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America Refuses to Attack Taliban - Awful Decision

Want to know why America still struggles to win the war on terror? This story tells all we need to know.

And yes, believe it - the U.S. military identified a gathering of over one-hundred Taliban terrorists, had the chance to bomb or otherwise attack them, and refused to do so because the men were standing in a cemetery, and this would have violated Afghanistan's cultural sensitivities. A military spokesman confirmed the decision, explaining that our coalition forces "hold themselves to a higher moral and ethical standard than their enemies."

This decision is simply outrageous. It pains me to criticize our armed forces in this war, as they risk their lives daily to protect our freedom, something for which I am grateful and supportive to the utmost. But here, I do feel compelled to speak out, because this instance demonstrates the unfortunate degree to which political correctness has penetrated our society, to our significant civilizational risk.

The men the army spared are enemy combatants, not civilians. They are evil terrorists who fight in order to massacre as many innocents as possible. They have killed American soldiers without mercy, and given the opportunity would murder or enslave every last non-Muslim. Indeed, their vile opposition is the main reason we're still *in* Afghanistan, and attacking them, really, is a matter of self defense.

Refusing to strike them may save their lives, but it places the lives of our own soldiers at much greater risk. This is not moral and ethical, but quite the opposite. A legitimate argument may have been over the method of attack, as a surprise conventional strike might have captured them alive at little risk to coalition troops (assuming they weren't armed due to the funeral), while a bombing attack probably would have killed them. But regardless, to simply let them escape means only to allow them further chances to attack our troops. Doing so, hence, was a colossal mistake. For anyone wondering why the Taliban keeps regrouping, the answer is simple - because we let it.

To put things into proper perspective, would the U.S. have spared a Nazi officer gathering at a German cemetery during World War II? I certainly don't think so. And why? Because they were Nazis and they were evil. If we didn't stop them, they would have continued their mass genocide and their plans to take over the world.

The Taliban terrorists may lack the Nazis' power, but their murderous intentions are just the same. These people cannot be reasoned or negotiated with, only defeated. Letting them escape now will only make the fight against them more difficult down the line.

The military's awful decision has already been made and cannot be reversed. But if America wants to defeat the jihadists, we must learn from such mistakes to avoid repeating them in the future. Our freedom and civilization depend on it.

Terrorism, Stockholm Syndrome, and America

Stockholm Syndrome appears to be a serious disorder, among those victimized both as children and adults. Recently, news came to light of an Austrian girl who still sympathizes with a man who kidnapped her at age ten and held her prisoner for eight years. As strange as this may sound to those unfamiliar with the condition, it is apparently quite common among such traumatized victims. This is truly a sad story, and we should all hope and pray that the girl fully recovers from her ordeal and resumes a normal life.

At the same time, Fox News cameraman Olaf Wiig and correspondent Steve Centanni, who were kidnapped and help by Palestinian terrorists for 13 days last month, also sympathize with their captors. On a recent Good Morning America interview, Wiig admits that despite the kidnapping, he will not condemn the terrorists and indeed finds great sympathy with their cause and actions.

I hope too that Centanni and Wiig recover from their ordeal. And as disgusting as Wiig's words sound, I won't at this point criticize someone who has undergone such a horrendous episode.

But Wiig's experience should be a huge warning sign to the civilized world about the dangers of Islamic terrorism. Too many people, when faced with a terrorist threat to their very existence, will likely respond similarly - by defending the terrorists' evil actions and sympathizing with their twisted causes. And as long as the threat continues, the Stockholm Syndrom will still remain, as the victims use such sympathy as the only defense they can muster against a clear existential danger. Even worse, furthermore, this Stockholm Syndrome can engulf entire societies.

We should recognize, hence, that unless checked, repeated terrorism can psychologically hold a society captive. Even if the terrorism causes little actual physical destruction, the damage to its victims' psyches and resultingly to the functioning of the larger society can be far, far worse.

If we want to win the war against Islamic fascism (yes, President Bush was absolutely correct to use the term), we must end the terrorist threat as quickly and as efficiently possible. That means not giving up in Iraq. Not yielding to Iran's nuclear desires. And not allowing Western Muslims to be influenced by fundamentalist Saudi teachings. America has the ability to accomplish this entire lot. We just need to demonstrate the will.

