Redstate

living in???

I'm serious. Just look at the unprecedented security at the DNC convention; military police, metal detectors, snipers on surrounding buildings...

Ladies and Gentlemen, aren't you just thrilled at this gift Islamism has now given to the world? No matter where you're at, France, Indonesia, USA, the distrust of your fellow man not to enter a public gathering with bombs strapped under his coat and screaming "Allah Akbur!" just before detonation is such a wonderful, uplifting legacy from a segment of practioners of the Religion of Peace[TM]

And Kerry, et al, mealy-mouthing that "conflict" between religions is at the root of terrorism? [Not the ideology of one which is "convert or die"?] This willful Kumbaya mindset is going to get us attacked. How dare they attempt this return to 9/10/01.

Considering that Bush's "reaching out" to Islam is widely viewed as no more than the pandering it indeed is, I heartily concur with Kerry's notions that a real connection with the Muslim world, which Bush is truly incapable of performing, is the only way in which Muslims can counter their Islamist radicals.  And without such countering, naturally, the war is lost.

Considering that Bush's "reaching out" to Islam is widely viewed as no more than the pandering it indeed is....

Oh?  And your evidence that he's insincere is....what, exactly?

....a real connection with the Muslim world....is the only way in which Muslims can counter their Islamist radicals.

Pure nonsense.  As if they're merely reactive subjects waiting for us to impel them to act.

what is your suggestion?  all this ultra-security is predicated on the assumption that we are currently  in real danger of getting attacked.  and this comes almost 3 years after W. declared "war" on terror, and "took the fight to them."

so, please explain again how a security strategy tied to a strategy of appealing to the vast majority who would likely rather coexist peacefully is a bad idea?

unless you want either a state of permanent war (which really means a state of basically permanent "sitzkreig" while we brace for attack), and then the odd unilateral invasion when we get a whiff that someone might be harbouring malevolent plans (THAT sure worked out well, hasn't it!) ...

look, if the current war on terror is so obviously the right idea, and anyone who disagrees with segments of the strategy is "unserious" and going to get us all killed...  then you need to explain the situation we are in...

because the only difference between where we are now, and where we were on 9.11.01, is that next time no one will be surprised.

it's time to get off this ridiculous high horse that Bush is doing something that is obviously working.  because i invite you to show a shred of evidence that this is the case.

obviously vigourous security is necessary.  obviously implacable enemies need to be dealt with implacably.  but if you are going to scoff at any attempt to appeal to what common humanity exists between those in the east and west, then you are condemning us all to live in a situation where we can always expect attacks, or have no choice but to truly "drain the swamp."  which means what, exactly... wipe out all of Islam?

The response of the Islamic world is what matters. As long as the Islamic world thinks that Bush is just engaged in window dressing, his best efforts will fail. Can he get them to see that he is truly sincere? Maybe. Can he do it without peace in Israel? I doubt it. Can he do it while we continue our occupation of Iraq? Maybe, if there is peace in Israel.

extensive outreach to moderate Muslims and speaks of "real" contact with imans, et al ..

since Kerry ignores GW's forays into the UN and speaks of going to the UN in "real" humilty

since Kerry speaks of "real foreign leaders" who want him in and Bush out

How "really" serious is Kerry about "implacably" dealing with our enemies?

I don't think so. He's busy trying to pull a veil over the real worldwide problem of Islamism. Just remember, if France and Britain had stopped Hitler in the Rhineland, WWII wouldn't have happened. Regardless of pockets of neo-Nazis today, the movement no more has power because it was finally and thoroughly crushed. Out of somesort of weird multicultural moral equivalency schtick, we have way too many people refusing to confront Islamism for what it is.  

theocracies.. hence, GW's support of Israel will always have them back away.

Does give one pause when they are now embracing Kerry. They must grasp that when Kerry says American should defer to the UN over Iraq, that he also may mean Kerry will have us defer to the UN over Israel.

