Know The Enemy (And What He Believes)[BRILLIANT David Horowitz Article]

FrontPage Magazine ^ | June 24, 2002 | David Horowitz

[Savage Beast]

And if everything else should fail--that won't. It's what Rome did to Carthage.

[MattinNJ]

Sorry Poohbah, but I agree with allrightnow. There may be a compromise that perhaps we can all agree on. Fly a huge sortie over Mecca and Medina to show them we can get them at will and then drop a low yield nuke in a desert (they seem to have plenty of sand). Then tell them the next time we suffer an attack they will be facing and praying to a giant mushroom cloud 5 times a day. I think that would put an end to all this running around trying to prevent an attack without having to kill any of them (Other than the ones who have already attacked us of course). Just a thought.

[Poohbah]

Sorry Poohbah, but I agree with allrightnow. There may be a compromise that perhaps we can all agree on. Fly a huge sortie over Mecca and Medina to show them we can get them at will and then drop a low yield nuke in a desert (they seem to have plenty of sand). Then tell them the next time we suffer an attack they will be facing and praying to a giant mushroom cloud 5 times a day. I think that would put an end to all this running around trying to prevent an attack without having to kill any of them (Other than the ones who have already attacked us of course). Just a thought.

Ah, there is nothing truly new under the sun.

Your proposal is known as the "nuclear warning shot."

It manages to combine the weaknesses of both unrestricted urban bombardment (annoying the locals) and timidity (not having the testicular fortitude to back up your bluster). It's been proposed several times, going back to before Hiroshima; it's been rejected by everyone who understands how people think and react.

Like it or not, this is going to be a very long, hard job. Unlike television, there is no magical solution that will solve it right after the last commercial break. Dropping bombs all over the place is not going to actually accomplish the mission.

[Savage Beast]

Yes. But only as a last resort.

If the West falls to these monsters, it won't matter what age we are.

And BTW, I'm not interested in saving these misguided people from themselves. They can do whatever they want for all I care. But it is true that their conquest and conversion to Christianity would be the best thing that could happen to them. Do you disagree?

[Allrightnow]

One of the principal motivations for the September 11th attacks was the polarization of Islam and Western Society. Osama wanted this and quite frankly, has achieved it. Rather than look at this in a defeatist manner, we should at least take comfort in it happening now rather than 100 years later when many of these nations may have had ICBM's capable of reaching the US. We need to capitalize on this opportunity and will get nowhere by attacking the figureheads of the Islamic hatred of the west that prevails in most Arab nations. Treating a symptom will not cure a disease.
I don't know if you have ever been in a fist fight and lost but the first time you are hit in the face it makes you madder than hell and you fight back harder. However if your opponent is able to continue hitting you over and over, pretty soon you want to stop fighting. As for your contention that the vast majority of people around the world would not act in a to self preservation you need look no further than the recent Israeli (accidental) machine gunning in a Palestinian market. Why by your reasoning, were the Palestinians running away from rather than towards the enemy?
As for the Strategic Bombing Survey, the jury is out:

"The economic consequences of the physical damage wrought by air attack are closely interrelated with the concurrent effects of the interdiction of imports, the cumulative effects of under-maintenance of plants, and the declining health, vigor and determination of the Japanese people."
"By December 1944 air attacks from the Marianas against the home islands had begun, defeats in the Philippines had been suffered, and the food situation had deteriorated; 10 percent of the people believed Japan could not achieve victory. By March 1945, when the night incendiary attacks began and the food ration was reduced, this percentage had risen to 19 percent. In June it was 46 percent, and just prior to surrender, 68 percent. Of those who had come to this belief over one-half attributed the principal cause to air attacks, other than the atomic bombing attacks, and one-third to military defeats."
"A striking aspect of the air attack was the pervasiveness with which its impact on morale blanketed Japan. Roughly one-quarter of all people in cities fled or were evacuated, and these evacuees, who themselves were of singularly low morale, helped spread discouragement and disaffection for the war throughout the islands."
Seems convincing to me. Might also note the effect on Iraqi morale in the Gulf War.
By the way, I don't condone the nuclear option. Sets a bad precedent and the world might notice that we tell other nations not to build them but don't seem to mind using them ourselves.

