[MadIvan]

Understanding in this instance is merely following the advice of Sun Tsu:

Know thy enemy, know thyself, in a thousand battles, a thousand victories.

We should acquire knowledge of the Islamists and about their culture for the purposes of assessing their weaknesses and destroying them.

Regards, Ivan

[nopardons]

Spot on; as always. :-)

[John O]

We should acquire knowledge of the Islamists and about their culture for the purposes of assessing their weaknesses and destroying them.

While I would agree with you if this was a limited engagement I have to disagree in these circumstances. This war will end with either the death of the west or the death of islam as a viable religion/belief system. There will be no islamics at the end of it. They will either have converted or died. While I'd prefer them to convert I'd still be content if they just died.

If you are aiming to eradicate a culture you don't need to understand the culture, you just need to kill (or change) all it's adherents

GSA(P)