I just wanted you to know there is one more 50ish Democratic woman in New England who has ‘turned.’ It is nice to know I am not the only one.

So, we can choose to ignore it and play at diplomacy once again, or we can send the troops back. To arrest the Neo-Taliban and show the Iron Fist.

Is there a third choice? I don’t see it. It is obvious that Afghanistan is not a finished work, but a work in progress.

Another thing I’ve heard is that Islam really needs a Martin Luther – to reform it.

Unfortunately, like Rahman, any would-be Luther would have a short life-span.

It may be the case that Islam is almost by definition un-reformable.

One difference between Islam and Christianity (as it was around the year 1500) is that Christianity had a Pope – a Man at the Top, an Ultimate Authority, and decrees and dogma flowed down from the top.

Islam seems to have only two layers in its org chart: the mullahs on top, and everyone else below.

In one curious way, that’s almost exactly like the early Christian church. It wasn’t until later (maybe 100 – 200 years) that a heirarchy evolved.

But the bottom line is that Islam has no one (or even group of about 200, like the College of Cardinals) to say, “This is what we stand for”.

And so we get, and they are stuck with, chaos.

The question is whether we really are heading for a so-called “clash of civilizations”, which the Islamists, in their vicious delusions, hope to bring about. Their bet is that the Satanic modern world is in fact a hollow and corrupt shell of a culture, weak, guilt-ridden, fearful, and easily manipulable, that will collapse in the face of their own murderous fanaticism.

In that, I think they’re wrong. But I also think two other things: that they’ve been encouraged in their delusions by the obvious pusillanimity of much of the West (e.g., the media and the cartoons); and that that very fearfulness can tip out of control very fast, resulting in a conflagration that no one can see the end of. No problem for Steve, of course, who knows just what he would do if he were President, king, world-ruler, or whatever, but it would be for everyone else, muslim and infidel alike.

I’m not sure the distinction is quite so clear. Once the jew or muslim had accepted baptism he WAS a christian, and for him to practice his former rites was indeed leaving christianity.

And of course in many ways the situation in Spain was worse. For the jews (after 1492) and the muslims (after various dates, but noo later than 1502 anyway), the only choices available were conversion or exile and loss of all property. This is pretty close to Hobson’s choice, and it should have been obvious to anyone that you’d end up with Spanish Conversos and Moriscos who were Christians in name only.

Because the conversions of both muslims and jews were coerced, I think that the idea that the Inquisition wanted to prevent people from insincerely professing to be Catholics is basically wrong. As an instrument of royal power the Inquisition was interested in ensuring the assilimation of both minorities. It didn’t deal with unrepentent jews or muslims, but that’s only because a different part of the bureaucracy would deal with those – in theory stripping them of all their assets and putting them penniless on a ship to anywhere else, and in practice using direct force to baptize them. It was impossible for either converso or morisco to renounce his conversion.

In the context of the 16th century the Afghan laws on apostates are, as is so often asserted, very tolerant. It’s in the context of the 21st century that they are so barabric.

Naive people have a likely chance of readjusting their positions because they have never encountered the opponent’s position before, or never encountered a dangerous/new situation before, but people who have and still stay the course are something different than naive.

Steve there were a couple of times when the USSR & the USA came within a hair of trading nukes & the USSR wasn’t half as fanatical as the Islamists. The Islamists have been letting us know their intentions & so far they have managed to pull off 2 strikes in the US — once with truck bombs & once with airplanes. If they get access to a nuke they will use it. Believe it, Steve.

Let’s take it one piece at a time. Iran. Well, what to do. In the first place, a full scale military assault is not in the cards, because we don’t have the manpower available to take down a country much larger and much better organized than Iraq. Not to mention the fact that there are two rather largish nuclear powers, Russia and China, who may not want us to do it. OK.

A full scale military assault would not be necessary. One sub sitting off the Gulf would do the trick. In a second Iran could be rendered a nation of goat herders for the next fifty years.

Iran’s nuclear capability. If I were president, I’d have intelligence on what was going on. If things got to critical mass — not as reported in Op Ed pieces or on blogs but on the basis of RELIABLE intel, I’d send in the equivalent of Delta forces and air strikes to neutralize this capability. Mind you, I don’t think that’s what will HAPPEN, but that’s what I’d do. (I predict that nothing will happen.)

Air strikes with stealth bombers would do as well.

Shadowy terrorist networks that might get safe nukes from North Korea — OK, where are these groups? Afghanistan? Iran? Locate. Isolate. Destroy. Are we doing that? I don’t know. Should we be doing that? I think so.

Steve, are you forgetting about the recent strike in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda at a celebratory dinner party? When the US locates al Qaeda, the US strikes.

