117 thoughts on “The Islamists”

    1. You’re right, we should just sit idly by and allow the attacks to get more violent and more frequent. Or, we could just let Rotherham become the norm. Would you like that?

      1. You’ve pretty much described the last 40 years. Each time, they get worse and worse, and we take half measures, because we want to pretend we’re angels on Earth. This could have been nipped in the bud decisively in 1979, and again in 1990, and again in 1993. In 2001 I agreed with George Bush, but I’m starting to think that some of my more passionate American friends were correct on the night of September 11, 2001: that September 12th should have seen Mecca and Medina turned into radioactive glass, with a Hajj meaning certain death from radiation poisoning for hundreds of years. At the very least it would force a massive reformation of Islam; it might even end the religion altogether. There aren’t many followers of Zeus out there. Don’t punch back twice as hard hundreds of times over a period of decades, punch back a thousand times as hard, twice, and you never have to do it again. Ask the Japanese.

        It’s disgusting, I know. It condemns at the very least a few million innocent people to death. How many have died since the 72 Olympics? Not just in the wars that America has directly been involved with, but also the Sunni-Shia power struggles, and Yugoslavia, and Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and the Palestinian futility? All that could have been avoided decades ago.

        1. How many have died since the 72 Olympics? Not just in the wars that America has directly been involved with, but also the Sunni-Shia power struggles, and Yugoslavia, and Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and the Palestinian futility? All that could have been avoided decades ago.

          Not through your insanity it couldn’t.
          Are you arguing that Russia was the innocent victim in its invasions of Afghanistan and Chechnya? And maybe you could go on and argue that the USSR was the victim in its invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia?

          You think Saddam invaded Kuwait on some sort of Islamic crusade? You think he attacked Iran (yeah, it was Iraq that attacked Iran not vise versa) for Islamic reasons? Not maybe because he was just a power mad thug, like Putin? Hey, maybe Putin’s a Muslim, hell, why not claim Hitler was as well.

          1. “Not through your insanity it couldn’t.
            Are you arguing that Russia was the innocent victim in its invasions of Afghanistan and Chechnya? ”

            I didn’t say I liked the idea. I said I myself thought it disgusting. However, if Islam itself is ended, what power over the Islamic world is there for Sunnis and Shias to struggle? What motivated the genocide in Yugoslavia? Would 9/11 have ever happened if Carter had sent in a couple carrier groups and launched an invasion of Iran? Would the Beslan slaughter have happened if Islam was obsolete?

        2. “…September 12th should have seen Mecca and Medina turned into radioactive glass…”

          A What If Scenario that’s intrigued me since 9/11 is: What if United 93 had crashed into the intended target in DC (The Capitol or The White House)?

          I don’t believe we would have used nukes, anywhere, in response. I do believe we would have done the anti-Islamic terror job a whole lot better and faster than we’ve done so far, because overall public opinion in favor of getting the job really done, collateral damage be damned, would have drowned-out the Michael Moore’s, Code Pinks, etc.

    2. ISIS controls a rather substantial territory at this point, with numerous (smallish) population centers. Why is it so difficult to imagine identifying strategically important ones (key transport nodes, sources of manpower, etc.) and, after a suitable warning, eliminating those centers one at a time. The tribal region of Pakistan strikes me as another excellent location to begin burning out. There are no huge population centers, to be sure, but some of the smaller ones might make for adequate demonstrations. Couple this with a warning against nation-states that allow their territories to be used by Islamists, that they will be considered ‘at hazard’ if this behavior is found to continue.

      Now, in the real world, we aren’t going to do this. Not because it isn’t a good idea, but because the West simply doesn’t have the gumption to take action that is ugly and unpleasant to behold. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good idea, but it is an idea whose time has not yet come. Sooner or later (perhaps after NY or Tel-Aviv goes up in a mushroom cloud?) we may very well choose to do this, but for now, we stand at the approaches to a bridge that we will someday have to cross..

    3. “Which islamic city do you propose fire-bombing first?”

      That is part of the problem. You can’t just select a target based on religion. You have to pick a city controlled by the groups waging a war of genocide and slavery. While these groups are Islamic, not all of Islam is responsible for their actions. A place like Raqqa, one of ISIS’s most famous conquests, would be great place level.

        1. I’m sure the innocent people of Raqqa are just going about their daily lives, completely unaffected by the war raging around them. /sarc

          1. I understand your point, but at the same time I don’t think their preference is to be killed during the process of “liberating” them

        2. What innocent civilians? They already exterminated the innocent ones. We wouldn’t be liberating anyone. Dresden was punishment.

