We fought the Amerindians for 200 years. From El Cid to the Gates of Vienna was 150 years. We can do this. Our civilization can survive – but only if we have the will.

Now that sounds like someone who has refined their willpower into specifics, rather than general appeals to some Dear Leader that will save them.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of the strategies or tactics R Saunders proposed, but most of them sound feasible, if the leadership and the sheepish weakling peasant voting masses, had the willpower for it. Which they don’t.

Sadly, I don’t believe we have the will let alone the desire to do it.

Looking for willpower amongst Dear Leaders when you lack it in yourself, is a kind of hypocrisy.

Giving people no way to retreat or survive, makes them fight with a stronger conviction than you could ever realize. It’s not something people lacking Willpower can handle.

There is a simple cure: blockade ports and enforce no fly zones. It can be done. And they begin to starve within 6 months. What is lacking is leadership and the will of the populous.

Sadly, I don’t believe we have the will let alone the desire to do it.

You have to crush the enemy so thoroughly that their entire worldview is shattered — that their belief that their way of doing things is God-given, is completely and utterly vanquished. The Civil War would have gone on for years had not Sherman marched through Georgia. The German population did not get a taste of war because World War I was not fought in Germany, hence there was WWII. After Germany was levelled in WWII, they got it. The Japanese did not surrender until AFTER the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, when the Emperor realized that continued fighting would mean the end of Japanese civilization.

Alexander’s COIN strategy in Afghanistan was successful, not because of its threat to the fighting men, but to the women, children, and means of sustenance as well. He didn’t just say, “If you don’t join the wonderful Greco-Bactrian Empire, we’ll kill all the men.” He said, “If you don’t join the wonderful Greco-Bactrian Empire, we’ll kill all the men, rape all the women, sell them and the children into slavery, raze your village to the ground, plow under the fields, and sprinkle them with salt.” And he did just that a few times to show he was serious. The Greco-Bactrian Empire lasted 300 years. even without Alexander or his dynasty.

So, first you bomb Raqaa flat. Then you seize the oil fields under ISIS control. Any ones you can’t seize, you destroy. Then you destroy any convoys, oil trucks, military vehicles, and groups of more than three men. Of course, you leaflet the area extensively before you do it.

Then you do the same to Boko Haram, Al Qeada in the Maghreb, al Qeada in the Arabian Peninsula, Abu Sayef, etc., etc., etc.

You tell the Iranians, pull all your troops and “advisors” back from Iraq and Syria, permit unfettered American access to ALL your nuclear facilities, give us the four Americans you are holding back, and if we see one eentsy-weensty teeny-weeny bit of support for terrorism, including so much as a check to the family of a suicide bomber, we start bombing, we stop the money flow, we stop Boeing, we stop Officer Muldoon from going around trying to get people to do business with you. And if one of your ships comes within 1,000 meters of a US vessel, we sink it.

We tell the Saudis, the Kuwatis, the Emirates, Brunei, (nice and quiet-like, of course) every dollar sent by one of your people to support Islamists means a barrel of oil you don’t sell.

Will it be hard? Will it be long? Will it cost American lives? Will it cost lots of money? Yes.

We fought the Amerindians for 200 years. From El Cid to the Gates of Vienna was 150 years. We can do this. Our civilization can survive — but only if we have the will.

No, that does not appear to have been what occurred in this instance, as best I can tell from reports.

The attacks did not occur in areas clustered by security. The first (and supposedly most lethal) attack occurred at the cab drop-off stand. That’s not a security cluster; that’s a more natural cluster that occurs at an entrance to a building where cabs drop people off.

The second attack occurred with the terrorist running down the open area of the airport, with no particular security lines or clusters. It was just the fairly crowded airport, with people scattering and running away from him. The third terrorist apparently didn’t kill or injure many people and never got inside the airport; we don’t know as much about the circumstances of his death.

By “security” I obviously did NOT mean security lines or checks, because they were not involved here, as was clear from my description. The terrorists did not pass through any checkpoints, so we’re not talking about effective checkpoints. By the word “security” I specifically meant the police presence—that is, armed security with guns—which appears to have been pretty widespread at the Istanbul airport. Armed security officers were on the terrorists almost immediately. The first one detonated his vest outside because he was being shot at (my guess is that he might have wanted to detonate it even closer to the security line and kill even more people, but I’d need more information about the layout to understand whether that could be the case or not). The second terrorist was shooting people and running, but security shot him and that felled him, at which point he detonated the vest but there was almost no one around. The third terrorist was apparently shot (or shot at) by police and detonated his vest outside the airport, and my impression is that he didn’t kill anyone but himself.

So my point is that security—armed personnel—at the airport prevented terrorists #2 and #3 from being able to cause a much great loss of life.

As more facts emerge, my thoughts on that could change. But that’s my conclusion from reports I’ve seen so far.

I’d say URI is both a leftist AND an apologist for Islam. The two tend to go together. Probably also anti-religion in general—except, of course, for Islam, which gets a pass because it is more common in third-world countries (oppressed by the West!!!).

Christian terrorists haven’t blown up too many airports lately.

That we know of.

We do know he got lots of illegal campaign contributions from the Middle East, China and other verbotten sources in 2008 when he disabled the credit card security protocols. Despite even the NY Times criticizing him for that, he did it again in 2012. But since he won both times, the FEC (coincidentally) decided not to investigate it.

URI said:
“You may need to re-read your historywell mate.”

I’m not sure if URI is an apologist for Islam or is a lefty but it doesn’t matter. He (“he” because most Islamic apologists seem to be male for some reason) is setting up the usual false moral equivalence between Islam and Christianity. Even if Christians 500 years ago were overly aggressive that tu quoque argument is especially lame since Chrisitan behavior 500 years ago has nothing to do with modern Christianity or mordern Islam.

The behavior of modern Muslims especially the most devout Muslims is vile and uncivilized. Only a sociopath or an evil lefty could admire modern Islam.