That’s an oversimplification. What he said was, we should tell them (whoever “them” are) that if there were to be another attack of this magnitude (I assume he’s referring to 9/11), we would respond by bombing Mecca and Medina.
From a strategic standpoint, actually bombing Mecca and Medina under any circumstances is probably a very bad idea — borderline “absolutely crazy” even. But from a tactical perspective, I very much like the threat. If your enemies are going to speak and act against your country in terms if their religion, then making threats against their holy sites in response makes perfect sense to me.
Brendan Loy
If you goal is to provoke, rather than prevent, a full-on holy war, I agree 100%.
The threat itself would provoke holy war? Even though the threatened action is predicated on being a response to the Islamists’ provocation?
I don’t expect that we could rely on Islamists to operate according to rational response theory like we were able to with the USSR, but this particular threat would seem to have a better chance of successfully getting through their warped thought process.
Brendan Loy
And yes, I can hear Aragorn’s words to Theoden — slightly paraphrased — ringing in my hears: “Holy war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.” Except that’s not really true. We’re at war with a tiny sliver of Islam, which draws active/material support from a somewhat larger sliver, passive support (not terribly helpful to a military campaign) from a substantially larger group, ambivalence from another large group, and active opposition from medium/smallish groups that we need to try to enlarge (the “hearts & minds” part of the war). Openly declaring that we’d attack holy sites would, in my view, instantly move a lot of opposition folks into the ambivalent or supportive camp, a lot of ambivalent folks into the passive support, camp, and possibly some passive supporters into the active supporters or even the combatants camp. In other words, it would move everybody in the wrong direction. Might it have some deterrent effect? Uh, well maybe, but on the other hand, these people have no qualms about killing other Muslims and even doing so in mosques and whatnot, so why should we expect them to view such a threat as anything but a dare, both sides of which are a net positive for them — if they attack and we don’t follow through, they’ve proven we’re wimps who don’t follow through on our threats; if they attack and we DO follow through, they get the Clash of Civilizations they’ve always dreamed of.
In short, I fail to see the upside.
Brendan Loy
Also, I would prefer not to become genocidal monsters. Or even threaten to do so.
In any case, if string theory holds true and there really are thousands of millions of universes reflecting different versions of reality, I’d love to be in one where Tancredo gets his wish just to see how that plays out. From a game theory perspective, this is literally the equivalent of putting your balls on the table.
Brendan Loy
literally the equivalent of putting your balls on the table
Now THAT is something I really don’t want to see. Literally. *shudder*
In other words, it would move everybody in the wrong direction.
Not sure I agree with this logic whatsoever, or that it would happen that way. I could conceive of a threat like this angering a lot of otherwise non-angry Muslims, but also deterring a good portion of some of the ones who are actually plotting and scheming to attack us.
Might it have some deterrent effect? Uh, well maybe, but on the other hand, these people have no qualms about killing other Muslims and even doing so in mosques and whatnot. …
This is, really, the basis of the best critique of the Tancredo threat. Muslims kill other Muslims way more often, in the name of their own religion; bloody “Clash of Civilizations” with Dar al-Harb notwithstanding, Dar al-Islam is rather bloody all on its own. This makes it rational to doubt that making a threat to Islamic holy sites would really have much of a deterrence. The only reason I think it might is, there’s a difference between a run-of-the-mill mosque, and the Three Holy Sites of Islam.
Also, I would prefer not to become genocidal monsters. Or even threaten to do so.
Easily avoidable. A. Don’t attack us. B. We’ll give you 48 hours notice to evacuate the vicinity.
Alasdair
AMLTrojan – this is the classic “hostage” situation … if Mecca and Medina are under a retaliatory threat, what do we do if Munkar Ahmedinejad and his 48 Thieves (inflation hits *everything*) smuggle a dirty bomb (or, G-d forfend, an actual nuclear device) into a US city and detonate it ? Not as Iran, but simply as their own little band of fanatical Islam ?
In decades of reading many sources, from SciFi to Fantasy to Alternate History writers, I have yet to find any that have had an answer with which I am comfortable …
I don’t know that, without hindsight, *I* could have given the order to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki … with hindsight, it saved literally millions of Japanese and Allied lives – and I still cannot say that, given the knowledge that was available to Truman, I could have given the orders …
The closest I have found, so far, involves a small meteorite/asteroid/kinetic weapon targeted on the Holy Stone in Mecca (with the ironic aside that, since the Holy Stone is supposed to be of meteorite origin, its destruction by another meteorite would be sort poetic – Allah giveth and Allah taketh away) … the symbolism would probably be much more effective than nuking Mecca, for example …
It’s very easy to put down Tancredo for speaking up – I have yet to see/hear his critics come up with any better ideas for preventing/dissuading/deterring fanatic Islam from literally genocidal acts …
So – Brendan #2 – what solution do *you* propose that is *better* than Tancredo’s ?
48 hours notice to evacuate the vicinity just gives the fanatics time to round up as many civilians as they can, move ’em onto the target while the fanatics adjourn to a safe distance …
Again, I don’t have a better answer …
I *do* know, that if, again please G-d forfend, such a thing happens, we all have to hope that it happens during the Presidency of a Ronald Reagan or a GW Bush, and *not* during the Presidency of a Gore or a Carter or an Obama or a Kucinich …
Alasdair, you do realize that Mecca and Medina are not in Iran, correct? You also realize that Iran and Saudi Arabia have an adversarial relationship, correct?
David K.
Of course he doesn’t, because Alasdair is an idiot who thinks all Muslims are the same and part of a single global movement 100% aimed at taking us down.
BTW, Jim, I don’t know who you are, but I like your style 🙂
Alasdair
Jim K #12 – you do realise that I explicitly said “Not as Iran, but simply as their own little band of fanatical Islam ? “ … {emphasis added for the reading-challenged} …
Let me simplify things for you …
I probably knew where Mecca and Medina and Tehran are on the map before you were born … and I could tell you why Mecca and Medina are significant to a lot of folk, too, back then … I could also tell you that the Aladdin story isn’t even an original part of the Arabian nights stories …
Currently, it takes a ‘player’ at the level of a state to do the nuclear thing … yer average terrorist doesn’t have access to nuclear devices …
Thanks to US intervention, bin Laden and AlQaeda no longer have a strong enough base … similarly, thanks to Husseini stupidity and over-reach, the rest of the planet first isolated the next-most-likely candidate, and subsequently removed his regime, too … the only current candidate who does – just happens to be a major political figure in Iran – and, worse yet, a believer in the Twelfth Imam …
Hence the example – if the US was ill-advised enough to put Mecca and Medina under a retaliatory advisory and someone outwith either city (or, as was noted, outwith Saudi Arabia) decided, G-d forfend, to go nuclear on/in a US city, then what does the US do ?
Prove that it was all a bluff by saying “Just kidding ! Didn’t mean it !” ?
Go ahead and nuke Mecca and Medina, killing (probably) innocent folk, and creating unwilling martyrs to be exploited by the surviving instigators ?
(If I understand Brendan’s #14 correctly, just PANIC! ?)
Me, as I said, I don’t have a better answer than Tancredo’s, for all that I don’t like his answer …
Cartman
Bah. I had a long drawn out response, but there was an error when I tried to post it, and I don’t want to write another long one. But I would just point out that in light of the fact that we threatened to kill tens of millions of people in response to a Soviet attack, I don’t think the bombing of Mecca should be dismissed offhand as inherantly evil. It’s just a bad idea because I don’t think the Islamists are as rational as the Soviets, and I think that at least a few would probably welcome the opportunity launch a battle royal between the West and the Islamic world. I absolutely believe that if some nuke (or even worse, a snuke) blew up New York or DC, and we responded by bombing Mecca, the Islamic world would still blame us. I remember the videos of people in the street and doing their “la la la la la” celebration after 9/11 as if each Muslim had won the Powerball.
Also, we cannot threaten to bomb Mecca as retaliation unless we mean it. If you don’t follow through on a threat, you bring into question every future threat that you make. If we threaten to bomb Mecca and don’t do it, then a threat to retaliate against, for example a nuclear armed Iran with nuclear weapons if they attack us or Israel would be in question.
That being said, IF I thought to a high degree of confidence that a threat to bomb Mecca would prevent further attacks, I’d be all for it.
Alasdair: It’s fantastic that you have a grasp of early Islamic history (or at least believe you do), but perhaps I can help you out in seeing why to someone who is not batshit insane this seems ridiculous on its face.
Iran is not Saudi Arabia. Ignoring for a moment that Ahmedinejad doesn’t even control the military in Iran, let’s just pretend that those that do decided to give a nuke to a third party or nuke themselves.
What in your stupid little skull makes you think it’s alright to nuke cities in another country in retaliation? Because they feel some sort of religious affinity for the sites? Are we going to nuke Vatican City when Guy Fawkes the II comes around and discovers nukes?
And don’t try and give me some sort of weasely explanation where we hypothesize a situation where Saudi Arabia is in on it. That’s not at all what we’re talking about here and you know it.
What in your stupid little skull makes you think it’s alright to nuke cities in another country in retaliation?
Maybe because it has been the official US policy for the last 50 years?
gahrie
OH, you mean a third party nation?
Normally I would agree with you…don’t bomb Spain because France has pissed me off and all.
However…Saudi Arabia is hardly an innocent third party. Saudi Arabia does as much to promote fundamentalist Islam as anyone else. And remember, national borders are meaningless to the fundamentalists.
I actually wish the Islamic world was sane enough for MAD to work with them.