      2. You can’t just select a target based on religion. You have to pick a city controlled by the groups waging a war of genocide and slavery. While these groups are Islamic, not all of Islam is responsible for their actions.

        Interestingly I find myself in rare agreement with you, Wodun. I’m trying to draw Rand’s argument to its logical conclusion. He posits that islamists are the modern day nazis. In WWII we were willing to “terror bomb” (don’t blame me for that term, it was Churchill’s) cities like Dresden and kill a half a million civilians in order to get the nazis to give up the fight. I’m curious what the commenters on this forum think is an acceptable number of collateral damage civilian casualties, or whether there isn’t a limit at all, i.e., every dead muslim is equivalent to a dead nazi.

        1. “Interestingly I find myself in rare agreement with you, Wodun.”

          I know. I wrote that intentionally knowing that you don’t think we should target people based on religion alone. I did that because most people don’t think that way, especially the people you think think that way.

          If people don’t want us to fight wars the way the were fought since before we were humans, then we need to have a military buildup on par with WWII. The only way to avoid civilian death on a large scale is to flood the zone with troops, millions of them. Civilians would still die but much less than the alternatives of letting groups like ISIS run rampant, letting our less skilled friends wage war alone, or using our technology the simply kill everyone.

          Raqqa is a rather unique situation. There may be some small number of actual innocents there, rather than men and women working together for the glory of the caliphate, but far less than the hundreds of thousands or millions that the people of Raqqa will exterminate if left alone.

          1. I did that because most people don’t think that way, especially the people you think think that way.

            I actually don’t make a lot of assumptions about what you think. But I do read the comments of some individuals in Rand’s readership.

        3. We didn’t attempt to exterminate all Nazis. We simply kept killing or capturing them until they finally surrendered. Same with the Japanese. They were the ones to decide what number was “acceptable,” not us.

    1. Obama is not really an American. I am not raising the birther argument here. But I am suggesting that he was living in Indonesia attending a madrassa at the age when American kids are involved in Scouting, starting to play organized sports, doing a lemonade stand, etc., things that develop their American identity. Obama did not develop an American identity.

        2. Nice red herring. By saying it, you are trying to hide the fact that Obama didn’t grow up with an American identity.

        3. We must not forget that hating America is an American Identity that many on the left have. Dissent is patriotic and all that two faced crap we hear until Democrats are in power.

  5. Mathew Bracken advocates nuking Mecca – when the touchstone (literally) of Islam, the Kaaba. When muslims see that their prophet does not protect even the most holy site and the literal basis of their beliefs, then perhaps they will be reasonable.

        1. Casting a skeptical eye on”rational” wiki? Fair enough, but the idea of bombing a city to intimidate terrorists is an idea for lunatics, because – news flash – terrorists don’t care about civilians dying, in fact the more innocent Muslims killed the better for the terrorists, it just boosts recruitment, with lots more people willing to die to avenge the murdered members of their families.

          2. In that case it’s a bit confusing linking Islamists to a story about Dresden, Wodun: A place like Raqqa, one of ISIS’s most famous conquests, would be great place level.

            Terrorists don’t usually form a big chunk of any geographical population and even in Raqqa, how much of the population are members of ISIS, and how many were conquered by them?

          4. I think you missed the point. He’s talking about nuking the meteor. It would make a Hajj impossible, perhaps for centuries.

          5. It would make a Hajj impossible, perhaps for centuries.

            You mean like how Hiroshima is now uninhabitable?
            /sarc.

          6. They used on the order of 20 kiloton bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They didn’t use 20 megaton Hydrogen bombs.

          7. ” in fact the more innocent Muslims ”

            How do you define innocent?

            You seem to be implying that the only people waging jihad are military age men who are holding a gun in their hands at this very second and that is most definitely wrong.

            Raqqa is a place where both men and women have moved to so that they can live in the caliphate. They have killed or run off anyone that doesn’t subscribe to their ideology.

            Their women are some of their most brutal enforcers.

            I would only worry about hostages but death by bombing is better than being crucified, burned alive, stoned, or having your head chopped off on camera.