[SCalGal]

bump for later

[Savage Beast]

Post #42: I think your thought's a good one, Matt. It would have been better--if circumstances had allowed it--if the first bomb had hit Mount Fuji instead of Hiroshima. This might have convinced the Japanese to surrender.

[Savage Beast]

I don't think it would have, but it would have been better than Hiroshima. But...such a warning shot probably was not realistic under the circumstances.

[oldfart]

There are a number of things we need to do, both long-term and short.
In the short-term, racial profiling needs to be done. We're not in any great danger from old ladies who use walkers.
But in the long term, I think we need to re-evaluate a lot of things. Not just our foreign policy or our battle plans, but our views on what is valuable and why.
In all cases, value depends upon supply and demand. If there is a large supply of any commodity, the value goes down until the demand reduces the supply enough for the value to go back up. It works for gasoline, hogs, grain and ...life.
My life is very valuable to me and to a small circle of family and friends. But to a Muslin terrorist it's worth nothing. Nor are the lives of millions of other Christians or Jews or Bhuddists or...whatever. Indeed, if the whole lot of us were exterminated the world would be a better place for Islam and they would breed until they filled it.
We need to stop believing that life is too precious to waste and start wasting a few billion muslims.
I know, that's genocide and that's a bad word. But will it be a better word if they do it to us? Some have suggested we might finally get the idea when a band of terrorists manages to set off a nuke in one of our cities. I doubt it. Unless they can gather all the liberals into the same city at the same time and then set off the bomb there will still be some idiot who thinks we can talk our way out of the mess.
There is only one way out and it has been proven to work. Rome got tired of being picked to pieces by the Carthaginians and simply destroyed them. They killed the men and boys, enslaved the females, leveled the city and poured salt on the fields they had grown their crops in. Genocide? Sure, but there were no more Carthaginian wars either.

A long time ago - longer than I like to think about - I had a high-school teacher who impressed two things upon my mushy brain. First, China (or any populous country like China) cannot be defeated by ordinary means. Ordinarily, the prevailing army must occupy the territory to impose its will upon the populace. Within a couple of generations, the forces of the conquerors are assimilated into the local population and they become Chinese - or whatever.
Second, You cannot defeat an idea with conventional warfare tactics. You can destroy ships, armies, cities -- all kinds of infrastructure, but so long as people are left alive, the idea will remain alive.
My wife has a Master's degree in Divinity, so she has read a good deal more of the Bible than I have. She tells me that when God instructed the Jews to go into a certain land they were always told to kill every man, woman, child and domestic beast. They never did. They always left a few alive and they always paid for it later.

Has anyone noticed a pattern to my ramblings yet? If the moderators leave this post in (and they might not, it is very politically incorrect) you may get the idea that I favor the total destruction of Islam. If you were to come to that conclusion you'd only be partially correct.
Last month my neighbor's dog jumped a six-foot fence and killed one of my wife's cats. I told my neighbor that I had no hard feeling against him or his dog, but if it happened again I'd kill the dog. Yesterday it happened again and I killed the dog. I took no pleasure in doing it but it had to be done. My neighbor was a bit upset, but he understood.
If the Muslims will stay in their yard I will have no reason to wish them ill. They can even come over to play with our cats - as long as they play nice. But if they hurt me or mine I will show no mercy.

[Edward Watson]

Horowitz is apparently more moderate than you are. Unlike you, he doesn't condemn every Muslim man, woman and child as evil but only singles out radical Islam.

Huh? I don't believe all Muslims are evil. I'm merely pointing out the fact we are facing a religious conflict, one that can't be solved by accomodation.

Look, whether you like it or not, the West is becoming Islamicized. Muslims have vastly more children than Christians or Jews, and are immigrating to the West by the millions every year.

This means the demographic characteristic of the West is changing year by year, from a liberal and secular Judeo-Christian milieu to a conservative, intolerant Islamic one.