Jim, why all the misdirected hostility? Not only did Alasdair never suggest Iran was Saudi Arabia and had control of Mecca and Medina, Alasdair is not even agreeing that we should nuke Mecca and Medina. Here’s what he said:
Hence the example – if the US was ill-advised enough to put Mecca and Medina under a retaliatory advisory and someone outwith either city (or, as was noted, outwith Saudi Arabia) decided, G-d forfend, to go nuclear on/in a US city, then what does the US do ?
Prove that it was all a bluff by saying “Just kidding ! Didn’t mean it !” ?
Go ahead and nuke Mecca and Medina, killing (probably) innocent folk, and creating unwilling martyrs to be exploited by the surviving instigators ?
(If I understand Brendan’s #14 correctly, just PANIC! ?)
Me, as I said, I don’t have a better answer than Tancredo’s, for all that I don’t like his answer …
Jeez Jim, with cohorts like that, who needs detractors?
I’m the one who said I’d want to threaten to retaliate against any major terrorist attack by nuking Mecca and Medina, although my caveat was that this would preferably be in the context of string theory and bajillions of universes to play out the scenario and see what works from a game theory perspective. Given just one chance, I think I’d pass on nuking Mecca and Medina myself as well. But, in a twisted sort of way, I think it’s cool Tancredo had the balls to say that, whether or not he’d really do such a thing if presented the opportunity. But then I tend to believe diplomats should be pagans, not angels.
AMLTrojan: The hostility comes from the flippant discussion we’re having about murdering innocent people because of their vague religious affiliation people who commit a heinous act. The very fact that we’re entertaining the idea is revolting.
And not only is it morally repugnant, but as Brendan alluded to, it’s fucking stupid. Let’s just put it this way, how far do you think you’d get in the explanation of your ridiculous little idea before anyone in the Foreign Policy community, be it actual government, academia, or mainstream think tanks would laugh in your fucking face. The idea that you could create a foreign policy around the threat to nuke an uninvolved third party’s cities due to a religious connection with the perpetrators of the act displays both an infantile understanding of how foreign policy works and a dangerous willingness to lash out at the expense of innocent people (not just the people in the cities themselves but the many people that would be killed in response). The idea is so obviously stupid that it really doesn’t even warrant a response if it weren’t for the fact that you are normally a somewhat coherent human being mixed with the “jaw drop” effect.
Which brings me to the answer to your question about why my hostility is “misdirected” at Alasdair. Far from your poor reading of his comment, Alasdair clearly supports the position:
Me, as I said, I don’t have a better answer than Tancredo’s, for all that I don’t like his answer …
So now that we shift the bold, it seems the meaning is clear. Alasdair says, gee, I wouldn’t want to do this, but what else are we to do? How about, uh, not threatening to destroy two cities because of their affiliation with a religion? Gee, that’s an idea. But perhaps that never crossed Alasdair’s mind, and now that it has he’ll take back his oh-so-reluctant endorsement of Tancredo’s position and join the rational, civilized world.
Further, the reason he got the wrath, and not you is that he was both the last to respond and the only one stupid enough to actually start naming names in this made up scenario, and the name he plopped down happened to take the whole thing to a whole other level of stupid.
But sure, you deserve it too. Perhaps more so, because unlike him you’ve shown that you can at least reason adequately, and even if you are the disgusting human being this position requires you to be, I would hope you’d at least see how on a practical level this idea is beyond stupid.
Not as Iran, but simply as their own little band of fanatical Islam ?
For the “reading challenged” let me point out the obvious here: “as Iran” or not, it’s not, “as Saudi Arabia” because if it was, the conversation would be moot. That would simply be a nuclear response against a party that attacked first.
But that is not at all what we’re talking about here.
Alasdair
AMLTrojan #22 – it’s probably because Jim K, like David K, doesn’t have better ideas for things, they just *KNOW* that if it is supported by a Republican, it is guaranteed to be wrong … (grin) … even if the person isn’t a Republican …
If either of them had a better answer than Tancredo’s, they would be mentioning it and championing it … because they don’t, and they cannot bring themselves to simply admit that they don’t, they fall back on insults and strawmen and what seems like deliberate misunderstanding of simple phrases – except that they literally don’t have any better ideas, so they are trapped in this cycle of misdirected anger …
Sad, isn’t it ?
trooperbari
This whole discussion is mystifying. I’ve spent the last few years bouncing between Indonesia and Malaysia, both democracies with emerging economies, Muslim-majority populations and largely pro-US leadership. The number of Muslims who would rather live peacefully than support terrorism far outweighs the number of extremists, as evidenced by the support for the Indonesian government’s actions following the hotel bombings and its crackdown on Al Qaeda in Aceh.
If the US was to bomb Mecca and Medina, I guaran-damn-tee you every single Muslim in those countries would hate the US for life, as would their children and their children’s children. That’s not even including Afghanistan, Pakistan, the less conspicuous Gulf states (Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, etc.), the Philippines (Mindanao especially), Singapore and the large Muslim minorities in England, France and Germany (among others).
Lots of luck rallying people to your cause when you do the one thing, short of banning the Qu’ran, that is sure sever all ties with these communities, including the allies in the “war on terror” the US has gone to such pains to court. It doesn’t say much for the foresight of a supposedly serious political candidate when he advocates a high-risk, low-reward policy that would isolate America’s allies and create generations of enemies. Does he honestly believe the likes of Canada, Australia and other traditional coalition partners will go along in lockstep just because that’s what they’ve always done?
Jim Kelly, let me be clear, it’s not the idea of murdering innocent people that makes this discussion flippantly interesting to me, it’s the idea of destroying the Kaaba. And Alasdair is right, we can probably do that best with a kinetic weapon.
But again, you’re getting way overheated here. I specifically said that pursuing this course of events “would preferably be in the context of string theory and bajillions of universes to play out the scenario and see what works from a game theory perspective. Given just one chance, I think I’d pass on nuking Mecca and Medina myself….” Not one of us is seriously suggesting that we should take this to the State Dept and ask them to consider this as a serious foreign diplomacy initiative. I am quite happy to stick with the Bush Doctrine of preemptively neutering potential threats and their state supporters, it’s just too bad we dropped that policy so quickly after taking out Saddam (I agree with Michael Ledeen, we should have decapitated the mullahcracy in Iran first). So really, let’s not get our panties all wadded up over our heads on this one, mmmmkay?
As for Alasdair, I’m not sure I agree that Tancredo’s idea is the best of a bunch of bad solutions (sort of like how democracy is a bad form of government, but the rest are all worse), but I do agree that there are no easy, painless solutions.
See, if you’re one of those “all roads lead to Rome” types of religionists, or conversely, an “all religions are misguided and worthless” atheist, then no, you’re not going to see the difference between Islam and Hinduism or Christianity, and yes, bombing Mecca is going to make about as much sense to you as tearing down Buddhist statues in Afghanistan or nuking the Vatican. But for those of us somewhere in between, who attempt to judge religions either by critiquing their truth claims or simply by examining their worldly fruits, Islam is by almost any measure of reason a troubling religion.
So while I don’t support Tancredo’s solution, I appreciate that his solution recognizes the fundamental challenge we face, which is that orthodox Islam is going to be extremely difficult to adapt to the modern world peacefully and quietly, and I perfectly understand the response of, if you can’t fix it, just blow it up and make it go away. That’s what you do when your house is condemned in an earthquake; you don’t try to rebuild based on the cracked foundation and splintered support beams, you tear it down and start all over from scratch. The trouble is, that’s been the MO of religions throughout the centuries (we can’t get the neighboring tribe to switch allegiances to our gods, so let’s just wipe them out), and that ain’t gonna fly in today’s world.
Still, until other proposed methods of dealing with Islam and terrorists are put forth on this same predicate that orthodox Islam is a flawed religion with violent consequences, the rest of the “peace and be merry” solutions out there (e.g., empower the moderates, flood Islamic countries with wealth and roads and jobs, etc.) just can’t be taken seriously either.
trooperbari, so you’re saying bombing Mecca would piss off billions of Muslims? And the sky is blue, and shit smells? Thanks for your contribution, your powers of discernment are duly noted.
dcl
AML, I don’t think Islam is the problem you make it out to be, at least no more so than any other religion. In the middle ages Muslims were the ones that saved the works of Plato, Aristotle, and many other classical thinkers and was demonstrably more moderate than Christianity. At the turn of the last century, Turkey, Iran, Egypt etc. were all moving in a “Westernizing” direction. Then around the same time as you got Christian Fundamentalism and Extremism as a back lash against modernity you see the same thing with Islam in the Muslim world. Unfortunately the trust fund of oil has enabled bad behavior and a failure to move forward and helped to bankroll the extremists.
It is easy to see the failings of a religion when it is not your own.
These things are, of course, why the separation of church and state is so vital to a functional democracy.
As to Al’s question. The primary goal when it comes to terrorist attacks is to prevent them. We proved last week we are actually capable of that. The next goal is to hold those responsible for the attacks accountable. Lashing out in a non-specific manner is not effective to our cause. And generally deterrent based strategies are tenuous at best. This was true even during the cold war and it is why the death penalty hasn’t eliminated murder in the jurisdictions that have it. There was much more to cold war diplomacy than mutually assured annihilation.
gahrie
Christianity had the Reformation and the Enlightenment, Islam rejects the very concept of either.
trooperbari
Not all of those billions subscribe to “orthodox Islam” or choose to settle their differences through violence, AML. In your estimation, does the “flaw” lie with Islam itself or the people who choose a literal interpretation of the word of Allah?
trooperbari and dcl, I personally feel the best way to compare religions against each other is to look at the beliefs and behaviors of what would be considered “fundamentalist” or “orthodox” — i.e., those who attempt to follow their religion as closely to tradition or by the book as possible. So the entire question of “moderates”, or what has happened in antiquity or history, takes not just a back seat in the discussion, but the last row of the bus.
