslamoNazis who would otherwise be peace loving Sufis meditating on the meaning of life if it wasn’t for the “meddling” of Uncle Sam.
Oh yes, 911 was our fault. We provoked the IslamoNazis. Funny how every single country on earth is somehow provoking these guys. And it’s so rational too isn’t it? America helps the Mujahideen defeat the Soviets but then “provoked” them by having a military base in Saudi Arabia(largely for the purpose of protecting them from Saddam.) How could anyone stand a provocation like that? The only logical response would be to kill commercial pilots with box cutters and fly their planes into skyscrapers killing thousands of civilians. After all, the US civilians “provoked” Muslims by voting for a government that accepted the Saudi’s invitation to set up a military base there. You’d do the same thing in their position. Jesus Christ, how can you swallow this batshit? It’s a fucking pretext for waging genocidal war against infidels! Don’t you understand that? No, you don’t do you? Carry on…
[quote]
Yeah, the same nation that ostensibly stands for self-autonomy and self-determination has a long history of doing the exact opposite when it comes to every other country around the world. So don’t sell me the hooker with the heart of gold, pal. We aren’t exactly perfect ourselves, and until we realize that maybe not everybody wants to hear someone with toilet paper stuck to their shoes tell everyone else how to wipe their asses, we are going to continue to have problems. [/quote]
Charming analogy as always. Here’s a thought: when you’ve studied the history of modern Islamic fundamentalism and their ideological texts, many of which were written prior to the Iranian coup and prior to the modern state of Israel, come back. Until then you have no credibility. You’re merely an historical revisionist.
Foreign Policy Experts, Military Leaders Underscore Necessity Of Negotiations With Taliban
[quote]Bismark wrote:
Foreign Policy Experts, Military Leaders Underscore Necessity Of Negotiations With Taliban
MediaMatters? Lmao! You do realise it’s a literal front group for the Democrat Party right? I don’t mean in the sense that MSNBC or The New York Times is a liberal mouth piece. I mean it’s literally an organ of the Democrat Party funded entirely by major Dem donors like George Soros. They also fraudulently claim 501 status allowing them to avoid paying any taxes.
Bergdahl refusing to speak to his family.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
Foreign Policy Experts, Military Leaders Underscore Necessity Of Negotiations With Taliban
MediaMatters? Lmao! You do realise it’s a literal front group for the Democrat Party right? I don’t mean in the sense that MSNBC or The New York Times is a liberal mouth piece. I mean it’s literally an organ of the Democrat Party funded entirely by major Dem donors like George Soros. They also fraudulently claim 501 status allowing them to avoid paying any taxes.[/quote]
Doesn’t change the verified and verbatim quotes from former Bush officials and prominent military leaders. The US does in fact negotiate with terrorists, which is not a new development.
It’s the quality of negotiation that is unnerving.
Giving up 5 senior level officials for one Gomer Pile is hardly negotiating, this is not the first screw up by Obama, and probably not the last. Had Obama given up one Taliban, it would be more easy to stomach. The Taliban got the first 5 picks in the NFL draft, we ended up with the guy who washes jock straps and smelly socks.
If you think these released Taliban are going to stay on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune for the remainder of their lives, I have a ticket on the High Speed Rail for you.