Maybe we don't believe that so-called radical jihadism is a serious threat. It is certainly not an existential one. Do you think Europe defines itself in relation to terrorism? I think not, yet they have suffered many more terrorist attacks than the US.

Hey Kevin Drum,

Since you're still up and posting, would you please go back to the prior post's comments and get rid of all the off-topic 500 line posts that were used to try to kill off the discussion of Joe Lieberman?

While you're at it, slim needs booting.

Substantively, this view indicates a fundamental misapprehension of the problem of terrorism.

What that a gang of thugs and well funded "mafia" get a few lucky hits on us every decade?

In all reality, that's what it is. It's not the billions of people guning for us like the right would have you believe.

Of course, one of those lucky hits could be nuclear or biological, so we have to work hard to protect against that.. but going out and pretending it's WWIII isn't working too well for us now, is it? And it plays right into the hands of the Osama "bosses" of the world.

But, yes, perception is reality, and just as there was no missile gap inthe 50's, people believed it. We, as a party, do need to address this coherently.

Thanks,

Mike

Well, I think part of it is true, in that most Democrats are more interested in domestic policy, which is odd becuase in 2004 Kerry beat Bush by almost 20 points among Americans who own a passport. This is true. You'd think with our worldly tendencies we'd be more interested in world affairs. Yet we're more comfortable talking about health care and education.

But the other half of it is that it's hard to separate the war on terror from George Bush. And George Bush pisses us off. Every time we want to talk about terrorism, we have to confront the fact that Bush is and will be president for the forseeable future, and will continue to screw things up.

At least that's how I handle it, and I blog a lot (relatively speaking) about foreign policy & GWOT stuff.

This is a total non-sequitur - the liberal blogosphere has almost no influence in terms of 'substantively defeating jihadism'. Expecting "them" (whoever they are) to "talk about it" (whatever that would constitute) in order to prove they are "serious" (in whoever's eyes) is silly. The liberal blogosphere apparently has a mild capacity to contribute to the replacement of politicians with odious views with better leaders. Maybe that's why that's a major topic of discussion.

I think you are right and I think that is a bit of a problem, but it is easy to see why. Bush and company spend so much time trying to amplify the severity of the problem no one wants add fuel to the flame. Combine that with the tribalism we all fall into from time to time and you almost convince yourself if Bush says one thing the opposite must be true.

I've noticed even serious, relatively hawkish bloggers as yourself and Josh fall into this cone of silence more often than not. It's hard.

If you have followed the causes of the attacks on the US, it dates back to our involvement with troops on the ground in Lebanon in the early 1980's. We were warned, over and over again, by the terrorist elements that they found this totally unacceptable. So, we started suffering terrorist attacks in a big way with the attack on the Marine's barracks in Beruit at that time. We pulled OUT of Lebanon in response to those terrorist attacks. Did anyone call Reagan a cut-and-runner? No.

Then, we led the coalition to oust Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, and in doing so parked thousands of troops, again, on holy soil in the middle east, this time in Saudi Arabia. Big No No. So, we started getting attacked in a BIG way. The first WTC bombing, etc., culminating in 9/11/2001.

Please note that after 9/11, we actually, and finally, pulled our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Funny, that.

There is a solution here. Pull our troops off the ground in Arab lands and the terrorism will stop, perhaps gradually. However, we need to project power in the region due to our dependence on their oil, so.... we've got a conflict. We used to just project power there with our carrier groups, which didn't anger the religious factions.

Read what Osama has said and written. It's all there, and those who study him for a living say he is remarkably transparent; he does what he says he'll do.

So, pull out the troops. It will stop. It has worked before.

I always do this thought experiment when considering this problem. Imagine that our country was occupied by Chinese troops. That they patrolled our streets, came into our houses. Bombed our cities. Etc. How would we feel about the Chinese?

aside from kvetching about Bush's policies, the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it.

