Perhaps the most enraging thing about this "Tiny Minority" meme is that it deals with around ONE QUARTER of our world's population.
Suddenly, even small fractions of that amount translate into some really big numbers. Out of approximately 1.5 Billion Muslims:
1% = 15 MILLION
10% = 150 MILLION
20% = 300 MILLION
30% = 450 MILLION
Now, reflect that, when polled, some 30% of British Muslim youth deemed violence to be permissible in spreading Islam.
Go ahead, pick whatever tiny number you like to represent your "Tiny Minority".
What will it be, just a few DOZENS of MILLIONS (percents), or just a few HUNDREDS of MILLIONS?
There are untold MILLIONS of Muslims around the world that would like nothing better than to have a sword at our necks.
Isn't about time that we begin to put a gun to their head and tell them to piss off?
Without wishing to be too obscure, the West needs to reach out and touch several dozen million Muslims in a variety of locations.
There exist only a very few ways of doing that and most of them are rather nasty.
One of the few scenarios that involves an exceptionally limited degree of violence is taking the shrines at Mecca and Medina as physical hostages to be held for a few decades during which there cannot be any low level terrorist attacks or the haj will be canceled.
Should some jihadist loons get it into their last lonely synapses to unleash a chemical weapons attack on the West, POOF! ... Medina is thoroughly contaminated in an exact same manner.
Detonate a dirty bomb? POOF! First Medina and then Mecca are irradiated in the same way.
Pop off a nuclear weapon, POOF! First Medina and then, if there is any repetition, Mecca are slagged into 24 hour glow-in-dark parking lots.
As one wag said, after a while Muslims would feel pretty silly bowing five times a day to a plain of hot, smoking glass.
In the meanwhile, having each shrine encircled with automated high-rate machine gun emplacements and anti-personnel minefields would serve as the ultimate flypaper for enraged jihadis everywhere.
Think how much bargaining power a Western general would obtain by posing next to the Kahbah with a bucket of liquid pig fat.
Lack of imagination seems to be one of the biggest problems for Western militaries.
I love the irony in the statement, Dull Knife the Cheyenne Chief was the real hero and best General at Little Big Horn. He kept his Cheyenne behind Custer to be the anvil Crazy Horse and his Sioux broke Custer against. And he did this without any direct communication with the Sioux.
Indeed, the West does lack imagination when it comes to combating Islam. However, a century ago U.S. Gen. Jack Pershing used pigs to subdue radical Muslims in the Philippines. He used his imagination there, and it worked well. I have thought of your suggested strategy. Alas, capturing and holding Mecca and Medina while threatening an internecine nuclear exchange would only enrage the Islamists even more and probably tick off and impel the ever elusive and quiescent "moderate" Muslims to join their jihadist comrades. Naturally, most are perpetually provoked and enraged, but the abominable act of kaffirs capturing their most holy shrines would make them beyond apoplectic. Even if a world leader merely mentioned threatening to take Mecca, they would likely respond by destroying western cities Frighteningly, they already have sleeper cells waiting to detonate nukes within our borders, I pray I am wrong of course. They would certainly wipe out Israel. If not that they would ramp up their efforts massacring Christians, Jews, and others in their own countries, etc. I think the West's best options are to first ruthlessly route out the scum within our own borders, reduce our reliance on oil, do away with politically correct immigration laws, and develop our own alternative fuel that is truly bona fide. We must do this so we can defund Islamic terrorism from its source. But with the current status quo running the show, that will likely never happen. Sadly, those jihadists have the upper hand, not us. They have time working with them, we have time working against us. But hey, if using pigs in the Philippines worked for Jack P, maybe the same concept would work for us? Peace
Apuleius Platonicus's demurrer is a symptom of the same disease that is continuing to cripple the West with regard to Islam.
The sociopolitico-cultural disease to which I refer -- Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism (PC MC) -- did not begin with the problem of Islam.
It has its roots in the West's epochal contact and interrelations with its Other, beginning with the Age of Discovery and consequent Age of Colonialism.
It's all a very complex process, hardly amenable to a little response in a comments thread on the Blogosphere; suffice it to say now, necessarily simplifying it, that the development by which the West became irrationally and morbidly self-critical about its own Colonialist record (and, as a subset to that, America's treatment of the American Indians (I refuse to call them "Native Americans", for that linguistic nicety is part of the disease)), is the same development that has led to our current infuriating impasse by which nearly the entire West remains outrageously myopic to the most anti-liberal, fanatical, racist, intolerant, hateful, bigoted and violent culure on the face of the planet: Islam.
zatarrajack I don't think they have any nuclear weapons, not yet anyway. If they did we would have seen a western city go up in a mushroom cloud. The terrorists aren't the type to use strategic thinking, they will use terrorism to the bitter end because they don't know any other tactic.