Arafat's waiting for Kerry to win so he can be invited back to the White House.

And your evidence that he's insincere is....what, exactly?

The same evidence that you have to back up your belief that he is sincere: nothing but gut instinct.  Though you might be tempted to take him at his word, I suggest that this is a naive approach to skepticism in politics.

Arafat's waiting for Kerry to win so he can be invited back to the White House.

Glad to see you have a window into Arafat's mind.  I have one just like it into Osama's: it says, "PLEASE re-elect George Bush, he's the best Al-Qaeda recruiter we've ever seen!  More war, please, it's just what we wanted!"

See, I can engage in hate politics, too . . .

I've got more than that, but with the pseudonym and all, you're under no obligation to take my word for it.

He was none too thrilled that he was [rightfully] snubbed by GW. The Arab-Palestinians seethed when GW rejected [again rightfully] the claim of a "right of return." And good o'Yassar demonstrated his power by allowing his minions to attack and kill Americans in Gaza (and at Hebrew University).

So what's to read? Oh! There is this, too.

the WWII comparison is hardly apt.

the nazis had the reins of power  (duh.)

now, we went after one islamist government (afghanistan) with all our allies fully supporting, because that made sense.  a government run by and openly conducive to islamist terror.  we shut it down.  everyone applauded, and upheld our right to do it unliaterally.  hell, even the FRENCH still have soldiers on the ground there helping us!

then we went after another, with dubious connection to islamism, and all our allies quite sensibly said, "hey, slow down a second."

afghanistan has parallels to stopping the nazis.  iraq certainly does not.

it is more akin to the idea that britain and france waging war in '36 on switzerland.  how that would have stopped the nazis?  unclear.  maybe the show of force would have given them pause??  maybe switzerland might have one day joined germany???  hey, in '36, that could have been a reasonable surmise, there are germans there and all...  maybe.  maybe.  maybe.

Darleen, if we want to do what you are suggesting, we need to take out islamist states, and do our best to support and build up non-Islamist, more moderate arab states.  but that is not what we are doing at all, is it.

like i said, your ideas, taken to their conclusion imply we must in essence occupy all of the middle east.  (at least until such time that stable democracies are established and all "freedom-haters" are annihilated).

 now, i agree, that would work great.  but we're going to need a much.much.bigger.army.  and more of a stomach for a type of anti-democratic thuggery that i think most americans are going to have a problem with.

please explain how i'm actually wrong on this point.

A couple of days ago, Wei sent me a link to a translation of a particular member of the strategy and tactics being used by al Qaeda. Violent attacks against Sunnis by Shiites against the Sunnis will begin to wonder whether the US requires: to inspire American fury. What they hope is that the internet that allows the existence of an Islamic current in a broad generic sense is as old as humanity. But in the Muslim world" to which Rice referred can be seen in the long run it will be a catastrophe for the majority of insurgent action in Iraq.

Please.  One commenter in this argument is making a point without engaging in jackassery, and the other is dancing mighty close.  Guess which one is which.

since we now know they were not neutral, but active financial partners (and arms suppliers) with Nazi Germany.

Too bad we didn't take them out, it would have at least shortened the war considerably, and maybe kept a lot of Jews alive.

We are faced with an ideology that is really no different that Hitler's mass psychosis, except for the fact that it is centered in a culture that rejects national boundaries and governments. In some respects, it resembles organized crime, loose confederations of like-minded groups of varying size, with nebulous territories, shifting alliances but with similar goals. I don't know how familiar you are with gang culture and how it operates, but I do and I am always amazed at the similarities to Islamism. The only reason gangs haven't metastized into a more virulent form is that they are satisfied with working just under the radar of the establishment they feed on. Islamism has festered, fed and grown, enabled by so-called ME experts and Islamist apologists in the West who have either chided us for "misunderstanding" this culture that is "really no different" from our own, or if questions get too tough, lash out with the ultimate charge that stops Westerners in their tracks in a Pavlova's response after years of indoctrination:

"racism"

Don't underestimate Islamists. Don't underestimate either their intelligence or their understanding of Western culture. They understand us, they loathe us, and they use our values and our laws against us. They also play to our eagerness to have one group to blame, our willingness to say "oops, no operational cooperation! wow, no harm no foul, everyone as you were" so for all the evidence of Saddam's role in Islamist terrorism worldwide, from giving shelter to AQ terrorists to funding Arab-Palestinian terrorists, gets a willing blind eye from Westerners who want to enjoy their morning latte's without too many nagging questions or, in the case of Russia, France and Germany, dealing with the devil today if it gave them a leg up on the US, was worth ignoring future problems when the devil presents his bill.

Also understand this war didn't start with Iraq, or Afghanistan or 9/11 or WTC 1993. And it is not going to end with Iraq, Iraq being just one battle. Also understand we don't have a choice in this war. Oh, we can pull up stakes, we can retreat behind our borders. But Islamists are already pressuring the EU, they are manipulating politics in Indonesia, and it is only going to get worse.

I don't know about you, but I have four daughters, I have grandsons, and I have a stake in the future of my country. I also realize that the USA is abnormal. We are unique, we are, indeed, an experiment. And we can easily lose it to an ideology that plans, not in weeks or months or even years, but in generations dedicated to the goal of a worldwide Caliphate and no law but Sharia. I refuse to be passive in the face of that threat.

Rather than lecturing Israel, we need to take seriously what they've done, because what they do on a micro-scale, we need do on a macro.

Grovel at the feet of the UN? Show "real" humility by kissing Kofi's ring, bending over for Chirac? No, we need to do just the opposite. Full out war on terrorists regardless of borders. Black ops that take out cells and leaders, whether they're plotting in apartments in the slums of Paris, or sipping sweettea in cafes in No. Africa blowing smoke up the a** of willing American lotus eaters.

There's a scene in Schindler's List I find revealing. It's one without dialogue, a shot of a well-swept, small city street, well-dressed people busy under a winter sky walking purposefully, a small park where children play, their voices ringing in joy and laughter. The shot focuses on one woman, furtrimmed coat, high heels, gloves, approaching her parked car, dark and shiney. Into this bucolic scene, snow starts to fall from the grey sky, floating down in lazy flakes, settling on the shiney fender. The woman pauses, a slight wrinkle on her brow betraying puzzlement as she stares at the fender. She reaches out one gloved hand, swiping at the fender and brings her fingers up for inspection. She rubs them together and the flakes don't melt.. they smudge a dirty dark grey on her immaculate gloves. We now look at her face, the puzzlement suddenly becomes realization ..and then we see her face shut down..you can almost hear the slam of the shutters as she refuses to consider what she had just realized. She straightens and goes about her business.

That ash has not stopped falling since 9/11. But this country will not survive if people don't stop acting like that woman in Schindler's List.

i too have a daughter.  8 months old.

i too would like nothing more than to rid the world of any and all dangers which may face her.

but what you are proposing here just does not make any sense.  it makes sense if it were even remotely doable, but it's not, and thereby loses all its credibility as a potential course of action.

look, let's say i agree with you (and i do, in principle), that we should ruthlessly root out terrorists who wish to wage war upon our civilians and institutions.  in fact, if you handed me one, i would happily do what needed to be done.  i don't think anyone, ANYone, wants to give these people a walk, and peacefully coexist with THEM.

but here's question one:   how do we root them out?

seriously, how?  i mean, it only takes a handful of terrorists to terrorize...  it's completely unrealistic to think we'll get them all.  even with the widest net possible, and the concentration of all our power, we have failed to get much of the identified leadership!  and i'm not casting blame here, i'm stating a fact...

