Posted on 11/26/2005 7:25:34 AM PST by Dubya
Oh Good Lord. They should have just found a bridge to hang em from and burn em there.
If the dunderheads want to gripe then send them a picture of our GI's suffering the same fate and tell them to sit down and STFU or we'll make space on the bridge for them too.
The way to their hearts and minds is through their forehead and sternum.
What you said is worth repeating.
Last time I looked, the "big idea" in Iraq was to leverage the power of the majority of Muslims who DON'T want Al Qaeda and Sadamn's stinking legacy, to keep under control the minority of Muslims who do. (The Christian population is too small to make a difference in this equation.) Thus the extreme punctiliousness about Muslim custom even during war.
Thanks for the link. Very interesting what you wrote. Psalm 144:1 came to mind after reading your comments.
Mathew's Commentary on Psalm 144, seems to me, combines the soldier and statesman very well and goes further in seeking a blessing against his enemies. I am by no means a Bible scholar but I do try to search out a thing for myself.
http://www.ccel.org/h/henry/mhc2/MHC19144.HTM Items #2 I thru III in particular.
Just to repeat from the other link. The only discipline should be a stern warning of never do it on camera.
The complicating factor in this war is that, IMHO, we are at war with fundamental islam, yet our strategy of using democracy as a weapon gives us a very limited angle of attack.
I don't mean that we are wrong to use democracy as our primary weapon against the barbarism of real islam, but I sure hope it works.
In the history of man, warfare is alot easier when against a tribe or state. War against a strain (however large) of religion is outside our experience. Certainly, we have the Crusades to look back to, but while historic warriors against islam (Martel and Sobieski, for example) may have succeeded in turning the enemy back at Tours and Vienna, we never actually did any damage to islam.
If democracy isn't an effective weapon against the darker forces of islam, we will fall back to plan B (I can only imagine what that might be).
I understand what you are saying, but think about it from this perspective.
We aren't over there alone, we have allies and some of them are Muslims. What we can't do is be seen as anti-Muslim but instead as anti-terrorist. I was in SOF in Iraq and when we went outside the wire my team was 2/3 indigenous personnel, i.e. Muslims. They were with me all the way and a lot of that trust and support had to be earned both ways. They paid a lot of respect to my Christian values and I tried to offer the same to their Muslim values when it didn't interfere with the mission.
By doing an anti-Muslim act such as cremation, it's not seen as an attack on the enemy but rather as an affront to the religion of Islam. Tactically it is of little value to taunt the enemy, especially when the taunting alienates your allies. Better to simply concentrate on the mission of killing the enemy and eroding his base of support by winning hearts and minds of the locals.
Festus:
You said,
Oh Good Lord. They should have just found a bridge to hang em from and burn em there.
**end
This brings up a great point - when these vile people burned our guys in Falujah, what happened? The guys were already dead but it opened a firestorm on them, the world turned against them and we launched a major offensive against Falluja.
This was a stupid move on their part and it is a point of warfare for us to study. When you screw with the dead, it not only makes the enemy mad, it makes others join in against you as well, makes those who might have supported you abandon such support.
It's not about "they did it to us so we get to do it to them", it's about winning and that takes discipline, focus and patience.
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