Hesperado not all of are into that political correct bull, some of us recognize that it is a tactic of the left to weaken us so they can impose a one world socialist government. The Moslems are taking advantage of our weakness but they are not looking at the long term. The lower classes and the lower middle classes in Europe are starting to wake up and oppose the Moslems, and in some nations upper middle class people are joining them. In the long run the Moslems will lose, but in the short run they are going to cause a lot of trouble to the west.
And I agree with you on the term "Native American" anyone born in the US is a native American, and anyone who has relatives that have been in the US for over a century has about an 80% probability of having a minimum of one Indian ancestor.
I pray that you are correct sir. I do not underestimate the perniciousness of our foes. I am gravely concerned that the rumors and uncorroborated claims of WMDs within the US and Europe are correct. There is a high likelihood there are indeed suitcase nukes, and crude dirty nuclear devices within our borders. I know that nuclear proliferation in Islamic countries is a clear and present danger. Israel intercepted a crude backpack nuke in 2001 http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/israelf.htm. There were also radioactive materials found in Afghanistan. Even if they don't have a bomb, they are well on their way, and they have plenty of friends and appeasers to help them complete their unholy quest. Again, I hope my fears are unfounded. However, if those death cult fanatics strike with just another significant 9/11 magnitude attack, it will spell doom for US and devastate our already weakened economy.
I didn't say they weren't going to get them, I said they don't have them yet. And yes I know about the rumors of the man portable nukes in the US, if they have been hidden over here for very long they won't work, the radiation messes with the control circuits and they have to have regular maintenance. As for the "dirty" bombs with radioactive material wrapped around a convential explosive the area that would be irradiated would be very small. I don't know the exact areas that would need to be cleaned but it wouldn't be much more then one to two hundred yards down wind from the explosion. I am basing this on a small 20 to 50 pound device since getting a larger device in place would be much harder.
If I were you I would be more worried about bio weapons, ones like small pox and other highly contagious diseases that are spread by air. They generally cost less to acquire (Cuba would be a good source) and come in smaller packages that can be smuggled into crowded places and turned loose.
When Iran finally manages to get the Stuxnet worm cleared from their computers and repairs the damage it died we will have about 12 months before Iran has a working nuclear warhead, I use the term warhead because of the many reports that they are already designing the container to be mounted on their missiles.
I forgot, it isn't just our economy that is real weak, the EU taken as a whole is much weaker, and China somewhere close to us in weakness even possibly being weaker then us. The three of us are in a race to see who goes bankrupt first, China is printing money and handing it out to its people faster then we are, and they are experiencing massive inflation. In the EU we have Greece (needing another bailout) Ireland (in the process of their first bail out) Portugal, Spain, Austria and Belgium that are teetering on the bring of collapse. Only Germany has a strong economy and they are being pulled down by being the ones who are having to bail out the other nations. China has just said they will buy up a lot of Greek bonds to try and stop them from causing the entire EU from going bankrupt this year.
You are also getting a lot of capital flight from Europe and with the exception of China no one wants to buy European bonds.
One of the three is probably going bankrupt this year, the question is which.
What Zenster got correctly is that this war can only be won on the offensive. Islam is based on supremacy beliefs, which are unmaintainable in the face of defeat.
Yes, people will die, and cities will be damaged, but in a year, or two, or five from now, the choice would remain the same: to fight, or to die, and the more time passes, the stronger the enemy becomes. If they don't have bombs in our cities now, they would in the future, because the goal of Islam is constant.
And the enemy is well aware that time is on his side. They don't refrain from using horrible weapons now because they need a reason - they always have a reason - but because they're not yet ready.
On Point - "Don't bring a Knife to a Gun fight. With the possible exceptions of Persia and Pakistan - Pray Tell - Name the Islamic Nation that can actually design, manufacture and maintain "the Guns" (Hearing a swarm of crickets in the background.) Truth be known, this should have been done in and around 1973-4.
Persia and Pakistan had foreign help in designing their weapons, Germany and Russia in the case of Iran. China, North Korea and I think it was Belgium in the case of Pakistan. At one point the Persians have very fine craftsmen and were innovators, then the Moslems conquered them and destroyed their culture along with the incentives to design and build things.
Persia and Pakistan had foreign help in designing their weapons, Germany and Russia in the case of Iran. China, North Korea and I think it was Belgium in the case of Pakistan. At one point the Persians have very fine craftsmen and were innovators, then the Moslems conquered them and destroyed their culture along with the incentives to design and build things.
I agree with zatarrajack's concern overall (though I disagree with a couple of particulars). The probability of a WMD attack -- actually, of several WMD attacks in various places (not necessarily simultaneous) -- is high for three reasons:
1) Fanaticism
The unique fanaticism of Muslims, with its complex of ingredients, including supremacism, expansionism, hatred and intolerance of the Other, and a cultural DNA blueprint for using violence in order to achieve their expansionist supremacist goal. Their fanaticism more often than not manifests in a grotesquely vital and intense resolve that not only is not limited by the fear of death, but positively seeks out homicidal suicide, as well as the sacrifice of fellows and even family (cf. the Muslim man and wife who were prepared and planning to use explosive hidden in their baby's bottle in order to blow up the plane in which they were to be passengers).