          8. Did Dresden prompt a Nazi surrender, did the Blitz prompt a British surrender? Hell no, terror campaigns have to be so over the top to work, we’re talking slaughter on a scale unseen in history, it could never work in the context of a war against Islamists, how much slaughter would the US have to endure from an aggressor before resistance from Americans disappeared? You can argue that yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally persuaded a Japanese surrender but there’s a couple of stark differences between Japan and ISIS: firstly Japan had lost the war, German and Italy were gone, the Soviets were preparing to turn their resource towards a war on Japan, as was the British Empire, lots of countries that had remained neutral throughout the war had finally declared war against the Axis by that stage it really was Japan vs everyone else. The other point is that Japan had a structured government, a very structured society, and a history as a nation going back centuries, inevitably that ties the government to the welfare of the society, nothing like ISIS.

            Nuking and Muslim city would do nothing to intimidate Islamists, in fact it would be a sure way to strengthen them.

          9. Did Dresden prompt a Nazi surrender, did the Blitz prompt a British surrender

            Nagasaki did. The Blitz might have if it had gone on long enough, but Hitler decided to cut his losses. I didn’t propose nuking a Muslim city.

          10. I’ve got no problem with your argument about bombing cities. But don’t expect any sane person to trust Rational Wiki.

    2. Oddly enough, ISIS also wants to destroy the Kaaba, holding that Muslims are worshiping a pagan stone instead of Allah.

      1. I don’t consider that odd. Have you seen the movie Dogma? The scene in the Mooby boardroom with Ben Affleck and a trigger-happy Matt Damon – it is no coincidence that Mooby is a golden calf.

  6. I don’t know. I’m getting tired of defending atrocities committed by Democrats. When the same President/Vice President combo up 100,000 Japanese in concentration camps and dropped nuclear bombs on civilians and now call us monsters, I’m just not in for it. Killing civilians to pressure governments to change their ways is terrorism, and I say let’s call a space a spade.

    1. And the Democrat ancestors of a century ago would just point out that Lincoln caused the death of millions more Americans than any Democrat President/Vice President. Like today, the reasons for the violence will be discounted: slavery was contained, genocide was contained, terrorism is contained. The message of importance to them is that Republicans are equally as bad as Democrats, because Republicans are always the ones seeking violence. If Republicans would just leave good enough alone, slavery would have worked itself out, Europe would have stopped Hilter without us, Japan would have halted their aggression in eastern Asia and the Pacific where Americans had no reason to be either, and the terrorist would lose the ability to recruit and go away peacefully as their religion dictates though they are not Islamic and just act in its name.

      1. No, you’re wrong about “Republicans are always the ones seeking violence”. Lincoln didn’t do anything against slavery before the Confederacy seceded. Hitler and Japan were Democratic presidents and both houses of Congress and could have been stopped without the atrocities against civilians, and the terrorists attacked us first.

        1. Jonathan, please read again for snark. I know what I said was wrong, and I accept your counter as correct.

  7. The same criteria as the muslims used on 9/11

    There are no innocents…there are collaborators. These people tolerate the murderers in their midst, their friends in civilized countries contribute funds to allow their terrorism.

    When muslims stand up and STOP the terrorists themselves, there will be innocents to worry about.

  8. Yes. But first, the progressives must claim their moral authority by objecting to the cycle of violence. That way, when the proletariat rise up and demand what must be done, the progressives will have their stick to keep the proles in check.

    When the muslims do stand up and STOP the terrorists, the rug will be pulled from under them like it was just a few years ago. Just observe how the Egyptian government is being treated after standing up to the Muslim Brotherhood, which enslaved women and slaughtered people of other religions.

    1. The Democrat preference seems to be do nothing and fling poo at everyone, pretending they are at a higher evolutionary state than the rest of humans. But it isn’t that Democrat don’t like the use of violence, they like it when it furthers their domestic political agenda rather than stopping a jihad of genocide.

      When OWS and other militant Democrat mobs show up outside the houses of their domestic targets shouting all manner of nastiness, suddenly women, children, and civilians are nothing to be worried about. When Obama’s friends bomb their own Americans, the actions are celebrated. But when it comes time to use violence to end the practice of burning people alive, selling young girls into sex slavery, and crucifying true innocents Democrats are against it.

  9. We have seen two contrasting styles of dealing with this problem from two different Presidents and both have largely failed to solve the problem. Intervention led to the deaths of thousands of American troops and maybe a hundred thousand or a little more non-Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though the war in Iraq was not started to fight AQ, AQ made it a battlefield with the help of Syria and Iran. Many if not most of the non-American deaths in these two countries were due to AQ and its affiliates killing other Muslims.

    It took more than a decade to see these numbers, while under Obama’s stewardship, we have seen even higher body counts in much less time. Limited intervention, like Libya, led to high numbers of civilian deaths. Non-intervention in Syria led to even higher numbers. Then there are our strategies in Yemen, Nigeria, and the rest of the Arab Spring countries.

