35 Comments

1. Laurence Simon:

There is a very simple solution: you do not return the bodies to their families or treat them with respect. You inflict repulsive and disgusting indignities upon them.

This will put any so-called moderate imams on notice: you cannot claim that suicide bombing is unIslamic and yet demand respect for the suicide bomber carcasses as under Islamic law. It’s one or the other.

As for potential suicide bombers, they are put on notice - their mortal remains will not be afforded the ritual treatment necessary for whatever afterlife reward. They will be on display, or in glass jars in the basement of the pentagon, or shredded and burned in public - anything but ritually washed and buried within a day.

Jun 17, 2006 - 7:24 am 2. Charlie (Colorado):

What do you do to defend against suicide bombers?

What you do agaist any other attacking force: disrupt their lines of supply, prevent them from getting reinforcements, make the battle space inhospitable.

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:11 am 3. Charlie (Colorado):

Oh, and when you read AP saying things like A series of explosions struck commercial areas in Baghdad within hours Saturday, killing at least 17 people and dealing a blow to a huge government operation to secure the capital.

Remember whose side AP consistently seems to be on.

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:13 am 4. PJ:

The whole thing seems mismanaged and political, starting with announcing the timetable days before and limiting it to checkpoints rather than offensive action.

Let the military do its job. This smells like “compromise” to me, and you don’t compromise in war.

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:24 am 5. David Thomson:

ìI was trying to be hopeful, but, for the moment at least, it doesn’t look as if the massive security campaign in Baghdad is being successful.î

These attacks seems to be desperate last minute attempts to stop progress. Baghdadís population is around seven million people. Far less than one percent of the cityís citizens have been victimized. The economy is improving and the government is getting stronger. Lastly, the supply of suicide bombers is not limitless. The Islamic nihilists are probably sacrificing their most loyal followers. How easy will it be to get replacements?

The MSM focuses almost exclusively on these violent events. This merely encourages more in the future. There are many positive developments going on in Iraq. Why are we hearing so little about them? Sadly, it is very fair to assert that the MSM is inadvertently propagandizing on behalf of the terrorists.

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:28 am 6. Snippet:

The problem.

The huge, gigantic, and insurmountable problem is that Iraqis respond to this sort of thing by fragmenting into sectarian/tribal/ethnic/ groups, each of which sees some (or all) of the other groups as enemies, rather than by unifying into a cohesive anti-Islamoterrorist bloc.

The way to stop the attacks is to stop Iraqis from responding to them in such a way as to make them highly effective for the attackers, but, alas, I don’t think that that is possible. The terrorists are banging away at cracks in Iraqi society that were were there long before we were and will be there for a long time to come.

It is a strategy of unmitigated and heinous cruetly and cynicism, and it is one that enjoys the passive (and not so passive) support of the “International Community.”

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:55 am 7. Snippet:

The problem.

The huge, gigantic, and insurmountable problem is that Iraqis respond to this sort of thing by fragmenting into sectarian/tribal/ethnic/ groups, each of which sees some (or all) of the other groups as enemies, rather than by unifying into a cohesive anti-Islamoterrorist bloc.

The way to stop the attacks is to stop Iraqis from responding to them in such a way as to make them highly effective for the attackers, but, alas, I don’t think that that is possible. The terrorists are banging away at cracks in Iraqi society that were were there long before we were and will be there for a long time to come.

It is a strategy of unmitigated and heinous cruetly and cynicism, and it is one that enjoys the passive (and not so passive) support of the “International Community.”

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:55 am 8. David Thomson:

ìThe terrorists are banging away at cracks in Iraqi society that were were there long before we were and will be there for a long time to come.î

I do not agree. The majority of Iraqis seem to desire economic improvement. Purchasing cell phones, air conditioners, and automobiles is their primary motivation. They are more than willing to put aside their ideological differences.

Jun 17, 2006 - 9:16 am 9. Terrye:

Well Roger if all they had to do was announce a crackdown and put more people on the streets and the problem was solved in 72 hours I think they would have done it by now.

Jun 17, 2006 - 11:18 am 10. Charlie (Colorado):

The huge, gigantic, and insurmountable problem is that Iraqis respond to this sort of thing by fragmenting into sectarian/tribal/ethnic/ groups, each of which sees some (or all) of the other groups as enemies, rather than by unifying into a cohesive anti-Islamoterrorist bloc.

