Posted on 09/27/2012 8:52:38 AM PDT by Little Ray
Keeping the secret just needs to be more important than disclosing it.
I think we’re talking about the difference between desires/intentions of an enemy, and his capabilities. I don’t think this scenario is a whole lot more likely than an ICBM attack on DC fro Iran, not because they don’t want to do it, but because they aren’t capable.
Agreed. An ICBM attack is very improbable. A smuggled in warhead somewhat less so. A missile fired form a tramp cargo ship less so still. A terrorist CBW attack less so still. A coordinated infrastructure attack even less so. Continual low grade Marathon attacks, well ask Israel.
You may note the considerable lack of spectacular attacks, especially in USA, since 9/11. And it’s not because they don’t want to attack.
Suppose, just for fun, DHS managed to thwart a "The Perfect Day" attack. Would they announce it? If yes, why? If no, why not?
The art of threat assessment isn't to determine what the enemy will, or is actually planning to do, but what the enemy CAN do, and to use that determination to visibly block the capability of committing that act.
I doubt the old Soviet union ever seriously intended to nuke us, but under the doctrine of MAD they needed the capability. Stalemate. Reagan's Star Wars initiative broke the stalemate and collapsed the Soviet Union.
Something needs to break the current not-quite-a-stalemate with islam. As long as they are winning the death by a million camel-flea bites campaign, we lose. Not spectacularly, not in a stunning victory, just a slow steady slide to death, at some point even we will agree to turn off the life support, or simply run out of electricity to run it.
I'm not clever enough to know what that would be, but deporting the possible terrorists to their countries of origin or, say, Greenland and Antarctica, plus energy independence might be a good start...
As would some percentage of the mosque-itos here, were there a major series of attacks.
Some because dying in jihad is their deepest desire, and some out of either a misguided or an all to accurate sense of self-preservation against the backlash.
As far as the planners of the main event are concerned, they'd be delighted if we wiped every mosque off of US soil and eliminated every muslim from our shores. Talk about a world-wide rallying cry!
Not sure I entirely agree. The radical Islamists, oddly enough, also see themselves in a losing battle if they don't win quickly.
Not that they worry about being defeated militarily, but about the gradual erosion of Muslim support for jihad when put up against the material enticements of the West.
BTW, there is an SF writer who has written a couple of series in which major Muslim aggression against US, generally involving nukes on cities, leads to rather appalling American retaliation and a turn to what can only be called democratic fascism.
His name is Tom Kratman. Not the best writer in the world, although getting better, but his invented dystopias are great.
http://tomkratman.com/
Thanks. I’ll check it out. I’m always open to reading about a dystopia that’s better than the one we have...
I disagree with that. I've interacted with quite a few Moslem beards in my time in the ME and they don't see themselves in a losing battle. -- most of the time they don't think.
The in-breeding is pretty true among them and the "give free reign to your anger" is also a driving force
They see the entire world as being re-created each minute by the mind of Allah, so there is no consequence, no effects, no free will, nothing
They don't worry as such.
The scary part about the Pakis having nukes as opposed to the Soviets having that is that Moslems have no sense of consequence. They don't have the logic "do the Pakis love their children too"
Ditto with multiculturalism: it works with English, French, Italian, Marathi, Gujarati, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Tamil etc. -- works somewhat, but it cannot work with Islam
The US is hamstrung by democracy and a sense of decency
It's like the "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" bit about Krikket -- we can't understand their fanaticism and single-mindedness aim to destroy us. "We" is all of the west and the stupidity is exacerbated by liberals who can't understand it at all, but even many of us conservatives can't understand the depths of this fanaticism
No, the ones taking up the mantle against Islam will be equally radical autocratic forces -- Putin's KGB Russia and the Chinese
Add in the VHP/RSS of the Hindus and this is the combination that will oppose Islam
The code is simple, it's not a Christian 'turn the other cheek' --> we tried that in 640 and lost one third of Christianity: the Oriental Church
This was tried in the 10th and 11th century and Timur-e-lang slaughtered the entire Assyrian Church
No, the sword is the only way against Islam and it will NOT be lead by the West unless the west jettisons a welfare-state type demogogry
Europe and America is Islamic, right? El en dur?
