Bombing our way to peace.

[ford_prefect42]

After any shocking event, it's pretty typical these days for people to divide into 2 camps. 1) We should kill those responsible even if it means some collateral damage. and 2) we cannot bomb our way to peace, bombings and collateral damage just radicalize

Comments

[chess]

Yeah :/ I'm a Type 2 person by nature but I can't see any way to successfully intervene in the unholy mess out there other than not leaving a stone on another stone in the whole area and repopulating it from the Kurds and Yazidi and similar people on the ground opposing it.

Russia seem to have got involved in Syria, possibly they have the temperament required to do the thing, although I suspect they will also hold back once they've secured the enclaves of their pet oligarchs and rubbed the nose of the US in its powerlessness to do anything useful in the area.

[ford_prefect42]

Another thing that there is no example of in human history is a people choosing to be completely eliminated rather than surrender to a stronger foe. The Japanese in WW2 were as fanatical an enemy as any in the history of humankind, they fought HARD, including suicide bombings, and yet, when confronted with the fact that, if they didn't quit it, they would be annihilated without even getting to honorably fight, they surrendered, and have been a steadfast ally ever since

[jordan179]

Conquer and then use the Kurds and Yezdis as occupation forces. And use our own overwhelming firepower to back them up when threatened. The proudest Arabs and Muslims will revolt, again and again and again ... and their towns and villages will be slaughtered by reprisal.

Eventually, the culture will change. The Arabs and Muslims will accept that they are inferior and submit. They will, because the ones that didn't won't survive. It will happen by Darwinian methods, in other words.

[ford_prefect42]

I fear you may have gone a bit over the top on what was already a fairly close to the top thread.

"Slaughter" is something best avoided.

[mosinging1986]

IF we truly wanted to destroy ISIS, it would be by first inducing in the local populace *fear* of us above and beyond that they feel of ISIS.

Agreed on all you've said here.

But unfortunately, we can't just "stay out of it", because these savages are now bringing the fight to us.

[ford_prefect42]

Actually, we could. We can refuse to admit them into the country. That would be pretty easy since they're starting off across an ocean.

[mosinging1986]

Actually, we could. We can refuse to admit them into the country. That would be pretty easy since they're starting off across an ocean.

Well, sure. But we've also got enough jihadists here. Some who were born and bred here!

And again, when you're not even willing to admit Islam is the problem, you're not going to get anywhere.

You can't fix a problem when you refuse to admit a problem even exists in the first place.

[jordan179]

They will attack us by long range bombardment.

[prester_scott]

What sucks about it is that our (America's) greatest virtues as a people have been twisted against us.

We are conscientious and generous, we care about liberty and justice for every individual. The way I like to put it is: America is the Nicest Empire in History. If you have to be ruled by some global power, you want to be ruled by America. We are not and will never be like e.g. Russia, where everything they do carries collateral damage to targets and their own troops, and their recent history concerning conquered territory is one of oppression. We "oppress" third-world countries by, er, giving them cultural and economic freedom, in return for strategic military and diplomatic cooperation, quelle horreur.But good grief, there has to be a limit to niceness, or else it becomes weakness and cowardice. There is a whole bunch of distance between "nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" and the total paralysis being forced on us by the politically correct. It is possible to be tough and effective yet also measured in

[ford_prefect42]

Yeah, one of the things I have often said is that America is Unique in having an incredibly *short* memory for pain. Whenever anyone stops actively trying to kill us, we *immediately* forgive and forget

[prester_scott]

Nonintervention is not an option when war has been declared on you and you are under attack.

And we could say (some did say as WW2 was beginning in Europe) that it's not our problem because our oceans will protect us, etc., but that's very short-sighted. The reason Islamic terrorism hasn't been taken seriously by us up to now is that they're small and we're big and they can't really hurt us. But even if that is true today, ignoring the problem could easily result in a much graver threat 50 years from now.

[kharmii]

I would like for us to stay out of it, but since we are busing in 'Syrians' and other third world barbarians to repopulate the shrinking Democratic Party, we'll soon have to deal with it. We can't apply our laws of civility when faced with a ruthless enemy.

[ford_prefect42]

Applying our laws of civility in the face of a rutgless enemy is what we've been doing, it doesn't work, but it makes type 1s feel like they are doing something, and type 2s feel righteous.

Yeah, we are importing large numbers of unscreened people, and that means that we are likely to get hit soon.