As an example, when talking about Christianity, are you talking about Unitarians? African Methodist Episcopal? Liberal Presbyterians vs. conservative Presbyterians? I frankly don’t see the point of looking at denominations, I think you have to look at what is considered orthodox / traditionalist / fundamentalist — i.e. who takes the Bible and biblical traditions the most seriously — and that skews you towards evaluating the beliefs and behaviors of evangelical Protestants, non-cafeteria Catholics, and traditionalist Eastern Orthodox.
Similarly with Jews, you’re now looking at strains of Ashkenazi or Sephardi Orthodoxy vs. Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist movements.
When you do the same for other major and minor world religions (Islam, Bahai, Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Mormonism, Paganism, and so on) and start to rack and stack and compare the orthodox versions against each other, you start to get the picture that those who take the Quran seriously and try to adhere to its precepts (e.g. Shariah) are not going to be easy to get along with in our modern, globalized societies.
In sum, there is little reason to make the distinction between “Islam itself” and “the people who choose a literal interpretation” of the Quran. To me, as long as you have the latter, you will have the former, and they are both so interconnected in concept and expression of the religion that it’s pointless to make the distinction. So to me, when you’re talking about Judaism, you’re talking about Orthodox Jews, and vice versa; when you’re talking about Christianity, you’re talking about the seriously Orthodox, Catholic, or evangelical Protestant types, and vice versa; and when you talk about Islam, you’re talking about Islamic fundamentalists, and vice versa.
dcl
G. The Enlightenment has nothing to do with Religion per se. At the time of the Enlightenment Islam had no need for such a thing because they were already deeply involved in Science and Reason. In fact Muslim scholars and scientists were the very people that kept much of the Greek philosophy, upon which the Enlightenment based its ideas, in existence during the dark ages, some of the first translations of Plato were done from Arabic not Greek.
As for the Reformation, yes it was religious, a significant, I’d say most even, of it was anti-enlightment. They called for a turn back to orthodoxy, and then went and tried to twist science into proving God when that didn’t work. Of course science can’t prove God, which ultimately led to the Church imploding on itself. Which gives us Christian Evangelicals and Fundamentalists–a reaction to the threat of the Enlightenment. Ultimately that leaves little room in western society for traditional religion. This was a problem that the Muslims had basically managed to avoid whilst they were in the scientific vanguard. But once we in the west discovered it it has caused the same fundamental problem for them as it did the west. It has triggered fundamentalism and orthodoxy in those that see their traditional beliefs as threatened and endangered by modernity. And of course you know Luther himself was exceptional conservative, he wanted to retain the Catholic church but he also wanted to expel those things that he saw as corrupt, corrupting, and profane within it.
AML, so am I now to judge you the same as a snake handler by your own logic? And what branch of Orthodox Islam is it you want to look at? For there are very devout Muslims that call fervently for pacifism.
Generally so called orthodox and or Fundamentalists are bastardizations and warped views of a faith that has been past down for generations. They appear when the faith and culture feels threatened or under attack. So in that sense, what the faith is truly about and its history are inextricably linked to each other. Orthodox fundamentalism is a fear reaction to a perceived threat, it is not what the religion is about. The fundamentalists don’t follow their religion the way it always has been, they are a reaction to how the religion is being practiced, and in their perception wrongly (though that is often how it’s been done for generations immemorial).
Though if you look only at the Fundamentalists and the Orthodox I’m surprised you are still religious at all.
dcl, the debate is not whether Islam can coincide with science and reason, the debate is whether Islam can coincide with modernity and globalization. Though, I do agree the Enlightenment has nothing to do with the current discussion as well.
Addressing the Reformation, I don’t know how you can view the Reformation as anti-enlightenment or a turn back to orthodoxy (when orthodoxy at that time meant a command-and-control response to papal authority and Aquinian theology). The Reformation was radical in its driving force: sola scriptura, sola Christus, sola fide. The Reformation planted the seeds that erased the “divine right” of monarchs, that led to the toppling of Latin as the lingua franca of Western Civilization, and utilizing the newly developed printing press, opened the way to participation in political and civil affairs by the masses (thanks to pamphlets and the dramatically reduced cost of printing books). Without these things, the Enlightenment, democracy, and capitalism do not flourish.
As for the later Christian reactions to modernity, Christian fundamentalism arose as a reaction against that, while evangelical Christianity matured out of fundamentalism as an adaptation to modernity. Reservations about the theory of evolution aside (and maybe birth control for Catholics), Catholicism and evangelical Christianity have adapted to modernity just fine thank you very much. The same is true for Orthodox Judaism. Fundamentalist Islam? They’re struggling with modernity in fits and starts, with the ultimate outcome not yet decided either way.
Categorically, if you want to put snake-handling churches in the orthodox camp, you can, but obviously they are an extreme outlier subset of Christianity that has its roots located more in isolation from modernity and civilization than in reaction to it. And more importantly, they don’t strap bombs to themselves and fly jets into buildings.
Generally so called orthodox and or Fundamentalists are bastardizations and warped views of a faith that has been past down for generations. They appear when the faith and culture feels threatened or under attack. So in that sense, what the faith is truly about and its history are inextricably linked to each other. Orthodox fundamentalism is a fear reaction to a perceived threat, it is not what the religion is about. The fundamentalists don’t follow their religion the way it always has been, they are a reaction to how the religion is being practiced, and in their perception wrongly (though that is often how it’s been done for generations immemorial).
This is a completely, uh, liberal and evolutionary way to see things, for sure. The reality is, Orthodox Jews today look and sound (and smell!) much like the Pharisees during Roman times (Rabbinic Judaism grew out of Pharisaic Judaism following the destruction of the Second Temple). Christianity has always been the most adaptive; the first churches met in houses and the religion was almost communalist, then it was institutionalized by Constantine and the Romans, went through a period of great turmoil and debate in defining exactly what its belief system was, survived a Great Schism, then underwent a Reformation and Counter-reformation. IMO, what would be considered orthodoxy in Christianity is the widest, fuzziest net of the three monotheistic religions. Meanwhile, the words of the Quran haven’t changed since shortly after the times of Mohammed; what has changed is the world around them, which is no longer reflective of Bedouin desert tribal culture and thought patterns. Yes, different expressions of Islam flourished under the Turks and in Persia to the East Indies, but aside from the Shiite vs. Sunni sects, the other major internal strain in Islam has been the strain of Arabic vs. native languages (readings from the Quran, prayers, etc are all supposed to be in Arabic; translating to other languages is generally forbidden). So you can make an argument that its the Arabic / Bedouin mentality that is at the root of the problem, not Islamic theology, but when the two are married so close together — again — what’s the point of delineating the two? They are one and the same in effect.
Alasdair, #25: An answer to what? Surely you aren’t suggesting this is an “answer” to our problems with Islamic terrorism, are you? As if there’s some sort of silver bullet that solves this problem, one thing we must do?
As I said above, my “answer” is simply not to do it. I’m not sure what kind of tautological short bus you ride where you think your position is correct simply because no other has been offered.
AMLTrojan, #27: Perhaps you’ll forgive me for getting overheated, as I was overheated at what your position was, not what it is now. You began by defending Tancredo (certainly with caveats, but none of them seem to show concern for the lives of the people who would be killed aside from your flippant 48 hours in one of your later posts) to calling for a much more limited attack.
You go from Tancredo’s position, attack two cities with nukes, to attacking a single structure with a conventional weapon.
Perhaps if we continue this conversation we can get you to say that you would like to be parachuted into Mecca to ask really nicely for them to be nice to us.
At any rate, while your current plan is not nearly as fucked up as the original plan you defended, it’s still remarkably stupid and childish.
gahrie
I’ve gtot the answer! We start by hi-jacking four airplanes….
Alasdair
So your Jim K answer to a nuked US city is “*shrug* Do nothing …” … WOW !
(*drat* I was going to try to avoid ad hominem, and there I went and said that his answer was a “Jim K answer” … Bad Alasdair ! No cookie tonight !)
You avoided the ad hominem, but seem to not be able to help yourself but to create a straw man. You seem to have missed this:
I’m not sure what kind of tautological short bus you ride where you think your position is correct simply because no other has been offered.
Alasdair
Jim – some of us do not consider a blithe and simplistic “Do nothing” to be a sufficient response … it’s what we expect from a Carter, or a Gore, or an Obama, (or a Chamberlain) yet nonetheless, it’s not a sufficient response …
And I don’t think you missed my response … to be able to do so, you would have had to be able to recognise it and understand it …
Historically, the answer to the Hashishin was the same as the answer to Smallpox … and there are no more Hashishin – just other vermin/diseases … the munkar al Qaeda are just the current manifestation …
dcl
Al, I don’t hink Jim is saying do nothing. A logical response requires knowledge of an attack that has not, and with any luck, will not occur. So it is possible that the US would be attacked in such a way that such an attack as outlined by AML, or even Tancredo is warranted. Not likely, but possible. There are of course many other options that may or may not be sensible depending on the facts. But the facts do not exist yet. As a categorical response automatic retaliation plan, the Tancredo plan is ridiculous short sighted and just plain dumb.
The options are not do nothing and nuke Mecca. In this debate the question is, is the Tancredo plan a good idea. The answer to that is simply no.
Now that that is established you might get people to entertain the idea of discussing what might be a logical response. But then things get rather hypothetical.
I still like the idea of nuking Mecca. We haven’t done any nuclear testing in a while and our warheads are getting old and unreliable. The Saudi Arabian peninsula seems as good a place as any to do the testing, and it’s so hot there already, I doubt they’d even notice. Heck, they’d probably appreciate the shade from the mushroom clouds. Plus we take out the Kaaba. Two birds with one stone. Or is that one stone with two birds?!?