In the absence of any actual ability to influence policy, any discussion by the left of what to do about radical jihadism will just be a meaningless gafest in which everyone and his uncle offers his foolproof plan, which is vastly superior to everyone else's plan for the following 50 reasons.

We know this is what happens, because it is what happened to the left's end of the discussion of said struggle against radical jihadism from Sept. 12, 2001 through November 2004. Everybody has ideas, but they're all rendered meaningless by the continuous flow of policy blunders executed by the other side, which is utterly uninterested in what the left thinks ought to be done.

The final blow to such discussion was the invasion of Iraq, a mistake so colossal and which has so altered the terms of debate that it renders it difficult for anyone on the left to do much but shrug their shoulders and say "we told you so". What is the point, progressives feel, of continuing to think and argue about this, when our recommendations will end up in the "what-ifs" drawer, next to "what if Kennedy had lived and pulled out of Vietnam?"

There are, of course, very many serious people who would have great influence in a Democratic administration who are discussing alternative approaches to the struggle against radical jihadism. I would look at the International Crisis Group and CFR to start. But to demand that left bloggers spend their screen space on serious discussions about this issue is just ridiculous. Ask the Republican blogosphere for a serious proposal to cut the deficit or carbon dioxide emissions. They're the ones with the power to do something about it.

Part of the problem with facing up to the threat of radical jihadism is that we don't have a government that can be trusted to accomplish the mission. We can cook up strategies and solutions, but there is no chance that any of them would be implemented effectively by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice or that idiot Bolton.

Let's get a decent crew in the White House first- then I'll be ready to face the jihadists.

It's only a problem if the hippie pacifists against all war have a bigger voice than the more rational minds on the left who are merely anti this war. It's certainly a danger, but it's not the given that Weisberg makes it out to be.

I like to believe that there are honest conservatives who hold their nose while accepting the religious right as a necessary evil for having a viable party. I would like to think that there are honest progressives who understand that a working Democratic coalition has similar undesirables, whether they be extremists on the left or DLC types.

THE FUNDAMENTAL DISCONNECT WITH REALITY:

The fundamental disconnect with reality that so many Regressive-Democrats have is the concept that "war is not the answer." In fact, that is sometimes true; but in the vast majority of cases, it is the answer. E.g., why do you, as an American have freedom of speech? War. Why do we have elections to determine those in authority? War. Etc. Pacifism is ridiculous on its face as are inanities like an eye for an eye makes both sides blind. No, at some point one side surrenders qua surrenders and a resolution exists just as by any other means of diplomacy.

As long as Regressive-Democrats believe war is not, or even typicially, not the answer, they will never have power in this country; which unbenkownst to them is the best break they'll ever have.

TOH

1. To be fair, there is no substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism on the other side of the blogosphere; only exhortations to various forms of mass slaughter.

2. The fight against radical jihadism is over, and we have won (see the cover article of the most recent Atlantic). The problems that we face now have nothing to do with shadowy Al-Qaida-wannabe Islamo-facist cells, and everything to do with hostile state (Iran) and substate (Hezbollah, Kurds, Madhi Army) actors, which are to be dealt with in the same way that states and substates have always been dealt with, i.e. with a mix of force, diplomacy, and stratergy. And on that front the consensus of the liberal blogosphere is pretty clear: first, do no harm, i.e. stop doing harm, i.e. withdraw from Iraq. It's really quite simple.

Kevin makes the mistake of assimilating the fight against Al-Qaida to the fight against the Iraqi insurgents and Hezbollah, when he should know better...

Also, just strategically, it doesn't make sense for the left to force a discussion on exactly what to do about radical islam when the answers favored by different parts of the coalition are so disparate. The left shares a predilection for multilateralism and a reluctance to use force except where absolutely necessary. A policy can be forged with those democratic tendencies in mind, once things so change so that Dems are involved in policymaking. Until then it's just silly to try to hammer out more specific ideas.

