gbaji wrote:
They are not doing what they are doing because they think that Muslims in the US are oppressed. That's the most idiotic take on this I can imagine.
EDIT to add: They're not stupid. They'll take any opportunity we even appear to give them that they think can be used to make themselves look attractive to recruits. The key is to do what we can to negate whatever PR-type successes they can gin up as a means of cutting off the inflow of recruits, not just taking out people once they've joined. The fastest way to kill weeds isn't to just use a lawnmower on them - it's to take out the roots as well.
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I'm not sure why you seem to think that the Taliban wins anything in the eyes of the pool of potential recruits in any situation other than "we look less reasonable than the Taliban".
Because they aren't doing what they are doing to "be reasonable". You're making the same mistake Neville Chamberlain made just prior to WW2. He assumed that the people he was dealing with wanted the same thing he did (peace). So he spent significant efforts attempting to get agreements for peace. All the while the other guys had no intention of keeping the agreements.
Same deal here. You're making the mistake of assuming that the Taliban wants peaceful and friendly relations with us. They don't. Thus, no amount of showing how nice we are will do anything other than convince them that they can get us to keep bending over and taking it from them. And not amount of *not* being nice to them will make them hate us more. They are likely laughing at the stupidity of the Americans who keep trying to be nice to them despite all the very very not-nice things they've done to us, and the more not-nice things they would like to do to us if we just let them.
And there's a big, big difference between "the Taliban is reasonable" and "we look less reasonable than the Taliban (who are a bunch of raging nutcases, so looking less reasonable is possible but takes a lot of concerted stupidity)". Now, which one did I say? Oh, yeah, the one I had to tack snarky commentary onto because you're being intentionally obtuse.
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Don't be stupid. They don't want world peace. They don't want religious tolerance and a free society. Trying to avoid offending them on these grounds is moronic.
That said, I've made it clear before that my preferred solution to the Taliban - and, really, most of Islam - can be summed up in three words: "glass parking lot".
Edited, Sep 2nd 2010 9:03pm by MDenham