Considering the composition of the current government and the fact that Sunni teachers (”cleric” is a horrible translation) are being attacked for standing up and saying “We must work with the Sheat, not let these foreigners trick us into fighting them,” the assertion that this tendency is “insurmountable” seems a little difficult to credit.

Jun 17, 2006 - 1:36 pm 11. Terrye:

Charlie:

It might also be that the Iraqis will get to the place where they are ready to do what they have to do take back their cities and towns from the bullies. But to think that in a few days all would be well is naive, it will take some time nad perisistance.

One thing I noticed, the attackers do not seem able to bring about the large casualty numbers anymore. Several attempts and 23 dead is not very efficient. I have noticed that when people, be they Israelis or Iraqis, are forced to live with terrorism for some time they seem to develop an ability to sense when something is about to happen. Perhaps it is a hypervigilance that dates back to the days when man was prey. But it seems that people sometimes develop that feeling you get when you know someone is watching you or when you step in a door and feel that something is out of kilter. Instinct.

Jun 17, 2006 - 1:54 pm 12. Orson2:

Charlies comment deserves expansion:

The huge, gigantic, and insurmountable problem is that Iraqis respond to this sort of thing by fragmenting into sectarian/tribal/ethnic/ groups, each of which sees some (or all) of the other groups as enemies, rather than by unifying into a cohesive anti-Islamoterrorist bloc.”

It isn’t a fragmentation unique to Iraqi society but Islamic civilization itself. Martyrdom in Islam functions - psychosocially, culturally, and politically - much like crucifiction does in Christendom: forever an opportunity at personal redemption of a morally dessicated life.

The crucial difference, of course, is that Chritianity glorifies self-immolation, Islam, the murder of innocents merely because it is believed they aren’t.

,

THIS is why the 20-40 years war Thomas P. M Barnett (author of “The Pentagon’s New Map”), hopes for won’t be so short. The challenege Islam has in growing up to the world standards of civility is rooting out and marginalizing the inherent rewards it provides for doing evil. And so, Senator McCain’s “Hundred[s] Years War” is likely to be closer to the truth of what we face today. Islam is monotheism for dummies: it resists real reform too much to be pacified without forever staring down the fanaticism that Roger finds so fearsome.

The most interesting debate about the war was held at the Nixon Center, airing on C-SPAN, last winter. It addressed the question: How can Islam reform? Top down, as in Turkey, Daniel Pipes held; by practicing modern democratic arts of compromise, held Reuel Marc Gerecht. If this art is seen as successful, religious reforms to accomodate and even encourage modern methods of social organization will find a way.

Thus, Iraq is an opportunity to find out if Gerecht is more or less correct than the redoubtable Pipes. With the significance attached to Iraq, you’d think that at least one MSM outlet would have covered this debate and reported on it - but NOOOO!

Reality is now as optional among the elite left as it is in Islam. God help us (says this atheist)!

Jun 17, 2006 - 2:34 pm 13. Orson2:

Sorry - missied the html “i” closure at the end of the first paragraph.

Jun 17, 2006 - 2:36 pm 14. TomTom:

David T.:
I am no longer of the belief that the MSM propagandizes for the enemies of civilization “Inadvertently”. MSM propaganda is quite intentionally generated and circulated. The clash of civilizations has enlarged, extending into our own back yards.

Jun 17, 2006 - 2:42 pm 15. Terrye:

Orson:

I don’t think that terrorism will end until and unless the Islamic world confronts and deals with its own demons. As long as the only people dying were Westerners and Africans and Jews, it was easy for the Islamic world to blame the victim, now the victims are Shia and Sunni..not Zionists.

I think that for a couple of days there was relative calm in Baghdad and then the terrorists adapted. And this pattern will continue until they can not adapt any longer and that will happen when they are rejected entirely by the communities that sustain and tolerate them.

Easier said than done, just look at the drug trade in any major American city.

Jun 17, 2006 - 3:16 pm 16. Doug S.:

To amplify on Terrye’s first two posts, we might also consider the possibility that the enemy, because of the announcement that a major crackdown was on the way (and because AQiM is in disarray because of Zarqawi’s long-overdue demise), are in “use it or lose it” mode. They have to do something with the assets they have, because they know they won’t have them for much longer. So these attacks may not be a sign of strength so much as desperation (which speaks to Terrye’s point about not being able to produce the spectacular body counts). The question, of course, is whether those assets can be replaced.