Consequently, it is only a matter of TIME, and for sure within the 21st century, when the majority of the population of the West will become Islamic.

What's going to happen then? All the advances that made the West the pinnacle of human society in relation to freedom, tolerance, woman's rights and technological advancement will be erased. Don't you think it's odd not one out of the top 500 global brands originate from Islamic countries? Don't you think its odd no Islamic nation is at the forefront of any scientific endevour? Is there an Islamic spacefaring nation or one with advanced industrial, computer, aviation or medical capacity? No, and there can't be any because of the rigidity of Islam, that prevents innovation and independent thinking.

Why in the world would we be stupid enough to throw all the societal advantages of the West away just for the IDEAL of religious and cultural equality? Are you so willing to condemn your children, grandchildren and especially great-grandchildren to the rule of Islam? Don't you want your descendants to live in freedom, peace and prosperity, or do you prefer they live in an Islamic society as found in the Middle East? Because as surely as the grass is green, that's going to be the future of the West unless we muster up the courage and halt all future Muslim immigration and make religious or nonreligious conversion the condition for acceptance of Muslims.

Muslims immigrate to the West because they know they can enjoy freedom and prosperity in a manner that doesn't exist back home. However, the vast majority of these Muslim immigrants aren't assimilating and are bringing with them the intolerant teachings of Islam and the cultural baggage they grew up with.

Why do you think anti-Semitism is exploding across the West? The violence isn't coming from the non-Muslims. The greater the number of Muslims, the greater the pressure for them to vote as a bloc to change the culture of their adoped country in the West. This is why Sharia laws are beginning to be allowed in many European countries. Suddenly, women no longer have equal rights with the Muslim man and can be divorced by a simple sentence repeated three times. Suddenly, one can't walk the streets of certain neighborhoods in London, Amsterdam and dozens of other European cities if one isn't wearing clothing identifying them as Muslim. Suddenly, attempts are being made to introduce legislation prohibiting any criticism of Islam while allowing Islamic criticism of others.

The world is changing, old ideals are being discarded. Until people like you realize there's nothing wrong with making religous (or nonreligious) conversion of Muslims conditional for immigration and citizenship; the West is doomed to obliteration.

Oh, and finally, condemning people like myself for merely pointing out the obvious isn't going to make the problem go away.

[Poohbah]

One of the principal motivations for the September 11th attacks was the polarization of Islam and Western Society. Osama wanted this and quite frankly, has achieved it.

And a ham-handed response would set that attitude in concrete.

Rather than look at this in a defeatist manner, we should at least take comfort in it happening now rather than 100 years later when many of these nations may have had ICBM's capable of reaching the US.

I'm not looking at it in a defeatist manner: you are.

We need to capitalize on this opportunity and will get nowhere by attacking the figureheads of the Islamic hatred of the west that prevails in most Arab nations. Treating a symptom will not cure a disease.

No, instead, let's just randomly bomb a population of 1.2 billion people for the crime of being born in the wrong culture.

I don't know if you have ever been in a fist fight and lost but the first time you are hit in the face it makes you madder than hell and you fight back harder.

Uh-huh--that's the point.

However if your opponent is able to continue hitting you over and over, pretty soon you want to stop fighting.

This isn't a fistfight, buddy.

And many of these "fistfights" "end" as you describe--right up to the moment where the "victor" turns his back and gets a Louisville slugger applied to his skull with considerable force, or they haul out a dagger and stuff it into his back, or they haul out a gun and shoot the winner in the back.

As for your contention that the vast majority of people around the world would not act in a to self preservation you need look no further than the recent Israeli (accidental) machine gunning in a Palestinian market.

Immediate self-preservation is one thing. However, the social dymanics of populations under aerial bombardment are very different.

Notice that it didn't stop the Palestinians from performing another suicide bombing.

Why by your reasoning, were the Palestinians running away from rather than towards the enemy?

Do you understand the need for revenge in human beings? Whole epics have been written on the topic. They may flee today, but anyone who lost a relative in that incident is a good candidate for "martyrdom operations."

