The Glade 4.0

Variably, Americans count as foreign or our awesomest friendsies fo eva eva

(emphasis added)

You know, I was pretty much with you up until this point. Have you stopped to think about this? If a "large portion of the population" supports them, what does that say about our policy? (Gah, so many phrases just came to mind, including "White Man's Burden.") So, if they do support they Taliban, what kind of policy does that suggest that we follow? Killing women and children who happen to be in the same car? In the general vicinity? That does nothing but create more "martyrs" or whatever they call them. In fact, I would argue that their women and children (especially the children) don't have much choice but to go along, so, yes, they are innocent. And killing them really does nothing but harden the resolve of the militants themselves and confirm the worst of what they suggest about us and what we do overseas.

Or, if a large portion of the population does support them ... Then there's a basic disconnect. We will not solve the problem, however you define that, in a generation. Maybe two, if we're lucky. But that's gonna take a whole lot more foreign aid than we can afford or are willing to put out. We need to change minds, which entails changing how children are raised and the values they embrace. To my mind, we simply will not defeat them in any military fashion, and I don't think that the "stick" has any kind of effectiveness.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Nothing. It doesn't say anything about our policy at all. These people are not opposed to us because of drone strikes, nor because of a few thousand dead over the last 8 years. They are opposed to us because we are fundamentally "cheating" in their eyes. We are infidels. They are Faithful. We're not supposed to be in the position of strength; they are, and by being that way we are thwarting the will of Allah. We

There is nothing we can do to create any more or fewer "martyrs". This idea is a complete concoction of the left. It is a subtle way to shift all the blame for anything that happens onto America. If we get attacked, it must be because of something we did! Retaliate? No, that would only make them angrier!

Let's turn it around. How about they stop fighting us? Doesn't them constantly attacking our soldiers just make us want to keep fighting them?

No, it doesn't, and the reason is that the idea is silly. They are not just peaceful people who only take up arms against the evil White oppressor. They're people who, even if not personally militant, are fundamentally sympathetic to the militants who stand up for Allah and the Prophet against the great Imperialist infidel who is in league with the Zionists.

As for killing women and children, they should stop using them as human shields, and no, it does not matter if they have a "choice". They wouldn't choose any different anyhow.



We are not going to change their minds or change how their children are raised or their values. Changing those sorts of things are viewed as Western corruption of their culture. They aren't going to go for it. Foreign aid does not improve people's attitudes, they just take the money and go right back to grumbling about the evil Americans.

They don't want to change, and they want even less to be changed. Yes, we can solve the problem militarily, because the problem isn't that they hate us or want to kill us. They are going to be that way until they decide they don't want to be anymore and they are going to be that way no matter how nice we try to be because they view us as fundamentally wrong in our way of life.

The problem to be solved militarily is not to make them like us or even stop hating us. The problem to be solved is to make them afraid of us. That's the best we can hope for until these people decide that they don't want to insist on living in the first millenium AD anymore. These people need to understand that no matter what they do we are always willing to drop a bigger hammer in return. When they decide that this is no longer acceptable, then they'll come forward and try to engage the world in a reasonable fashion, but that will only happen when they decide they want to, and they are not going to be coaxed into it by western money. It will happen when they finally see that the west can keep shooting missiles at them forever and they can never establish an Islamic world with car bombs and explosive vests.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Meh just false flag them with a small nuke strike. Call it an arms shipment from Best Korea or Iran, glass whoever we blame, take the slap on the wrist by the UN and grow our economy by opening up franchise stores once the radiation dies down.

Easy peasy

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I remember a couple years ago on this board it was explained that it's actually rather easy to tell where the fissile material in a nuke came from by testing the fallout from the explosion.

That's correct. It's called plume sampling. The Air Force had an interim capability as early as 1949.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

its also a plot point in the novel The Sum of All Fears IIRC.

It is, although in that case I think they had access to the actual fissile material rather than just the plume, because the weapon exploded on the ground, and because it fizzled and therefore was well below the yield it was intended for.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."