Jun 17, 2006 - 3:50 pm 17. Tim:

I agree with Laurence Simon - notwithstanding Andrew Sullivan and other caterwauling bed-wetters, we’re not really going to turn the corner on this war until we start terrorizing the terrorists. Their innocents-murdering tactics work because they depend upon the consistent decency of good people to be shocked by their seemingly mindless, random brutality. Except it isn’t mindless nor random, as the targets and the effect of their innocents-murdering operations are carefully thought out, almost as much for the Iraqi people as they are for their primary audience, “American” and other western media.

Now, I’m not advocating what some would call wholesale war crimes - but like the Phoenix Program in the Vietnamese War - there is clearly room for an aggressive, targeted, covert and transnational (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, etc.) program to start making these guys and, when necessary, their families, pay the ultimate price for their brutality. And then leave the bodies behind so the work becomes known.

Then they’ll know we’re serious.

Jun 17, 2006 - 4:13 pm 18. David Thomson:

“David T.:
I am no longer of the belief that the MSM propagandizes for the enemies of civilization “Inadvertently”. MSM propaganda is quite intentionally generated and circulated. The clash of civilizations has enlarged, extending into our own back yards.”

The ìeliteî journalists lie to themselves. They are not consciously aware of their self deception. Allow me to indulge in a bit of psycho babble: they are not in touch with their own feelings. This is what makes these individuals so dangerous.

I am utterly convinced that they could easily pass a lie detector test. What has gotten them to this point? The MSM resides in an echo chamber. Virtually everyone is on the same page. Those who are members of this left of center community of professionals perceive America as mostly a country of reactionary values—and the true threat to peace in our world. Do they hate the United States? No, they simply do not love and admire it. That alone is enough to push them over the edge.

Jun 17, 2006 - 4:23 pm 19. Orson2:

Terrye responds:

I don’t think that terrorism will end until and unless the Islamic world confronts and deals with its own demons…. [T]his [evident]pattern will continue until they can not adapt any longer and that will happen when they are rejected entirely by the communities that sustain and tolerate them.

AGREED. That’s why winning in Iraq is so crucial. It forces Islam to face its own failures instead of blaming the infidel for their lot. Islam is expert in denial and blaming non-Muslims: they alone have the one True and Perfect religion. And given the population explosion within their sphere, the benefits of popular rule in Iraq will be leveraged among the young now, who will grow up to constitute the ruling class forty years hence.

If we fail in Iraq, civilization fails - not the US, not the imperialist west. The consequences will be felt by many more than the 2 billion Muslims the world will see by 2050.

The failure of the MSM - or as the psychiatrist-blogger shrinkwrapped more honestly puts it, the LSM (AP, Al Reuters, NYTimes and all the rest) - to recognize these realities and convey this dire yet real context to the public is really why they are objectively pro-terrorist. The “You can’t say that!” mentality is Orwellian, and threatens our polity more than anything else. If we can’t honestly debate how to respond and counter world terrorism, then we simply can’t confront evil and defend ourselves. Then the barbarians are inside the gates because they are also “us.”

Jun 17, 2006 - 5:03 pm 20. Terrye:

Orson:

The terrorists do not care if we call them barbarians because they reject our value system. Someone told me that the war was wrong because we had evolved beyond war. I told her she might have evolved but her enemy had not and would more than happy to lob off her head to prove the point.

The Left’s great failing is its arrogance.

I hear the enemy may have captured two of our soldiers. Now that scares me.

Jun 17, 2006 - 5:35 pm 21. Jamie Irons:

While I sympathize with Laurence Simon’s opening remark, and often feel that way myself, I think we would do better not to follow that path.

Charlie’s

disrupt their lines of supply, prevent them from getting reinforcements, make the battle space inhospitable…

is the correct approach, I think; it is slow, it is very painful and painstaking, but I believe it is beginning to work.

I also think that the commenter above who suggested the insurgency may be in “use it or lose it” mode may be correct. We should know in a few weeks.

(Hi, Terrye!)

Jamie Irons

Jun 17, 2006 - 5:59 pm 22. PJ:

“I hear the enemy may have captured two of our soldiers. Now that scares me.”

It fills me with despair.

This is Fallujah all over again. How could our military and our leadership have assented to this?

