I’m all in favor of a less Islamic world. And, it certainly was a waste of blood and treasure.

“But, IMO we made a big mistake in Afghanistan. We knocked down (but not out) the government that sheltered and assisted al qaeda. Then we prattled on about winning hearts and minds and fumbled around setting up elections.”

I remember Ann Coulter saying on 9/12: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” The first part was done right way. The second, directly or not, sometime afterward. But the third suggestion was drowned out before even a single American soldier left for Afghanistan. When Bush apologized for his phrase, “This crusade…”, it was all over.

I have no particular dog in this suggestion… being Jewish, the option of converting the enemy to my religion is out for me (yet another reason why mass expulsion is my forte), and anyway, for “convert them to Christianity” you could substitute something else. The point is, the American occupation force both in Afghanistan and Iraq approved of new constitutions where Islam is stated to be the basis of law. As far as apostates from Islam are concerned, living in U.S.-ruled Afghanistan or Iraq (or Western Europe, for that matter!) is no different from living in Saudi Arabia or Iran. For all the Leftists’ accusation of American imperialism, the fact is America has exhibited too little of it.

Ultimately, it all comes back to the aftermath of 9/11, to the failure to set the correct goal: A less Islamic world. Once Bush declared Islam a religion of peace, any bystander could tell you it was over. What a waste of troops and material!

“No 7th century culture can long withstand exposure to the modern world. Should the West survive, I give Islam no more than another 20 yrs before it starts an irreversible decline.”

Their culture may be 7th-century, but as Mark Steyn has noted in America Alone (specifically in the chapter “The State-Of-The-Art Primitive”), they have no problem adopting modern inventions (weaponry, but also litigation, lawfare) in order to deal blows to the West. And they have modern allies all too willing to teach them how it’s done (yes, I’m talking about the Marxists).

“Deporting all Muslims isn’t going to happen but even were it to happen, it would not sufficiently address the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack.”

Maybe not for America, but I’m pretty sure Israel is going to deport all Muslims at some stage. For one thing, because that option is already primed as acceptable by virtue of being encoded in Jewish Law. (Hence also my fixation on it.)

But to your point about a nuclear terrorist attack. It’s a recurrent theme by the commenters on Gates of Vienna that such an attack (God forbid) would be answered by a retaliation in kind, probably on a Muslim holy site as you say. I’m skeptical: A nuclear terrorist attack would differ in quantity certainly, but not in quality, from 9/11. If 9/11 has been shrugged off by the usual suspects (right-wing pragmatists as well as Marxist fifth-columnists) as cause-based (“Blowback” etc.), what’s to prevent a nuclear attack from being explained away just the same? I’m of the opinion the Danish Cartoon Riots woke up far more people than did 9/11, because those riots were much harder to explain away politically than the latter.

I said invading the Muslim heartlands was premature, not that it was totally unwarranted. In fact, I think all the victims of Islam would be justified in invading all oil-rich Islamic countries for the purpose of confiscating their oil, which they use to bankroll the worldwide jihad. Their use of their oil to fund Islamic imperialism constitutes an act of war, therefore it is legal to confiscate it. Without their petrodollars, the jihadists have no leg to stand on. It might even prevent the development of nuclear weapons by Muslim states if not left too late.

I agree radical Islam is a collection of organizations that do not directly represent a nation state. The jihadists do not wear uniforms or conduct war within what we recognize as the rules of war. However, there are nation states that use these organizations to conduct their war against the West. Iran is an obvious example as is Syria. The Saudi regime has been and probably remains a major source of funds for these organizations (in their case it may largely be a matter of funding the radicals and telling them to go kill infidels so their own home grown radicals do not overthrow the House of Saud). I would guess the Egyptian government has placated the MB by giving them funds.

I’m not a crazy person who wants to start bombing every site that is holy to Muslims or the capitals of every Islamic nation. But, IMO we made a big mistake in Afghanistan. We knocked down (but not out) the government that sheltered and assisted al qaeda. Then we prattled on about winning hearts and minds and fumbled around setting up elections. The whole counter insurgency warfare talking points.

Now, like Nam, we have gotten ourselves into a true quagmire. We should have placed the entire country under martial law and told them what sort of administrative system of government they would be allowed to have and who would be allowed to run it. We should have told them this is the structure of civil laws you will live by and sharia is not allowed to be a part of the legal system. (Also, we should have told the farmers if you want to grow poppies you have to sell the opium to us.)

We did the same thing in Iraq and it will not end up as a stable nation friendly or at least neutral to the West after we leave. Again, we should have told them exactly what sort of legal system they will allowed to have and that sharia can never be part of that system.