I like the idea of having AMLTrojan’s entire family sodomized with a broomstick. I mean, in an alternate universe, just to see how it would play out. Heck, people pay for colon cleanings, we’d be doing them a favor!
Wow, someone’s touchy! Did somebody take away your cookie and give you sour milk?
You must be one of those people that was outraged by the “Draw Mohammad Day” meme.
Alasdair
dcl #40 – from Jim K #35 “As I said above, my “answer” is simply not to do it. “ with no other idea offered … in a conventional understanding of English, that does translate to “Do mothing.” …
I have tried, in several ways, to ask for better ideas (than Tancredo’s) from the commenters here – and I also admitted that, at this time, i don’t have a better idea, myself – because *I* do not consider “Do nothing” to be a better idea … I’m still an optimist, hoping that a better idea will be proposed … hypnotheitcal is fine …
Tancredo’s idea isn’t a good idea if we can come up with a better one … if it’s the *only* idea, then it is what it is …
Alasdair, I believe their idea is that, were we to be attacked on the scale of 9/11 again, we should just take it up the ass and walk away. You’re talking to the same people who shat a brick when the Bush Doctrine was created, didn’t want us in Iraq, fought like hell to keep us from dealing with the Iranian issue, and are trigger-happy to bail on Afghanistan. To them, the answer is, “Shit happens”. Open an FBI investigation, send the CIA to look in a few caves, then quietly let things return to normal so we can re-focus on installing a NHS in America.
That could conceivably be a better answer if you’re the type of person who is so softened by Western material wealth that fighting back and pissing Muslims off scares you more than worrying that your neighborhood Starbucks might be attacked. However, I’m not one of those people, and when shit happens to America, I don’t give a flying fuck what 1 billion people think, and I hope our next response is so relentless and so ruthless that we don’t back down until the world cries Uncle and gets on board with the idea of rooting out these bad guys once and for all.
gahrie
I’d settle for the Ryan doctrine from the Clancy books…….
Alasdair
AMLTrojan #43 – I suspect that Jim K may have just actually realised what happened Tuesday … and he’s probably not a Happy Camper … that would explain his lashing out …
I’m wondering when Teh One will notice … I saw a J Lavery cartoon earlier today that applies – but I cannot find it again now … it has Obama talking about jobs he created – for 60+ Republicans in the House and 16 GOP Governors and 6 GOP Senators …
AMLTrojan, #43: Not touchy at all. I mean, until somebody comes up with another idea, I think sodomizing your entire family in an alternative universe with a broomstick is the best thing we have going. I mean, I don’t know that I’d want to be the one with the other end, but from a game theory perspective it’s an interesting approach.
On second thought, perhaps we don’t need a broomstick. Perhaps a colonoscope would do, after all, the real target is the colon.
Wait, no, I’m back to saying stupid shit, it’s gotta be the broomstick. For your whole family. How old is your kid? You have a kid right? That’s gonna be rough. But they’ll appreciate the bristles on the broom. Plus we take out the colon.
Alasdair #44,47 and AMLTrojan #45: Do you want to know what I’d do? Do you? Okay, here, I’ll tell you what I’d do as President to deal with the threat. But first let me point out that I don’t have to offer an alternative. Because we have a default, it’s called regime change. And I’ve never argued once that regime change is not a legitimate response to being nuked by another country.
But here’s what I’d do instead of Tancredo’s nut job idea, and it’d start today, because we are really poorly prepared for wars like Afghanistan:
1.) Language training. Soldiers will learn other languages, period. No fucking discussion. You don’t have to be an expert, but you will learn at least a little. Learning a lot will lead to a monthly bonus in the military. Ineffective ‘terps are a big problem in the execution of our current wars, and they will be problems in future ones.
2.) Teach COIN principles to soldiers. Have you ever read about McChrystal having to argue with his soldiers on the ground about COIN? That’s because they’re not taught COIN in boot camp, they’re taught to lay waste to every fucking thing they see. As a result it’s a bit in opposition to their training to follow the COIN manual. But shit, most of them haven’t even read it, including officers (I have no idea how many officers haven’t read it, but the fact that *any* haven’t is fucking mind blowing, and you’ll see officers on mil blogs saying they haven’t).
3.) Improve HUMINT capabilities. They’re not very awesome right now. They should be.
4.) Create a rapid provisional government deployment plan, witha standard transition plan, *before* we need it. It should be a framework, not a step by step manual, but we need something in place before boots hit the ground. We didn’t have that in Iraq or Afghanistan. I’d place huge emphasis on gradient transition, immediately put locals through extensive training, and not half ass it.
These are just a few of the things I’d do before hand. So what would I do when the bomb went off? Regime change. Done the right way.
That’s it. I think losing your government and being executed is deterrent enough.
David K.
“Alasdair, I believe their idea is that, were we to be attacked on the scale of 9/11 again, we should just take it up the ass and walk away. You’re talking to the same people who shat a brick when the Bush Doctrine was created, didn’t want us in Iraq, fought like hell to keep us from dealing with the Iranian issue, and are trigger-happy to bail on Afghanistan”
On September 11th we were attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists. The correct response to this was to take down the Taliban who had been harboring them and capture and or kill their leaders. That was the appropriate response. You mess with us, we will take you out.
What do Iraq or Iran have to do with 9/11 (hint: nothing)
People got pissed at Bush and the right, not because we think NOTHING should be done if we are attacked. Thats an insanely stupid thing to say and no one but an avowed pacifist feels that way. American across the political spectrum were outraged by what happened and support for the invasion of Afghanistan was strong from reds and blues alike. I sure as hell know I supported doing it, still am glad we did.
But taking out the Taliban and bin Ladin (which Bush never did, FYI) is one thing. Invading Iraq on false premises has nothing to do with 9/11 and criticizing that war effort and its prolonged bungled execution is not a sign that people would just say “eh shit happens” if we were attacked again. Its so intellectually dishonest to claim that I’m amazed that YOU are even saying it. Iraq had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with us being attacked. Nothing. Zero. Your willingness to conflate these issues to try and justify your far right political bent is both sad and frightening.
Here’s a hint to idiots like you, Alasdair and gahrie. There are more than just two extreme options here. Its not a choice between supporting the current wars indefinitely or surrendering the country to Osama bin Ladin tommorow morning. Plenty of us recognize that terrorists exist and are a real problem. We just think that your way of doing things, fighting massive expensive, prolonged wars that have no connection to events that occured and have actually led to greater terrorist sympathies, are stupid. We’d rather not stretch our troops and money thin fighting a battle that is unrelated to real problems. The money could be better spent at home improving the nation, its economy, and its security. Helping remove dependence from foreign oil and actually being able to keep a better eye on our domestic borders. Thats not to say we wouldn’t respond to international events as necessary, just that we realized long ago (and you don’t seem to) that Iraq wasn’t that event, and staying there isn’t going to do a damn thing to keep us safer. All it will do is continue to hemorrage money and lives. But yeah, THATS the way to keep us safe right?
Not sure I agree with #1, and there are some solid reasons behind #2, but both are very unrealistic. If we do some radical reorganization along the lines of what Thomas Barnett suggests, I do think the COIN / occupying soldier role is a necessary function that is missing from our DHS / DOD structure.
You’re not going to get much argument from me on #3, except that I’ll remind you who is to blame for the decrepit condition of our HUMINT capacities (thanks to some dumbass policies based in high-minded moral masturbation vs. solid realpolitik and intel principles), as well as who has been standing in the way of improving them post-9/11. Hint: It rhymes with diberals and lemocrats.
As for #4, again, great idea, but guess again who would fight tooth and nail against funding that infrastructure. That’s right, it’s your buddies on the Left again!
In the mean time, since the Dems oppose anything remotely reasonable when it comes to fortifying ourselves for duty as the world’s policeman (a role I admit is accepted only begrudgingly), I’ll stick with the option of destroying the Kaaba. And you can keep daydreaming about sticking broomsticks up infants’ asses, because you don’t like their parents’ Machiavellian logic.
Alasdair
AMLTrojan – you are, indeed, a Prince among Commenters !
And on #3, how have liberals stood in the way of better HUMINT, and how are they to blame for the decrepit condition of it? It seems you aren’t really familiar with the issues.
On #4, I again disagree. A lot of the issues with both of these are largely under the radar and aren’t discussed in public. Not secret, simply ignored.
The real challenge with these is buy-in within the government. On the HUMINT side, we seem to simply have an affinity for tech solutions to intelligence collection, and it’s been that way for a long, long time.
On the government deployment side I think it’s honestly just hubris on our part. We seemed to think we could roll into Iraq and Afghanistan and everything would be easy. Even now that we saw that wasn’t the case, we haven’t seem to want to put into place long term structural improvements to these issues.
How are #1 and #2 unrealistic? Watch the TED video. Beyond that, with DOD budgets being squeezed, and personnel costs ballooning up the wazoo, the pressure on the military will be to decrease headcount, and the resulting DOD pushback will be that the soldiers’ duties should be limited to being warriors, not peacekeepers. Unless DHS and DOD are radically reorganized like what Barnett suggests, and we have a new “Dept of Peace”.
For HUMINT, I have to assume you’re referring specifically to more clandestine activities because frankly we perform non-clandestine HUMINT probably better than anybody out there. What limits us in clandestine ops are self-imposed limits, far more than revenue or know-how. The tech vs. human aspect of intel collection is a false dichotomy — we can very easily have both. But since post-Vietnam / post-1960s, lib-Dems have bought into post-colonial critiques of American power and have sought to curtail or undermine many CIA HUMINT activities and methods. Heck, Clinton didn’t even want daily intel briefings until embassies started blowing up.