And yet, much as I'm reluctant to agree with him, Weisberg has a point: aside from kvetching about Bush's policies, the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it. Emphasis counts, and this widespread silence makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that liberal bloggers just don't find the subject very engaging.

Are you fucking mad?

He attacked a stable, secular middle-eastern nation, albeit one run by a thung nearly as bad as, say, the nuclear armed thug in Korea, and he turned it into a killing zone, a breeding ground for terrorists (who weren't there before) and ignited a civil war there.

But I'm supposed to debate whether or not LIBERALS, those who PREDICTED this, take terrorism seriously?

Peddle another, genius.

Marty Pertez and his cronies are opff talking about how like it or not there are two wars a raging (there are actually at least three, counting the real one they forgot about in Afghanistan) and the next President is going to have to deal with that so be "realistic".

Are you focking nuts?

This argument amounts to "we shit the bed so bad it can't be unshitted and you can't trust the people who predicted this would happen not to try to unshit the unshittable, which would be worse."

Come up for air, Drum.

"And yet, much as I'm reluctant to agree with him, Weisberg has a point: aside from kvetching about Bush's policies, the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it."

Could it be that the bloggers simply lack the expertise to seriously take part in such a discussion? Recognizing that Iraq was a huge mistake is pretty easy, but proposing an alternative is a lot harder (which is not to say the real foreign policy experts on the left haven't proposed viable alternatives). I think Howard Dean suffered from the same problem.

Still, the silence from the Lefty bloggers is vastly preferable to the "Take the gloves off" mantra of the Right.

Kevin;

For one thing, I never see a conservative blogger question his/her perspective on ANY subject, so kudos for leading with your chin.

As to your point, the war on terror is a complete FUBAR. How does one enter a cyclone exacerbated by the war president's environmental vacuity, and argue the metrics of good meteorology.

I often hear from those war supporters when they
run out of discursive gas; "Well, what's your solution?" I always say; "You created this multi-vehicle car wreck, and you want me to clean up after you?"

No way to put the yolk back in the shell when it lay shattered on the floor. Nothin' left to do but
scramble it. The Cons knew this street was one-way
but didn't bother to post warnings. What do you
want anti-war blogs to do? Suggest we poach? or
should we just throw what's left of the Iraq egg
out, and leave the few who want democracy sucking on their own egg? Don't know anything except the criminals who foisted this fiasco should be drawn and quartered.

There are plenty of other Democratic incumbents who supported the war (and continue to support the war)

Such as...? Does Weisberg name one Democrat who has been as aggressive a spotlight junkie and Bush/Rumsfeld apologist as Lieberman?
As for the threat of "jihadism", it's not a traditional war, it can't be won with troops and bunkerbusters, even if there may be occasions where these tools are necessary complements to the main weapons of intelligence and international police work. Kerry tried to sell this, but it's hard to sell when there are demogogues in politics, and a subtle, effective approach doesn't make the Andrew Sullivans and Jonah Goldbergs and Sean Hannitys and the Toby Keiths--and their belazyboy'd brethren accross the land--feel macho and manly as they watch things get blown up on TeeVee and say "Fuckin' A, Raghead, Red white and blue boot up yer ass".

Maybe if people like Weisberg and Russert and others who know better would stop treating the Liebermans and the McCains as if they know what they're talking about, we could have that debate on actually fighting jihadist terrorism effectively.

Sampling of blog kvetches:

Get the Homeland Security act together. If we can not handle Katrina... Port security. Finish the job in Afghanistan. Where is enemy No 1 - Osama. Don't give India nuke technology unless they play by the rules. Don't give Pakistan a free pass for harboring Osama and proliferating nuke technology. Control loose nukes. When will the Republicans collect taxes to pay for the war? When will Republicans start a dialogue with the bad guys - Iran, Syria & N. Korea? How do we change the perception of the US and Israel as warmongers with Muslims as well as the rest of the world? Why are we condoning torture? Why are we recruiting so many enemies? What is our war mission? How do we win a civil war in another country? Etc.