    When people claim to be concerned about civilians, I think they are being dishonest, either with themselves or others. Our current strategies of limited or non intervention have not been kind toward civilians. Neither was our strategy to occupy without a big footprint.

    1. I’m concerned about civilian casualties from both a pragmatic standpoint (they don’t help you win over the people who aren’t dead, and they may make you more enemies) and an ethical standpoint. I’m critical of some of our reckless bombing under Obama, but I’m supportive of bombing that targets ISIS fighters and supports our moderate allies in the region.

      The only reason I bring up civilian casualties is that Rand seems to imply that we need to do whatever it takes, and he draws a comparison with the bombing of Dresden. Dresden is criticized as a raid that disproportionately killed a lot of civilians. In fact, at the time it made leaders and the public in both the UK and US question the efficacy and necessity of targeting cities of modest military value — the moral revulsion could’ve forced a change of our bombing campaign in Europe, except that the war ended shortly after anyways. So all I’m really trying to understand is how far Rand is taking the analogy, and whether people here agree with that or not.

      1. As I said previously, I’m not proposing any particular amount of retribution. I’m simply pointing out that the Islamists ignore the history of Jacksonian America at both their and many innocents’ peril. They want us, as their religion dictates, to submit. We will not and, instead, ultimately will compel submission from them. What the toll of that is, ultimately, will be up to them, not us. We will as always attempt to minimize collateral damage, but if they sufficiently arouse our ire (as Japan did), it will not tie our hands.

      2. “I’m concerned about civilian casualties from both a pragmatic standpoint (they don’t help you win over the people who aren’t dead, and they may make you more enemies) and an ethical standpoint.”

        That is fine. It was ISIS brutality against Iraqis that turned the Sunni tribes against the terror group. But when we speak of civilian deaths as something that matters, we have to look at the whole picture and not just the civilian deaths directly caused by our bombs or bullets.

        Our Libya strategy lead to as many civilian deaths as there were in Iraq. Does it matter that we didn’t have troops on the ground? Our Syria strategy also lead to many more civilian deaths than in Iraq. Does it matter that we didn’t live up to our rhetoric on red lines and the claim that we would stop these deaths?

        If people were really concerned with civilian deaths, they would take actions to prevent them even if that meant that people die. People will die either way but under what strategy will the least civilians die?

        I don’t think a lot of people claiming to care about civilians actually do. They are just used as emotional talking points of an anti-Iraq war political strategy.

  10. You think Saddam invaded Kuwait on some sort of Islamic crusade?

    Which suggests a valid issue. I don’t care why. I care what. Nations exist for a reason. If a nation attacks us the response is clear. We counter attack until submission. If a non-nation attacks us, we hold the nation they’re based in accountable. If that nation takes care of the problem, fine we’re done. Otherwise we hold that nation accountable and their borders become meaningless.

    We don’t bomb Mecca or Medina unless the Saudi’s are complicit. If they are, hello glass parking lots. If others object, they should have done something to stop those terrorists. That’s why we have spy agencies.

    We always warn the innocent (assuming they exist) but should never hesitate to act so others have no doubt in their minds.

    I don’t care why they want us dead. On 9-11-2001 I saw men, woman and children dancing in the streets celebrating. I want every man, woman and child that is “for it” along with them dead. Then brought back to life so we can kill them again.

  11. ISIS isn’t the modern-day equivalent of the Nazis, because the Nazis had Germany — one of the world’s largest industrial economies. If ISIS controlled Germany (or, France, or China, etc.), that would be a threat to the U.S. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t. The only way that ISIS can hurt the U.S. is by goading us into overreaction.

      1. Technology is not a magic wand that makes ISIS as capable of harm to Americans as powerful enemy nation-states. If small bands of state-less terrorists could kill millions of people on the other side of the world — as nation-states can and have done — don’t you think they’d be doing so?

          1. And you really believe that, all historical experience to the contrary, these small groups are going to acquire this ability to kill millions at a distance in their spare time, when they aren’t busy fighting all their neighbors? That’s a truly paranoid basis for a superpower foreign policy. I can see why small terrorist groups would want us to be that scared, but I see no reason why we should oblige them.

        2. Why wait to deal with them until they can kill millions from “afar”?

          They are killing hundreds of thousands if not millions now.

          They already do terror attacks on us and our allies and our people are targets all over the world.

