Absolutely right

Submitted by Brian (United States), Sep 20, 2006 at 18:57

As an initial matter, the argument that Muslim terror is an unsurprising response to American humiliation of Muslims is untenable. America and the West have never intentionally targeted Muslim civilians for destruction, so of course it is surprising when Muslims do just that to us.

Nations have problems with other nations all over the world, and sometimes nations even go to war with each other to solve problems they could not solve diplomatically. But most modern nations do not purposefully try to kill non-combatants on the other side. The reason they don't is because modern nations, when at war, have limited objectives - they inflict damage and death on the armies of their adversaries with the goal of achieving that limited objective. They are not usually fighting wars of conquest, those historical wars where one nation or civilization fought against, defeated, and then subjugated another nation or civilization.

But in the case of the radical Muslims, the objective is not limited, and thus the tactics must be unrestrained. Just as the Allies in WWII were forced to resort to unrestrained warfare b/c they were forced into a war with ultimate objectives, the radical Muslims use unrestrained warfare b/c they view the state of affairs in the world today as a war carrying ultimate objectives (I realize that this is an odd comparison but it shows how tactics must match objectives). Because they believe everyone must either 1. Be Muslim or 2. Be dominated by Islam, and because the West is absolutely unwilling to give in to these ultimate demands, they realize they must kill every last one of us, or at least so many of us that the number of us that remains is so small that these can be dominated. We dropped the bomb on Japan because we knew that they were so diametrically opposed in their way of thinking that a limited war would not bring them low. We simply had to kill so many of them that they could not fight back.

This is the way the terrorists are fighting this war against us - knowing that the West cannot be brought low by a limited war, the terrorists realize their only option, if they are to succeed in establishing a worldwide Islamic Caliphate in line with their radical vision, is to simply kill so many liberal-minded people that this reality can be imposed. For them, no infidel killed in the process is innocent - they are all enemies of Islam who seek to oppose the Will of God. It is not foreign policy that is to blame for these people's insanity. It is their insane ideology which seeks, like fascism, ultimate victory that is to blame.

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