The blogs kvetch about policies as they seem designed to move us in the wrong direction on the war on terror. Yes we need to be vigilant in the war on terror, blogs say give me a smarter war please.

The current 4th World war is indeed an existential threat. The fundamentalism of the Islamic radicals is just as much a threat as Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao once were. The problem as pointed out above lies in the fighting of this war. Most wars are started fighting the LAST war, they say, and we are indeed trying to fight this new war the way we fought old wars. Speak softly and carry a big stick, an adage of a few wars ago, might be better here than what Bush is doing. Unfortunately, Democratic Party nuts like those who want us to just bury our heads in the sand are the same ones who argued for unilateral disarmament in the 3rd World War, the cold war. Who know what won that war, but certianly unilateralism, appeasement and liberal do nothingness did not. The Democratic Party needs to be the one getting us further into winning the Islamic Extremist War, on the battleground of ideas, of freedoms, of accountability, of engagement. Can they pull it off? Not with people like Lemont

the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it.

Fair comment? Or foul?

Foul.

Weisberg and others want us to believe that Iraq was a necessary, if poorly executed, step in the fight against jihadism. Say what?

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq I never once saw the fight against jihadism listed as a reason to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I'll eat my hat if you can provide a cite.

This new fixation with 'jihadism' appears merely an attempt to rewrite history and avoid responsibility for their failed policies. On NPR tonight David Brooks said twice "the war against Ira-islamic jihadism". He wasn't used to the new talking points, I guess.

The other problem with discussing the fight against terorism/jihadism/real solutions in the Middle East is that Israel cannot be discussed - if we disagree with Israeli policy we risk being labeled anti-semites; or loons like slim hijack the discussion and drag your site down.

Again, I invite you or the esteemed Mr. Weisberg to provide us with a cite discussing jihadism and Saddam Hussein, pre-invasion. Not the linkage between Saddam providing death gratuities or other support for terrorists - no reputable person on the left side of the blogosphere is a terrorist supporter. But jihadism.

I don't think it exists - I think 'jihadism' is the new talking point, just an attempt to change the subject from Iraq. And it seems you were gullible enough to be distracted.

It's really rather academic until January '09.

I have strong opinions about foreign policy and terrorism (generally along the lines of Clinton's State Department, Clarke, even Powell if he was given free reign) -- but having a discussion at this point is a little too "drama nerd" for me. The Bush administration isn't even listening to it's own best advisors and if they were they would screw up the ideas during the implementation.

E.g., why do you, as an American have freedom of speech? War.

You mean, because we beat the British?

In that case...how come the British also have free speech?

Which war did we fight over freedom of speech, exactly?

the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it.

Discussing what to do about radical jihadism is too much like arguing about angels dancing on the head of a pin. The immediate issue is simpler and more substantive. Al Qaeda attacked us and the Taliban enabled them. Those are our immediate targets. Iraq is a tragic mistake based on a fantasy of lies. That issue has been beat to death in the blogosphere and elsewhere, and there's not much more to say on the subject.

The real bigger picture is poverty and alienation around the world, and that's not just confined to Arabs and Muslims. Radical jihadism, like radical anything-else-ism, is fed by poverty, alienation, and despair. We (the developed world) need to find a way to bring the whole world into the 21st Century without tearing societies apart. It's morally the right thing to do, plus our long-term survival depends on it.

And we (the United States) need to end our dependence on foreign oil. It contaminates our foreign policy and makes us vulnerable to blackmail from the likes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. It forces us into short-term actions that are not in our best long-term interest. And, at least as applied to the Neocons in the Bush administration, it makes us do crazy, irrational things.

aa

I agree with one of the posters above who disagrees with the basic premise of your post: that liberal blogs should offer a constructive alternative to "winning the war on terror." This was the same right wing tactic during the social security debate. Shouldn't the first question seriously be: "What is the Bush administration's plan to win the war against Islamic jihadism?" Sure we have the first part of the answer which would sound something like bring democracy to the middle east. But the bigger, and harder problem, is how do we really do that.

