Missed the boat.

G

GoSlash27

New member
In this closed thread, I stated a simple point. It seems to have been missed by...well...everybody. So to repost without the "blatant sensationalism"..

let's cut the crap about how the terrorists are "insane" or that we "can't understand their thought process".

Every one of us is capable of looking at the GWoT from the bad guys' point of view and seeing the glaring failure in our policy.
It's no wonder we're losing.
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You know, for an entire week after 9/11 we as a nation were wandering around going "why do they hate us?"...we never bothered to find out. We just said "Bah, who cares. They're evil. They're crazy. They hate us because of our freedoms."
But each and every one of us holds the capability to understanding our enemy's motivations, goals, weaknesses, and fears...we just like to *pretend* that we don't. I'm sure that if Sun Tzu existed, he'd be spinning in his grave right now.
 
GoSlash, when someone is attacking me, I don't need to recognize their point of view. I don't need to know "why" they are doing what they are doing... All I really need is to recognize the attack as an attack and deal with it.

The war on terror, is dealing with people who don't think like you or I. Our government has done a lot of really stupid (some may even say "bad") things, as far as foreign policy goes. To a greater or lessor extent, I may agree.

But...

You don't change what a government is doing, by targeting innocent civilians and attacking them. Not in todays world.

The tactics being used by an extremist group of religious fanatics, are the tactics of the 12th century. When such a group essentially says, "Diplomacy be damned, you're all evil! We will exterminate you!" then there is only one valid response.

We started that, justifiably so, with Afghanistan. It is unfortunate that we allowed this administration to side-track us into Iraq... Which is another thread entirely.

All of this talk of "understanding" our enemy, is Bull. I know what he wants: The utter extermination of western civilization and culture, to be replaced by his own values and culture.

The only purpose of "understanding" an enemy, is to exploit their weaknesses against them.

The enemy is not Islam in and of itself. The enemy is those who hold a radical and fundamentalist view of Islam and it's supposed place in modern society.
 
The only purpose of "understanding" an enemy, is to exploit their weaknesses against them.
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And a roar of applause goes up from the crowd!

It also serves to help us deny them weaknesses to exploit. So that's in glaring contradiction with your first statement:

when someone is attacking me, I don't need to recognize their point of view. I don't need to know "why" they are doing what they are doing... All I really need is to recognize the attack as an attack and deal with it.
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You *do* need to know "why" because that's the key to defeating them.

On any scale from the personal to the global geopolitical, your enemy's motives reflect his weaknesses, and thus the seeds of his defeat.

That's my whole point; We are more than capable of understanding our enemy and thus seeing the strengths & weaknesses that are vital to a coherent winning strategy.
We refuse to do this out of fear, and so adopt strategies that work for the enemy and against us.
 
Also,
You don't change what a government is doing, by targeting innocent civilians and attacking them. Not in todays world.

The tactics being used by an extremist group of religious fanatics, are the tactics of the 12th century.
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You couldn't be more wrong. This method has proven effective for the bad guys throughout modern history as well, largely because the targeted governments refuse to learn from history.

You would be fully correct in asserting that it's antiethical to society, but are 100% flat-out wrong in asserting that it doesn't happen or doesn't work.
 
All of this talk of "understanding" our enemy, is Bull. I know what he wants: The utter extermination of western civilization and culture, to be replaced by his own values and culture.
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Not according the goslash. To him the enemy is only attacking us for our "medaling" in his affairs. This view of course just happens to be the one that the enemy hopes we have. Oh its our fault they hate us................bologna! Because we help Israel hurt the Palestinians they hate us...............bologna! They hate us because we are rich and powerful and CHRISTIAN. They hate us because our social behavior will bring an end to their way of life. They hate us because of our wealth and their poverty. They hate us because we aren't Muslims.
 
Another proved way of defeating an enemy is to kill them until they are no longer a threat.

You are under the misguided belief that we are causing the hatred against us. How wrong you are buddy. Even if we withdrew from around the world they would still want us dead. Since we can't withdraw due to our interests we better get to killing them quick.
 
He's right, we are known throughout the world as meddlers in other countries affairs. We need to eliminate terrorists and we need to get out of other's affairs. I don't mean to be isolationist, in this world that is not an option. But, I do mean that we should be aware of what is happening without interfering unless we have to.
 