As for the Strategic Bombing Survey, the jury is out:

"The economic consequences of the physical damage wrought by air attack are closely interrelated with the concurrent effects of the interdiction of imports, the cumulative effects of under-maintenance of plants, and the declining health, vigor and determination of the Japanese people."

Congratulations. If you look carefully, you'll see that that portion of the USSBS is discussing the mining campaign, not the firebombing campaign.

"By December 1944 air attacks from the Marianas against the home islands had begun, defeats in the Philippines had been suffered, and the food situation had deteriorated; 10 percent of the people believed Japan could not achieve victory. By March 1945, when the night incendiary attacks began and the food ration was reduced, this percentage had risen to 19 percent. In June it was 46 percent, and just prior to surrender, 68 percent. Of those who had come to this belief over one-half attributed the principal cause to air attacks, other than the atomic bombing attacks, and one-third to military defeats."

The people were still going to fight to the absolute death--and take a lot of Americans with them. But you cheerfully ignore that. Why were they going to fight to the death? Because we had convinced them that all we wanted to do was exterminate every last Japanese, so they figured that they might at least give themselves some sideboys for when they reported to Yasukunai.

Your external behavior is the only guide many people out there have for evaluating your overall intentions. A campaign of the type you describe conveys the message that you merely want them to die--so the people get convinced to take some infidels with them.

"A striking aspect of the air attack was the pervasiveness with which its impact on morale blanketed Japan. Roughly one-quarter of all people in cities fled or were evacuated, and these evacuees, who themselves were of singularly low morale, helped spread discouragement and disaffection for the war throughout the islands."

And had we come ashore in 1945, they would have made us pay blood for every square inch of Japanese soil.

Seems convincing to me.

Yup, weasel-worded studies always seem convincing to armchair commandos.

I really miss the days when wars were settled with the sword and pike--because the folks who advocate murdering (yes, I am specifically using that term) thousands of civilians could be told "Fine, here's a sword, knock yourself out." Today, they don't have to see the consequences of what they advocate.

Might also note the effect on Iraqi morale in the Gulf War.

A different dynamic was in play there. It was obvious that we were systematically destroying their ability to fight a modern war. What the Iraqis learned early on was to stay away from their equipment. What you would teach the Islamic world is that we'll kill people just for the heck of it, and that we really ARE the Great Satan.

By the way, I don't condone the nuclear option. Sets a bad precedent and the world might notice that we tell other nations not to build them but don't seem to mind using them ourselves.

Wow. The only thing that stops you from using nukes is that someone MIGHT want to pay you back in like coin.

Thank you for proving my point...

[Poohbah]

And BTW, I'm not interested in saving these misguided people from themselves.

But you used the tired liberal justification for meddling in their lives--the idea that "it's for their own good."

They can do whatever they want for all I care. But it is true that their conquest and conversion to Christianity would be the best thing that could happen to them. Do you disagree?

Since the West doesn't have enough troops or will to make it happen and make it stick, your hyopthetical idea doesn't even achieve the honor of being specious.

I can tell you this much: making the attempt would probably be the bar-none worst thing that could happen to the West.

[antidisestablishment]

The response of the American people and of President George W. Bush was overwhelming. It overwhelmed the Chinese. They will not consider any adventure against the U.S.

You are dreaming if you think September 11 did anything to bolster our image in China. Remember a little spy plane incident prior to 911? Do you think they forgot the huge whoopin they over that one? I would laugh if it weren't so sad.

While China is not likely to attack us directly, Taiwan is an inviting target—especially if we are "engaged" somewhere else.

[Poohbah]

Does the PLA have enough rowboats to get across the Taiwan Strait?

They can try to retake Taiwan--in the absence of sealift assets, they are going to fail badly.

[MattinNJ]

Great point about Mt. Fuji. I always used to wonder if it would not have been better to drop one in the pacific 2 miles off their coast (the environmental wackos were a bit quiter then). I wonder if we did it to show the commies that we had the resolve to use it on a civilian population. They absolutely needed to see that we had brass ones after all those years of that treasonous bastard FDR sucking up to "Uncle Joe". I still can't believe we pulled up at the Rhine. I wish we had listened to Patton and rearmed the non SS Germans and kicked Stalin's ass back to their prewar borders then. Oh well, woulda, coulda, shoulda.