2) Mass Presence
Prior to the 20th century, Muslims were hardly present within the West. For its first 1300 years, Muslims had to fight the West through external attacks -- whether attempts (some successful) at military siege and invasion, or whether by chipping away at the tegument of the enemy through a series of small terror raids (razzias), or whether through piracy on the seas as well as coastal raids. With perhaps some extremely rare exceptions, Muslims did not have available the manpower within the West capable of planning and executing sabotage. During the winding down of the re-conquest of Spain by the non-Muslim West and then after the final expulsion of Muslims from Spain, the Spanish authorities instituted the rational policy of trying to ferret out dangerous Muslims still lurking within their society: the so-called Inquisition. But this was a singular situation due to the singular facts of a) Muslims actually conquering a large swath of Western land, then b) Westerners winning back that land which obviously still contained some Muslims, given the fact that it had been under Islamic domination for a good 800 years.
3) PC MC
The mainstream dominance of PC MC throughout the entire West continues to be enormously enabling for the long-term desideratum of Muslims (scil., to conquer "Rome" -- i.e., the West). This is true in many different ways, but for the purpose of this analysis here, I point out only one of them: closely related to #2 above, not merely the presence (and continuing influx) of Muslims within the West is an aid to their ability to plot terror attacks against us -- but also the relatively remarkable lack of suspicion we confer upon them by our PC MC solicitude and deference toward them (bolstered by our handwringing anxiety to avoid being "racist" against this class of people who have become, in the eyes of PC MC, the #1 Ethnic Culture of all, elbowing out all other cultures and races for the privilege of enjoying our solicitude and deference). Thus, innumerable Muslims in the past few decades have been invited into areas and institutions of our Western societies -- whether political, sociocultural, academic, technological, and scientific -- from where those among them seeking ways to plot complex WMD attacks that will require deep infiltration into our societies will have a much better chance at doing so.
Indeed, PC MC goes even further -- in setting up ways to positively hobble any rational suspicion any one or groups of Westerners might have about any given Muslims or groups of Muslims (cf. the way that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, was able to remain deep within our society and the various ways that non-Muslims around him who had suspicions about him were positively suppressed -- or at times even suppressed themselves -- thus helping to enable his eventual ability to mass-murder 13 people (plus the baby inside one of the victims) and wound over 30 more (intending to kill them too, of course)).
zatarrajack: Alas, capturing and holding Mecca and Medina while threatening an internecine nuclear exchange would only enrage the Islamists even more and probably tick off and impel the ever elusive and quiescent "moderate" Muslims to join their jihadist comrades.
Please re-read my comment. There is no mention of “threatening an internecine nuclear exchange”. The threat is one of applying unconventional weapons against the shrines on an “in-kind” basis should similar attacks occur in the West. Also not mentioned is that the haj would be permitted after a quiescent period of over one year. Even low-level terrorist attacks would see the haj shut down again.
I would ask that you − and any one else who is interested − please read my comment in an earlier post at Gates of Vienna titled "Thinking the Unthinkable About Deterrence". Below is the portion dealing with holding Islam’s shrines hostage:
Taking The Shrines as Hostages:
Through unilateral or coalition military action the shrines at Mecca and Medina are taken and held hostage against future terrorist attacks. Somehow, we need to reach out and touch over ONE BILLION Muslims. The haj (pilgrimage), is annually attended by over one million Muslims. For many, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event that may well involve the most costly financial outlay they ever make. Missing such an opportunity due to terrorist atrocities might well cause individuals who are denied the haj to rethink their support of jihad. Once the shrines are captured, a span of thirteen months must pass without a single major terrorist atrocity before the haj can resume.
The shrines would be surrounded by a no-man’s land of minefields covered by computer controlled automatic weapons fire directed by night vision systems. If anything, the captured shines would also serve as the ultimate “flypaper” in how they would attract the most fanatical jihadis thereby distracting them from attacking other Western targets. Additionally, all attendees of the haj would have to undergo comprehensive biometric analysis in order to participate. The database assembled would provide a powerful tool in profiling terrorist families and groups.
Holding these shrines as physical hostages would also serve another purpose. Should there be a chemical or biological attack on a Western city, Medina would be contaminated with a similar agent. A second one would result in Mecca being contaminated as well. This is a significant deterrent as cleaning up either site would cost untold BILLIONS of dollars. In the case of a nuclear terrorist attack, first Medina and then Mecca would be obliterated.
zatarrajack: Naturally, most are perpetually provoked and enraged, but the abominable act of kaffirs capturing their most holy shrines would make them beyond apoplectic.
So what? Who cares? They are already enraged and maybe a few brain aneurisms would rid us of those fanatics who are more prone to apoplexy. If anything, Muslims who were cooperative − or, at least, understanding − would be strong candidates for the, so far, mythical Moderate Muslim™.