That's my whole point; We are more than capable of understanding our enemy and thus seeing the strengths & weaknesses that are vital to a coherent winning strategy.
We refuse to do this out of fear, and so adopt strategies that work for the enemy and against us.
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Okay, show some of your superior insight. Instead of declaring everyone else blind and wrong, enlighten us with a succinct and specific strategy for winning.
 
Not according the goslash. To him the enemy is only attacking us for our "medaling" in his affairs.
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Oh, good Lord. Here we go again, putting words in my mouth :rolleyes:

The enemy is attacking us because he seeks to establish himself as the representative of the Muslim and Arab populace. Please don't presume to forward my positions on my behalf.

Okay, show some of your superior insight. Instead of declaring everyone else blind and wrong, enlighten us with a succinct and specific strategy for winning.
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Done.

First order of business is to accept the fact that there is no objective difference between a "freedom fighter" and a "terrorist". Neither is their behavior "evil" nor "God's bidding".
Such moralistic pronouncements merely serve to cloud the issue. We are best served to leave the propaganda outside the room and evaluate the situation dispassionately and logically.

What is the enemy? The enemy is a highly intelligent, pragmatic, and ideologically motivated subversive. What sets him apart from the average "revolutionary" type is that he resorts to criminal activity to further his goals as opposed to the normal political channels.

The enemy is a criminal, and this is important to establishing the strategy.

Next, we have to establish the type of criminal organization we are dealing with.
The "legitemately motivated" terrorist- This is not to imply that their methods or overall goals are legitemate, but that their complaints against the targetted state have merit *according to their targetted representative population* (see below).
The "extremist terrorist"- A terrorist group who's goals do not align with their adopted "representative population" (note: That's not us, but rather the average Arab Muslim on the street)
The "state-sponsored terrorist"- really, in the legal sense, a proxy agent of the parent state.
By far, the LM is the most difficult to deal with, and Al Qaeda can best be described as fitting this category.

When dealing with this group, we must evaluate the sentiments and complaints from the terrorist group and it's identity population. It serves our interests to alienate the identity group from the terrorists and align them with us. This is necessary because the terrorists live and die by the support of this group. IOW, the battle against this group is really a battle *for* the hearts and minds of the worldwide Arab and Muslim community. Succeed here, and the terrorist organization will wither and die due to lack of support. Fail, and the terrorist organization will grow in numbers, capability, and virulence, eventually supplanting entire governments.

To this end:
Changes in American foreign policy:
-Exit Iraq immediately.
-Stop supporting Israel in instances where we know they're wrong
-Refuse to align with governments that are seen worldwide as tyrannical/ oppressive
-Refuse to involve ourselves in the internal affairs of other countries
-Reduce our reliance on foreign oil. Even a 15% reduction would be adequate to eliminate our dependence on the middle east.

Changes in American tactics:
-Every single action we undertake will be fully in accordance with American and international law.
-No more secret prisons
-No more torture, no matter how dire the immediate threat
-No more referring to the enemy combatants as...well..."enemy combatants". They are to be referred to as "criminals".
-We will treat them and refer to them no differently than we handle any other organized crime syndicate; completely above-board with full due process.
-We will scrap all laws differentiating between "terrorist" acts and other criminal activity.

Going on the offensive:
-Take advantage of every opportunity our enemy affords us to denounce them as criminals against their own society. We must loudly decry every mosque bombing, every Jordanian hotel bombing, every "innocent" murdered.
-Take every opportunity afforded to wedge the terrorists from the Muslims.
-Take advantage of the intelligence gathered to directly target and disrupt their criminal activity. This is where the "judicial application of force" comes into play. These efforts must be seen as legitemate in the world community, and more importantly the Muslim community.
-Never, *ever* cede any authority to terrorists. Example, negotiating with Al Sadr (or for that matter Clinton's dealings with Arafat). They represent criminals, they *never* represent the identity population.
- When captured, they are to be imprisoned as criminals, not interred as enemy combatants.
-Seek every opportunity to deal and negotiate with legitemate representatives for the same goals that the terrorists wish to bring about.