Maybe all of my opinions are why I’ll never be the secretary of state or defense. 😉

I don’t want to nuke Mecca. I want to convince the radical Islamics that we will do so, if they nuke us. Convincing them will require demonstrating a willingness to destroy Islamic holy sites because they’re sure to test us. I would start small & work toward the most important. I don’t think we’d ever get to Mecca before they capitulated.

One of my premises is that much of the animosity of the Islamic world against the West is driven by a subconscious perception that the exposure of Islamic cultures to the modernity of the Western cultures will be fatal for them. I agree. In that context, time is on our side. No 7th century culture can long withstand exposure to the modern world. Should the West survive, I give Islam no more than another 20 yrs before it starts an irreversible decline.

By far the greatest danger to the West is the threat that WMD’s pose to our cities. Neutralizing that threat has to be our highest priority. How to do so?

I’m open to suggestions but have yet to see another proposal for a strategy to neutralize the terrorist nuclear threat based in anything beyond wishful thinking, or simple denial of the threat.

Pragmatically, our current ‘Homeland Security’ is inadequate and ‘beefing-up’ our security measures is economically impractical, so its essentially based upon wishful thinking. We’re reduced to hoping that a real life ‘Jack Bauer’ will save us…

Deporting all Muslims isn’t going to happen but even were it to happen, it would not sufficiently address the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack.

Bush’s overseas adventures failed to address a central component of Islamic terrorism, one known for a long time; “Rogue states never turn out to be quite the pariahs they are deemed. They are only able to cause, or at least threaten to cause, mayhem because they enjoy the covert support – usually by means of technology transfers – of one or more major powers within the charmed circle of global ‘good guys’.” — Margaret Thatcher

Those major players include Russia, China and large parts of Europe…unfortunately, deporting American Muslims won’t address that factor.

Which is not to imply that domestic concerns such as CAIR, ‘moderate’ Muslims silence, Islamic intrusions into American financial, governmental and educational spheres are not crucially in need of being addressed, so I take your point.

I’m not sure about the efficacy of nuking Mecca. Judaism survived the destruction of the Temple; Islam may or may not turn out the same. I’m with you all the way about targeting the religious leaders, though. It’s similar to my own proposed strategy (in the context of the war against Marxism) of clamping down on the MSM outlets in order to neutralize their sedition.

However, my larger point is that all this taking of the war to the outside, which began with Bush’s misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, is premature. To fight them “over there” when they’re already here is foolish to the extreme. The non-Muslim world could have saved itself a lot of grief if it were to just exercise the principle of survival, of self-defense, and deport all the Muslims for being an imperialist invasion army. The fish to fry at home are bigger than those abroad; taking the war abroad was an inversion of priorities.

A Churchill would be splendid where you have an ideology tied to a geographic base. …But what about an ideology that isn’t tied to geography or to a particular nationality? …No, Churchill wouldn’t be good enough. Good enough would be only a leader who is so “raaaaacist” as to make Leftists’ head explode. …but until then, things will go on as they have for decades, with cluelessness and appeasement of evil under the mantle of “pragmatism,” and even the best of the age being forced to comply with the dogmas of our age once they attain office (”Islam is a religion of peace,” to name just one).” ziontruth

Your last point, addresses the premise, that prevents an effective response against Islamic radicalism. Islam is not a religion of peace, never has been and most importantly, can never be one simply because it cannot allow reform and theologically remain Islam.

Understanding The Theological Nature of Islam is critical to a reasoned, intellectual acceptance of the truth about Islam.

Once that understanding is gained, the pragmatic question of the appropriate response by the West to radical Islam remains but a mind free of the ‘dogma of the age’ can ascertain strategies that dogmatic minds cannot entertain.

You rightly point out the central strategic consideration and challenge when confronting radical Islam, an ideology (seemingly) not tied to a geographic position. For how do you make war upon a religion?

Examining ones presumptions a little deeper however reveals an obvious but critical point; Muslims are people, Islam is an ideology, they are not the same in one important respect. Muslims are not tied to a particular geographical location… Islam however is quite another matter.

Mecca, Medina, The Dome of the Rock, etc. are most definite in location.

A strategy that holds radical Islam hostage to their good behavior by targeting Islam’s holy sites and the mullah’s and Imam’s is a tactic that would directly make war upon Islam without making war upon Muslims in general.

Credibly threatening to nuke the sites and assassinate the Imam’s and Mullah’s would be a game changer.

A US policy, that boldly stated that any use of WMD’s against the West, by any group, would immediately result in a glass parking lot where Mecca used to be, would fully engage radical Islam’s attention.

Radical Islamics value one thing above all else; Islam.