Terrorist Plot Thwarted; Improving Airline Security

Thanks to excellent counterterrorism and surveillance, America and Britain narrowly avoided what looked to be a horrendous terrorist attack. Details are still surfacing, but signs point to Al Qaeda as the likely plotters.

We should all applaud the efforts of the CIA, British intelligence, and other parties who played a role in exposing the would-be jihadists. Thousands of lives likely were saved due to their collective action. At the same time, this should greatly quiet the leftist voices clamoring against counterterrorist measures such as the Patriot Act. Of course individual rights must be protected, but not to a complete libertarian extent that thwarts all efforts at preventing mass murder. Wiretapping and intelligence gathering clearly works, and the Western world has become resultingly safer.

On a related note, though, I strongly disagree with the new safety measures just implemented by the major airlines. Not that the new measures (no carry-on luggage whatsoever allowed in Britain, and no carry-on liquids allowed in America) won't work. But they turn flying into an extreme hassle, whereas a much easier and far more effective terrorist-prevention method indeed exists: profiling passengers for jihadist tendencies.

Let's face it - for non-jihadist travelers, very few security measures are actually needed. There could be no security checkpoints, no identification needed to fly, planes with fully open cockpit doors, and plenty of plastic knives in cabin service, and yet non-Islamofascists would still present almost no terrorist risk whatsoever. Why? Because jihadist beliefs are essentially the sole catalyst.

So instead of wasting time screening the carry-on luggage of people with virtually zero chance of committing attacks, the airlines could prevent terrorism simply by identifying jihadists via targeted pre-boarding questions. Of course, no system is perfect, and hence additional safety measures are needed. But there are plenty such procedures that add significant security without ridiculously inconveniencing passengers: X-ray baggage screening, locked cockpit doors, shoe inspections, passenger bag matching, and the like.

But to create major traveler difficulties by banning carry-ons, all while avoiding the much better tactic of profiling jihadists due to PC concerns, is a very poor way to respond. America needs to follow the lead of Israel's national airline, El Al, which has profiled potential terrorists for years with outstanding success. For truly safer skies, airlines must ignore political correctness and simply choose a strategy that works.

Jihad Terrorism: Against Israel *and* America

Far too many people still haven't grasped the connection between the Hezbollahamasyriairanistan war on Israel and America's fight against terrorism. Israel's fight, they say, is a regional territorial conflict that has nothing to do with Islam and can be resolved through negotiations. Al Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers, according to the party line, are a completely different entity that simply wants the U.S. out of the Middle East.

This school of thought has been wrong for a long time, but nevertheless, many Americans have continued to cling to it. But as of today, the myth has been shattered.

For today, a Muslim Pakistani, claiming to be angry about Israel, pulled a gun and started shooting workers at a Seattle Jewish Federation building. The gunman killed one person and injured five before being captured into police custody.

That's right - a terrorist doesn't like Israel so he chooses a Jewish target and indiscriminately aims to murder Americans. Need any more proof that Israel and America are fighting the same enemy? Didn't think so.

The United States, as well as all nations, should never tolerate this outrageous act of terrorism. This shooting was no ordinary crime, but a well planned jihadist attack tied specifically to a hatred of Israel, Jews, and America. All Americans must recognize the gunman's motive, and the government must specifically act to ensure that such terrorism never occurs again - directly by treating the shooting as a terrorist hate crime, and broadly by continuing the fight against jihadism until we win it.

Meanwhile, we should all mourn for the victim, a mother of two, and hope and pray that the wounded heal speedily and completely.

The last vestiges of the illusion have been shattered; Israel and America fight the same jihadist enemy, and must utterly and completely defeat it. Teaming up for that purpose would benefit not only our two countries, but the entire world.

Jordan Bombings Show Jihadists' True Face

For anyone who still believes that radical Muslim terrorists act out only in response to U.S. foreign policy, the suicide bombings in Jordan should give you long and hard second thoughts. These people don't care who they attack - be it Jews, Christians, Hindus, or even their fellow Muslims - as long as they somehow advance their goal of jihadism.

