Sir John Keegan is wrong: radical Islam could win

Asia Times ^ | October 12, 2001 | Spengler

[BunnySlippers]

When pushed far enough, Americans can kill into the 5 or 6-figures in a single day.

I stand by my statement ... and look at the article. Vietnam. Everything else you mentioned was pre-television era. The TV images made America turn against Vietnam.

[Deep_6]

Re:
"..We are in the early days yet. Al-Qaeda has taught the world fear;
now it will teach them to hate...."

Terribly accurate, and more to fear than some would like to believe.

[Restorer]

The Islamists problem is that Americans, in general, are far more efficient at killing and everything else, than they are.

They've been at war with us for about 10 years. We just noticed a month ago.

Has anybody noticed that their suicide bombings, if effective, fit the classic definition of a "wasting asset?" They use up their efficient fighters, leaving the less efficient to carry on. Hopefully, they lost their 19 most efficient a month ago.

[EaglesUpForever]

Sounds like territorial ambitions to me.

Good point. Yes, for all of his "religious" theatrics, "Pig Chow" Osama is sure dreaming of getting his 72 virgins in this life, he sends young naive sucker kids to murder themselves for his material gain.

And those who would follow him are the same, they want no God, they wouldn't know religion if it stepped on them, they simply want land and power. They want Israel's land, and they want to be colonialists globally: the goal of "fundamentalists" lives down to the worst caricature of the US they paint.

They perceive the US as a country that rules the world, and their rage is inspired by jealousy of the role they imagine this country plays.

"Power hungry dogs" describes only one side of this conflict: Osama and his thugs. They're entirely territorial ambitious, they have maps of the whole world painted green. The US has never had such maps.

[beckett]

I have a hard time taking seriously a man's whose prose is so florid and extravagant. The cloying use of "Sir John" to refer to Keegan is irritating and effete. If one must speculate, give me a hard headed, self-effacing, practical analyst, a minimalist who knows the uses of Occam's razor. This guy has visions of himself that are far too grandiose, and that grandiosity is laced throughout this piece.

[Don Myers]

"Americans have no taste for killing ... but another terrorist attack of sufficient magnitude will toughen our resolve. It's us or them."

America and Americans will kill, and they will do it in whatever numbers are necessary.

[The Iron Duke]

Hitler's tactical advantage lay in his capacity to be more horrible than his opponents could imagine.

This is also tripe for another reason. Hitler's principal opponent was Stalin who was even a bigger butcher.

[AnalogReigns]

If the Jews had guns... less than 2 bullets each to kill those Nazis...

[Restorer]

I think he means all muslims. It may come to that.

I agree that it could. However, I tend to cringe at the thought of killing one billion people. Must be a weakness of mine.

We called Hitler a villain because he killed 10,000,000 or so, yet lots of posters here calmly toss out suggestions for killing 100 times that many.

[TheHound]

Ya like this is some real deep problem. It is all about command. With out that little people don't kill themselves. This is not a problem of destroying a whole bunch of people - it is about killing the command and doing so for a long period of time. Try to imagine yourself getting hold of an airliner and flying it into the masque at Mecca - you couldn't do it without a group supporting you. Without leaders there are no groups - and nearly all leader do so for a reason, that doesn't include being killed.

[Hostage]

I agree this articleis particularly informative and insightful.

However, this is different than Vietnam. We have the memory of 911 to harden our resolve. In Vietnam, we had a new generation exposed to the "horror" of killing innocents and we were forced to look inward. Not this time. The introspection will be done this time by the Muslim.

No academic, no movement, no cause can overcome the killing of those innocents on 911. We remember how parts of our media and university establishments tried unsuccessfully to have us examine ourselves as the cause. The "horror" of the innocents outweighs all other considerations.

Their only weapon against our wrath was to sway the world to the point of view that we are the terrorists. I say "was" because they failed to turn the American people against themselves as was done in Vietnam. They failed because nothing justifies the evil committed on 911 in the eyes of America. Nothing.

They are now consigned to sway their own to the notion of America as terrorist. They are winning on that front perhaps but it doesn't matter. American resolve will force the Muslim to look inward.

As President Bush so eloquently stated, "Adversity introduces you to yourself". So it must be, so it will be with the Muslim.

[steve-b]

Given that Al-Qaeda has tendrils deep in numerous governments, even a nuclear bombardment of one rogue state might not diminish its capacities.