The most devout and therefore radical of Muslims are the Imam’s and Mullah’s. Islam’s holy sites are of inestimable value to them and my analysis (see The Realities Israel Must Accept) leads me to believe that the Imam’s and Mullah’s societal power rests inordinately upon these sites.

If it’s true that much of their power rests upon those symbolic foundations, they will not lightly risk their destruction.

Ironically, it was Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini who inadvertently pointed the way; “Those who oppose the mullahs oppose Islam itself; eliminate the mullahs and Islam shall disappear in fifty years. It is only the mullahs who can bring the people into the streets and make them die for Islam– begging to have their blood shed for Islam.” -Ayatollah Khomeini

We need a game changer, without it we’ll be facing a nuclear armed, Iranian led ‘alliance’ (Caliphate) of religious millennial fanatics within 5 to 10 yrs and will lose one or more American cities to a terrorist nuclear attack within 5-15 yrs.

“… those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God’s law].

There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” Ayatollah Khomeini, 1942

This i have seen
I could not believe it unless i had seen it through and through.
For several weeks i lived with it;
i went all about it and back of it;
inside and out of it was shown to me — until finally i came to realize that the incredible was true.
It is monstrous, it is unthinkable, but it exists.
it is the Prussian system…

Lettish – the official language of Latvia;

his was, presumably, a bunch of wandering troops from one or another of the little ethnic groups caught up in the war—this time from the Baltic—and the ensuring fighting around the edges of western Europe.

sorry… that is WRONG… period

the first important Soviet armed force was made up of Lettish sharpshooters

read

The History of the Russian Revolution
Volume Two: The Attempted Counter-Revolution
by Trotsky, focus on chapter 31 “Kerensky’s Plot”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/ch31.htm

“Our troops have carried out the tasks allotted to them in the region of the breach honorably and irreproachably, but they are not in a condition long to sustain the attack of the enemy, and are retreating slowly, a step at a time, suffering enormous losses. I consider it necessary to mention the extraordinary valor of the Lettish sharpshooters, the remnant of whom, in spite of complete exhaustion, has been sent again into the battle

“The spirit of the soldiers was astonishing. According to the testimony of members of the committee and officers, their staunchness was something never before seen.” Menshevik Kuchin

“In the center of the point of attack was a Lettish brigade consisting almost exclusively of Bolsheviks … Receiving orders to advance, the brigade went forward with red banners and bands playing and fought with extraordinary courage.”

“Even in the army headquarters which contained people notoriously ready to lay the blame upon the soldiers, they could not tell me one single concrete instance of non-fulfilment, not only of fighting orders, but of any orders whatever.” Stankevich

and here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Riflemen_Soviet_Divisions

and better info here
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Riflemen

After the occupation of Latvia in June 1940 the annihilation of the Latvian army began.

As i said. some have experience as to what happens to their military once another takes power.

the latvians had a special place in soviet history, until stalin decided that they were traitors, then murdered them.

so after these men secured the soviet union for lenin…

In 1917, a large number of Latvian riflemen sided with the Bolsheviks. They became known as Red Latvian Riflemen (Latvian: Latviešu sarkanie strēlnieki, Russian: красные латышские стрелки) and actively participated in the Russian Civil War. The Riflemen took an active part in the suppression of anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Moscow and Yaroslavl in 1918. They fought against Denikin, Yudenich, and Wrangel. In 1919 the division received the highest military recognition of that time: the Honorable Red Flag of VTsIK. Jukums Vācietis, formerly a colonel in the Latvian Rifles became the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army.

sounds like rag tag nothings eh?

you think that because stalin had a change of mind, just as we label fascists based on stalins missives too.

The Latvian Red Riflemen were instrumental in the attempt to establish Soviet rule in Latvia in 1919. They suffered great losses of personnel due to the decreasing popularity of Bolshevik ideas among the Latvian Riflemen and Latvians generally, and the majority were re-deployed to other fronts of the Russian Civil War. The remaining forces of the Red Army in Latvia were defeated by Baltic German volunteers and newly formed Latvian units initially under Colonel Kalpaks and later under Colonel Jānis Balodis,loyal to the Latvian Republic in western Latvia, by the Estonian Army and allied Latvian forces in northern Latvia, and finally by a joint campaign of the Polish and new Latvian army in Latgale, south-eastern Latvia.

Following the 1920 peace treaty between Latvia and Bolshevist Russia, 11,395 former Red Riflemen returned to Latvia.[citation needed]

Other former Riflemen remained in Soviet Russia and rose to leadership positions in the Red Army, Bolshevik party, and Cheka.

Many, however, were later executed or imprisoned (often dying in GULag camps) during the Great Purges, when most “old guard” Bolsheviks and high-ranking military and intelligence officers (as well as many intellectuals) were persecuted by Stalin as potential rivals or traitors.