Put another way, too much of Islam already hates us more than passionately. Enraging the rest really won’t make much of a difference. Best, by far, to do this right away while Islam is still relatively unarmed than to wait a decade and attempt such a thing.
If you have read my linked work, you will see that holding the shrines hostage is one of the most benevolent and least lethal forms of deterrent. Most other physical measures, besides targeted assassinations and the propaganda campaign that I suggest, would probably qualify as forms of genocide.
Even if a world leader merely mentioned threatening to take Mecca, they would likely respond by destroying western cities.
How?
Frighteningly, they already have sleeper cells waiting to detonate nukes within our borders, I pray I am wrong of course.
Do you have some cites for this or is it mere speculation? For you to be taken seriously, you will have to produce some documentation or other evidence to support such a serious claim. If terrorists had a nuclear weapon, they would already have used it. As Richard rather succinctly noted:
… I don't think they have any nuclear weapons, not yet anyway. If they did we would have seen a western city go up in a mushroom cloud. The terrorists aren't the type to use strategic thinking, they will use terrorism to the bitter end because they don't know any other tactic.
Few informed individuals would tend to disagree with this assessment.
They would certainly wipe out Israel.
Again, your lack of awareness is showing through.
Israel has what is known as the “Samson Option”, whereby they will glass and Windex™ the entire MME (Muslim Middle East), if they take so much as a single NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) strike from their Arab neighbors.
This is why the Saudi King was recently seen telling Iran’s Ahmadinejad to, essentially, sit down and STFU with all of his “wipe Israel off of the map” horseradish.
If anything, America needs to implement the exact same sort of policy by informing the MME and other rogue states like North Korea that one single WMD hit on America sees all of them perish in nuclear fire. At the very least, it sure would be entertaining to watch all of these scum bags scramble to reign in their pet terrorist organizations during the days following such a broadcast.
If not that they would ramp up their efforts massacring Christians, Jews, and others in their own countries, etc.
For which we should have an appropriate response like lobbing a few cruise missiles into plenary sessions of their legislatures, like we should have done long ago in Khartoum to resolve the Darfur genocide.
I think the West's best options are to first ruthlessly route out the scum within our own borders, reduce our reliance on oil, do away with politically correct immigration laws, and develop our own alternative fuel that is truly bona fide. We must do this so we can defund Islamic terrorism from its source.
Here you absolutely correct. I could not agree more. However, these measures do not serve as any sort of functional deterrent and that is eventually what will be needed to ward off Islamic terrorists armed with WMDs.
Sadly, those jihadists have the upper hand, not us.
WRONG. Even now, the jihadis only think that they have the upper hand. A few WMD terrorist attacks would see much of the MME glassed over. There is no way that the West is going to surrender to these Neanderthals.
My intention is to preclude most chances of nuclear terrorist attacks. Even a single one could set back the West by DECADES.
Have you bothered to consider what some really strategic nuclear terrorism could do?
Try, first incinerating South Korea’s shipyards. Then sink a supertanker in the Malaga Straits where, incidentally, a huge fraction of the world’s oil and shipping transits. Level Wall Street and detonate an EMP device over America and the entire world could descend into chaos lasting for DECADES.
We have everything to lose and it is long past tea to make sure that Muslims understand that they will lose EVERYTHING if they persist in this jihad nonsense.
Time is of the essence. Should Iran obtain nuclear weapons it will go down in history as this new century’s most stupendous strategic blunder.
zatarrajack: There is a high likelihood there are indeed suitcase nukes, and crude dirty nuclear devices within our borders.
You really need to provide some documentation for these claims.
Do you know anything about the extreme limitations of so-called "suitcase nukes"?
Yesin believed that a true suitcase nuke would be too expensive for most countries to produce and would not last more than several months because the nuclear core would decompose so quickly.
…
It seems highly unlikely that a country would knowingly cooperate with terrorists because the device would bear the chemical fingerprints of that government. “I don’t think any nation is willing to participate in this type of activity,” Majidi said.
That means the fissile material probably would have to be stolen. “It is very difficult for that much material to walk away,” he added.
There is one more wrinkle: Nuclear devices require a lot of maintenance because the material that makes them so deadly also can wreak havoc on their electrical systems.
“The more compact the devices are — guess what? — the more frequently they need to be maintained. Everything is compactly designed around that radiation source, which damages everything over a period of time,” Majidi said. [emphasis added]
Dirty bombs are another matter but pose a threat only in terms of financial cost to clean up after and not in terms of fatalities.
You continue to post ill-informed statements that only tend to provoke hysteria for those more ignorant than yourself. Please reconsider your information sources before making such clearly baseless statements.
22 comments:
Bad example.
I have a much better one:
In 1933, membership in the NSDAP was only 3% of the population of germany. So the extremists were a tiny minority. No need to worry!
Worst imaginable example. Unless, of course, you are attempting to illustrate that right-wing opposition to Islam is hopelessly misguided.
Original Immigrants are not Sacred...