Jun 17, 2006 - 6:26 pm 23. Terrye:

Hi Jamie.

PJ, assented to what? It is not as if they ask Rumsfeld’s permission to capture someone and he gave it to them. In truth I am surprised it has never happened before. It happens in all wars after all.

Jun 17, 2006 - 6:36 pm 24. Charlie (Colorado):

As for potential suicide bombers, they are put on notice - their mortal remains will not be afforded the ritual treatment necessary for whatever afterlife reward. They will be on display, or in glass jars in the basement of the pentagon, or shredded and burned in public - anything but ritually washed and buried within a day.

Laurence, beyond the fact that we don’t do these things because it’s against our traditions, not out of some PC impulse, this still won’t work. Islam isn’t a naive animist religion, it doesn’t actually believe what happens to the body after death has anything to do with the afterlife, and the only actual Qu’ranic rules are “wash it, bury it, and don’t make a big fuss about it.”

Abusing the remains would make a lot of Muslims angry, just as the treatment of those four contractors made us angry, but Islam no more would think we were preventing someone from a proper shot at the afterlife than Christians think God wouldn’t receive the souls of the dead contractors because their bodies were desecrated.

This actually sounds more reasonable than I really feel: what I really mean is “Goddamn it Simon, stop thinking these people are seventh-sentury savages. They’re not — they’re sharp, well-educated in general, and crafty. Don’t imagine we can get some leverage on them by playing ‘Connecticut Yankee and the eclipse’ with them.”

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:49 pm 25. TomTom:

I wish I could agree the LSM is ‘just not in touch’ with themselves, I really do. That would make them remedially goofy, but remediable ultimately. But I think it’s worse than that: they are our version of Alger Hiss, Arthur Miller, Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, the Rosenbergs, the Hollywood blacklisted, et al. These brilliant, creative souls were utterly misguided and warped politically, ardent stalinists who ignored and/or excused the grotesque Soviet and Chicom brutalities that cost many millions of lives. And they were inveterate liars.
We have an overt 5th column in academia, media, entertainment that means to bring us down.
I’m with David Horowitz on this.
All I ask is you give it some thought.

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:52 pm 26. Charlie (Colorado):

I don’t think that terrorism will end until and unless the Islamic world confronts and deals with its own demons.

Why think that “terrorism” will end then? It was used before Islamic theocratic fascism — see Genghis Khan or the Irish Republican Army — and I’m sure it will show up again. The campaigns against the Barbary States and pirates like Blackbeard didn’t end piracy for all time either.

Let’s not set our goalposts too high — the key is to break the control of ITF on the Islamic world, and the key to that is to make sure it’s not a paying strategy. We don’t have to eliminate the tactic.

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:58 pm 27. Tom Holsinger:

Roger,

There is a simple answer to suicide attackers. You won’t like it one bit.

Genocide. We were about to do just that to the Japanese in 1945 when they surrendered.

Here is the long-since scrolled-off article I wrote on Strategy Page on the subject:

“When A Democracy Chose Genocide

The United States government decided on June 18, 1945, to commit genocide on Japan with poison gas if its government did not surrender after the nuclear attacks approved in the same June 18 meeting. This was discovered by military historians Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen while researching a book on the end of the war in the Pacific. Their discovery came too late for inclusion in the book, so they published it instead in the Autumn 1997 issue of Military History Quarterly.

Polmar & Allen ran across references to this meeting in their research and put in a Freedom of Information Act request for related documents. Eventually they received, too late for use in their book, a copy of a document labeled “A Study of the Possible Use of Toxic Gas in Operation Olympic.” The word “retaliatory” was PENCILED in between the words “possible” and “use”.

Apparently there were only five of these documents circulated during World War Two. The document was requested by the Chemical Corps for historical study in 1947. In an attempt to “redact” history, another document was issued to change all the copies to emphasize retaliatory use rather than the reality of the US planning to use it offensively in support of the invasion of Japan.

The plan called for US heavy bombers to drop 56,583 tons of poison gas on Japanese cities in the 15 days before the invasion of Kyushu, then another 23,935 tons every 30 days thereafter. Tactical air support would drop more on troop concentrations.

The targets of the strategic bombing campaign were Japanese civilians in cities. Chemical Corps casualty estimates for this attack plan were five million dead with another five million injured. This was our backup to nuking Japan into surrender. If the A-bombs didn’t work, we were going to gas the Japanese people from the air like bugs, and keep doing so until Japanese resistance ended or all the Japanese were dead.