Yes, their megalomania is delusional, but they sincerely believe they can conquer the free world through terrorism. Our actions do not provoke them; it is our mere existence as a successful non-Muslim country that they detest.

In order to win (and win we shall), we must take them completely at face value - no more excuses. Poverty and alienation may contribute to a terrorist-friendly atmosphere, but they by no means cause terrorism itself. Rather, as I have pointed out in the past, radical Islam is the initial motivation, with lack of freedom a contributing factor.

It is no coindence that most of the world's current armed conflicts (Iraq, Israel/Palestinians, Russia/Chechnya, India/Pakistan, Thailand, Sudan, Philippines, Syria/Lebanon, etc.) are fueled by radical Islam, as the jihadists refuse to coexist with anyone else, including (and to some degree especially) moderate Muslims. If the Western world wants to end this aggression, we must act decisively against the radicals and defeat them once and for all.

Asimov and al-Qaeda?

A few minutes ago, I decided to check if my recent post comparing Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels with current events was listed on search engines, and in the process came across a fascinating article from 2002 that, believe it or not, claims that Osama Bin Laden was inspired by Foundation.

According to the piece, the terrorist kingpin believes that America and Western Civilization represent the fading empire of the novels, while he and al-Qaeda are the scientists of the Foundation, aiming to build a new, enlightened Second Empire on the ashes of the old. Bin Laden views himself as a Hari Seldon-like figure who has predicted the future, and indeed, just like Seldon, he transmits messages to his followers via pre-recorded video clips. On top of this, the term "The Foundation" is translated into Arabic as - you guessed it - "al Qaeda."

Could all this actually be true? The article also presents ample evidence against it, so perhaps the best we can say is that the jury is still out.

But whether the books influenced Bin Laden or not, I still fully stand by the prediction (as espoused in my piece) that radical Islam will not win. And in fact, my piece specifically analyzes the America-as-empire possibility and demonstrates its inaccuracy. The fictional scientists of the Foundation are all about technology, freedom, and peace. Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, on the other hand, are all about terrorism, lack of freedom, and war.

No matter what Bin Laden thinks, the fact remains that he is a terrorist who has committed horrible acts of evil. And in the end, he will lose.

Foundation And Reality

Some time ago, I promised that this blog would touch upon the relationship between Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels and events in the real world. As it turns out, the books contain striking parallels to our current geopolitical state of affairs, but not at all in the way that might seem most obvious.

The Foundation novels take place in the distant future, when man has colonized the stars and created a giant galactic empire. This empire has reigned for thousands of years, but crippled by its vast size, is beginning to decline and decay. The Emperor and his subjects are fully oblivious to this slide, but a scientist named Hari Seldon, who has created a novel science of prediction called psychohistory, has mathematically forseen the impending collapse leading to a 30,000-year dark age of war, ignorance, and barbarism. To save mankind from these horrors, Seldon gathers the best and brightest from around the galaxy, and creates a colony on a faraway planet called the Foundation. This, as his psychohistorical calculations predict, will shorten the dark ages to a 1000-year period, at the end of which the Foundation will rise to form an enlightened and peaceful Second Empire.

But, of course, the Foundation must first survive the interim with its wars, political instability, and other myriad obstacles. Psychohistory predicts that the Foundation will do so, based upon the colony's nature as opposed to that of the empire (don't worry, this isn't a plot spoiler). But the Foundationers have no idea how they will actually make this occur.

Asimov wrote the original Foundation novels (a trilogy) after having read Edward Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Now based on this, it is entirely forgivable if you are thinking that surely the books must parallel America and its current "empire." And indeed the stability of the post-Cold War "pax Americana" -- what Francis Fukuyama referred to as the "End of History," with liberal democracy emerging as the winner -- has come under serious strain as of late, with unrest in the Middle East, China, Venezuela, and elsewhere.

But such a comparison, in my view, is not really accurate. For Asimov's fictional empire is a true colonizing power, led by corrupt, unelected officials with an all-powerful Emperor at the helm. This empire indeed epitomizes the hallmarks of ancient Rome, with its hereditary leadership, few (if any) checks and balances on power, and numerous bloody palace coups. America is nothing like this.

Rather, the Foundation novels mirror current events via the science of psychohistory. Just as Hari Seldon predicts with virtual certainty that the Foundation will ultimately win, the nature of radical Islam predicts with virtual certainty that it will ultimately lose.