It's only a bad example if it's the only example
Perhaps the most enraging thing about this "Tiny Minority" meme is that it deals with around ONE QUARTER of our world's population.
Suddenly, even small fractions of that amount translate into some really big numbers. Out of approximately 1.5 Billion Muslims:
1% = 15 MILLION
10% = 150 MILLION
20% = 300 MILLION
30% = 450 MILLION
Now, reflect that, when polled, some 30% of British Muslim youth deemed violence to be permissible in spreading Islam.
Go ahead, pick whatever tiny number you like to represent your "Tiny Minority".
What will it be, just a few DOZENS of MILLIONS (percents), or just a few HUNDREDS of MILLIONS?
There are untold MILLIONS of Muslims around the world that would like nothing better than to have a sword at our necks.
Isn't about time that we begin to put a gun to their head and tell them to piss off?
Without wishing to be too obscure, the West needs to reach out and touch several dozen million Muslims in a variety of locations.
There exist only a very few ways of doing that and most of them are rather nasty.
One of the few scenarios that involves an exceptionally limited degree of violence is taking the shrines at Mecca and Medina as physical hostages to be held for a few decades during which there cannot be any low level terrorist attacks or the haj will be canceled.
Should some jihadist loons get it into their last lonely synapses to unleash a chemical weapons attack on the West, POOF! ... Medina is thoroughly contaminated in an exact same manner.
Detonate a dirty bomb? POOF! First Medina and then Mecca are irradiated in the same way.
Pop off a nuclear weapon, POOF! First Medina and then, if there is any repetition, Mecca are slagged into 24 hour glow-in-dark parking lots.
As one wag said, after a while Muslims would feel pretty silly bowing five times a day to a plain of hot, smoking glass.
In the meanwhile, having each shrine encircled with automated high-rate machine gun emplacements and anti-personnel minefields would serve as the ultimate flypaper for enraged jihadis everywhere.
Think how much bargaining power a Western general would obtain by posing next to the Kahbah with a bucket of liquid pig fat.
Lack of imagination seems to be one of the biggest problems for Western militaries.
That needs to change and damn soon.
I love the irony in the statement, Dull Knife the Cheyenne Chief was the real hero and best General at Little Big Horn. He kept his Cheyenne behind Custer to be the anvil Crazy Horse and his Sioux broke Custer against. And he did this without any direct communication with the Sioux.
@Zenster,
Indeed, the West does lack imagination when it comes to combating Islam. However, a century ago U.S. Gen. Jack Pershing used pigs to subdue radical Muslims in the Philippines. He used his imagination there, and it worked well. I have thought of your suggested strategy. Alas, capturing and holding Mecca and Medina while threatening an internecine nuclear exchange would only enrage the Islamists even more and probably tick off and impel the ever elusive and quiescent "moderate" Muslims to join their jihadist comrades. Naturally, most are perpetually provoked and enraged, but the abominable act of kaffirs capturing their most holy shrines would make them beyond apoplectic. Even if a world leader merely mentioned threatening to take Mecca, they would likely respond by destroying western cities Frighteningly, they already have sleeper cells waiting to detonate nukes within our borders, I pray I am wrong of course. They would certainly wipe out Israel. If not that they would ramp up their efforts massacring Christians, Jews, and others in their own countries, etc. I think the West's best options are to first ruthlessly route out the scum within our own borders, reduce our reliance on oil, do away with politically correct immigration laws, and develop our own alternative fuel that is truly bona fide. We must do this so we can defund Islamic terrorism from its source. But with the current status quo running the show, that will likely never happen. Sadly, those jihadists have the upper hand, not us. They have time working with them, we have time working against us. But hey, if using pigs in the Philippines worked for Jack P, maybe the same concept would work for us? Peace
Zenster,
Stealing your comments for a post.
Excellent and to the point. Yes, a gun to their heads.
I prefer tactital nukes myself.
But that said all concerned know
I am a racist and islaomphobe.
Apuleius Platonicus's demurrer is a symptom of the same disease that is continuing to cripple the West with regard to Islam.
The sociopolitico-cultural disease to which I refer -- Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism (PC MC) -- did not begin with the problem of Islam.
It has its roots in the West's epochal contact and interrelations with its Other, beginning with the Age of Discovery and consequent Age of Colonialism.
It's all a very complex process, hardly amenable to a little response in a comments thread on the Blogosphere; suffice it to say now, necessarily simplifying it, that the development by which the West became irrationally and morbidly self-critical about its own Colonialist record (and, as a subset to that, America's treatment of the American Indians (I refuse to call them "Native Americans", for that linguistic nicety is part of the disease)), is the same development that has led to our current infuriating impasse by which nearly the entire West remains outrageously myopic to the most anti-liberal, fanatical, racist, intolerant, hateful, bigoted and violent culure on the face of the planet: Islam.
The Hesperado
zatarrajack I don't think they have any nuclear weapons, not yet anyway. If they did we would have seen a western city go up in a mushroom cloud. The terrorists aren't the type to use strategic thinking, they will use terrorism to the bitter end because they don't know any other tactic.