    2. The only way that ISIS can hurt the U.S. is by goading us into overreaction.

      So quickly progressives forget 9/11 (2001 and 2012) and the Boston bombings.

      1. So quickly progressives forget 9/11 (2001 and 2012) and the Boston bombings.

        Who should we have bombed to prevent the Boston bombings? Or, for that matter, 9/11/2001?

        1. Is there some rational for your question here, Dave? Because I’m finding it completely disconnected from the context of my comment. Jim claimed terrorist cannot hurt the US, and I pointed to 3 attacks in which Americans were killed by terrorists on what is technically US soil. Your question is irrational to me.

          Let me try to explain, and I hope you can grasp this concept. Jim doesn’t even recognize harm. You don’t prevent harm if you don’t recognize it before or after it occurs. Response of any kind requires one to be sentient.

          Dresden wasn’t fire bombed because no one recognized the harm of Nazi Germany to the US. Moreover, Dresden wasn’t fire bombed as a prelude to prevent attacks, but a response to previous aggression. As this is what I recognize along with scholars from around the world; I simply cannot find the context to make your question seem rational.

          1. Jim doesn’t even recognize harm.

            I recognize harm, and proportion. The Boston bombing — and terrorism in general — are purposefully attention-getting harms that seek to manipulate our minds to exaggerate their actual impact. A more sober perspective would notice that all terrorism against U.S. targets combined has trivial direct effect; it kills and injures fewer Americans than bathtub falls. If what we really cared about was harm, we would spend a thousand times as much on getting people to stop smoking than we do on anti-terrorism efforts.

            Concern about ISIS isn’t based on any rational calculation of ISIS’s ability to inflict intolerable levels of harm on Americans. Concern about Nazis in 1941 was.

          2. I stand by my point Jim; you don’t recognize harm. Trivializing others death is simple when you don’t value them. If they had value to you, their deaths would be recognized as a loss.

            Progressives were not concerned about Nazi Germany in 1941 either, at least not until after December 7, 1941. Prior to then, progressives considered Germany’s threat trivial. The time between 1939 and 1941 was sufficient to set up Auschwitz with the first executions beginning in September 1941. Alas, when some said “never again”, they didn’t realize the early state of their own dementia.

        2. 9/11 could have been stopped. We knew that bin Laden was behind the 1993 bombing of the WTC. The US was looking for him and found him in 1998. Clinton decided not to deal with bin Laden when American soldiers had him in their sights. He let him go, and three years later only 19 people were required to kill 3000 and cause a trillion dollars in damage.

          1. The 9/11 attacks could have been stopped in 2001 simply with closer monitoring of lists of known terrorists. The attacks did not cause a trillion dollars in damage; the towers were worth a few billion. It was our decision to spend trillions in our over-reaction, which included invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks.

            And, notably, 9/11 was by far the most successful (in terms of people killed, attention garnered, and economic damage done, by a small group with a modest amount of money) terror attack of all time. Nothing else has come close, before or since. If we were suffering a 9/11 every month you could argue that terrorism deserves the money and attention we give it; but that isn’t the case.

          2. The Boston Marathon attacks could have been stopped simply with closer monitoring of warnings provided of identified terrorist having received recent training.

            The attacks in Benghazi could have been stopped simply by monitoring warnings from the Ambassador and implementing requests for additional support ahead of time.

            The next attack isn’t being stopped because monitoring assets to stop terrorism are being used to track administration whistle blowers and media personnel.

          3. “The attacks did not cause a trillion dollars in damage; the towers were worth a few billion.”

            They caused more damage than just to the buildings.

            You think we should just let AQ and ISIS butcher people abroad and on our home soil. Make that case out in the open. Don’t gruber around. Be honest about your position and make the case for it.

            You can’t do it in the open because our country would never stand for letting Americans get massacred just because Democrats have a hard on for Islamic Militants because they both hate the USA.

      1. My understanding is that “no-go” zones are a Fox News myth. But regardless of that detail, ISIS (unlike the Nazis in their day) does not come remotely close to controlling the population, economic productivity and military resources of a top-10 nation like France.

        1. Thinking like its the 1920s, where you need a highly centralized nation state to run a war. For a computer guy, you think like the world before information technology.

          3. Let’s ask Sony if North Korea is a threat. Are your nuclear reactors run by computers? How about your water treatment plants? How about the traffic lights in all your cities?

          4. Are your nuclear reactors run by computers? How about your water treatment plants? How about the traffic lights in all your cities?

            By that logic we should feel threatened by any group, anywhere, that hates us and has a laptop. We shouldn’t scare so easily.