I doubt that, we're not able to think that way.
I give you a case in point of 2003 --> after knocking off the Taliban, we should have gone in for the kill, taking on Pakistan
Total war.
But we shrunk back.
Against a fanatical enemy the only option is total, utter destruction.
For this we must look to Republican and Primate periods of the Roman Empire -- utter ruthlessness to the enemy and where all, including the elite, fight
In the series I mentioned the US retaliates in drastic fashion after losing half a dozen cities to smuggled nukes.
I don’t know whether you’re right that America still wouldn’t retaliate with atrocioius methods, but we would certainly do more than after 9/11 if we lost a few million people.
The problem with Roman methods is that to “kill them all” you must first know who “them” are. Do we really want to kill the entire Afghan nation, including women and children?
It’s easy to talk tough, although a little sick IMO, but are you personally willing to cut the throats of the first dozen little Afghan girls? If not, you shouldn’t expect our soldiers to do it for you.
Not completely. The Roman invasion of Carthage was preceeded by a decade long embargo. Then they didn't kill the women and children.
A cruel, but less cruel approach -- convert or die.
It’s easy to talk tough, although a little sick IMO, but are you personally willing to cut the throats of the first dozen little Afghan girls? If not, you shouldn’t expect our soldiers to do it for you. -- I don't expect them to kill kids or even unarmed men and honestly I would baulk at even killing someone who wanted to kill me unless my blood was up, so YES, it is armchair warrior talking.
Well, they killed a lot of them. Then sold the rest into slavery.
This wasn't just a Carthaginian thing. When J. Caesar started his conquest of Gaul, undertaken pretty clearly for the political and financial aggrandizement of J. Caesar, there were ~6M Gauls.
10 years later he had killed 2M and enslaved and sold 2M, leaving 2M Gauls in their homeland.
This was not untypical of the Roman approach to conquest.
The Mongols, of course, were even worse.
What I don't get about those who proclaim the desirability of such methods is why Americans would want to become Romans or Mongols. I'd rather be an American.
The Byzantine Empire didn't "turn the other cheek" to Islam.
They fought a war and lost. Quite different concept.
Total war.
But we shrunk back.
Yes. we didn't attack a hostile islamist nuclear power with hundreds of thousand of its citizens already infiltrated onto American soil.
Nibbling away at it with Hellfires and Predators is probably the most we can do until we can neutralize the counter threat.
I'm not sure the current administration would respond to that with anything more than a bow and a grovel.
The NYT reporters who happened to be out of town would all write stories about how we deserved it.
CNN would report that these were desperate people who had been backed into a corner and left no choice but to lash out at us in desperation.
The San Fransisco Chronicle would run wall-to-wall human interest stories from the impoverished villages in the back woods sand of the attacking country and report on how the people of that country just love and adore us. (No we didn't send 20 reporters and only get back 10 alive, they really DO love us!)
Jingus Khan. Men and all boys taller than a wagon wheel.
Oddly enough, that’s pretty much how the administration, Congress and media in the book reacted. But the people feel differently.
A previously unknown rabble-rouser begins getting public attention, and is eventually elected President by a landslide, winning all 50 states. Unfortunately he turns out to be probably psychotic.
A truly massive popular wave of resentment washes out 3/4 of the House in the next election, with similar results for those Senators who are up to bat. Pols immediately began changing sides to the new party.
Then it gets interesting. Congress passes a law, not unreasonable on the surface, making all politically-motivated violence an exclusively federal crime. Then the President starts pardoning anybody who murders his political opponents: the few remaining opposition congresscritters, federal judges, MSM types, even academics. Perfectly constitutional, as the President’s power of pardon is one of the few in the Constitution with no checks on it.
After a year or so in power, the new President takes his revenge on the Muslim world. It ain’t pretty.
Do I know these people or what?
we should have gone in and eliminated their nukes. That was to be the main and only target.
The right way is to invade Mecca and Medina and reduce them to the same state that they did to Ephesus, Constantinople, Alexandria..
Carthage, only glassier.
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