Two points. First, I agree that the religion contains toxic elements that translate directly into serious threat – much more so than the political players want to acknowledge with their “all camel and no turbin” rhetoric. If we all just go about our business Going Green and minding our own back yards, all this unpleasantness will just go away. It won’t.

Second, it seems to me – and I am back in my two cents territory here – but it seems to me that the western world squandered the negotiating edge by abandoning the hard-line at the front-end of confrontation for reasons of politically correct diplomacy. The immediate response to threats both verbal and “kinetic” must be strict and uncompromising, along the lines you advocate – to be pared back incrementally as concessions bring peace and restore order, along the lines advocated by those who counsel “tolerance”. Nothing much new here – except that there is room for both carrot and stick, but they must be properly balanced over time as the threat evolves.

(As I post this, I see someone is having some sport in another thread. It always amazes me how quick such bright people are to take these posts seriously. I won’t name names but there is no shortage of talented mischief-makers who can prick the bubbles. Neither here nor there, but …)

Compare that to Islam, where getting back to basics means emulating the “Prophet” in every way. This includes waging war to spread Islam — beheading enemies and apostates — enslaving — using terror as a weapon of crowd control and to extend Islam’s influence — lying and betraying to gain advantage — and widespread theft — all of it primarily done to extend Islamic influence and to destroy “Islam’s enemies” — the”infidel” world. Understanding this, it should come as no surprise then to see pirates on the high seas taking infidel booty, to see terrorists beheading innocents and launching attacks against restaurants and Jewish centers, widespread deception as to their actions and intent from all Muslim nations and communities, and Jihad in virtually every patch of earth they occupy.

Surely you’d agree that Islam has something to do with the fires raging along the entire periphery of the Islamic world? Whether Muslim populations abut Hindus (India,Indonesia), Buddhists (Thailand), Jews (“Palestine”), Christians or atheists (Europe, Russia, Philippines, Ethiopia, Canada…), communists (China) they are involved in a constant cold or hot forms of warfare to subvert and destroy the non-Muslims in their midst or on their boundaries. This is designed to shrink the House of War and grow the House of Islam. Due to the mandates of their Islam, Muslims are congenitally pre-disposed to wage wars of terror and subversion to extend the dominion of Islam Uber Alles. Pretending that Muslim nations defeated in war are anything like a defeated Germany or Japan, Italy, South Korea, or Philippines is wrong, and will be wrong forever. Allowing the very ideology of Islam to remain intact in those areas we have temporarily pacified will simply guarantee the eventual resurgence of all the enmities which caused conflict in the first place. Unless our actions result in the permanent destruction of Islamic institutions in those areas we contend with — our mission is a fool’s mission — and we are doomed to failure. Rather than destroying the mechanisms of Islamic fascism in those regions we have confronted, we empower Islam in the form of “Islamic Constitutions”, we rebuild their mosques with US taxpayer dollars after having destroyed them as weapons caches and terror operation headquarters — we hand out prayer mats and prayer beads to appeal to the locals, and generally destroy our chances at long term success.

My two cents is half way between. Anybody can do or be anything, given enough time and resources, will and committed bodies. But, as noted by one of the early scholars (I think it was Huntington), Islam does not allow government, or man’s law, to co-exist with the law of Mohammad. That’s a conflict – a serious one – to those looking for democracies to flower.

Particularly if the desired government is to be predicated on universal rights, that would include women and children.

I agree with a previous poster that the only way out of the Arab-Democracy dilemma is an Islamic Renaissance. They need a modernized “King James” version of their belief system.

Anything short of that is kicking the camel down the road.

These arguments were made about Germany, Japan, Italy, South Korea, and the Philippines. Wrong then. Wrong now.

They boil down to: “Arabs are incapable of democracy — because I say so.” Wrong yet again.

The project is difficult. So what? America has been doing difficult projects since we freed our own slaves — by invading a foreign country.

America’s raison d’être and national history is about extending personal freedom to people who don’t have it.

Faster Please.

On the back of my ticket is a picture of Ensign Frank C. Flaherty of Charlotte, Michigan, who served aboard the USS Oklahoma and was postumously awarded the Medal of Honor. It reads:

“For conspicuous devotion to duty and extraordinary courage and complete disregard of his own life…When it was seen the USS Oklahoma was going to capsize and the order was given to abandoon ship, Ensign Flaherty remained in the turret, holding a flashlight so the remainder of the crew could see to escape, thereby sacrificing his own life.”

Talking about what we should do is like talking about angels on the end of a needle when it is our own house that needs to be put in order.

And Happy Pearl Harbor Day, everybody.

Except in those movies there was no Barbed Wire News Network there ready to describe the horrors of the U.S. Calvary or Allen Ladd stopping El Bruto by shooting all the members of his merry band. The villagers would have to look tearfully at you and also explain that they are committed to nonviolence and that if you can’t stop El Bruto by talking to him then you must be doing something wrong.

And then, after the carnage, Jesse Jackson would show up with La Raza and condemn this ruthless act of barbarism by a bunch of gun-crazed NRA members, perpetrated on People of Color who were Undocumented Citizens.

In “Shane” the hero’s pacifist wife picked up a gun. Today she would have divorced him and rode around the country calling for gun control on a tour sponsored by the NAGs.