Hesperado not all of are into that political correct bull, some of us recognize that it is a tactic of the left to weaken us so they can impose a one world socialist government. The Moslems are taking advantage of our weakness but they are not looking at the long term. The lower classes and the lower middle classes in Europe are starting to wake up and oppose the Moslems, and in some nations upper middle class people are joining them. In the long run the Moslems will lose, but in the short run they are going to cause a lot of trouble to the west.
And I agree with you on the term "Native American" anyone born in the US is a native American, and anyone who has relatives that have been in the US for over a century has about an 80% probability of having a minimum of one Indian ancestor.
Richard,
I pray that you are correct sir. I do not underestimate the perniciousness of our foes. I am gravely concerned that the rumors and uncorroborated claims of WMDs within the US and Europe are correct. There is a high likelihood there are indeed suitcase nukes, and crude dirty nuclear devices within our borders. I know that nuclear proliferation in Islamic countries is a clear and present danger. Israel intercepted a crude backpack nuke in 2001 http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/israelf.htm. There were also radioactive materials found in Afghanistan. Even if they don't have a bomb, they are well on their way, and they have plenty of friends and appeasers to help them complete their unholy quest. Again, I hope my fears are unfounded. However, if those death cult fanatics strike with just another significant 9/11 magnitude attack, it will spell doom for US and devastate our already weakened economy.
I didn't say they weren't going to get them, I said they don't have them yet. And yes I know about the rumors of the man portable nukes in the US, if they have been hidden over here for very long they won't work, the radiation messes with the control circuits and they have to have regular maintenance. As for the "dirty" bombs with radioactive material wrapped around a convential explosive the area that would be irradiated would be very small. I don't know the exact areas that would need to be cleaned but it wouldn't be much more then one to two hundred yards down wind from the explosion. I am basing this on a small 20 to 50 pound device since getting a larger device in place would be much harder.
If I were you I would be more worried about bio weapons, ones like small pox and other highly contagious diseases that are spread by air. They generally cost less to acquire (Cuba would be a good source) and come in smaller packages that can be smuggled into crowded places and turned loose.
When Iran finally manages to get the Stuxnet worm cleared from their computers and repairs the damage it died we will have about 12 months before Iran has a working nuclear warhead, I use the term warhead because of the many reports that they are already designing the container to be mounted on their missiles.
I forgot, it isn't just our economy that is real weak, the EU taken as a whole is much weaker, and China somewhere close to us in weakness even possibly being weaker then us. The three of us are in a race to see who goes bankrupt first, China is printing money and handing it out to its people faster then we are, and they are experiencing massive inflation. In the EU we have Greece (needing another bailout) Ireland (in the process of their first bail out) Portugal, Spain, Austria and Belgium that are teetering on the bring of collapse. Only Germany has a strong economy and they are being pulled down by being the ones who are having to bail out the other nations. China has just said they will buy up a lot of Greek bonds to try and stop them from causing the entire EU from going bankrupt this year.
You are also getting a lot of capital flight from Europe and with the exception of China no one wants to buy European bonds.
One of the three is probably going bankrupt this year, the question is which.
What Zenster got correctly is that this war can only be won on the offensive. Islam is based on supremacy beliefs, which are unmaintainable in the face of defeat.
Yes, people will die, and cities will be damaged, but in a year, or two, or five from now, the choice would remain the same: to fight, or to die, and the more time passes, the stronger the enemy becomes. If they don't have bombs in our cities now, they would in the future, because the goal of Islam is constant.
And the enemy is well aware that time is on his side. They don't refrain from using horrible weapons now because they need a reason - they always have a reason - but because they're not yet ready.
Zenster -
On Point - "Don't bring a Knife to a Gun fight. With the possible exceptions of Persia and Pakistan - Pray Tell - Name the Islamic Nation that can actually design, manufacture and maintain "the Guns" (Hearing a swarm of crickets in the background.) Truth be known, this should have been done in and around 1973-4.
Dr. Shalit
Persia and Pakistan had foreign help in designing their weapons, Germany and Russia in the case of Iran. China, North Korea and I think it was Belgium in the case of Pakistan. At one point the Persians have very fine craftsmen and were innovators, then the Moslems conquered them and destroyed their culture along with the incentives to design and build things.
Persia and Pakistan had foreign help in designing their weapons, Germany and Russia in the case of Iran. China, North Korea and I think it was Belgium in the case of Pakistan. At one point the Persians have very fine craftsmen and were innovators, then the Moslems conquered them and destroyed their culture along with the incentives to design and build things.