They would have to have total control of a local government, as they did in Afghanistan (but nowhere else), not mere "tendrils". Otherwise, the people who do control the country would kick them out, as a matter of simple survival, once presented with such an example of the alternative.

[RightWhale]

We have become a nation of fear

On the contrary, on 11 Sep 01 we realized we had to remove our sheeps' clothing and [sigh] once more act like the big, bad wolf. Actually, it's not an act, we really are the big, bad wolf, and we don't need no steenkin' Bumb or the B-2, or the Bunker Buster, although since they are handy we will use what's necessary. It's the sheep role that is an act.

[Deep_6]

re:
"...It is all about command. With out that little people don't
kill themselves....."

You appear sure of that. I wouldn't trust that judgment.

Religious conviction and a desire to serve the master is all that's
needed. When their "God" is their command, how do you stifle it?

Usama bin Laden is just a token; a convenient name for this immediate
battle, but you surely don't think that without him, it's ended? He
is not their God; their religion. He is not their cleric, he only has provided
a financial means to an end. And I don't for an instant, think that
financial backing will end that easily.

Those believers are not afraid of death. We are. And it's damned
tough to battle one that does not fear.

 

 

[x]

We were lucky with Hitler. We may not be so lucky again.

Some luck. Only how many millions dead?

I have to wonder about someone who can write a sentence like that. It calls his judgement into question.

[KellyAdmirer]

Agreed. The German initial tactical advantage lay in the fact that the Germans invented the AIR-LAND Battle doctrine while the French were busy burying themselves in the ground and leaving their left flank in the air.

That is a good point, and was the foundation of the "Blitzkrieg." Air control plus fast armor and concentration of effort. Once the Nazis started losing control of the air, they stopped winning battles. Very direct correlation.

The real difference here is that Hitler wanted to impose an ideology on those who didn't want it. Here, Osama wants to expel a foreign ideology that his "people" (he believes) don't want. He is waging a classic resistance battle, much like the Russians fought in World War II, without the weaponry of the Soviets but with the masses of adherents. The problem for the West is, there are only three ways to win: leave the region and quarantine it, win over the hearts and minds of the inhabitants, or wipe out either the people or the indigenous ideology (radical Islam). None of those is especially easy and palatable.

[Andrew Byler]

Well, that's it then. We'll just have to kill them all.

[KeepTheEdge]

I do not agree that Islam can win this war, however, I disagree with your stated view that they would lose because they oppress their own people.

The people that attacked us, as well as the thousands of protesters against the Western powers, represent the chief beneficiaries of the 'Taliban' style of Islam.

That is the total empowerment of the 'Male' in Society, at the exclusion of Women, as spiritual/physical leader of His respective wives and children.

Brutal, yes, Uncivilized, yes...but appealing to many of these despondent people, that seem to cling to the notion of totalitarian control of their small enclaves of Family members.

The maniacs that will fling themselves against us, with explosives attached to their bodies, really believe it is better than living with Western Culture, and these males, are the chief beneficiaries of the radical form of Islamic religious practices.

You have to understand your enemy, in order to defeat them.

When I say defeat, I mean absolute Victory, which means to win the hearts of these people that remain, not just total elimination of all Muslims, which is not possible without threatening the entire World.

We are correct in the quick elimination of any we can identify as current 'suicide attackers', however, to think that just from bombing, and killing, we can stop maniacs from seeking revenge, it is not in America's interest, in order to preserve Our Liberty, to only destroy those that have already made their threatening position evident, we must also address the problem of osama-wanna-be's, cropping up all over the Globe.

This is the 'longer' battle we face, and the one we must win, before America retreats into a 'Police State', in order to somehow make the promise of safety.

[RobbyS]

If Hitler (to cite one among many examples) had not declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor but instead offered himself as a mediator between Washington and Tokyo, would the US have declared war on Germany? And in the absence of US involvement in Europe, would Hitler have lost? Or if Hitler had thrown the British into the sea at Dunkirk rather than holding back his tanks? Or if Hitler had enlisted the Ukrainians and Balts as allies rather than butchering them? Like the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, Al-Qaeda might win, and by the same methods.

I think that he forgets that as he made each of these decisons he was following the advise of his daemon. He could not more have chosen otherwise than he could have added four inches to his height. That daemon had persuaded him that America was a contemptable power, that the British upper classes would push Churchill aside, and that the Slavs were vermin who had to be cleared from the land. So he failed, even though he ruled the single most powerful nation in Europe.