          5. “By that logic we should feel threatened by any group, anywhere, that hates us and has a laptop. ”

            Yes, we should feel threatened by any group with the means and motive to turn off our lights and water.

            “We shouldn’t scare so easily.”

            Dealing rationally with real threats isn’t being a fraidy cat.

            When are you going to call people pussies for wanting a secure power gird or water system? Are people who think ISIS or a similar group could bomb a marathon pussies? Are people who are upset about ISIS burning people alive and selling girls into sex slavery pussies?

            Jim: “Why are you worried about ISIS chopping our friend’s heads off? Are you some kind of pussy? These people aren’t a threat to anyone, especially us, that is unless you are a pussy who can’t handle a couple hundred thousand dead civilians.”

            Where was that resolve in the Iraq war? Just think if you had that resolve to win and not just to lose.

        2. The only “Fox News myth” about no-go zones was one “analyst” they had on who claimed that the entire city of Birmingham was one. It’s long been known that many of the banlieues outside Paris are. Remember a few years back when the “youths” were burning cars, and the gendarmes feared to go in to stop it?

          1. Ed is comparing the “control” that criminals have in those neighborhoods to the sort of control that Nazis had over Germany. The comparison is ridiculous. Let me know when the “no-go” banlieues start building their own Mirage fighters and Ariane rockets.

        3. Dress like a Jew and go walk around. Tell us how there are no no-go zones.

          “ISIS (unlike the Nazis in their day) does not come remotely close to controlling the population, economic productivity and military resources of a top-10 nation like France.”

          Sure, lets just ignore them until then. How many years will it take them to control that many people, amount of land, and have access to those military resources?

          And during that period of time how many millions will they have exterminated and enslaved?

          You guys sure got up on your high horse during the Bush years about civilian deaths, never bothering to mention that groups like ISIS were the main cause of those deaths, but what about the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have died in part because of Obama’s policies? What about the millions of displaced refugees?

          Your criticisms would hold more weight if you ever had any for the outcomes of your party’s foreign policy decisions.

    4. The only way that ISIS can hurt the U.S. is by goading us into overreaction.

      Wow, that is… wow. This goes down as ridiculous statement of the year.

      If Clinton had overreacted to the first world trade center bombing, the embassy bombings, etc in the nineties, maybe we wouldn’t have had 9/11.

      1. I doubt that ISIS can manage even a 9/11-level attack, and 9/11 — the worst single terrorist attack in history — killed about as many Americans as a month of car accidents. It was the reaction to 9/11 that cost us trillions (and a few thousand more American lives, never mind many thousands of Iraqis and Afghans). That’s the terrorists’ whole strategy: to trick us into using our strength against ourselves.

          1. It isn’t speculation — Islamic terrorists have been quite explicit in stating that they try to provoke the U.S. to kill Muslims.

          2. “Islamic terrorists have been quite explicit in stating that they try to provoke the U.S. to kill Muslims.”

            Except that we don’t kill Muslims, we kill ISIS and groups like them.

        2. We will use America’s power against itself. That’s a brilliant strategy. We could have done nothing and brought down the Nazi regime.

          Now let me get this straight: we went after Islamic extremism, not Muslims after 9/11. I believe everyone here can agree on that. But Islamic extremists happened to be Muslims, so we lost because we really attacked Muslims. Somehow this is bad, according to you. Is it because you think that any Muslim that dies will inflame the ire of the Umma? Just what were we supposed to do after 9/11 and today? Establish a dialog? That Obama speech in Egypt just brought peace in the Middle East, didn’t it?

          And your ridiculous notion of comparing 9/11 deaths to car accidents is shameful. With that logic, we never should have declared war on Japan.

        3. “That’s the terrorists’ whole strategy: to trick us into using our strength against ourselves.”

          Dude, you don’t know crap about the “terrorists”. You only latch onto this claim because it fits your worldview.

          Jim: “ISIS committing genocide is just a trick to get us to stop them. We shouldn’t fall for it. We should show them that no matter how many millions of people they crucify and burn alive that we wont ever get involved. That will show them!”

      2. They also think any reaction is an over reaction.

        These people are not to be taken seriously. They view Islamic militants as ideological allies against the USA.

        These are the same people who said Shia and Sunni would never ever work together.

    5. “The only way that ISIS can hurt the U.S.”

      Well, they have done several terror attacks abroad and our people are global targets. Then there is the issue of the people they conquer and how they are exterminated and sold into slavery.