Genocide is defined by treaty as the murder of a large number of people of an identifiable group, generally a nationality or religion, which number comprises an appreciable percentage of the total group. Five million dead is 6.4% of then 78 million people in the Japanese Home Islands, so this proposed gas attack would certainly have qualified as genocide.

What brought the United States government to that decision was the prospective casualties of a prolonged ground conquest of Japan against suicidal resistance, after Japanese Kamikaze attacks and suicidal ground resistance elsewhere had thoroughly dehumanized them to us.

The American people certainly would have supported such tactics at the time, especially as Japanese Imperial General Headquarters issued orders a month later, provided to us courtesy of code-breaking (MAGIC), to murder all Allied prisoners of war, all interned Allied civilians, and all other Allied civilians Japanese forces could catch in occupied China, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Malaya, etc., starting with the impending British invasion of Malaya in late September 1945. The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal. They’d probably have killed at least an additional 50 million people, more than had died in all of World War Two to that point, before Allied armies could eliminate Japanese forces overseas.

The horror would not have stopped there. An estimated ONE THIRD of the Japanese people (25-30 million) would have died of starvation, disease, poison gas and conventional weapons during a prolonged ground conquest of Japan. The Japanese Army planned on locking up the Emperor, seizing power and fighting to the bitter end once the US invasion started. Thank God for the atom bomb - killing 150,000 - 200,000 Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved 75-80 million lives. One of whom would have been the writer’s father, an infantry lieutenant who survived Okinawa.

So the United States has within living memory made a decision to commit genocide on a whole people as a matter of state policy. We didn’t have to do it because the Japanese Emperor knew we’d do it.

The relative power of America’s armed forces vis a vis the rest of the world has grown to the point where genocide is unlikely to be necessary to impose our will on any possible combination of enemies lacking the ability to seriously menace the American homeland. The American people might support genocide as policy if further attacked at home, but the American government will act based on its perception of American interests, and keep that demon in the bottle, absent overwhelming public demand. Nuclear weapons use is another matter - the American government has used nuclear weapons to avert greater evils and recently indicated some willingness to do so again, albeit with non-genocidal force.”

Jun 17, 2006 - 8:59 pm 28. tioedong:

Um, Mr. Simon, the reason you think that a few suicide bombers killing a few people is the end of the world is that you have never been in a civil war.
Are these random incidents (and these people were probably in place and scheduled prior to the “offensive”) as bad as the Kymer Rouge’s massacres?
How about the Shining path in Peru? Or the ongoing 50 year war in Colombia? How about SriLanka, whose Tamil rebels invented suicide bombing? Are you old enough to remember that 2 million died in a couple weeks during the India/Pakistan separation at their independence? Or the 100 000 Bosnians killed?

What you have in Iraq is a low level insurgency that targets civilians. You also have a small shiite mililtia that fights back (it is not larger due to Sistani’s influence.

And you have a press that has a short memory about much more fatal “insurgencies” in the recent and distant pass, perhaps because these “insurgencies” were communist and politically correct…

Suicide bombers are worrysome, but next to the lethality of fascist governments, they are a minor irritation.

Jun 17, 2006 - 9:21 pm 29. PJ:

Terrye,
I meant the US leadership assenting to an operation that was announced three days before it was begun and seems to be no more than checkpoints! It gave the terrorists time to plan and regroup. IMO it was the result of political pressure, just like the first Fallujah campaign.

I haven’t seen the news today, but it seems we again are being given no news at all from the White House, so I agree with Roger, and iraqthemodel, that it seems to be going badly.

Jun 17, 2006 - 10:17 pm 30. Lem:

“I was trying to be hopeful, but, for the moment at least, it doesn’t look as if the massive security campaign in Baghdad is being successful.”

I may be somewhat naive on this, but the Zarqawi papers mention something about expanding the war by making us go to war in Iran.

Why can’t we turn the tables by making more Muslims go and defend Iraq?

Is it possible that entry into the coalition of the willing was a one time deal? I mean I can’t believe that with so many “Muslim” countries in that region the bulk willing still western. Something tells me that the insurgency would have a harder time of it shooting and blowing up Turks and Egyptian troops.

Why aren’t there more soldiers from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Libya?
Why cant we militarily Islamitise Iraq?