Rinse and repeat as necessary, and the terrorist threat will reduce and eventually disappear. The people will reject the terrorists and start working to apprehend them because they (like everyone else) prefer peaceful resolution and prosperity to war.
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To all those who are tired of our meddling, I would agree if it weren't for the fact that everyplace we're "meddling" we are also supporting their economy and government with money. If I'm paying, I'm going to have a say or in simpler terms have meddling rights. Stop giving out the free cash and stop meddling, I'd support it. But wait, that wouldn't work either, then we would be attacked for not caring enough about the rest of the world. Damn if you do, damned if you don't.
 
Don,
Not quite true. The one approach gives them a rhetorical advantage with the identity population, while the other does not.

A terrorist group may well choose to attack us on the grounds that we're not meddling enough, but their identity base wouldn't support the contention enough to support their criminal activity.
This would render them about as troublesome as, say, Greenpeace. :rolleyes:
 
Gs,
I'm using attack in a more general term. The international community would "attack" us for being non-caring about their problems. I can see that evolving into others possibly wanting to attack us because we are "rich" and don't care about the troubles of their country. Basically attack us for being mean uncaring people.
I hope I clarified that, I kinda confused myself. It's been a long day.
 
The enemy is not Islam in and of itself. The enemy is those who hold a radical and fundamentalist view of Islam and it's supposed place in modern society.
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Though the deafening silence from "moderate" Muslims in terms of lack of condemnation of the extremists isn't helping us, it's helping the extremists.

That's going to have to change, one way or another.

Because the way things are going with the radicalizing of people into terrorists HERE, even, by militant imams who are defended by groups like CAIR, one of two things are going to happen. One, the moderate groups declare a hard GTFO to the extremists, expose them and turn them over to the authorities whenever such is suspected. Or, two, we end up doing what we did to the Japanese-Americans in WWII, as a matter of national survival.

Hopefully it'll be the first. But it's in their hands. If groups of jihadists keep popping up and their neighbors and people at their mosques keep covering for them, something bad will eventually happen, and security will have to lock down harder on all Muslims. I hope they realize that.
 
Manedwolf,
Yup. And that effort begins with us. If we behave as good neighbors to the mainstream Arab and Muslim community, it makes it easier for them side with us and harder to justify siding with the terrorists.

That's something that we have a direct influence on.
 
If we behave as good neighbors to the mainstream Arab and Muslim community, it makes it easier for them side with us and harder to justify siding with the terrorists.
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Um. That unfortunately won't work, as the extremists need to be eliminated first. They will NOT be satisfied until sharia law is the law of the US. Period.

And they come in many forms. The militant ones need to be arrested. The demanding ones that declare that store checkout clerks can't touch bacon and cabbies can't carry dogs need to be told to shut the hell up or leave.
 
"Every one of us is capable of looking at the GWoT from the bad guys' point of view and seeing the glaring failure in our policy."

AH! I get it!

IF I can see things from the bad guy's point of view, that means that I can then empathasize with him.

If I can see the glaring failure in our policy, then I can empathasize with him even more.

That, of course, will lead to the realization that we're nothing but a bunch of bastards who DESERVE to be attacked.

And, since we're such bastards who deserve to be attacked, we should immediately surrender to them.

Right?


Is everyone suddenly feeling very French?
 
Oh, good Lord. Here we go again, putting words in my mouth

The enemy is attacking us because he seeks to establish himself as the representative of the Muslim and Arab populace. Please don't presume to forward my positions on my behalf.
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Perhaps I mixed your view with that of B22's.....sorry. I would ask you to back your statement above with some facts.
 
In post #2 of this thread Antipas stated "You don't change what a government is doing, by targeting innocent civilians and attacking them. Not in todays world." I disagree. It worked quite well in Spain.

If you want to see what the Islamo-fascists have in mind there is an excellent blog called "Prophet of Doom" (google it) which explains the Muslim Weltanschauung quite accurately and in detail. Democratic government is anathema to Islam because they believe that Sharia Law is Divinely Ordained Truth and not subject to popular vote. For non-believers the choices are: convert to Islam (and once done the penalty for apostasy is death- there is no changing your mind); keep your religion and submit to second class citizenship as a Dhimmi, paying the jizyah (a ruinous tax on the infidels), not bearing or posessing arms, and maintaining a suservient attitude to the Faithful; or be killed. As a Dhimmi you may be accused of defaming the Prophet or Islam itself, and since you have no standing in Sharia Courts you may not tetify, have no defense, and may be beheaded. The War on Terror has been going on for over 1000 years and is finally coming to a head.
 
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