      Democrats freak the f out over every little thing real or imagined in the USA, why not show a little concern for real atrocities taking place around the globe? Why not take a little ownership for Obama’s foreign policy decisions that led to the current problem? Why not have a little compassion for people we called friends?

      Why take the side of genocidal zealots bent on conquering everything in their path?

  12. As a leftist, I’m curious how I’m sympathizing with islamic extremism. Or any leftist in America — can you name one and cite evidence of their support of islamic extremism?

    1. Among other things, by silence in the face of it, while continually criticizing much less from the West. Where are all the so-called feminists decrying female genital mutilation? Where are the leftist gay activists talking about the brutality against gays in the Middle East? Where was the outrage from the Left over Rotherham?

      1. Much of the Left, present company perhaps excepted, sees itself as in alliance with Islam against the corruption and capitalism, and enlightenment, of the West. The enemy of its enemy is its friend.

      2. Where are all the so-called feminists decrying female genital mutilation?

        Any casual internet search will reveal that prominent feminist organizations decry female genital mutilation. Start with now.org and keep going — you’ll see informed critiques of the practice. The same goes for any gay rights organization of your choosing; take a look at the website for the International Gay Lesbian Human Rights Commission (iglhrc.org).

        As far as Rotherham is concerned: it’s a horrendous crime and sane people abhor it. What else does anyone need to say about it? Is it possible to “decry it more”? I don’t think there’s a major feminist organization that doesn’t advocate against sex trafficking.

        2. What else does anyone need to say about it? Is it possible to “decry it more”? I don’t think there’s a major feminist organization that doesn’t advocate against sex trafficking.

          OK, point out some actual links, from actual MSM orgs, and actual feminist orgs.

          I know this will be a shock, but yes, I think it is quite possible to decry it more. A hell of a lot more. but they won’t. Because it would be decrying one of their pets. The only talk of slavery is what the Republicans created, and preserved, and then reinforced with Jim Crow (even though, whoopsie, that was actually Democrats, but we won’t talk about that), not the millions still enslaved today by Muslims, and Castro and the Norks.

      3. by silence in the face of it

        A ridiculous, totalitarian standard. You’re silent about the outrage of celebrating the birthday of George Washington. Does that imply your support for his pursuit of Ona Judge? Of course not. The fact that you’re all worked up about ISIS, and some people aren’t, in no way implies their support for ISIS and their goals. To believe otherwise is to pine for a world of mandatory loyalty oaths and two-minute hates, in which everyone is required to explicitly express their allegiances, or else have their silence judged as expressing the opposites.

        1. You may be right, but the fact that the left isn’t worked up tells a lot. As they say, your silence is deafening.

        2. Jim, you are not being silent. You are trivilizing murder by suggesting it happens more rarely than accidental death. By your arguments against war with ISIS, the US should do away with criminalization of murder, because more people are killed more often from transportation accidents than intentional murder. Your argument is that stupid, yet you keep putting it out there as if it is a rational argument.

          In all the US throughout 2013, there were just over 11,000 homicides by firearm. In 6 hours on 9/11/2001, 19 hijackers killed 3,000 people and injured 6,000 more, and Jim thinks that is trivial. In 2013, there were 40 homicides in Boston, but in a few seconds, two teenagers on April 15, 2014 killed 3 people and injured 264 more which included 16 amputees, and Jim considers it trivial. So trivial, he doesn’t even recognize it as harm.

        3. “The fact that you’re all worked up about ISIS, and some people aren’t, in no way implies their support for ISIS and their goals.”

          Ya, but “not being worked up” often comes with parroting ISIS talking points. Democrats in no way support the totality of ISIS goals but they do have many similar positions on things, which is why some people are “not being worked up” over them.

          And how could you not get worked up after Obama’s policies have had such disastrous effects on the region?

    2. There was Obama installing the MB in Egypt, as a big example.

      Then there are the endless political points where Democrats and Islamic militants are in lock step. Democrats always side with the anti-American claims made by Islamic militants.

  13. Jim: [ISIS isn’t a threat to the U.S.]

    Really Jim?

    Currently they have a fight that is regional. Certainly they are no match for a focused America in a straight up fight. You can’t imagine other possibilities?

    There are many levels of threat. Inefficient killing is still a threat.

    1. Perhaps Jim thinks Obama so decimated the US part of the global economy that our economic import and export with the Middle East could not be harmed any further by ISIS? The Christians killed by ISIS in Libya weren’t American, nor could they be because Obama just bombed Libya to take out Khaddafi, who posed no harm to the US, and then Obama failed to comment troops to either protect Americans in Libya or assist in stabilizing the nation after destroying its leadership. A failed state like that is no longer a benefit to the US, and thus it could be no harm to lose it.