You’re still all wet on #4. Democrats have zero interest in building an infrastructure for nation-building post-invasion. I’ve seen neocons push for this since I interned at AEI following 9/11, but between Rumsfeld and the Dems war opposition and the George Wills of the world, they couldn’t get any traction. Chalking it up to just being an “under the radar” issue is laughable.
Also, I disagree with your assessment of #3 from a different angle. You say our HUMINT capabilities are not very awesome, but overall, while not perfect, Bush did a heckuva lot to beef up HUMINT since 9/11 and it’s paid off for us multiple times despite the ROE we handcuff ourselves with.
RT @thinkprogress: Tancredo Still Believes In Bombing Mecca And Medina http://thkpr.gs/a4rHeX
That’s an oversimplification. What he said was, we should tell them (whoever “them” are) that if there were to be another attack of this magnitude (I assume he’s referring to 9/11), we would respond by bombing Mecca and Medina.
From a strategic standpoint, actually bombing Mecca and Medina under any circumstances is probably a very bad idea — borderline “absolutely crazy” even. But from a tactical perspective, I very much like the threat. If your enemies are going to speak and act against your country in terms if their religion, then making threats against their holy sites in response makes perfect sense to me.
If you goal is to provoke, rather than prevent, a full-on holy war, I agree 100%.
The threat itself would provoke holy war? Even though the threatened action is predicated on being a response to the Islamists’ provocation?
I don’t expect that we could rely on Islamists to operate according to rational response theory like we were able to with the USSR, but this particular threat would seem to have a better chance of successfully getting through their warped thought process.
And yes, I can hear Aragorn’s words to Theoden — slightly paraphrased — ringing in my hears: “Holy war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.” Except that’s not really true. We’re at war with a tiny sliver of Islam, which draws active/material support from a somewhat larger sliver, passive support (not terribly helpful to a military campaign) from a substantially larger group, ambivalence from another large group, and active opposition from medium/smallish groups that we need to try to enlarge (the “hearts & minds” part of the war). Openly declaring that we’d attack holy sites would, in my view, instantly move a lot of opposition folks into the ambivalent or supportive camp, a lot of ambivalent folks into the passive support, camp, and possibly some passive supporters into the active supporters or even the combatants camp. In other words, it would move everybody in the wrong direction. Might it have some deterrent effect? Uh, well maybe, but on the other hand, these people have no qualms about killing other Muslims and even doing so in mosques and whatnot, so why should we expect them to view such a threat as anything but a dare, both sides of which are a net positive for them — if they attack and we don’t follow through, they’ve proven we’re wimps who don’t follow through on our threats; if they attack and we DO follow through, they get the Clash of Civilizations they’ve always dreamed of.
In short, I fail to see the upside.
Also, I would prefer not to become genocidal monsters. Or even threaten to do so.
In any case, if string theory holds true and there really are thousands of millions of universes reflecting different versions of reality, I’d love to be in one where Tancredo gets his wish just to see how that plays out. From a game theory perspective, this is literally the equivalent of putting your balls on the table.
literally the equivalent of putting your balls on the table
Now THAT is something I really don’t want to see. Literally. *shudder*
Not sure I agree with this logic whatsoever, or that it would happen that way. I could conceive of a threat like this angering a lot of otherwise non-angry Muslims, but also deterring a good portion of some of the ones who are actually plotting and scheming to attack us.
This is, really, the basis of the best critique of the Tancredo threat. Muslims kill other Muslims way more often, in the name of their own religion; bloody “Clash of Civilizations” with Dar al-Harb notwithstanding, Dar al-Islam is rather bloody all on its own. This makes it rational to doubt that making a threat to Islamic holy sites would really have much of a deterrence. The only reason I think it might is, there’s a difference between a run-of-the-mill mosque, and the Three Holy Sites of Islam.
Easily avoidable. A. Don’t attack us. B. We’ll give you 48 hours notice to evacuate the vicinity.
AMLTrojan – this is the classic “hostage” situation … if Mecca and Medina are under a retaliatory threat, what do we do if Munkar Ahmedinejad and his 48 Thieves (inflation hits *everything*) smuggle a dirty bomb (or, G-d forfend, an actual nuclear device) into a US city and detonate it ? Not as Iran, but simply as their own little band of fanatical Islam ?
In decades of reading many sources, from SciFi to Fantasy to Alternate History writers, I have yet to find any that have had an answer with which I am comfortable …
I don’t know that, without hindsight, *I* could have given the order to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki … with hindsight, it saved literally millions of Japanese and Allied lives – and I still cannot say that, given the knowledge that was available to Truman, I could have given the orders …
The closest I have found, so far, involves a small meteorite/asteroid/kinetic weapon targeted on the Holy Stone in Mecca (with the ironic aside that, since the Holy Stone is supposed to be of meteorite origin, its destruction by another meteorite would be sort poetic – Allah giveth and Allah taketh away) … the symbolism would probably be much more effective than nuking Mecca, for example …
It’s very easy to put down Tancredo for speaking up – I have yet to see/hear his critics come up with any better ideas for preventing/dissuading/deterring fanatic Islam from literally genocidal acts …
So – Brendan #2 – what solution do *you* propose that is *better* than Tancredo’s ?
48 hours notice to evacuate the vicinity just gives the fanatics time to round up as many civilians as they can, move ’em onto the target while the fanatics adjourn to a safe distance …
Again, I don’t have a better answer …
I *do* know, that if, again please G-d forfend, such a thing happens, we all have to hope that it happens during the Presidency of a Ronald Reagan or a GW Bush, and *not* during the Presidency of a Gore or a Carter or an Obama or a Kucinich …
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I just…
Alasdair, you do realize that Mecca and Medina are not in Iran, correct? You also realize that Iran and Saudi Arabia have an adversarial relationship, correct?
Of course he doesn’t, because Alasdair is an idiot who thinks all Muslims are the same and part of a single global movement 100% aimed at taking us down.
http://www.brendanloy.com/lrt/2010/11/panic-2/
BTW, Jim, I don’t know who you are, but I like your style 🙂
Jim K #12 – you do realise that I explicitly said “Not as Iran, but simply as their own little band of fanatical Islam ? “ … {emphasis added for the reading-challenged} …
Let me simplify things for you …
I probably knew where Mecca and Medina and Tehran are on the map before you were born … and I could tell you why Mecca and Medina are significant to a lot of folk, too, back then … I could also tell you that the Aladdin story isn’t even an original part of the Arabian nights stories …
Currently, it takes a ‘player’ at the level of a state to do the nuclear thing … yer average terrorist doesn’t have access to nuclear devices …
Thanks to US intervention, bin Laden and AlQaeda no longer have a strong enough base … similarly, thanks to Husseini stupidity and over-reach, the rest of the planet first isolated the next-most-likely candidate, and subsequently removed his regime, too … the only current candidate who does – just happens to be a major political figure in Iran – and, worse yet, a believer in the Twelfth Imam …
Hence the example – if the US was ill-advised enough to put Mecca and Medina under a retaliatory advisory and someone outwith either city (or, as was noted, outwith Saudi Arabia) decided, G-d forfend, to go nuclear on/in a US city, then what does the US do ?
Prove that it was all a bluff by saying “Just kidding ! Didn’t mean it !” ?
Go ahead and nuke Mecca and Medina, killing (probably) innocent folk, and creating unwilling martyrs to be exploited by the surviving instigators ?
(If I understand Brendan’s #14 correctly, just PANIC! ?)
Me, as I said, I don’t have a better answer than Tancredo’s, for all that I don’t like his answer …
Bah. I had a long drawn out response, but there was an error when I tried to post it, and I don’t want to write another long one. But I would just point out that in light of the fact that we threatened to kill tens of millions of people in response to a Soviet attack, I don’t think the bombing of Mecca should be dismissed offhand as inherantly evil. It’s just a bad idea because I don’t think the Islamists are as rational as the Soviets, and I think that at least a few would probably welcome the opportunity launch a battle royal between the West and the Islamic world. I absolutely believe that if some nuke (or even worse, a snuke) blew up New York or DC, and we responded by bombing Mecca, the Islamic world would still blame us. I remember the videos of people in the street and doing their “la la la la la” celebration after 9/11 as if each Muslim had won the Powerball.
Also, we cannot threaten to bomb Mecca as retaliation unless we mean it. If you don’t follow through on a threat, you bring into question every future threat that you make. If we threaten to bomb Mecca and don’t do it, then a threat to retaliate against, for example a nuclear armed Iran with nuclear weapons if they attack us or Israel would be in question.
That being said, IF I thought to a high degree of confidence that a threat to bomb Mecca would prevent further attacks, I’d be all for it.
Alasdair: It’s fantastic that you have a grasp of early Islamic history (or at least believe you do), but perhaps I can help you out in seeing why to someone who is not batshit insane this seems ridiculous on its face.
Iran is not Saudi Arabia. Ignoring for a moment that Ahmedinejad doesn’t even control the military in Iran, let’s just pretend that those that do decided to give a nuke to a third party or nuke themselves.
What in your stupid little skull makes you think it’s alright to nuke cities in another country in retaliation? Because they feel some sort of religious affinity for the sites? Are we going to nuke Vatican City when Guy Fawkes the II comes around and discovers nukes?
And don’t try and give me some sort of weasely explanation where we hypothesize a situation where Saudi Arabia is in on it. That’s not at all what we’re talking about here and you know it.
Err, s/nuke themselves/nuke us themselves/
What in your stupid little skull makes you think it’s alright to nuke cities in another country in retaliation?
Maybe because it has been the official US policy for the last 50 years?
OH, you mean a third party nation?
