Fight terrorism by alienating America's domestic Muslim population.
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Good Plan!
03 Sep 2006 11:51 am
Comments (9)
So what's the right policy? Allow overseas terror groups like Lakshar to operate freely here so long as they're no direct evidence they're planning an attack on Americans? Seems like other countries might have a few objections to that.
It's been a long time, over 60 years since Americans of Japanese extraction were rounded up and put into camps for the duration of the war with Japan. It's been so long that most Americans only know of it from reading history which many never do. The internment of Japanese Americans wasn't contraversial until after the war and not really until the civil rights movement of the 1960s, a full quarter century later. Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures to counteract them.
December 6, 1941 Americans were isolationists. They didn't want to get involved in foreign wars and rightly so. There was no prize to be won, only lives and treasure to be lost. Then came December 7, 1941 and the country was magically transformed. September 11, 2001 was not another Pearl Harbor because there was no country behind it. Thus confusion in the minds of Americans. The leadership, president and congress are just as confused as how to counter terrorism. Refering to the jihadists as faciasts could be a signal that the frustration has reached a zenith.
Most Americans never heard the expressions, "A good German is a dead German" and "A good Jap is a dead Jap." They sit in their airconditioned towers and speculate on the morality of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. That's after watching John Wayne as Sgt John M Stryker charge up the sands of Iwo Jima and in full view of the Marine Corps memorial where they bow their heads and thank God for our national heroes. Being a little more to the point, the average American doesn't have clue about how to win a war and for a variety of reasons. When W answered the attack of 9-11-2001 with, "go to your churches, temples, synagogues, mosques and pray" those who know history and they alone realize how stupit that statement trully is.
The jihad comes in the name of religion. The ecumenical mind set says a religion is a religion, fait is all one needs to be moral and those who do not believe in religion, (not God) are immoral. Only an idiot does not recognize the fact that it was a religion that attacked America, 9-11-2001. There's a lot of idiots about. Now fill in the blank. This is the test for idiot. A good Muslim is a ________ Musilm.
Attempting to remove the Nazi without hurting the tender religious sensibilities of "good Germans" would have been a matter of great humor. That's both the notion it can be done and that there was such a thing as good German at the time that wasn't a dead one. The folks at the wheel when a good one was a dead one were liberals. The conservatives of course disagreed. If they had gotten their way WW2 would still be going on unless Hitler did manage a nuclear weapons capability. In that case a good German would be the one in charge of your work detail.
http://www.hoax-buster.org is an eye opener.
Boy, am I sick of this "alienate further" or "counterproductive" meme. Is this Wright's "progressive realism" in practice? Every time we do anything evincing disapproval of jihdist violence we're going to be lectured about "further alienating" the "muslim middle"? If it pisses muslims off to, for instance, enforce federal laws about abeting attacks on our allies, or to state unequivocally that we have a moral duty to protect the Jewish state in Palestine -- if such things "further alienate" the so-called Muslim moderates, then fuck 'em. And if they take up arms against us because we insisted on doing what we thought was right, what lesson should we draw? That we shouldn't insist on doing what's right? Or is it, rather, that you never thought these things were right in the first place, so giving them up entails no cost. . . .
Should they or shouldn't they have been arrested and tried? The main antagonist had a picture of OBL and helped another dude ship paintball supplies overseas. Are Muslims who like to play paintball and are religious fundamentalists all terrorists? Going to jail for playing paintball? Are we going to start arresting, trying and imprisoning people for what they think and therefore what they might do in the future? Domestically it seems we (the US government) are taking the same tact we did with Iraq. We are trying to go after potential "enemies" before they actually are "enemies". Be careful what you read and think...it could make you an "enemy of the State". It is getting more and more Orwellian...
Matt, I'm glad to see that you've become a true liberal on this issue, but I seem to recall that your blogging career began with some extremely unliberal writings about Muslim Americans. Why the transformation?
Are you people on crack? This is not a matter of alienating America's domestic Muslims by cracking down on terrorism, it's a matter of a alienating America's domestic Muslims by singling them out with disproportionately harsh criminal penalties.
to, for instance, enforce federal laws about abeting attacks on our allies, or to state unequivocally that we have a moral duty to protect the Jewish state in Palestine
"One of these things is not like the other,
one of these things just doesn't belong..."
(Unless AIPAC pushed the Unequivocal Support Of Whatever Israel Does Act into law while we weren't looking. And 'moral duty', my ass.)
Random fun facts: a majority of Americans of Arab descent are not Muslim; a majority of American Muslims are not Arab. Those majorities, for different reasons, tend to get pissed off at the brown=Arab=Muslim conflation, just as rednecks might get pissed off by Eric Rudolph comparisons.
I'm just coming over from TNR where, obviously, the prevailing assumptions are a little closer to "Jihad's" remarks than to ahem's. But I'm interested in this "moral duty" question. I wonder if Matt could hold a straw poll on it. Do most people here believe that the world (including the U.S., of course) has a "moral duty to protect the Jewish state in Palestine"? Or do they not?
Walt & Mearsheimer basically just dismiss out of hand the idea that U.S. policy toward Israel reflects Americans' moral preferences. TNR is sort of an echo-chamber for pro-Israel sentiment, so I don't know whether W&M are right or not. What say ye?
Comments closed September 17, 2006.
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Heads in the Sand
So arresting terrorists is irritating the non-terrorist muslims? Cry me a river. Can you show me any actual evidence of the US "cracking down" on muslim citizens?
What should federal prosecutors have done - left the jihadists alone, on the theory that a few random terror acts are better than torqueing off other muslims?
Here's another puzzler - since there is no crackdown, why should non-jihadists be worried? This isn't WWII, and there are no internment camps. Leave the jihadists alone, and allow a few bombings in shopping malls (etc) - and the public outcry may have side effects no one - not me, not you - will like.
Posted by James Robertson | September 3, 2006 3:49 PM