    2. There are many levels of threat.

      That’s awfully vague. Specify a single way in which ISIS is hurting the U.S. more severely than, say, gun violence. The toll of gun violence is sufficiently low that we don’t consider action against gun violence to be a national priority; on what grounds should action against ISIS be considered any more important?

      1. The next time you are outraged about some moral issue, I will simply remind you that you remained silent on the torturing and enslavement of men, women and children under ISIS.

        1. I’m not silent: put me down as being vocally opposed to what ISIS is doing. But that doesn’t mean that ISIS is a major threat to the U.S., or that there is a U.S.-led military solution.

        2. Jon, you should have saw when Jim claimed the Mexicans killed by guns walked by the Obama Administration would have just died anyway, so no big deal. Jim moral authority is on par with hyenas, and that’s a bit of an insult to hyenas.

      2. On the grounds that gun violence is an emergent property of random individuals, actually decreasing, and will continue to do so, whereas ISIS has a conscious goal of wanting to dramatically increase their toll.

        1. ISIS may want to increase the number of Americans they kill, but there’s no reason to believe they will ever approach the numbers we’re accustomed to losing to gun violence, much less car accidents. When you have one problem that kills tens of thousands a year, and another that kills in single digits, how can you justify making the second one the higher priority on the basis of harm?

          1. How Sandra Fluke obtains birth control was the Democrats highest priority in 2012. That same year 4 Americans were killed in Benghazi, because their potential death by terrorist organizations was not a national priority to Democrats.

            The vast majority of homicides and motor vehicle deaths fall under state jurisdiction, and are thus a priority of states. How Sandra Fluke obtained birth control was not a state priority until Democrats made it one, so perhaps murders are no longer a top priority in some states. Fighting foreign terrorism is a function left to the federal government, and with the states now supporting Sandra Flukes sexual habits, there should be time for Democrats to make terrorism a priority before more Americans are harmed.

          2. “how can you justify making the second one the higher priority on the basis of harm?”

            Car accidents are accidents. Murders we do deal with, as Leland notes.

            Death by ISIS are the intentional acts to kill Americans. How many American deaths are we supposed to absorb before responding? Hundreds or thousands? If we allow hundreds, it will lead to thousands. Are we supposed to wait until it is tens of thousands? Are we really supposed to wait until we lose more people every year than we lost in a decade of war in Iraq before reacting?

            The idea that we should just say fuck it, it doesn’t matter how people die when so many people die every year so we should just let them die is ludicrous.

      3. we don’t consider action against gun violence to be a national priority

        BS. We have laws against murder in the US and have thousands of cops, lawyers, and jail cells to punish those who commit such crimes. They’ve been in place in some cases before the nation was even founded. Try coming up with a argument point that is valid, Jim.

      4. “Specify a single way in which ISIS is hurting the U.S. more severely than, say, gun violence.”

        You seem to believe everything they say so why isn’t them threatening us with attacks an actual threat to us?

        A couple posts ago you talked about civilian deaths in Iraq, do you really care? I don’t think you can claim you really care if you are unwilling to stop their genocide.

  14. Rand asks: “How did Nazi Germany ever harm the US?”

    Rand, I assume you are asking about the time before we declared war.
    Look up Operation Drumbeat. And to jog to your memory, perhaps you remember this song:

    The Sinking Of The Reuben James Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

    Have you heard of a ship called the good Reuben James
    Manned by hard fighting men both of honor and fame?
    She flew the Stars and Stripes of the land of the free
    But tonight she’s in her grave at the bottom of the sea.

    Tell me what were their names, tell me what were their names,
    Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?
    What were their names, tell me, what were their names?
    Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James

    Well, a hundred men went down in that dark watery grave
    When that good ship went down only forty-four were saved.
    ‘Twas the last day of October we saved the forty-four
    From the cold ocean waters and the cold icy shore.

    It was there in the dark of that uncertain night
    That we watched for the U-boats and waited for a fight.
    Then a whine and a rock and a great explosion roared
    And they laid the Reuben James on that cold ocean floor.

    Now tonight there are lights in our country so bright
    In the farms and in the cities they’re telling of the fight.
    And now our mighty battleships will steam the bounding main
    And remember the name of that good Reuben James.

      1. I completely goofed up my comment (facts wrong, lyrics accidentally included, it is a mess) so thank you for a tolerant and informative reply.

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