"Until we recognize and explicitly identify the enemy's ideology, creating an effective strategy will not be possible"

Sorry, I don't see the logical connection here between * naming something* and developing an effective strategy to do something about it. People who think there is such a direct connection have spent too much time in the social sciences where jaw jaw is a substitute for action.

Also, we had an effective strategy at one time, called fighting terrorism on its home turf and denying the enemy the ability to organize and raise money right out there in the open.

We let them have the victories which gave them the credibility to recruit because they were seen as winning against the great satan.

We abandoned that strategy for hand wringing instead.

We've had a pretend presidency for the last eight years.

Isab, I disagree w/the first premise and agree w/the second.

"Naming" is effective. Before the telegraph outlaws had safe havens in family towns miles away from where their crimes were done. The telegraph enabled law enforcement to "name" them as outlaws, expose their suspected acts to all, and post rewards for information/capture. This enables those w/in their own community to assist LEO actions.

Studying and identifying those that celebrate or support acts of terrorism has been labeled "profiling" by Dems/Leftist and their enablers (MSM).

Profiling enables me to understand the difference between Muslim A, B, and C. Otherwise they are just some bunch of people meeting in private using a foreign language to say who knows what. (Stuff that would get me fired or penalized legally is some countries.)

Why should I not be educated using real world examples about:

- the differences in Islamic thought,

- why some Muslim countries seem to have less terrorist actions abroad (is it thought driven or funding related),

- what historical "wars" have been fought between these different Muslim areas,

- who teaches these parents that killing children is a GOOD thing,

- where does the money come from that rewards the families of those killing of children,

and so on.

It's just information about the differences that (as Crid points out) exists between 1.5 BILLION people (some of whom seem to really really really not like us).

Excellent article posted below:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

Bob, that's the way I read it too... before you can defeat an enemy, you must first identify who and where they are. Also, regarding preemptive war: We can argue about whether preemptive war or isolationism is the best strategy. But what we've had under Obama, and to an extent under Bush, is reactive war. That's none of the above, and it constitutes a worst-of-both-worlds strategy.

That's why Trump says to take out the families of terrorists as well - yet everyone is shocked.

"b, that's the way I read it too... before you can defeat an enemy, you must first identify who and where they are. Also, regarding preemptive war"

You are dead in the water there. Too many factors and too many motives to build a profile. 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and very very few of them terrorists.

Isab, I totally agree that "very very few of them (are) terrorists which is why I disagree w/not "naming" the ones that are. Since they are so few they should be standing out of the crowd by their actions and by their funding. Why play "hide 'n seek"?

Why are you and others so against using our gov't intelligence (oxymoron?) to point out who is funding/gaming the violence?

I'm curious why we should not know what political games are being played, funded by whom, and why we are going along. It's like that Wizard of Oz thing (nothing behind the curtain) and the Clinton Foundation "charity" funding times two. Are we too provincial for this stuff?

Interesting article below. I did not realize that Muslims have been destroying their most holy sites over and over again. (How is this a religion of "peace" in today's world? The Crusades have been over a long long time.)

http://www.meforum.org/6104/why-islamists-desecrate-islamic-holy-sites

Why are you and others so against using our gov't intelligence (oxymoron?) to point out who is funding/gaming the violence?

I have no objection to it at all. I Just don't think you gain any useful predictive information from labeling whole classes of people as suspected terrorists. And usually stop at, that with no follow up military intervention, and boots on the ground.

I guarantee you we know who funds terrorists but it is a long a convoluted trail from the money to the specific acts of violence, and the motives are often complex, non existent or ever changing.

I know is is ancient history but terrorism was almost stopped in its tracks in Iraq mid 2008 and remained quite stable until Obama decided to just throw it away.

I know is is ancient history but terrorism was almost stopped in its tracks in Iraq mid 2008 and remained quite stable until Obama decided to just throw it away.

As much as I am loath to defend any politician, that was the choice of the Iraqis. Obama tried to keep troops in country, the Iraq government pointedly and repeatedly refused

"Too many factors and too many motives to build a profile. 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and very very few of them terrorists. "

We can eliminate most of them right off the bat. We know the regions in the world where the terrorists train and plan most of their operations. I guess your point is that naming a religion as the enemy is pointless. In a way, I agree with you; religions are just thoughts. They have no tangible existence and can't shoot guns or build bombs.

But thoughts and philosophies can motivate people. Lots of people have caused a lot of harm by dedicating their lives to bad ideas. We need a vigorous intellectual and moral defense of Westernism. This isn't a job that the military can do, though. It isn't really a job that the government can do at all, although sometimes it can help by providing means of communication, such as with Voice of America decades ago. But the intellectual prosecution, so to speak, has to come from all of us. We have to be willing to defend Westernism and be willing to stand up and say why it is better than primitive cultures, and do so without apology. This doesn't mean ignoring Western civilization's flaws, but it does mean that we can't allow anyone to equivocate the Western world's sometime failure to live up to its ideals with the manifest hatred embedded in philosophies like Wahhabism.

As much as I am loath to defend any politician, that was the choice of the Iraqis. Obama tried to keep troops in country, the Iraq government pointedly and repeatedly refused

lujlp at July 12, 2016 12:57 PM

This is quite frankly Bull shit. Obama refused to negotiate a status of forces agreement so we could leave a significant military presence there.

He didn't want one because he felt he needed to withdraw American forces to win reelection.

In order to try and salvage something from the resulting mess we are now going back in with boots on the ground.

Now, I think this passage is not literally true: Until we recognize and explicitly identify the enemy's ideology, creating an effective strategy will not be possible.

1. Describing primitive Islam as an "ideology" is wordy and grandiose. (And see #3, below.)


2. When considering a project of this magnitude —converting something between a fifth and third of humanity from illiterate detachment into the comity of modern connectedness— why are you so horny to start calling people "enemies"? Though that might certainly be appropriate for the most primitive of Islam's adherents, why should I let pretentious, socially-dicey academics tar such a hyooge portion of humanity so brutally, as if on my behalf?


3. What's so magical about 'indentifying ideology,' anyway? I think there's plenty of great things we can do to move civilization into the future without bothering to complete bogus homework assignments... Mostly this guy seems like a typical academic aspirant, a nebbish who wants to gum a topic to death... Because talking about people is less challenging than talking to them.

Amy, we notice that you didn't respond to Patrick's comment of July 8, 2016 8:27 AM.