Why is it that liberal blogs have to offer substantive and detailed policy outlines while Bush can get away with offering meaningless plaittudes such as "staying the course?"

Anyways, the bigger issue is this. Almost all bloggers agreed on the first step of the equation after 9/11. Let's go into Afghanistan and get Osama bin Laden. While we are there let's also "roll back" Al-Qaeda's capabilities.

The problem is that before finishing step one we went to step two which was let's go into Iraq and start democratizing. Followed by step three, let's allow Israel to engage Lebanon militarily without itervening quickly to prevent escalation.

So, rather than having hte necessary resources to deal with the war on islamic jihadism, we have two other problems to deal with first before we can get back to fixing the missteps in (1).

Thanks.

Since when did the Cold War become World War III? So now we're renaming wars after the fact like they were old Star Wars movies or something?

I call foul.

The underlying assumption among the "anti-war left" seems to be that the way middle-eastern radicals are created is by 1) violence against communities and injustice (imprisonment, torture, etc) by outsiders, 2) poverty and desperation, and 3) the polarization of the region's politics into "western" and "islamist" forces in such a way that outside intervention often immediately damages the political forces or institution we'd like to see prosper.

All of these things encourage a fiercely defensive and xenophobic element (organizations such as Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc) who promise to protect a community's interests and manage to deliver, on some level, at relieving both the ruinous effects of war and poverty (homelessness, starvation, etc) and the emotional condition of helplessness.

I would say that there are a small number of legitimate criminals in the middle east, crazy people who would blow things up, kill people, or steal and destroy public and private property regardless of whether or not they were being treated unfairly by global institutions or western nations. There is a far greater pool of people who are prepared to be radicalized, however, and will back limitless "defensive" violence because they perceive militant leaders to have their best interests at heart in the way that the various Western visitors who've come into the region in the last couple centuries do not.

The distinction might not really be this stark, but in a way, it seems a rehash of the nature-vs-nurture battle, and Weisberg seems to be presupposing that Muslims are violent or crazy by nature, and that to ignore this "fact" makes one unserious about dealing with the threat.

That's nonsense. Just as the violent destruction of the World Trade Center radicalized Americans to support military action which has not turned out to be to our benefit, our actions in the middle east can and do actually make more terrorists. We have inflicted the proportional damage of 100 9/11s in Iraq: how can we expect that those in Iraq will handle this very physical and psychological damage like wise, international-minded adults when we ourselves are unable to do so?

Call it the new liberal realism, or whatever: our actions can make things better or worse, and we have to act in such a way that diminishes the 3 factors above. The people in the Mideast matter, and any policy that treats them as a singular, fixed quantity not only is destined to fail, but will further isolate and radicalize those moderates who probably still do make up the majority of the population over there. The guiding principle of these liberal realists is probably "first, do no harm" - and it is vocalized as clearly by leaders like Howard Dean and Ned Lamont as principles like "the world is a very dangerous place" and "you're either with us or against us" are by conservative leaders.

It is thoughtless hawks like Weisberg who fail to take the threat of fundamentalism seriously - quite possibly because he himself endorses the domestic flavor cultivated by the "always-strike-first" branch of the American conservative movement. However, what that ideology doesn't acknowledge is that we will not always be right, just as no political actor in the middle east will always be right. This is an omission at least as grave as the one Weisberg claims he recognizes on the left.

And my answer to the omission that he identifies is this: we must depend on institutions that can right economic, military, or criminal injustices, and insofar as those institutions don't exist or function today, build and empower them through democratic processes. As the oldest democracy on earth, it's our responsibility to start acting like grownups.

the Cold War WAS World War three. And wars are constantly being renamed to match their context in history, reprobate. Do you think they called it World War 1 during the damned thing?

