Another American Journalist beheaded by ISIS

Get congressional approval for any military actions, revoke passports if not citizenship for any homegrown ISIS fighters, use unreasonable force if actions are taken and tweet the pics. Rinse, repeat.

You're not thinking big enough.

This is basically the way American's treat war as a whole...

"Death, destruction, disease, horror...that's what war is all about, Anan, that's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it so neat and painless you've had no reason to stop it..." James T. Kirk (A Taste of Armageddon)

War is to be avoided, but when you finally have to do it, you do it right...somehow we collectively forgot that after WWII. You can't fight a war where your primary objective is to not kill innocents. Now, that's not the same as targeting innocents. If ISIS is embedded in a village...you turn it into a crater. Yes, it's horrible, but that's what war is, you play to win. We don't seem to do that anymore, not in Korea, not in Vietnam, and not in the Gulf. YOu have to beat down the enemy until he no longer has the will or means to fight back. Since we aren't going to do that...we should stay home.

Also, tell all these "Journalists" and various charity organizations "you are on your own" if you go to these places.

I'm sure certain people think me a monster for saying this, but deep down, they know I'm right.

That won't work either. On 9/11, the U.S. had not been involved in Afghanistan in a decade (aside from a pinprick Tomahawk strike by Clinton when he was warding off impeachment). And we had twice used air strikes against Serbia to SAVE Muslims.

For what it is worth and I can't confirm it, but I've heard that ironically, what really pisses the Muslims off is NOT American troops being stationed in a Muslim country...but to the drone attacks.

Drone attacks are popular of course with Americans because there is no chance of a pilot getting killed or captured (in fairness, there isn't much chance anyway) but Muslims are extremely angry because of there is absolutely no opportunity for them to fight back. Even if all they can do is fire some AK-47 rounds in the direction of a fighter aircraft they at least get the satisfaction of doing SOMETHING.

But with drones, not even that feeble effort matters. If by some chance they shoot one down, all they've done is destroy a relatively cheap machine.

The pilot of a drone is not even inconvenienced. They can launch a missile, wreck a target, then go home for supper with their families.

Seeing as the attackers were not Afghans, this particular non-sequitor can be dispensed with.

I thought about pointing out that we should actually deal with the real problem when it comes to things like 9/11....Saudi Arabia.

But that would mean getting out of bed with them, then developing more non-oil infrastructure. Yes, I know most of our oil doesn't come from the ME, but the oil barons raise the price if someone farts.

Al Queda and Osama Bin Laden were based in Afghanistan at that time.

Even without the oil, "dealing with Saudi Arabia" is a nonstarter.

Saudi Arabia is the heart and soul of Islam. With Mecca and Medina the first two of the three holiest cities in all of Islam (Jerusalem is the third).

You think there are crazy Muslims now? What do you think would happen if the U.S. started bombing Saudi Arabia or worse, occupying it?

Bin Laden and his followers went as you guys sometimes say "ape shit" over the U.S. keeping a handful of military bases in Saudi Arabia to enforce the no fly zone against Iraq.

What do you think would happen during the annual pilgrimages to Mecca when American troops are guarding the borders and American warplanes are routinely flying overhead?

So in Dayton's world we just give SA a blank check to do what they want because it might piss off some muslims.

I think the idea is that it's better to work toward slowly moving Saudi Arabia in a different direction. In time, the pay-off from such a result is more promising than bomb the shit out of everything. But to the impatient, it probably is a bit frustrating.

Yeah, because slowly moving them in a different direction has worked so well for the last thousand years.

I know people like you think if we just are nice to everyone and give them more hugs they won't want to kill us. I also know people like you aren't really dealing with reality in this matter. The world is a bad place and no, they arn't going to like us if we just sell them more blue jeans or send them more foreign aid, they're just going to laugh at us and keep doing what they are doing.

Yeah, Western society has been hard at work for a peaceful solution for a thousand years. Oh, wait, no, we never really tried that.

No.

But I'm reasonably sure that using our military directly against the Saudis will cause far more problems that it will solve (if any).

Ultimately I think working to "change the neighborhood" (Yemen, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, et cetera) is more likely to have a moderating effect on Saudi Arabia.

The solution is the utter conquest and violent de-Islamisation of Saudi Arabia.

Plus it would be nice to have their oil.

But, no one (including myself) actually wants that to happen.

You're not a monster, you're just a moron. Midnight Funeral 2.0.

You do realize don't you that you are quoting an episode made only four years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and that Kirk is openly advocating causing a real attack that will kill 2-3 million people (probably more).

IIRC Kirk said

"They were killing 2-3 million people a year. A real attack would've killed as many and eliminated their ability to launch future attacks".

Spock points out that Kirk was lucky.

Also note, apparently attacks from Vendikar were kind of rare. They were losing a 2-3 million a year yet the attack early in the episode killed 500,000.

So if that was typical, then Eminar VII sufferd 4-6 successful attacks by Vendikar annually.

It's worked insofar as Saudi Arabia isn't currently trying to kill us. Which, for that part of the world, ain't nothing.

No I'm just someone who apparently understands the world more than you. The world is not a nice place no matter how much people like you want to pretend it is...that everyone will love everyone if we just give them more hugs. Apparently I also understand what war is.

Really?

Tell me where those 9/11 terrorists came from...and where much of the money that financed them came from?

Well you just head to Syria and Iraq and meet with some of the radicals and explain how you just want to get along.

(We'll keep an eye out for your Youtube debut shortly thereafter).

OK LJC?

The fact that I think you're a clueless moron, or that global nuclear war and genocide probably aren't good ideas, does not mean I have any desire to go to warzones or "get along" with jihadist, you blithering moron. The fact that you apparently believe this to be so is proof that you not only don't understand the world more than those you're arguing with, but that you understand the world far less than the average entree from Burger King.

Christ, compared to you, Federal Farmer comes off looking like a freakin' Rhodes Scholar, and he's dumber than the average houseplant.

LOL

You really are the Liberal John Castle.

And you really are the Regressive counterpart of a head of cabbage.


Only, not quite as intellectually gifted.

You should stop while you're behind.

How cute. He actually thinks he's "winning".

Apparently you think WWII is the standard for how wars are traditionally fought, and how they traditionally end.

You're incorrect.

OMG, just stfu with that, it's too ridiculous to do anything but laugh in response.

That you actually believe that's how people who aren't hawks see things, amply proves the fallacy in your first sentence.

Having been schooled in the Art of War (Apocalypse Now University) Archangel is right. We'll continue to foment terrorism unless we change tactics. Nuking the bastards is one possibility (or carpet bombing with conventional bombs). I just don't think we'd have enough nukes or conventional bombs to make a difference. And the rest of the civilized world would frown on it.