I agree with zatarrajack's concern overall (though I disagree with a couple of particulars). The probability of a WMD attack -- actually, of several WMD attacks in various places (not necessarily simultaneous) -- is high for three reasons:
1) Fanaticism
The unique fanaticism of Muslims, with its complex of ingredients, including supremacism, expansionism, hatred and intolerance of the Other, and a cultural DNA blueprint for using violence in order to achieve their expansionist supremacist goal. Their fanaticism more often than not manifests in a grotesquely vital and intense resolve that not only is not limited by the fear of death, but positively seeks out homicidal suicide, as well as the sacrifice of fellows and even family (cf. the Muslim man and wife who were prepared and planning to use explosive hidden in their baby's bottle in order to blow up the plane in which they were to be passengers).
2) Mass Presence
Prior to the 20th century, Muslims were hardly present within the West. For its first 1300 years, Muslims had to fight the West through external attacks -- whether attempts (some successful) at military siege and invasion, or whether by chipping away at the tegument of the enemy through a series of small terror raids (razzias), or whether through piracy on the seas as well as coastal raids. With perhaps some extremely rare exceptions, Muslims did not have available the manpower within the West capable of planning and executing sabotage. During the winding down of the re-conquest of Spain by the non-Muslim West and then after the final expulsion of Muslims from Spain, the Spanish authorities instituted the rational policy of trying to ferret out dangerous Muslims still lurking within their society: the so-called Inquisition. But this was a singular situation due to the singular facts of a) Muslims actually conquering a large swath of Western land, then b) Westerners winning back that land which obviously still contained some Muslims, given the fact that it had been under Islamic domination for a good 800 years.
3) PC MC
The mainstream dominance of PC MC throughout the entire West continues to be enormously enabling for the long-term desideratum of Muslims (scil., to conquer "Rome" -- i.e., the West). This is true in many different ways, but for the purpose of this analysis here, I point out only one of them: closely related to #2 above, not merely the presence (and continuing influx) of Muslims within the West is an aid to their ability to plot terror attacks against us -- but also the relatively remarkable lack of suspicion we confer upon them by our PC MC solicitude and deference toward them (bolstered by our handwringing anxiety to avoid being "racist" against this class of people who have become, in the eyes of PC MC, the #1 Ethnic Culture of all, elbowing out all other cultures and races for the privilege of enjoying our solicitude and deference). Thus, innumerable Muslims in the past few decades have been invited into areas and institutions of our Western societies -- whether political, sociocultural, academic, technological, and scientific -- from where those among them seeking ways to plot complex WMD attacks that will require deep infiltration into our societies will have a much better chance at doing so.
Indeed, PC MC goes even further -- in setting up ways to positively hobble any rational suspicion any one or groups of Westerners might have about any given Muslims or groups of Muslims (cf. the way that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, was able to remain deep within our society and the various ways that non-Muslims around him who had suspicions about him were positively suppressed -- or at times even suppressed themselves -- thus helping to enable his eventual ability to mass-murder 13 people (plus the baby inside one of the victims) and wound over 30 more (intending to kill them too, of course)).
The Hesperado
zatarrajack: Alas, capturing and holding Mecca and Medina while threatening an internecine nuclear exchange would only enrage the Islamists even more and probably tick off and impel the ever elusive and quiescent "moderate" Muslims to join their jihadist comrades.
Please re-read my comment. There is no mention of “threatening an internecine nuclear exchange”. The threat is one of applying unconventional weapons against the shrines on an “in-kind” basis should similar attacks occur in the West. Also not mentioned is that the haj would be permitted after a quiescent period of over one year. Even low-level terrorist attacks would see the haj shut down again.
I would ask that you − and any one else who is interested − please read my comment in an earlier post at Gates of Vienna titled "Thinking the Unthinkable About Deterrence". Below is the portion dealing with holding Islam’s shrines hostage:
Taking The Shrines as Hostages:
Through unilateral or coalition military action the shrines at Mecca and Medina are taken and held hostage against future terrorist attacks. Somehow, we need to reach out and touch over ONE BILLION Muslims. The haj (pilgrimage), is annually attended by over one million Muslims. For many, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event that may well involve the most costly financial outlay they ever make. Missing such an opportunity due to terrorist atrocities might well cause individuals who are denied the haj to rethink their support of jihad. Once the shrines are captured, a span of thirteen months must pass without a single major terrorist atrocity before the haj can resume.
The shrines would be surrounded by a no-man’s land of minefields covered by computer controlled automatic weapons fire directed by night vision systems. If anything, the captured shines would also serve as the ultimate “flypaper” in how they would attract the most fanatical jihadis thereby distracting them from attacking other Western targets. Additionally, all attendees of the haj would have to undergo comprehensive biometric analysis in order to participate. The database assembled would provide a powerful tool in profiling terrorist families and groups.
Holding these shrines as physical hostages would also serve another purpose. Should there be a chemical or biological attack on a Western city, Medina would be contaminated with a similar agent. A second one would result in Mecca being contaminated as well. This is a significant deterrent as cleaning up either site would cost untold BILLIONS of dollars. In the case of a nuclear terrorist attack, first Medina and then Mecca would be obliterated.
zatarrajack: Naturally, most are perpetually provoked and enraged, but the abominable act of kaffirs capturing their most holy shrines would make them beyond apoplectic.
