2007-04-18
One Billion Problems
Someone made a post in a comment at The Mesopotomian recently. Here it is:
"Long term success in the GWOT depends upon either killing millions (billions?) of Muslims or bringing them into our camp as allies. I agree with the decision to try the latter before resorting to the former."
This is EXACTLY the problem and EXACTLY the solution and EXACTLY the reasoning. Whether Bush has the same reasoning we can only guess. It is not strategic for him to spell it out like this. You can only find this sort of frank talking in the blogs, and this is the first time I've seen someone actually even lay it out.
Well, when I say it's exactly the problem, it's more complicated than that. "Muslim" is an insufficient description of the problem, just as "communist" was. The real enemy is spelled out in message 666 on Sept 11, 2004. But let's stick with "Muslim" for now. Note the dichtomy between either killing them or bringing them into our camp. Even that is more complicated. They don't necessarily need to be killed - jailing is one obvious alternative. Although I think that anyone being sent to jail should have the option of being killed painlessly via lethal injection rather than being locked up, which is almost a form of torture.
And bringing them into our camp is not strictly necessary either. Even if they are neutral I don't see that as causing a threat to the free world. But note that protecting the free world is the absolute highest priority.
Now look at how decent the poster is. He has been taught not to hate his enemy, but instead to love his enemy. This is brilliant western ideology in force. He's not trying to torture or slaughter his enemy. He's trying to avoid unnecessary killing. Just as he would not slaughter all lions. He wants to sit down with the enemy, explain what the problem is, ask them to look at the problem from our perspective and ask them what they would do in our shoes and only THEN, after having found who it is we can't reconcile with, to start the killing. Afghanistan and Iraq are just stepping stones in that process.
Also note that he said "billions?", meaning he knows that the scope of the problem is huge, and that total eradication is required, although he's unsure exactly how many of the enemy there actually are. This is the big problem the free world faced on 9/11. Do we respond by killing all Arabs, or all Muslims, or all Arab Muslims, or all Arabs and all Muslims, or something else? The answer was "something else", which I finally determined in message 666.
And does no-one think that it's a hell of a coincidence, that in a 13.7 billion year history of the universe, this final ideological clash between good and evil should occur JUST as the internet has been invented so that we can actually communicate with our opponents in an environment of total freedom that has produced the free marketplace of ideas? Even when I was an atheist I thought that that was one hell of a coincidence.
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"Long term success in the GWOT depends upon either killing millions (billions?) of Muslims or bringing them into our camp as allies. I agree with the decision to try the latter before resorting to the former."
This is EXACTLY the problem and EXACTLY the solution and EXACTLY the reasoning. Whether Bush has the same reasoning we can only guess. It is not strategic for him to spell it out like this. You can only find this sort of frank talking in the blogs, and this is the first time I've seen someone actually even lay it out.
Well, when I say it's exactly the problem, it's more complicated than that. "Muslim" is an insufficient description of the problem, just as "communist" was. The real enemy is spelled out in message 666 on Sept 11, 2004. But let's stick with "Muslim" for now. Note the dichtomy between either killing them or bringing them into our camp. Even that is more complicated. They don't necessarily need to be killed - jailing is one obvious alternative. Although I think that anyone being sent to jail should have the option of being killed painlessly via lethal injection rather than being locked up, which is almost a form of torture.
And bringing them into our camp is not strictly necessary either. Even if they are neutral I don't see that as causing a threat to the free world. But note that protecting the free world is the absolute highest priority.
Now look at how decent the poster is. He has been taught not to hate his enemy, but instead to love his enemy. This is brilliant western ideology in force. He's not trying to torture or slaughter his enemy. He's trying to avoid unnecessary killing. Just as he would not slaughter all lions. He wants to sit down with the enemy, explain what the problem is, ask them to look at the problem from our perspective and ask them what they would do in our shoes and only THEN, after having found who it is we can't reconcile with, to start the killing. Afghanistan and Iraq are just stepping stones in that process.
Also note that he said "billions?", meaning he knows that the scope of the problem is huge, and that total eradication is required, although he's unsure exactly how many of the enemy there actually are. This is the big problem the free world faced on 9/11. Do we respond by killing all Arabs, or all Muslims, or all Arab Muslims, or all Arabs and all Muslims, or something else? The answer was "something else", which I finally determined in message 666.
And does no-one think that it's a hell of a coincidence, that in a 13.7 billion year history of the universe, this final ideological clash between good and evil should occur JUST as the internet has been invented so that we can actually communicate with our opponents in an environment of total freedom that has produced the free marketplace of ideas? Even when I was an atheist I thought that that was one hell of a coincidence.
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 13:55 
