[VaBthang4]

[Centurion2000]

Avoiding giving the West a defined, obvious state opponent is a rational strategy peculiar to the Arab way of war.

The West's indignation must be focused on the societies, not just the governments of the nations from which the assassins originate. Members of the societies directly or indirectly supporting attacks must understand they will be held responsible and pay a price for their support

There is a worst-case fear in the West of a Middle Eastern weapon-of-mass-destruction (WMD) attack; this fear has led directly to a preventive war strategy

Excellent article as posted. What's interesting is that the logical progression of this tyle of warfare and response to it will result in the eradication of the Middle East in the end.

If the Middle East ever does manage to release smallpox or detonate nuclear weapons in a Western city. I wouldn't want to be living anywhere NEAR a holy site or city in the ME

[XBob]

thanks for the ping on this excellent article.

[merak]

The last Western war of the 20th century was not of conquest, but waged to defend the human rights of the Muslims of Kosovo.

I've got a huge problem with that statement. What "human rights" were the AKs supposed to have which Milosevic and Serbs were denying them? The rights to poison wells, brutalize other ethnic groups, conduct white slavery operations, narcotics traffic, and international trade in stolen automobiles? When did those kinds of things become "human rights"?

[American in Israel]

We have shown our willingness to allow other nations the freedom to develop Nuclear Weapons by not imposing our rule over the planet at the end of World War II. However the nations of Lybia, Syria, Iran, Iraq and any other nation that sponsors terrorism and attacks a civilian populace have shown in the last decade not only the lack of moral responsibility necessary to handle such power, but also their willingness to use Nuclear weapons or plague as a weapon of conquest. No-one sets up a proxy army unless one wishs to remain unaccountable for the actions of that army. As responsible nations, it is one thing to allow a sane man the use of a gun to defend himself, quite another to hand a gun to a known killer known for armed robbery.

In this light, we have no choice but to declare war on those who have not only declared war (Jihad) on us, but acted by acts of war to make darn sure we knew they meant it. The war with Iraq is taking the battle home to the sponsor, instead of spinning our wheels in the mire of police actions. We showed restraint by fighting small battles with our intelegence agencys. The Islamics took that for weakness and built more and larger Terrorist groups until they now field whole armys under the terrorist banner in other nations (Iran's Hizbulla Army occupying Lebanon to Attack Israel as a good example.) Army's do not feed themselves or arm themselves, they do not grow crops or manufacture anything.

It is time to stop pretending that Al-Quada, Hamas, the Hizbulla and the Islamic party of god exist in a vacume and time to kill the root that feeds them. The whole world has gone up in war on over 20 fronts now and every single battle including the IRA in Ireland have Islamic ties or training. If you play connect the dots you end up with a circle drawn around the Islamic Empire. (Big suprise)

World War III started a long time ago, we better fight back or we will be destroyed.

[Voice in your head]

"The assassins inevitably are from the middle class, with their commanders among the more wealthy members of the country. The middle and wealthy classes have great power in their own societies at the local level, and more real influence with the masses than their usually despotic governments. If the majority of the middle and wealthy classes determined to no longer directly or indirectly support the Arab style of conflict, this would have a significant impact. Without an active support base, and with the possibility of their activities being compromised at any time, assassins' freedom of action would be curtailed severely.

An intense, relentless psychological campaign could be undertaken targeting the middle and wealthy classes of the Middle Eastern nations involved. Mass-marketing methods may offer insight into how to apply long-term, focused psychological pressure. The aim of such a campaign would be to make each individual perceive being held personally responsible and targeted for his or her support of the Arab way of war. The proud, strongly religious societies of the Middle East may be vulnerable to considerable self-doubt about the moral bankruptcy of their actions and their pronounced ethical decline compared to the remainder of the world."

To ponder the feasability of this, I would ask, "Can we hope to wage a psychological campaign to instill self-doubt in the minds/hearts of Democrats?"

I think that the author makes an important point - that the terrorism springs largely from the middle and upper classes of the Arab world. Unlike Israel, where any adolescent can strap a bomb to him/herself and hike over to the local Israeli marketplace, we have a giant ocean separating us from the Arabs. This ocean is only a barrier to the lower classes, but not the middle and upper classes of the Arabs.

I think that any shred of hope of instilling any "self-doubt" in the minds of middle and upper class Arabs is hopeless. They are educated - they know what they're doing. Save the psychological campaign for the lower classes who can't read or write and thus can't read their own Koran and do not realize that they betray their own religion. The middle and upper class murderers and their associates should be targetted for death, not commercials.

"In the modern Arab conflict style, the people, not the government, often bear responsibility, especially in situations where the central government is weak, fragmented, ineffectual, or corrupt. The West's indignation must be focused on the societies, not just the governments of the nations from which the assassins originate. Members of the societies directly or indirectly supporting attacks must understand they will be held responsible and pay a price for their support."

A government is a body which has or, in the case of a weak government, pursues a monopoly on consolidated lawful power of retribution over a given piece of the planet. If a government does not support terrorists who target America and it is too weak and fragmented to stop them, then it should accept our assistance in rooting out the terrorists within its borders. If the government does not accept our assistance then it seems logical to hold that government responsible, as we would a government that openly sponsers terrorists. The author is correct that we should focus on governments AND societies and he is correct that the terrorists tend to be the middle to upper class. But let's not forget who the middle and upper class people in Arab societies are - the government.