Why do we a State Department for? I cant believe we lack the imagination necessary. Is our enemy better at recruiting than us?

Jun 17, 2006 - 10:26 pm 31. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

My feelings are with L. Simon but I agree that the tactic won’t work.

I once met a mercenary who greased his bullets with pig fat when fighting African Muslims. Other opponents have considered burying Mulsim dead in pig skins. But the Islamists have a trivial way out - Islam is simply whatever the Mullahs say it is, and it only takes one to say (as was done) that when fighting Jihad, being exposed to pigs as described above is okay. Likewise, suicide is prohibited in Islam (and by the way, for the person above who said that Christianity favors self imolation, that’s a total crock), but not when you have a mullah who says otherwise.

In other words, it is easy to get a religious ruling saying whatever is needed. Islam has no central authority (unlike, say, the Catholic Church) to define itself. This leaves the door open to any convenient mullah/ayatollah/whatever to justify anything they want.

However, we shouldn’t get too focused on the situation in Iraq. The homicide rate in Baghdad right now is lower than it is in Washington, DC.

We need to do three things:

1) Defeat our own LSM/MSM, and do so ASAP.

2) Stop worrying about Iraq so much. It is simply one battle in a much larger war - as Bush enunciated years ago now.

3) Demonstrate to the world, and especially future adversaries, that we are just as capable now as we were in WW-II of inflicting real serious warfare on enemies. Let us remember that most of the world remembers WW-II as “the great war” including our own MSM. I suggest Iran as a demonstration, since they are pushing us to the brink anyway and will shortly have nuclear deterrent. This is somewhat in line with thefascinating comment by Tom Holsinger on genocide against Japan…

I have come to favor the idea of a full scale war with Iran: we destroy their entire military capability, their transportation system and seaports, all of their utilities (water, power, etc), their entire industrial base, INCLUDING their oil capabilities. Oh, and we aren’t too careful about collateral damage, and we put an embargo (with minefields) to keep them from getting aid by sea for a while.

Such a demonstration just might convince the rest of the world that they really do not want to mess with us. They will, of course, hate us for this… but they already hate us and there isn’t a damn thing we can do to change that (I reference again the Commentary article on the subject).

I suspect an action like I advocate - one which clearly causes us significant sacrifice due to its damage to world oil production, would produce remarkable effects in getting the world to take seriously the danger we are all in, and would put an end to coddling of terrorists by most of the other countries of the world (those without a current, credible nuclear deterrent).

Jun 17, 2006 - 10:27 pm 32. Terrye:

Charlie:

I should have been more specific. I was not talking about an end to terrorism as a tactic everywhere, but as an ends in and of itself within the confiness of the religion of Islam, in this place and amnong these people.

PJ: I see what you mean, but in truth I doubt it woud have mattered, sooner or later something like this could happen. And maybe there is a reason the White House is not saying anything, these people are fighting a war not doing a traffic report. It might be they are looking for these guys and they do not want to alert the people who have them that the locals described the vehicle or whatever, well thanks to the NYT we can forget any secrecy on the issue.

But I think people’s expectations were too high if they thought all the violence could be stopped in a city the size of Baghdad with all these factions virtually overnight.

We hear about the violence, but there is more than that going on.

My God there are millions of people in that city.

Jun 18, 2006 - 5:00 am 33. nutiket:

Establish a well-publicized system of significant rewards leading to the capture or killing of would-be bombers, suicide or otherwise. A “Jihadist Idol” combined with “Iraq’s Most Wanted” media event paying big bucks for fruitful information is worth a try.

Jun 18, 2006 - 6:41 am 34. Charlie (Colorado):

I meant the US leadership assenting to an operation that was announced three days before it was begun and seems to be no more than checkpoints! It gave the terrorists time to plan and regroup. IMO it was the result of political pressure, just like the first Fallujah campaign.

“Seems to be” is the operative phrase here. Remember, the people who are getting information out to you don’t appear to have any particular interest in any good news, and the people who know what’s going on don’t really have any interest in publicizing what they’re doing.

Jun 18, 2006 - 8:50 am 35. Charlie (Colorado):

Something tells me that the insurgency would have a harder time of it shooting and blowing up Turks and Egyptian troops.

I’d not listen to those voices, Lem. Next, that voice will be telling you what a good investment the Brooklyn Bridge would be.

Jun 18, 2006 - 8:53 am

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