The main judgement I can make on "jihadism" is that we have stepped in a very stinky cow poop, we're in a field full of more stinky cow poops, and the cowboy in charge of our motor control is a recovering drunk who believes we must stomp on the stinky cow poop until it doesn't stink anymore.

The cowboy needs more oversight and more critical review (until he leaves office). Baby steps. It's that simple.

"Fair comment? Or foul? I want to be convinced I'm wrong, so let me have it with both barrels in comments."

Kevin,

You're correct to a certain extent, and you seem to have been incorporating some rhetoric of late about getting smart on the GWoT that is designed to help fix the problem.

The idiotic "Bush Doctrine" (i.e. preventive, pointedly not "preemptive", war) contains the seed of the wholesale destruction of liberal internationalism.

The "Bush Doctrine" undermines, subverts 'n corrupts every tenet of liberal institutions, and it spreads global fear, distrust and instability. It isolates us internationally, cripples us militarily and makes us a magnified target for vengeance.

It counterproductively makes a preexisting problem (radical jihad) worse.

A bad tree bears bad fruit.

Think it's some kinda tough arguing about the "proper" response to international jihadism for liberals when the 800-lb. gorilla in the room nobody ever seems to address except timidly is this:

For sanity to return to our foreign policy, the "Bush Doctrine" needs to be repudiated.

It ain't no big surprise that useful idiots like Peter "prime-fighting-age" Beinart are quietly coming back around to liberal internationalism now that reality has finally outstripped his gullibility and intellectual vanity.

(Keep plugging along, Tom Friedman, you're almost there, ya nitwit!)

"Hearts and minds" used to be an American ideal before it was just an empty PR slogan to make everyone feel better about dropping 500-lb. bombs.

The Cold War didn't get won overnight and neither will the whole radical jihad bidness, but one thing's damn sure:

In the fantasy-land of the neocons, that way madness lies.

It'd be one thing if, for alla their ruthlessness, their juvenile theories actually worked. But no. They've been wrong -- about everything -- every. fucking. time.

The country's long overdue for a multi-partisan dog-pile on these selfish arrogant (largely chickenhawk) radical extremist revolutionaries.

This "threat" of "radical Jihadism" is being constantly exaggerated and oversimplified. Right now, Al Qaeda is our enemy, and should be our target, not all fundamentalist Muslim organizations.

I hope Paul Berman is witnessing what he's helped create here, because the right wing is cynically shouting "Islamic fascism" and "radical Jihadists" in the most absurd propaganda campaign I've heard to date, and it's working with less-informed people (listeners).

And, to be quite honest, it's all a crock of shit. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we should be engaging Islamic fundamentalist cultures, not driving them together with our belligerence in self-fulfilling but unwitting prophecy.

Just to clarify slightly: I'm not suggesting that liberal blogs are going to post learned white papers on this subject, or even come up with any great ideas. I'm just wondering why the subject is barely even discussed.

(I don't think the Social Security analogy works, either. In that case, there was no need for a Democratic plan because there was no serious crisis to be resolved. But Islamic jihadism really does need to be addressed. We can't just ignore it.)

And needless to say, I'm not saying that conservative blogs have the right answers (and I doubt Weisberg is either). Obviously I don't think they do. But they do talk about it.

"the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it."

This is not true.

I read plenty of discussion about fighting jihadism. Unfortunately we can't fight jihadism because he are stuck in a quagmire in Iraq. The war is preventing us from fighting Al Qaeda.

Bin Laden is still at large. Afghanistan is turning into another failed war. It is because we are stuck in Iraq.

Jacob Weisberg who supported the war is still in denial about how much the Iraq war has set us back in fighting terrorism. Our international reputation is in ruins. We have lost allies. Everything we need for a multinational fight against terrorism has been squandered in Iraq.

Perhaps because not every blogger shares the Amero-Western-centric view of the planet earth.

Just maybe, not everyone wants to be like "us" and would rather we picked up our war toys and immoral politico-economic notions and went home.