Now I know a lot of people probably aren't so confident of this. But I am. And I will explain Hari Seldon-style why this is so.

Psychohistory is, of course, a made-up science. But in Asimov's fictional world, Hari Seldon uses it to mathematically analyze the entirety of possible galacticopolitical stimuli that humankind may encounter, and then, based on the known reactions of mass behavior to these stimuli, predict the outcomes to about 99% accuracy. (Once again, none of this is a plot spoiler.)

Unlike Seldon, I'm not using any formal science here, and I doubt the word "galacticopolitical" is even in the dictionary. But based on a general knowledge of certain broad characteristics of radical Islam versus those of competing cultures, I believe that the outcome of the jihadists' current conflict with the rest of the world (and yes, it certainly is against the rest of the world) can be predicted just as accurately as that of the war between the Foundation and the empire. And radical Islam will not win.

Why? In a nutshell, for two overarching reasons. First, unlike all other world powers today and in the past, radical Islam's strength is entirely artificial and dependent on the West. And secondly, the jihadists have an insurmountable weakness in their absolute refusal to question or compromise any of their core goals.

Let's touch on both points. Radical Islam is an anomaly among powerful movements in that it created virtually none of its strength on its own. All other nations that have ever achieved a modicum of power, from ancient Greece to the colonial British to modern-day America, and even evil powers such as Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, did so by developing their own governments, economies, and militaries. Whether good or evil, they all conquered and/or influenced mighty swaths of territory primarily due to the fruits of their own internal labor and developments.

The Islamists, on the other hand, have never developed a successfully functioning government, economy, or military. And in fact, the ultra-authoritarian nature of radical Islam utterly prevents them from doing so. Any society that does not allow any questioning of authority and any true freedom of any kind cannot possibly function as a modern society. And as we can see, every terrorist-sponsoring country is mired in dire poverty, a weakly functioning government, and weak militaries. Their only strengths are in ideological radicalism and terrorism, which are funded and permitted entirely by oil money and foreign aid, neither of which the Islamists produced themselves.

So the only way for the Islamists to advance are to 1) fundamentally change so that they can indeed produce a modern successful society, or 2) defeat the West as they surely aim to do so. The problem for them is that if they choose Option 1, they will no longer be Islamists. And if they begin to make any real headway in Option 2, they will lose the source of their strength far before they can come close to completing the job.

Now the second reason for the Islamists' eventual defeat, their refusal to question or compromise anything, is related to Option 2 above. Because the jihadists won't budge from their all-or-nothing position, there is no room for the enemy (i.e. the rest of us) to negotiate anything with them. And this will inevitably lead to all-out war, where it is virtually certain that the West, which built itself up via its own internal strengths, will soundly win. Once again, the Islamists face an insurmountable choice - either change themselves and compromise, which they cannot do without losing their core identity, or fight the West and lose.

This also answers the question of whether the Islamists can exploit the West's one key weakness, which is the left-leaning infatuation with multiculturalism and relative values that allowed radical Islam to emerge as a threat in the first place. And the answer is yes they can, but not indefinitely. Right now, many voices in America and in Europe continue to delude themselves that they can negotiate with the jihadists, that our enemies have placable goals, and that by helping and understanding them we can calm them down. This continues because, by and large, we have been very military successful against them in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the leftist relativist element always feels guilty about being ahead. But anytime the jihadists commit acts of terror, tougher Western voices always emerge, and at some point (and I pray this occurs sooner than later), we will take no more and finally clamp down to utterly defeat them.

So there you have it - due to their very nature, the Islamists have no way to win. Ultimately, their only option is to lose.

But wait, you might be thinking, the Islamists acted the same way and yet carved out a mighty empire in the Middle East for a thousand years; how can you say this won't happen again? Well, the comparison may seem apt initially, but in reality the Islamic empire of old was very different than the jihadists of today. Back then, bloodthirsty and uncompromising as they were, they at least built up their own militaries, and while their their governments and economies were poor, so were everyone else's. Today the jihadists have none of these strengths.