we can never truly drain the swamp.  i agree we should take the fight to them... but where do we go?  remember that many may already be Stateside.  do we declare war on ourselves?  i'm not being facetious here... i really don't understand how your plan goes anywhere beyond rhetoric.

everyone on the right decries the idea of liberal pansies treating the war on terror as a law enforcement operation.  but, seriously.  war on what?  on whom, precisely?

answer:  ISLAMISTS.  ok, great, where are they?

answer:  mostly the ME, but there are pockets everywhere.   ok, so we do what, fight everywhere?

answer:  only where there is a threat.   ok, but how do we know where the next threat comes from?

answer:  we can guess, based on intelligence.  which we all recently have an object lesson in the fallibility of?

there is no country of ISLAMISTAN that we can defeat.

the only option, truly, is to get states to root out their terrorists (through law enforcement operations), and we'll root out ours.  and if certain states fail to do that job, then we will consider doing it for them.  but we'd better be damned sure we've working off of good intel, or else we just create a new problem state where one may have only marginally existed in the past.

and i'm speaking as someone who is very glad to see Hussein gone.  good riddance, and good for the people of Iraq.  however, i'm not blind to the fact that this has truly done little, if anything, to support the struggle against the true enemy: islamism.  in fact, Iraq even as a democracy will likely be MORE islamist in character going forward than it was under saddam.

how does this help us???  this is not to say fighting the war was wrong.  like i said, i'm always happy to take down a dictator, and nurture a nascent democracy.  but how has this made us safer?

i just don't see how the fight can be "taken to the terrorists" in any meaningful or effective way.  i think ultimately, all we can truly do is focus our energy on defenses, with precise intelligence aimed at threat reduction.  in short: law enforcement.

there are two tracks: protecting ourselves from terror, and ridding the world of terror.

your argument is that we do the former by doing the latter.  and i agree that this would be the best way.  but i also see it as fundamentally, and literally, impossible.

those who hate us will always hate us, unless we give them reason to not hate us.  and fear of death doesn't work with these people, so a simple show of force doesn't do much, except hopefully exterminate the haters.  but we  all know we'll never get them all.  we'll be lucky if we get even most.  and again, it only takes a few for terror to work.  look at us!  our entire national dialogue is on this subject!  this conversation is predicated on fear (by both of us) for our children's safety.  and how got us here?  an army of millions?  a massive enemy war machine?  no.  a handful of extremists with limited resources, and our own free society which leaves us vulnerable.  

there will always be a handful of extremists with limited resources.  and we will (hopefully) always be a free society.

simply deciding that we are going to fight, and then shuttering one's mind up to the realities of whether that fight is relevant or successful, is just as dangerous as pretending there is no threat.  it can make everyone feel better in the moment that something is being done.  but we'd really better stop and think once in a while whether what's being done is having a real, desired effect.  and that is the problem with this admin: consistency to principle without reassessment.  

there is a telling anecdote about Bush from David Frum (i don't have the cite, sorry) where Frum talks about speech writing for Bush, and Bush is unhappy with a draft he's gotten, and he says he doesn't see a strong enough headline.  Frum comes back and says, no the headline is "Bush leads on [issue X, Y, Z i can't remember precisely]."  and Bush responds that the headline should really just be "Bush leads."  period.  that's the message that matters.  he makes decisions.  he leads.  "it was clear to me that...."  how often has he said this to explain his decision about something?  the fact that it was "clear" to him.  he decided.  he led.

this makes us feel great in times of great uncertainty.  leading for leadership sake.  but once in a while.  once in a while, it is also important to look at the substance of the decisions, the leadership, and determine whether it was a good lead to take.  

i return here to my original point... what is different today than on 9.11.01, except for the fact that next time we won't be so surprised?  

how does this change?  when is the "end" of the fight?  

when do we get to win?

You're actually Karl Rove, and this is one deeply developed, clever ruse, isn't it?!

In case you didn't notice, "hate politics" is a satirical term.  Catch up, please.