Latvian Communists were among the most persecuted groups. When the USSR occupied Latvia in 1940, many of the surviving Red Riflemen returned to Latvia.

their fame is not limited to just soviets.

when they were betrayed by stalin, they opposed the soviets using German equipment in WII…

so after stalin broke the peace treaty, took latvia, the germans took it.

the latvians then were conscripted into the german Waffen SS as part of the latvian legion…

the US noted that they were NOT NAZIs and the latvians were who guarded the nazi criminals and guarded the hangings…

In the West, people who are not well informed are frequently suspicious and mistrustful of veterans who admit they fought on the German side in the ranks of the Waffen-SS. A full analysis of these armed formations is beyond the scope of this book. I can only point out that Hitler and Himmler decided to form Latvian divisions, which were organized as the Latvian Legion in the Waffen-SS Sixth Army Corps because otherwise it would have been logistically impossible to send over a hundred thousand Latvians to the front. It must be emphasized that Latvia was in the Reichskommissariat Ostland, a territory not annexed to Germany but in a legal sense considered to be occupied enemy territory. The Hague Convention forbids occupying powers to call inhabitants of such territories into their regular armies (in this case, the Wehrmacht). Therefore Hitler, overcoming his dislike of Latvians (see the quote in the introduction), decided he could get the necessary Latvian cannon fodder by calling the new army units “volunteer divisions.” The Waffen-SS was formally a volunteer army defending the “new Europe.”

In fact the Latvians were mobilized, by force, with severe punishment for avoiding call-up orders, and death for deserting from the front. Intensive conscription into the Latvian Legion started in the fall of 1943, when the German army was suffering one defeat after another on the Eastern front. Before that, there were Latvian battalions fighting on the front, especially in the Volchov region, but they were intermingled among German units.

It must be emphasized that the soldiers of the Latvian Legion fought against the Bolsheviks, not for Germany. A popular song was: “First we’ll hit the lice-ridden ones [the Russians], then the bluish-grey ones [the Germans].”

Latvia created two Waffen SS Divisions in WWII; they consisted of the volunteers of the 15th and 19th Waffen Grenadier Divisions. There were 150,000 of these brave men who fought against communism beside their Germanic brothers. All together there were 900,000 volunteers from many European countries. Latvia made the largest contribution of SS volunteers of any non-German Nation.

The 15th SS Latvian Division was the most decorated foreign volunteer division of the Waffen SS winning 13 knight’s crosses; more than any non-German Legion.

they were also the ones that the propagandists used most in films, since the latvians are viking heritage… they are VERY tall, and proportioned. (see how many are runway models now)

its also interesting to read about their place in Archangel…

and in the creation of china

Chinese detachments in service of Soviet state

The use of Chinese troops by the Bolsheviks was commented on by both White Russian and non-Russian observers.[13] In fact, the Bolsheviks were often derided for their reliance on Chinese and Lettish mercenaries.[19] Anti-Bolshevik propaganda suggested that the Bolsheviks did not have the support of the Russian people and thus had to resort to foreign mercenaries who ran roughshod over the Russian populace.[20]

the latvians were often the guards of other nation states people. from the caliphate, and turkish rulers, to the germans, to the police of the Tzars…

With German money, supplied by Helphand-Parvus, Lenin was able to return to Russia and pay Lettish mercenaries to act as Police. He was the only politician in a position to do so and in this way Bolshevik success was achieved.

and last if you want or like to read old books that are out of print but scanned (like the stuff i brought up for slavery)

http://www.archive.org/stream/catholicworld109pauluoft/catholicworld109pauluoft_djvu.txt

In some districts, officers of the old Russian army are now com-
manders in the Bolshevik ranks, having been forced by the Bol-
shevik Government to render this service. The army itself con-
sists to some extent of Chinese and Lettish mercenaries, and is
further recruited from the lowest class of the population who are
attracted by the pay offered and the fact that the soldiers have
sufficient food while the rest of the population is starving.

LETTISH GUARDS FIRE ON PETROGRAD RIOTERS; Hundreds of Persons Reported Killed and Wounded in Fierce Hunger Outbreaks
query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40B15F73C5D147A93C3AB1783D85F4C8185F9

so there is a reason why two years ago i mentioned food will become a big issue, is it yet?

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF BOLSHEVISM IN RUSSIA
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1z05NorthRussia.htm

Lenin and Trotsky, fearing for their safety, surrounded themselves with Chinese and Lettish Guards, but one day a girl succeeded in firing three shots at Lenin and seriously wounded him. Again thousands of innocent people were shot as a reprisal.

Lettish was another word for Latvian….

the brotherhood will prevail in this case since the point is the eradication of the peace treaties with Israel (which all this will accomplish).