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Originally Posted by stevo
who said brute force is the "obvious" solution? Who suggested concentration camps and genocide? I know I didn't. What I meant by confront the threat head on, was not to go around gathering up muslims and put them into ovens, nor was it to go around torching mosques or whatever ideas you think I have. What I meant by confront head on is that we can't back down. All we seem to be doing today is backing down. First we need to recongnize there is a threat, then we need to do something about it.
From what I gathered from your last post is that you believe we are not at war with islamofascists because bush likes it friendly where there are oil interests. I guess you could have just said that.
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I believe that we are winning "no hearts and minds". Our foreign policy is meant to terroize our own residents by exaggerating "foreign threats". There is not such thing as Islamic Fascism....but there is our pretzeldent proclaiming that "they are the enemy".
Our greatest "threat" is the domestic terrorism by our leaders against us, as they manipulate a transfer of power and authority from us...to them. Islamic Fascists are an official "bogeyman", intended to scare the shit out of us, so we quickly and gladly give "our leaders" authority to unaccountably do whatever they want to.
The "message" in your OP meshes nicely with the message of the current US administration. There is more to it than oil. Why would any muslim look kindly or trustingly on anyone in our government. If Ron Suskind is correct, Bush named armed conflict as the replacement for middle east diplomacy, just ten days into his administration. The US has always backed "strong men", autocrats in the M.E., and the european colonialists governments, and the right wing terrorist founded Likud.
Whether you recognize it or admit it, the current US policy is one of control by brute force. What do you think the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in each case described as neccessary because one man in each country needed to be killed or captured, were about, if not execution of brute force projection?
I said nothing about ovens or concentration camps. I described your opinion alignment as one of either killing or detaining. There is no evidence that the US policy is anything other than a policy of brute force projection, whether it is used to force an agreement that can be labelled "diplomatic", or to control a geographic area....for military strategic advantage or closer control of natural resources. Kill or detain or set up a puppet government....what else do you perceive that our government is offering to muslims, anywhere?
As long as the Saudi princes, with support of the US defense umbrella, and strongmen like Mubarak in Egypt, continue in power, how do you propose that we "win hearts and minds". We won't. That leaves killing them or detaining them, as our only recourse to their legitimate objection to our presence in their countryies, and by extension, to our existence.