No, the jihadists will not be successful and the rest of the world will ultimately come out victorious. Unfortunately this does not mean that the battle will be a cakewalk; just as Hari Seldon can predict only mass behavior and not the actions of any one individual, the Islamist-defeat model as presented here can forecast only the eventual outcome of the war at large. Very likely, there will be a number of challenges in the interim, which we must face and overcome strong and vigilantly. It is tragic that we have had to suffer even a single terrorist attack, and undoubtedly the jihadists are planning more evil actions as we speak. But make no mistake - in the end, we will win and they will lose.

The Root Causes Of Terrorism

In the days since the London bombings, numerous journalists, pundits, and commentators have reexamined one of the basic questions facing the world today: what causes certain young Muslim men (and a few women) to turn to terrorism and suicide bombings? Is it poverty, alienation, and sociocultural grievances, as many liberals have claimed? Is it a lack of freedom and democracy, a cause that many prominent figures such as Natan Sharansky and Victor Davis Hanson promote? Or is it Islam itself, a view radio commentator Michael Graham most recently espoused.

The answer, as it turns out, has little to do with the first explanation and plenty with the latter two. First of all, it has been very definitively established that poverty and alienation do not in themselves cause terrorism. Here are the results of a study that confirms that over 75% of Al Qaeda terrorists are from the upper and upper-middle class, and that over 60% of them have received a college education. Clearly, these are not poor people. And besides, if poverty truly caused terrorism, then we would expect the great majority of terrorism to come from the world's poorest nations such as Tanzania and Madagascar. But it does not.

No, the one common denominator among terrorists is that they are followers of radical fundmentalist Islam. But is this caused by Islam itself, or a lack of freedom and democracy? Most writers have tried to separate the two, claiming that it comes almost exclusively from one or the other. But the reality is that the two are very intertwined and the real culprit behind terrorism is the combination.

First, let's look at Islam. The vast majority of terrorists are certainly practicing Muslims, and among world religions, Islam is the only one that consistently produces terrorists. Why is this so? There are many passages in the Koran that encourage the spread of Islam through violence. Numerous Islamic radicals have justified horrendous acts of terrorism on verses such as these. Their goal is to spread Islam across the world, and based on their interpretation of the Koran, the ends are justified by any means, even the most horrible violence.

This fact, however, falls short of a full explanation. After all, while most terrorists are indeed Muslims, it is also undoubtedly true that the vast majority of Muslims are certainly not terrorists. And this is where freedom and democracy, or more specifically the lack of it, steps in.

Any society has its extremists, and books of many religions can be (and have been) used to sanction violence. In democratic countries, however, such ideas rarely take hold because people have freedom of speech, freedom of information, and freedom from being intimidated if they criticize their leaders or refuse to follow a certain religion or political party. It is hence very difficult for an extremist in, say, the United States to develop a large following. David Duke, for example, is an American white supremacist, but he has no power to force people to accept his views. On the other hand, David Duke as a leader of an unfree country would be a serious threat. Robert Mugabe is a black supremacist who rules Zimbabwe and look at the horrors to which he has subjected his country.

Not surprisingly then, most Muslim terrorists come from unfree dictatorships where they are led by extremists who silence dissident. There are plenty of terrorists from autocratic Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Authority, but you don't hear of them coming from democratic India or Turkey. In Israel, it is almost exclusively Palestinians who are terrorists - not the Israeli Arabs, who make up one fifth of Israel's citizens. Islam itself may be the initial motivation for terrorist leaders, but it is the lack of freedom in their countries that allows them to crush dissent and cower the rest of the population into passively supporting them.

But wait, you might be saying, what about the London bombers? England is a democracy, but weren't they homegrown terrorists? Yes they were, but the society they inhabited was not the same society that most Britons live in. By allowing radical Muslims to enter the country and preach hatred of the West, England inadvertently allowed these people to come in and set up their own mini-unfree societies right in the heart of the country. Because the British government and police wouldn't touch them, these radical leaders created the same lack of freedom in their own neighborhoods as they did back home. In other words, Londonistan.

The good news, however, is that this can all be prevented. Western governments should not tolerate this kind of hate speech at home, and should encourage freedom and democracy in Muslim countries abroad. The US has taken a lead on this in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now that Europe is finally waking up to this reality, it's time for them to join the fold as well.