Normally I would agree with you…don’t bomb Spain because France has pissed me off and all.
However…Saudi Arabia is hardly an innocent third party. Saudi Arabia does as much to promote fundamentalist Islam as anyone else. And remember, national borders are meaningless to the fundamentalists.
I actually wish the Islamic world was sane enough for MAD to work with them.
Jim, why all the misdirected hostility? Not only did Alasdair never suggest Iran was Saudi Arabia and had control of Mecca and Medina, Alasdair is not even agreeing that we should nuke Mecca and Medina. Here’s what he said:
Jeez Jim, with cohorts like that, who needs detractors?
I’m the one who said I’d want to threaten to retaliate against any major terrorist attack by nuking Mecca and Medina, although my caveat was that this would preferably be in the context of string theory and bajillions of universes to play out the scenario and see what works from a game theory perspective. Given just one chance, I think I’d pass on nuking Mecca and Medina myself as well. But, in a twisted sort of way, I think it’s cool Tancredo had the balls to say that, whether or not he’d really do such a thing if presented the opportunity. But then I tend to believe diplomats should be pagans, not angels.
AMLTrojan: The hostility comes from the flippant discussion we’re having about murdering innocent people because of their vague religious affiliation people who commit a heinous act. The very fact that we’re entertaining the idea is revolting.
And not only is it morally repugnant, but as Brendan alluded to, it’s fucking stupid. Let’s just put it this way, how far do you think you’d get in the explanation of your ridiculous little idea before anyone in the Foreign Policy community, be it actual government, academia, or mainstream think tanks would laugh in your fucking face. The idea that you could create a foreign policy around the threat to nuke an uninvolved third party’s cities due to a religious connection with the perpetrators of the act displays both an infantile understanding of how foreign policy works and a dangerous willingness to lash out at the expense of innocent people (not just the people in the cities themselves but the many people that would be killed in response). The idea is so obviously stupid that it really doesn’t even warrant a response if it weren’t for the fact that you are normally a somewhat coherent human being mixed with the “jaw drop” effect.
Which brings me to the answer to your question about why my hostility is “misdirected” at Alasdair. Far from your poor reading of his comment, Alasdair clearly supports the position:
Me, as I said, I don’t have a better answer than Tancredo’s, for all that I don’t like his answer …
So now that we shift the bold, it seems the meaning is clear. Alasdair says, gee, I wouldn’t want to do this, but what else are we to do? How about, uh, not threatening to destroy two cities because of their affiliation with a religion? Gee, that’s an idea. But perhaps that never crossed Alasdair’s mind, and now that it has he’ll take back his oh-so-reluctant endorsement of Tancredo’s position and join the rational, civilized world.
Further, the reason he got the wrath, and not you is that he was both the last to respond and the only one stupid enough to actually start naming names in this made up scenario, and the name he plopped down happened to take the whole thing to a whole other level of stupid.
But sure, you deserve it too. Perhaps more so, because unlike him you’ve shown that you can at least reason adequately, and even if you are the disgusting human being this position requires you to be, I would hope you’d at least see how on a practical level this idea is beyond stupid.
Further, back to this sentence:
Not as Iran, but simply as their own little band of fanatical Islam ?
For the “reading challenged” let me point out the obvious here: “as Iran” or not, it’s not, “as Saudi Arabia” because if it was, the conversation would be moot. That would simply be a nuclear response against a party that attacked first.
But that is not at all what we’re talking about here.
AMLTrojan #22 – it’s probably because Jim K, like David K, doesn’t have better ideas for things, they just *KNOW* that if it is supported by a Republican, it is guaranteed to be wrong … (grin) … even if the person isn’t a Republican …
If either of them had a better answer than Tancredo’s, they would be mentioning it and championing it … because they don’t, and they cannot bring themselves to simply admit that they don’t, they fall back on insults and strawmen and what seems like deliberate misunderstanding of simple phrases – except that they literally don’t have any better ideas, so they are trapped in this cycle of misdirected anger …
Sad, isn’t it ?
This whole discussion is mystifying. I’ve spent the last few years bouncing between Indonesia and Malaysia, both democracies with emerging economies, Muslim-majority populations and largely pro-US leadership. The number of Muslims who would rather live peacefully than support terrorism far outweighs the number of extremists, as evidenced by the support for the Indonesian government’s actions following the hotel bombings and its crackdown on Al Qaeda in Aceh.
If the US was to bomb Mecca and Medina, I guaran-damn-tee you every single Muslim in those countries would hate the US for life, as would their children and their children’s children. That’s not even including Afghanistan, Pakistan, the less conspicuous Gulf states (Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, etc.), the Philippines (Mindanao especially), Singapore and the large Muslim minorities in England, France and Germany (among others).
Lots of luck rallying people to your cause when you do the one thing, short of banning the Qu’ran, that is sure sever all ties with these communities, including the allies in the “war on terror” the US has gone to such pains to court. It doesn’t say much for the foresight of a supposedly serious political candidate when he advocates a high-risk, low-reward policy that would isolate America’s allies and create generations of enemies. Does he honestly believe the likes of Canada, Australia and other traditional coalition partners will go along in lockstep just because that’s what they’ve always done?
Jim Kelly, let me be clear, it’s not the idea of murdering innocent people that makes this discussion flippantly interesting to me, it’s the idea of destroying the Kaaba. And Alasdair is right, we can probably do that best with a kinetic weapon.
But again, you’re getting way overheated here. I specifically said that pursuing this course of events “would preferably be in the context of string theory and bajillions of universes to play out the scenario and see what works from a game theory perspective. Given just one chance, I think I’d pass on nuking Mecca and Medina myself….” Not one of us is seriously suggesting that we should take this to the State Dept and ask them to consider this as a serious foreign diplomacy initiative. I am quite happy to stick with the Bush Doctrine of preemptively neutering potential threats and their state supporters, it’s just too bad we dropped that policy so quickly after taking out Saddam (I agree with Michael Ledeen, we should have decapitated the mullahcracy in Iran first). So really, let’s not get our panties all wadded up over our heads on this one, mmmmkay?
As for Alasdair, I’m not sure I agree that Tancredo’s idea is the best of a bunch of bad solutions (sort of like how democracy is a bad form of government, but the rest are all worse), but I do agree that there are no easy, painless solutions.
See, if you’re one of those “all roads lead to Rome” types of religionists, or conversely, an “all religions are misguided and worthless” atheist, then no, you’re not going to see the difference between Islam and Hinduism or Christianity, and yes, bombing Mecca is going to make about as much sense to you as tearing down Buddhist statues in Afghanistan or nuking the Vatican. But for those of us somewhere in between, who attempt to judge religions either by critiquing their truth claims or simply by examining their worldly fruits, Islam is by almost any measure of reason a troubling religion.
So while I don’t support Tancredo’s solution, I appreciate that his solution recognizes the fundamental challenge we face, which is that orthodox Islam is going to be extremely difficult to adapt to the modern world peacefully and quietly, and I perfectly understand the response of, if you can’t fix it, just blow it up and make it go away. That’s what you do when your house is condemned in an earthquake; you don’t try to rebuild based on the cracked foundation and splintered support beams, you tear it down and start all over from scratch. The trouble is, that’s been the MO of religions throughout the centuries (we can’t get the neighboring tribe to switch allegiances to our gods, so let’s just wipe them out), and that ain’t gonna fly in today’s world.
Still, until other proposed methods of dealing with Islam and terrorists are put forth on this same predicate that orthodox Islam is a flawed religion with violent consequences, the rest of the “peace and be merry” solutions out there (e.g., empower the moderates, flood Islamic countries with wealth and roads and jobs, etc.) just can’t be taken seriously either.
trooperbari, so you’re saying bombing Mecca would piss off billions of Muslims? And the sky is blue, and shit smells? Thanks for your contribution, your powers of discernment are duly noted.
AML, I don’t think Islam is the problem you make it out to be, at least no more so than any other religion. In the middle ages Muslims were the ones that saved the works of Plato, Aristotle, and many other classical thinkers and was demonstrably more moderate than Christianity. At the turn of the last century, Turkey, Iran, Egypt etc. were all moving in a “Westernizing” direction. Then around the same time as you got Christian Fundamentalism and Extremism as a back lash against modernity you see the same thing with Islam in the Muslim world. Unfortunately the trust fund of oil has enabled bad behavior and a failure to move forward and helped to bankroll the extremists.
It is easy to see the failings of a religion when it is not your own.
These things are, of course, why the separation of church and state is so vital to a functional democracy.
As to Al’s question. The primary goal when it comes to terrorist attacks is to prevent them. We proved last week we are actually capable of that. The next goal is to hold those responsible for the attacks accountable. Lashing out in a non-specific manner is not effective to our cause. And generally deterrent based strategies are tenuous at best. This was true even during the cold war and it is why the death penalty hasn’t eliminated murder in the jurisdictions that have it. There was much more to cold war diplomacy than mutually assured annihilation.
Christianity had the Reformation and the Enlightenment, Islam rejects the very concept of either.
Not all of those billions subscribe to “orthodox Islam” or choose to settle their differences through violence, AML. In your estimation, does the “flaw” lie with Islam itself or the people who choose a literal interpretation of the word of Allah?
trooperbari and dcl, I personally feel the best way to compare religions against each other is to look at the beliefs and behaviors of what would be considered “fundamentalist” or “orthodox” — i.e., those who attempt to follow their religion as closely to tradition or by the book as possible. So the entire question of “moderates”, or what has happened in antiquity or history, takes not just a back seat in the discussion, but the last row of the bus.