So what? Who cares? They are already enraged and maybe a few brain aneurisms would rid us of those fanatics who are more prone to apoplexy. If anything, Muslims who were cooperative − or, at least, understanding − would be strong candidates for the, so far, mythical Moderate Muslim™.
Put another way, too much of Islam already hates us more than passionately. Enraging the rest really won’t make much of a difference. Best, by far, to do this right away while Islam is still relatively unarmed than to wait a decade and attempt such a thing.
If you have read my linked work, you will see that holding the shrines hostage is one of the most benevolent and least lethal forms of deterrent. Most other physical measures, besides targeted assassinations and the propaganda campaign that I suggest, would probably qualify as forms of genocide.
Even if a world leader merely mentioned threatening to take Mecca, they would likely respond by destroying western cities.
How?
Frighteningly, they already have sleeper cells waiting to detonate nukes within our borders, I pray I am wrong of course.
Do you have some cites for this or is it mere speculation? For you to be taken seriously, you will have to produce some documentation or other evidence to support such a serious claim. If terrorists had a nuclear weapon, they would already have used it. As Richard rather succinctly noted:
… I don't think they have any nuclear weapons, not yet anyway. If they did we would have seen a western city go up in a mushroom cloud. The terrorists aren't the type to use strategic thinking, they will use terrorism to the bitter end because they don't know any other tactic.
Few informed individuals would tend to disagree with this assessment.
They would certainly wipe out Israel.
Again, your lack of awareness is showing through.
Israel has what is known as the “Samson Option”, whereby they will glass and Windex™ the entire MME (Muslim Middle East), if they take so much as a single NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) strike from their Arab neighbors.
This is why the Saudi King was recently seen telling Iran’s Ahmadinejad to, essentially, sit down and STFU with all of his “wipe Israel off of the map” horseradish.
If anything, America needs to implement the exact same sort of policy by informing the MME and other rogue states like North Korea that one single WMD hit on America sees all of them perish in nuclear fire. At the very least, it sure would be entertaining to watch all of these scum bags scramble to reign in their pet terrorist organizations during the days following such a broadcast.
If not that they would ramp up their efforts massacring Christians, Jews, and others in their own countries, etc.
For which we should have an appropriate response like lobbing a few cruise missiles into plenary sessions of their legislatures, like we should have done long ago in Khartoum to resolve the Darfur genocide.
I think the West's best options are to first ruthlessly route out the scum within our own borders, reduce our reliance on oil, do away with politically correct immigration laws, and develop our own alternative fuel that is truly bona fide. We must do this so we can defund Islamic terrorism from its source.
Here you absolutely correct. I could not agree more. However, these measures do not serve as any sort of functional deterrent and that is eventually what will be needed to ward off Islamic terrorists armed with WMDs.
Sadly, those jihadists have the upper hand, not us.
WRONG. Even now, the jihadis only think that they have the upper hand. A few WMD terrorist attacks would see much of the MME glassed over. There is no way that the West is going to surrender to these Neanderthals.
My intention is to preclude most chances of nuclear terrorist attacks. Even a single one could set back the West by DECADES.
Have you bothered to consider what some really strategic nuclear terrorism could do?
Try, first incinerating South Korea’s shipyards. Then sink a supertanker in the Malaga Straits where, incidentally, a huge fraction of the world’s oil and shipping transits. Level Wall Street and detonate an EMP device over America and the entire world could descend into chaos lasting for DECADES.
We have everything to lose and it is long past tea to make sure that Muslims understand that they will lose EVERYTHING if they persist in this jihad nonsense.
Time is of the essence. Should Iran obtain nuclear weapons it will go down in history as this new century’s most stupendous strategic blunder.
zatarrajack: There is a high likelihood there are indeed suitcase nukes, and crude dirty nuclear devices within our borders.
You really need to provide some documentation for these claims.
Do you know anything about the extreme limitations of so-called "suitcase nukes"?
Yesin believed that a true suitcase nuke would be too expensive for most countries to produce and would not last more than several months because the nuclear core would decompose so quickly.
…
It seems highly unlikely that a country would knowingly cooperate with terrorists because the device would bear the chemical fingerprints of that government. “I don’t think any nation is willing to participate in this type of activity,” Majidi said.
That means the fissile material probably would have to be stolen. “It is very difficult for that much material to walk away,” he added.
There is one more wrinkle: Nuclear devices require a lot of maintenance because the material that makes them so deadly also can wreak havoc on their electrical systems.
“The more compact the devices are — guess what? — the more frequently they need to be maintained. Everything is compactly designed around that radiation source, which damages everything over a period of time,” Majidi said. [emphasis added]
Dirty bombs are another matter but pose a threat only in terms of financial cost to clean up after and not in terms of fatalities.
You continue to post ill-informed statements that only tend to provoke hysteria for those more ignorant than yourself. Please reconsider your information sources before making such clearly baseless statements.
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