101 killed as gunmen rampage in India city
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said U.S. officials were not aware of any American casualties, but were still checking. He said he could not address reports that Westerners might be among the hostages.
“We condemn these attacks and the loss of innocent life,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
And if our condemnation is ignored, we will condemn in even stronger terms - possibly up to and including “really, really, really condemning” them.
Thus does the Bush Phony War on Islamofascism slink off into the sunset of history, tail locked firmly between its legs.
By the way, which dumbass was recently here blatting about how Bush had put the fear of god into the Islamofascists?
Bob “Dumbass” Spiers, wasn’t it?
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
Why the name-calling?
If you act like a dumbass expect to be called one.
What do think can be done–in the real world–about Islamofascist terrorism?
Eliminate those controlling the tools. As with any hydra you must cut off the heads and cauterize the stumps.
Neca eos omnes, Toren. Need you ask?
genes, I always took the hydra to be a metaphor for political difficulties. Funny that you’d turn the beast back around in that direction.
In the real world?
You can destroy the regimes that arm, train, support, and use Islamofascist terror gangs.
How are all those “indigenousl revolutionary movements” that were are armed, financed, and supported by the former Soviet Union doing these days, by the way?
Oh, that’s right. They’ve vanished.
“In the real world,” Bill. I’d love to seen Saudi Arabia gutted, Mecca and Medina reduced to glass plains, and all the rest.
But it can’t actually be done by any stretch of the imagination.
So…what can we actually do? At least the invasion of Iraq sent a message–the US cannot realistically be claimed to be a weak horse by the Islamic world. The Lernean Hydra was at least located in one place, and hadn’t tied innocent civilians (the “get out of war free” card of the modern era) to it’s necks.
Certainly we should start with eliminating their ability to conduct lawfare, claim rights allowed only to uniformed opponents under the Geneva Conventions, and be tried in criminal courts instead of by military tribunal, but even those common-sense tactics have, so far, failed miserably. Few have been convicted. Some are actually being turned loose within the US.
My assessment is that we will only be able to fight them effectively in fits and starts, immediately following massive attacks on the West..until the anger fades and PC stops everything in it’s tracks.
I wonder if that will be enough.
Demographics is destiny, and they are conducting that war rather effectively. Belgium, the seat of power for the EEC, will be majority Muslim within 15 years or less. France and the Netherlands are rapidly headed the same direction, with majority Muslim populations by 2040 at the latest. They already control the City Council of Amsterdam, and Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has said “For me it is clear: if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Sharia tomorrow, then the possibility should exist.” PC has led Canada and the UK to all but establish sharia as a parallel legal system.
It really doesn’t look good. As Kim du Toit has said, we’re entering the ring to play by the rules, while the other side is bringing a flamethrower. The West, paralyzed by ludicrous ROEs, can’t even deal with a rag-tag bunch of Somali pirates.
We need the Singularity more than ever. As the saying goes: “faster, please.”
Well Toren, you really know how to ruin a thanksgiving day!…Well not really, but your comment is truly sobering.
My primary hope is that our western commercial civilization will do to the ‘religion of peace’ what it has done to the Christian religions. Corrupt it with the good life, and self indulgent life style.
Oh, and Happy thanksgiving day.
Let the imagination stretch to a radioloical weapon in south Chicago.
Sure, given that Americas haven’t been flinging their burning bodies out of the 94th floor of NYC skyscrapers lately, getting the US to react to Islamofascism with any robust reaction is problematical.
But you’ve painted yourself into a corner with your “practical” analysis. If the Muslim Fascists can’t mount an effective attack against the homeland, then they aren’t really a threat. But if they can, and do, then the range of potential responses widens dramatically.
For us to remain hamstrung, and the notion of actually implementing “you’re either with us or against us.” to remain “impractical,” then Islam must remain impotent against us. But if we start losing center cities, then the US electorate wil demand the sort of responses that will destroy the Islamic homeland.
Look, here is the brutal truth: the heart of Islam resides in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia (especially), Pakistan, and the other Islamic “powers” of that region.
Corollary: we have the ability to literally turn that region into a sea of glass. The only thing that holds us back now is a spurious sense of compassion, and oil. And that is the scale: on the one side, energy. On the other side, Chicago.
If nutcake Islam can’t attack us and wound us grievously enough to alter that balance, then it is irrelevant. If it can, however, then we will destroy it.
You seem to think this is some sort of PR war. It is not. It is a real war. At some point, it will come down to this question:
Do they have the power to destroy us? Do we have the power to destroy them?
The answers are no, and yes. And in the long run, they will force a demonstration of the correctness of my bottom line.
“In the real world” is a floating target. Obama is about to discover just how malleable it is. And if he does not, then it is not a target at all.
I absolutely agree that if they manage to pull off a large dirty bomb or nuke attack in a big city, or if they release biowarfare agents that result in tens of thousands of dead, Mr and Mrs America will howl for blood–and get it, even though the hard liberals will still resist (hopefully resulting in their marginalization for decades to follow).
The fact that the Islamofascists haven’t pulled off any major attack in the US for years is heartening, but their quite successful fifth column warfare is just as disturbing to me. And so I do disagree on one point: it is a PR war…at least for now.
Anyway, I don’t otherwise disagree with your analysis. I just hate the thought that we can only respond retroactively, even as I know it can’t be otherwise. The peaceniks kept us out of WW2 until Pearl Harbor, resulting in the deaths of literally millions who need not have died. (It took them only 25 years to reclaim the high ground, though.) And certainly it is instructive to note we haven’t heard much from Japan and Germany since.
But Islam isn’t a country, so one recoils at what might need to be necessary to make them understand, as the Japanese and Germans did, that they lost and might as well get with the program.
Sorry for the after-dinner Thanksgiving thoughts. Then again, I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving was a month ago….
That’s exactly why you need me as Prez. I’d preemptively resume live testing, with, say, small bursts in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and a megaton burst over either the Indian Ocean or the Korean Bay. (C’mon, you can’t tell me that wouldn’t be cool.) Make sure to demonstrate that all three legs are working just fine and that the US, alone in the world, can touch the entire world.