As an example, when talking about Christianity, are you talking about Unitarians? African Methodist Episcopal? Liberal Presbyterians vs. conservative Presbyterians? I frankly don’t see the point of looking at denominations, I think you have to look at what is considered orthodox / traditionalist / fundamentalist — i.e. who takes the Bible and biblical traditions the most seriously — and that skews you towards evaluating the beliefs and behaviors of evangelical Protestants, non-cafeteria Catholics, and traditionalist Eastern Orthodox.
Similarly with Jews, you’re now looking at strains of Ashkenazi or Sephardi Orthodoxy vs. Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist movements.
When you do the same for other major and minor world religions (Islam, Bahai, Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Mormonism, Paganism, and so on) and start to rack and stack and compare the orthodox versions against each other, you start to get the picture that those who take the Quran seriously and try to adhere to its precepts (e.g. Shariah) are not going to be easy to get along with in our modern, globalized societies.
In sum, there is little reason to make the distinction between “Islam itself” and “the people who choose a literal interpretation” of the Quran. To me, as long as you have the latter, you will have the former, and they are both so interconnected in concept and expression of the religion that it’s pointless to make the distinction. So to me, when you’re talking about Judaism, you’re talking about Orthodox Jews, and vice versa; when you’re talking about Christianity, you’re talking about the seriously Orthodox, Catholic, or evangelical Protestant types, and vice versa; and when you talk about Islam, you’re talking about Islamic fundamentalists, and vice versa.
G. The Enlightenment has nothing to do with Religion per se. At the time of the Enlightenment Islam had no need for such a thing because they were already deeply involved in Science and Reason. In fact Muslim scholars and scientists were the very people that kept much of the Greek philosophy, upon which the Enlightenment based its ideas, in existence during the dark ages, some of the first translations of Plato were done from Arabic not Greek.
As for the Reformation, yes it was religious, a significant, I’d say most even, of it was anti-enlightment. They called for a turn back to orthodoxy, and then went and tried to twist science into proving God when that didn’t work. Of course science can’t prove God, which ultimately led to the Church imploding on itself. Which gives us Christian Evangelicals and Fundamentalists–a reaction to the threat of the Enlightenment. Ultimately that leaves little room in western society for traditional religion. This was a problem that the Muslims had basically managed to avoid whilst they were in the scientific vanguard. But once we in the west discovered it it has caused the same fundamental problem for them as it did the west. It has triggered fundamentalism and orthodoxy in those that see their traditional beliefs as threatened and endangered by modernity. And of course you know Luther himself was exceptional conservative, he wanted to retain the Catholic church but he also wanted to expel those things that he saw as corrupt, corrupting, and profane within it.
AML, so am I now to judge you the same as a snake handler by your own logic? And what branch of Orthodox Islam is it you want to look at? For there are very devout Muslims that call fervently for pacifism.
Generally so called orthodox and or Fundamentalists are bastardizations and warped views of a faith that has been past down for generations. They appear when the faith and culture feels threatened or under attack. So in that sense, what the faith is truly about and its history are inextricably linked to each other. Orthodox fundamentalism is a fear reaction to a perceived threat, it is not what the religion is about. The fundamentalists don’t follow their religion the way it always has been, they are a reaction to how the religion is being practiced, and in their perception wrongly (though that is often how it’s been done for generations immemorial).
Though if you look only at the Fundamentalists and the Orthodox I’m surprised you are still religious at all.
dcl, the debate is not whether Islam can coincide with science and reason, the debate is whether Islam can coincide with modernity and globalization. Though, I do agree the Enlightenment has nothing to do with the current discussion as well.
Addressing the Reformation, I don’t know how you can view the Reformation as anti-enlightenment or a turn back to orthodoxy (when orthodoxy at that time meant a command-and-control response to papal authority and Aquinian theology). The Reformation was radical in its driving force: sola scriptura, sola Christus, sola fide. The Reformation planted the seeds that erased the “divine right” of monarchs, that led to the toppling of Latin as the lingua franca of Western Civilization, and utilizing the newly developed printing press, opened the way to participation in political and civil affairs by the masses (thanks to pamphlets and the dramatically reduced cost of printing books). Without these things, the Enlightenment, democracy, and capitalism do not flourish.
As for the later Christian reactions to modernity, Christian fundamentalism arose as a reaction against that, while evangelical Christianity matured out of fundamentalism as an adaptation to modernity. Reservations about the theory of evolution aside (and maybe birth control for Catholics), Catholicism and evangelical Christianity have adapted to modernity just fine thank you very much. The same is true for Orthodox Judaism. Fundamentalist Islam? They’re struggling with modernity in fits and starts, with the ultimate outcome not yet decided either way.
Categorically, if you want to put snake-handling churches in the orthodox camp, you can, but obviously they are an extreme outlier subset of Christianity that has its roots located more in isolation from modernity and civilization than in reaction to it. And more importantly, they don’t strap bombs to themselves and fly jets into buildings.
This is a completely, uh, liberal and evolutionary way to see things, for sure. The reality is, Orthodox Jews today look and sound (and smell!) much like the Pharisees during Roman times (Rabbinic Judaism grew out of Pharisaic Judaism following the destruction of the Second Temple). Christianity has always been the most adaptive; the first churches met in houses and the religion was almost communalist, then it was institutionalized by Constantine and the Romans, went through a period of great turmoil and debate in defining exactly what its belief system was, survived a Great Schism, then underwent a Reformation and Counter-reformation. IMO, what would be considered orthodoxy in Christianity is the widest, fuzziest net of the three monotheistic religions. Meanwhile, the words of the Quran haven’t changed since shortly after the times of Mohammed; what has changed is the world around them, which is no longer reflective of Bedouin desert tribal culture and thought patterns. Yes, different expressions of Islam flourished under the Turks and in Persia to the East Indies, but aside from the Shiite vs. Sunni sects, the other major internal strain in Islam has been the strain of Arabic vs. native languages (readings from the Quran, prayers, etc are all supposed to be in Arabic; translating to other languages is generally forbidden). So you can make an argument that its the Arabic / Bedouin mentality that is at the root of the problem, not Islamic theology, but when the two are married so close together — again — what’s the point of delineating the two? They are one and the same in effect.
Vote Pedro!
Alasdair, #25: An answer to what? Surely you aren’t suggesting this is an “answer” to our problems with Islamic terrorism, are you? As if there’s some sort of silver bullet that solves this problem, one thing we must do?
As I said above, my “answer” is simply not to do it. I’m not sure what kind of tautological short bus you ride where you think your position is correct simply because no other has been offered.
AMLTrojan, #27: Perhaps you’ll forgive me for getting overheated, as I was overheated at what your position was, not what it is now. You began by defending Tancredo (certainly with caveats, but none of them seem to show concern for the lives of the people who would be killed aside from your flippant 48 hours in one of your later posts) to calling for a much more limited attack.
You go from Tancredo’s position, attack two cities with nukes, to attacking a single structure with a conventional weapon.
Perhaps if we continue this conversation we can get you to say that you would like to be parachuted into Mecca to ask really nicely for them to be nice to us.
At any rate, while your current plan is not nearly as fucked up as the original plan you defended, it’s still remarkably stupid and childish.
I’ve gtot the answer! We start by hi-jacking four airplanes….
So your Jim K answer to a nuked US city is “*shrug* Do nothing …” … WOW !
(*drat* I was going to try to avoid ad hominem, and there I went and said that his answer was a “Jim K answer” … Bad Alasdair ! No cookie tonight !)
You avoided the ad hominem, but seem to not be able to help yourself but to create a straw man. You seem to have missed this:
I’m not sure what kind of tautological short bus you ride where you think your position is correct simply because no other has been offered.
Jim – some of us do not consider a blithe and simplistic “Do nothing” to be a sufficient response … it’s what we expect from a Carter, or a Gore, or an Obama, (or a Chamberlain) yet nonetheless, it’s not a sufficient response …
And I don’t think you missed my response … to be able to do so, you would have had to be able to recognise it and understand it …
Historically, the answer to the Hashishin was the same as the answer to Smallpox … and there are no more Hashishin – just other vermin/diseases … the munkar al Qaeda are just the current manifestation …
Al, I don’t hink Jim is saying do nothing. A logical response requires knowledge of an attack that has not, and with any luck, will not occur. So it is possible that the US would be attacked in such a way that such an attack as outlined by AML, or even Tancredo is warranted. Not likely, but possible. There are of course many other options that may or may not be sensible depending on the facts. But the facts do not exist yet. As a categorical response automatic retaliation plan, the Tancredo plan is ridiculous short sighted and just plain dumb.
The options are not do nothing and nuke Mecca. In this debate the question is, is the Tancredo plan a good idea. The answer to that is simply no.
Now that that is established you might get people to entertain the idea of discussing what might be a logical response. But then things get rather hypothetical.
I still like the idea of nuking Mecca. We haven’t done any nuclear testing in a while and our warheads are getting old and unreliable. The Saudi Arabian peninsula seems as good a place as any to do the testing, and it’s so hot there already, I doubt they’d even notice. Heck, they’d probably appreciate the shade from the mushroom clouds. Plus we take out the Kaaba. Two birds with one stone. Or is that one stone with two birds?!?
I like the idea of having AMLTrojan’s entire family sodomized with a broomstick. I mean, in an alternate universe, just to see how it would play out. Heck, people pay for colon cleanings, we’d be doing them a favor!
Wow, someone’s touchy! Did somebody take away your cookie and give you sour milk?