[Austin Willard Wright]

The problem will not go away if adopt an eternal war footing against milllions of Muslims. That is pure utopianism and is doomed to lead to disasterous blowback.

The important goal is not to launch a utopian crusade to convert them or treat them as second class citizens, just because they have different religious beliefs. The solution is a slow, incremental campaign to encourage the more private property, pro-freedom elements of Islam which have been dormant or suppressed for centuries. This is not a sexy campaign for those who want to go to "war" but it is ultimately more effective and can only be impeded by the theory of perpetual war.

Some of us don't have a medieval definition of the West (BTW, the West in Europe is already heavily non-Christian or, at best, nominally Christian). Some of us still hold to the quaint old notion of the enlightenment (the greatest contribution of the "West") including such values as religious freedom, free choice, suspicion of centralized power (including that of an imperial U.S.), limitation of the military to defense rather than social engineering or world policing. You seem to have a very different conception of the "West." I am not prepared to destroy the village in order to save it.

[Edward Watson]

The problem will not go away if adopt an eternal war footing against milllions of Muslims. That is pure utopianism and is doomed to lead to disasterous blowback.

Funny, the Muslims sure don't think so. What do you think they've been trying to do since Mohammed started the faith in the 7th century? To them, life and the meaning of Islam IS an eternal conflict, between the believer and the non-believer. Not only this, but they now have a nearly 1300-year track record proving such an embarkation results in the creation of a world empire and DOESN'T result in annihilation.

The important goal is not to launch a utopian crusade to convert them or treat them as second class citizens, just because they have different religious beliefs.

Come on! (1) Jihad is precisely that - a crusade. That's precisely how Islam became a world power. (2) Islam treats non-Muslims in their societies as "second class citizens." This is why the word of a non-Muslim is not equal to that of a Muslim in the courts, non-Muslims must pay an annual citizenship tax, and death is proscribed for any Muslim who converts to another religion. Thus, what's wrong with giving the goose what's good for the gander? Do you seriously think if you were to migrate to any Muslim country, you'll be guaranteed all the rights the Muslims enjoy?

The solution is a slow, incremental campaign to encourage the more private property, pro-freedom elements of Islam which have been dormant or suppressed for centuries. This is not a sexy campaign for those who want to go to "war" but it is ultimately more effective and can only be impeded by the theory of perpetual war.

Sorry, I disagree. History has shown time and time again that the attempts of non-Muslim societies to gradually "civilize" Muslim societies have ALWAYS ultimately resulted in FAILURE. Look at Bosnia. Look at Macedonia. Look at Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria. While you're certainly free to engage in idealistic pipe dreams, the reality is quite different.

Some of us don't have a medieval definition of the West (BTW, the West in Europe is already heavily non-Christian or, at best, nominally Christian). Some of us still hold to the quaint old notion of the enlightenment (the greatest contribution of the "West") including such values as religious freedom, free choice, suspicion of centralized power (including that of an imperial U.S.), limitation of the military to defense rather than social engineering or world policing. You seem to have a very different conception of the "West." I am not prepared to destroy the village in order to save it.

I find this absurd. I'm not equating "West" with "Christianity." Do you seriously believe WHEN (not if) the Arab Muslims get the bomb, they WON'T use it against the West? Furthermore, what good is the "Enlightenment" if only one side adheres to it? When has Islam promulgated the ideals espoused by the Enlightenment? On the contrary, Islam is the greatest opponent of the Enlightenment since the fall of communism.

Austin, the world has changed. The ideals we held in the past no longer apply when facing the greatest threat to our freedom and prosperity. I don't want to see my children and grandchildren enslaved by Islam and I especially don't want to see the West commit suicide.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Ah yes...."the world has changed," the mantra of the enemies of liberty since the world began....and our liberty keeps diminishing.