North Korea? Why aren’t we isolating and destroying their nuclear capability? Why aren’t we isolating, rather than encouraging, nuclear weapons development in India? Why aren’t we going after Al Qaeda in Pakistan? I don’t know. That’s what I would do. And I would galvanize the American people to accomplish that mission.

Steve, if the US locates al Qaeda in Pakistan, the US goes after them. As for North Korea, if North Korea continues on its present path some such fate as contemplated just might await them.

If we can keep track of Nyquil used to make meth, and fertilizer used to make truck bombs, then we should be able to keep track of nuclear precursors. That’s all that is required in the first place.

Our porous borders: you know, we could actually fix that, and fix our porous ports too. Why don’t we? Lack of national will, and that starts at the top of the chain of command.

Steve, smuggling has been going on since there were such things as borders. I don’t think it is possible to seal the borders & ports without taking extremely expensive & draconian steps. That’s why the US hasn’t already implemented such means to stop the drugs.

I am going to assume that someone will take credit. After all, Al Qaeda took credit for 9/11, along with (NB) a list of demands. People who want to kill people because they think it is their holy duty to merely kill people do not make demands. So that undercuts the initial premise.

But leaving that aside. If the perpetrators identify themselves, you know we will nuke in response. If they do not identify themselves, you know we will identify the source and nuke in response. That’s a given.

I don’t see how you think the US would identify the source. Do you think the offending state would announce their guilt? Of course, the terrorist group would be bragging on al Jazeera & the rest of the media but I am sure the offending state would be silent. Steve, sometimes you are so naé¯ve that you take my breath away.

OK, so one American city is gone, and we retaliate. But that’s not all we would do. We would freeze our borders, and you can bet, that, although it is unpleasant to say this, you would probably have a lot of vigilante justice meted out on anyone who even looks Muslim in this country. The nation would be mobilized, and we would engage in full blown ops against all terrorist cells and countries hosting them. Not the same as regime change: in, locate-isolate-destroy, and out.

Steve, you seem to think it is easy to locate terrorist groups. But I am really intrigued that you seem to be saying that in such an eventuality you would leave the offending regimes in place! Whew! Let me catch my breath.

Now let’s suppose the originator of the first nuke was Korea (as Wretchard seemed to think). Well, we’d nuke North Korea.
Let’s suppose it was Iran. Well, we’d nuke Iran. Frankly, I don’t know what part of Iran we’d nuke, but if it came from there, we’d do it. And they know it.

But all the above presupposes the offending country would confess. Naivete, thy name is Steve. Steve, the only alternative for a POTUS after a nuke in America would be to nuke the likely suspects, innocent as well as guilty, since the POTUS would not know the source of nuke.

Wretchard has this idea that if terrorists get nukes, Islam will be destroyed. That isn’t going to happen. I see no reason why we would nuke any of the Moslem states in South Asia, or Africa. In the ME, I think it’s doubtful that we would nuke any Muslim country there, with the possible exception of Iran. Iran is not Islam, and to equate the destruction of Iran (IF) with the destruction of Islam is hysterical hyperbole, in my humble opinion, of course.

What states the US would nuke after being nuked by their proxies(the terrorists) would depend on intelligence & maybe on what type of pronouncements had been coming from their leaders. In such a horrific scenario inflammatory, hate-filled speech might not be a good thing in terms of regime survivability.

My scenario is a little different than Wretchard’s. I don’t think it would be possible to eliminate all of Islam, nor do I think it necessary to do so. After US retaliation I believe a much chastened & subdued Islam would emerge — perhaps even an Islam that could undergo a reformation away from Jihad. But one nuke in an American city would unleash retaliation that would make Nagasaki & Hiroshima seem trivial. This would happen precisely because there would be no way to figure out which state was actually guilty. There really would not be much else that a POTUS could do except eliminate the likely suspects, since the POTUS would not know who gave the nuke to the terrorists. If it happened today I believe Iran & Syria would immediately be struck by tactical nukes from the US submarine fleet. Pakistan & North Korea might also be put out of commission, depending on what US intelligence had on them & how cautious the POTUS might be. Better safe than sorry might make perfect sense in such an eventuality.

The paradox is that if the world lets Iran develop nukes it might mean far more deaths in the end than if Iran can be prevented from going nuclear. Some may believe that if Iran can manage to develop a WMD that Iran would then become somehow invulnerable — that nuclear capability would be a free pass to do whatever they wanted to do. But even after development & testing I feel sure the US could still neutralize their nuclear capability. Another paradox is that while a terrorist like bin Laden can hide from the US’s technologically advanced weaponry it is much more difficult to conceal the physical plant needed for a nuclear weapon system. Then they’re playing our game.