You must be one of those people that was outraged by the “Draw Mohammad Day” meme.
dcl #40 – from Jim K #35 “As I said above, my “answer” is simply not to do it. “ with no other idea offered … in a conventional understanding of English, that does translate to “Do mothing.” …
I have tried, in several ways, to ask for better ideas (than Tancredo’s) from the commenters here – and I also admitted that, at this time, i don’t have a better idea, myself – because *I* do not consider “Do nothing” to be a better idea … I’m still an optimist, hoping that a better idea will be proposed … hypnotheitcal is fine …
Tancredo’s idea isn’t a good idea if we can come up with a better one … if it’s the *only* idea, then it is what it is …
Alasdair, I believe their idea is that, were we to be attacked on the scale of 9/11 again, we should just take it up the ass and walk away. You’re talking to the same people who shat a brick when the Bush Doctrine was created, didn’t want us in Iraq, fought like hell to keep us from dealing with the Iranian issue, and are trigger-happy to bail on Afghanistan. To them, the answer is, “Shit happens”. Open an FBI investigation, send the CIA to look in a few caves, then quietly let things return to normal so we can re-focus on installing a NHS in America.
That could conceivably be a better answer if you’re the type of person who is so softened by Western material wealth that fighting back and pissing Muslims off scares you more than worrying that your neighborhood Starbucks might be attacked. However, I’m not one of those people, and when shit happens to America, I don’t give a flying fuck what 1 billion people think, and I hope our next response is so relentless and so ruthless that we don’t back down until the world cries Uncle and gets on board with the idea of rooting out these bad guys once and for all.
I’d settle for the Ryan doctrine from the Clancy books…….
AMLTrojan #43 – I suspect that Jim K may have just actually realised what happened Tuesday … and he’s probably not a Happy Camper … that would explain his lashing out …
I’m wondering when Teh One will notice … I saw a J Lavery cartoon earlier today that applies – but I cannot find it again now … it has Obama talking about jobs he created – for 60+ Republicans in the House and 16 GOP Governors and 6 GOP Senators …
AMLTrojan, #43: Not touchy at all. I mean, until somebody comes up with another idea, I think sodomizing your entire family in an alternative universe with a broomstick is the best thing we have going. I mean, I don’t know that I’d want to be the one with the other end, but from a game theory perspective it’s an interesting approach.
On second thought, perhaps we don’t need a broomstick. Perhaps a colonoscope would do, after all, the real target is the colon.
Wait, no, I’m back to saying stupid shit, it’s gotta be the broomstick. For your whole family. How old is your kid? You have a kid right? That’s gonna be rough. But they’ll appreciate the bristles on the broom. Plus we take out the colon.
Reductio ad You are Being an Idiotum
Alasdair #44,47 and AMLTrojan #45: Do you want to know what I’d do? Do you? Okay, here, I’ll tell you what I’d do as President to deal with the threat. But first let me point out that I don’t have to offer an alternative. Because we have a default, it’s called regime change. And I’ve never argued once that regime change is not a legitimate response to being nuked by another country.
But here’s what I’d do instead of Tancredo’s nut job idea, and it’d start today, because we are really poorly prepared for wars like Afghanistan:
1.) Language training. Soldiers will learn other languages, period. No fucking discussion. You don’t have to be an expert, but you will learn at least a little. Learning a lot will lead to a monthly bonus in the military. Ineffective ‘terps are a big problem in the execution of our current wars, and they will be problems in future ones.
2.) Teach COIN principles to soldiers. Have you ever read about McChrystal having to argue with his soldiers on the ground about COIN? That’s because they’re not taught COIN in boot camp, they’re taught to lay waste to every fucking thing they see. As a result it’s a bit in opposition to their training to follow the COIN manual. But shit, most of them haven’t even read it, including officers (I have no idea how many officers haven’t read it, but the fact that *any* haven’t is fucking mind blowing, and you’ll see officers on mil blogs saying they haven’t).
3.) Improve HUMINT capabilities. They’re not very awesome right now. They should be.
4.) Create a rapid provisional government deployment plan, witha standard transition plan, *before* we need it. It should be a framework, not a step by step manual, but we need something in place before boots hit the ground. We didn’t have that in Iraq or Afghanistan. I’d place huge emphasis on gradient transition, immediately put locals through extensive training, and not half ass it.
These are just a few of the things I’d do before hand. So what would I do when the bomb went off? Regime change. Done the right way.
That’s it. I think losing your government and being executed is deterrent enough.
“Alasdair, I believe their idea is that, were we to be attacked on the scale of 9/11 again, we should just take it up the ass and walk away. You’re talking to the same people who shat a brick when the Bush Doctrine was created, didn’t want us in Iraq, fought like hell to keep us from dealing with the Iranian issue, and are trigger-happy to bail on Afghanistan”
On September 11th we were attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists. The correct response to this was to take down the Taliban who had been harboring them and capture and or kill their leaders. That was the appropriate response. You mess with us, we will take you out.
What do Iraq or Iran have to do with 9/11 (hint: nothing)
People got pissed at Bush and the right, not because we think NOTHING should be done if we are attacked. Thats an insanely stupid thing to say and no one but an avowed pacifist feels that way. American across the political spectrum were outraged by what happened and support for the invasion of Afghanistan was strong from reds and blues alike. I sure as hell know I supported doing it, still am glad we did.
But taking out the Taliban and bin Ladin (which Bush never did, FYI) is one thing. Invading Iraq on false premises has nothing to do with 9/11 and criticizing that war effort and its prolonged bungled execution is not a sign that people would just say “eh shit happens” if we were attacked again. Its so intellectually dishonest to claim that I’m amazed that YOU are even saying it. Iraq had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with us being attacked. Nothing. Zero. Your willingness to conflate these issues to try and justify your far right political bent is both sad and frightening.
Here’s a hint to idiots like you, Alasdair and gahrie. There are more than just two extreme options here. Its not a choice between supporting the current wars indefinitely or surrendering the country to Osama bin Ladin tommorow morning. Plenty of us recognize that terrorists exist and are a real problem. We just think that your way of doing things, fighting massive expensive, prolonged wars that have no connection to events that occured and have actually led to greater terrorist sympathies, are stupid. We’d rather not stretch our troops and money thin fighting a battle that is unrelated to real problems. The money could be better spent at home improving the nation, its economy, and its security. Helping remove dependence from foreign oil and actually being able to keep a better eye on our domestic borders. Thats not to say we wouldn’t respond to international events as necessary, just that we realized long ago (and you don’t seem to) that Iraq wasn’t that event, and staying there isn’t going to do a damn thing to keep us safer. All it will do is continue to hemorrage money and lives. But yeah, THATS the way to keep us safe right?
Not sure I agree with #1, and there are some solid reasons behind #2, but both are very unrealistic. If we do some radical reorganization along the lines of what Thomas Barnett suggests, I do think the COIN / occupying soldier role is a necessary function that is missing from our DHS / DOD structure.
You’re not going to get much argument from me on #3, except that I’ll remind you who is to blame for the decrepit condition of our HUMINT capacities (thanks to some dumbass policies based in high-minded moral masturbation vs. solid realpolitik and intel principles), as well as who has been standing in the way of improving them post-9/11. Hint: It rhymes with diberals and lemocrats.
As for #4, again, great idea, but guess again who would fight tooth and nail against funding that infrastructure. That’s right, it’s your buddies on the Left again!
In the mean time, since the Dems oppose anything remotely reasonable when it comes to fortifying ourselves for duty as the world’s policeman (a role I admit is accepted only begrudgingly), I’ll stick with the option of destroying the Kaaba. And you can keep daydreaming about sticking broomsticks up infants’ asses, because you don’t like their parents’ Machiavellian logic.
AMLTrojan – you are, indeed, a Prince among Commenters !
How are #1 and #2 unrealistic?
And on #3, how have liberals stood in the way of better HUMINT, and how are they to blame for the decrepit condition of it? It seems you aren’t really familiar with the issues.
On #4, I again disagree. A lot of the issues with both of these are largely under the radar and aren’t discussed in public. Not secret, simply ignored.
The real challenge with these is buy-in within the government. On the HUMINT side, we seem to simply have an affinity for tech solutions to intelligence collection, and it’s been that way for a long, long time.
On the government deployment side I think it’s honestly just hubris on our part. We seemed to think we could roll into Iraq and Afghanistan and everything would be easy. Even now that we saw that wasn’t the case, we haven’t seem to want to put into place long term structural improvements to these issues.
It’s a will issue, basically.
How are #1 and #2 unrealistic? Watch the TED video. Beyond that, with DOD budgets being squeezed, and personnel costs ballooning up the wazoo, the pressure on the military will be to decrease headcount, and the resulting DOD pushback will be that the soldiers’ duties should be limited to being warriors, not peacekeepers. Unless DHS and DOD are radically reorganized like what Barnett suggests, and we have a new “Dept of Peace”.
For HUMINT, I have to assume you’re referring specifically to more clandestine activities because frankly we perform non-clandestine HUMINT probably better than anybody out there. What limits us in clandestine ops are self-imposed limits, far more than revenue or know-how. The tech vs. human aspect of intel collection is a false dichotomy — we can very easily have both. But since post-Vietnam / post-1960s, lib-Dems have bought into post-colonial critiques of American power and have sought to curtail or undermine many CIA HUMINT activities and methods. Heck, Clinton didn’t even want daily intel briefings until embassies started blowing up.
You’re still all wet on #4. Democrats have zero interest in building an infrastructure for nation-building post-invasion. I’ve seen neocons push for this since I interned at AEI following 9/11, but between Rumsfeld and the Dems war opposition and the George Wills of the world, they couldn’t get any traction. Chalking it up to just being an “under the radar” issue is laughable.
Also, I disagree with your assessment of #3 from a different angle. You say our HUMINT capabilities are not very awesome, but overall, while not perfect, Bush did a heckuva lot to beef up HUMINT since 9/11 and it’s paid off for us multiple times despite the ROE we handcuff ourselves with.