[quote]doogie wrote:
hspder wrote:
I am perfectly aware that is a monstrous task (in all senses of the word) and very much akin to the Final Solution – and it is exactly because it such a horrible option – one that I honestly would think nobody in their right mind is REALLY considering – that I agree with the root of vroom’s approach to the problem, and that I believe that war is far from a solution in itself, unless you are willing to accept the option of genocide.
I don’t think we can ever change the hearts and minds of the followers of “radical Islam.” There will always be a large percentage of Muslims who want to exterminate the Jewish people, no matter how educated they become.
Short of genocide, the only solution I can see lies in the West finding the will to make life so miserable for people in the countries where terrorists are allowed to operate or which fund terrorism (including Saudi Arabia) that these small scale terrorist activities (suicide bombings, IEDs, random rocket attacks) end.
That means everyone in those countries is our enemy until the terrorism stops. No trying to win “hearts and minds.” I’m talking about the modern equivalent of Sherman’s March to the Sea or the bombing of Dresden. No long term occupation beyond the oil fields, just destruction each and every time an act of terrorism occurs.
It would be brutal, but it’s the only way I see this crap ending. Eventually, technology would allow some tiny group of wackos to develop a nuke under our noses and things would get even worse. However we could delay that for decades if we were willing to keep them in the stone age.[/quote]
I agree somewhat. However, you are still looking at this in terms of conventional warfare.
Sherman’s March to the Sea was important because not only did it destroy the rail/industrial center of the South, but it cut communications and divided the South into thirds.
There is no such thing with these terrorists. They have no industry, they live in shit, their lines of communication cannot feasibly be cut, and they blend back into the population.
Fighting them with a conventional army turns into another Vietnam, where they trade space for time and fight an incredibly expensive (for us) war of attrition.
It’s hard for me to say what will fix it. They are a thousand years behind America in all aspects- therefore, trying to force democracy on them is ridiculous. It’s not what they are used to, and it’s not what they will respond too. In America or Britain, capitalism took over at the same time that the ideas of democracy were developing, and great philosophers like Rousseau and Paine and Locke were writing their treatises.
There has been none of that in the Muslim world; thought is stifled in favor of religion.
However, we can’t forget that once Europe was like this, and it took years to come out of it. Their were certainly radical sects of Christianity (still are, of course) that wanted to kill the Jews, there was the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the burning of scientists at the stake, and the acquisence of the Church with Hitler in the '40s.
What’s brought Europe out of the Church’s dominace is the vein of Social Democracy that they have, and America is getting away from religion because our lives are comfortable enough to where we don’t need it so much to comfort us with hopes of an afterlife.
People grasp religion when they are living in shit, like Ireland in the last millenium or the Muslims now. And just as the Catholic Church no longer dominates Ireland because of the economy that is far better, when the Muslim standard of living gets better because of Western ideals, Islam will dominate far less.
Of course, who knows how long this could take.
Just my thoughts.