What the hell is "jihadism"? Does it mean the same to everyone shouting it? Is it really some kind of unified "fascist" force that truly threatens us, or is it disparate elements that only share fundamentalist Islam in common (and not even the same understanding of fundamentalist Islam at that)?

Then, there is the more specific "violent jihadism", and I doubt most people shouting that really understand the disparate elements of those cultures either.

It's a bunch of crap, and it's not fascism by any stretch of the imagination.

Well, can our plan for taming jihadism actually make the taboo suggestion that we as a nation stop trying to subjugate the Middle East out of our sense of post-colonial entitlement? Or would that be "unserious"?

the problem there is that the liberal approach to fighting terrorism is to focus on the less sexy aspects - doing the grunt work of securing airports and ports, powerplants, continuing the work tracing banking transactions, continuing to monitor groups and building human intelligence to infiltrate them. Basically all the same as the GOP approach but with fun, sexy invasions taken off the table and more emphasis on efficiency and impact minimization.

Well, it does get some discussion at sites like Informed Comment, War and Piece, and TPM Cafe, but usually in terms that question the premise. What is Islamic jihadism, anyway? Hizbollah isn't the same as Al Qaeda in goals or origins, Sunni bombers aren't the same as Shia bombers except in tactics. And there certainly isn't any world-wide movement of "Islamofascists," Marshall Wittman and others notwithstanding.

Maybe the short answer to the question what to do is to quit being Crusaders who believe in fighting Jihadists. Not a very persuasive political slogan, I admit. If we were to rephrase the question, how can we arrive at a successful political statement of a workable foreign policy regarding the Middle East, I'd be more interested.

I've actually heard commentators on TV, and not just Fox News, put "Islamic jihadism" on the same kind of threat level as the Nazis, even as "Nazism", which is absurd, considering the actual threat and military that the Nazis had at their disposal, compared to the largely toothless threat of "Islamic jihadists".

As for that term itself, "Islamic jihadism", isn't that redundant? I'm not aware of any other "jihad" or "jihadists" except in the language of Islam. It doesn't traditionally mean what we have chosen to give it meaning through pejorative either, which is violent and insane.

I really think that the fundamental problem that non-"radical" liberals like you, Kevin, have to deal with on the whole jihadism issue is this: (a) we, the West, are actively pursuing a policy designed to keep the Middle East under our collective thumbs; (b) the people who live there are lashing out in response.

If you refuse to acknowledge that (a) is true, there can be no cogent approach to (b). That's all there is to it. I'm sure Weisberg will assiduously avoid dealing with that reality, and probably you will, too. But if you accept that we are fucking over the Middle East on an ongoing basis, and that terrorism is the way that certain populations therein are responding, then we owe Weisberg no answers except "stop doing that."

Just keep in mind that our enemy is not some misunderstood propaganda slogan shouted on television sets, but is very specifically Al Qaeda.

That is all.

At least in terms of 9-11.

I disagree with Weisberg's "way to perpetual Democratic defeat." The "way to perpetual Democratic defeat" is for Dems to roll over like lapdogs for George Bush and the Reeps. Look where it's gotten them so far. I think 99% of the perception that Dems aren't strong enough, to whatever extent that notion is out there, is because they can't find a way to effectively oppose the Reeps here at home. It has little to do with their foreign policy proposals or having a more serious discussion about Islamic fanaticism. It's a real problem for any party not in power, although the Dems this decade have taken the poor hand dealt them and played it as badly as anyone could.

Maybe the Dems have not had the kind of serioius discussion about Islamic terrorism that Weisberg and Kevin want to see. So what. Who is having that serious discussion? The Reeps? Bush? Puh-leeze! The Reeps have used the GWOT as an excuse for their political charades and they have done absolutely zippo to address the underlying problem. In fact, they have made it worse. They have given justification to the once-crazy claims of our worst enemies.

So in comparison, if the Dems take power and do nothing to make the problem worse, we are way ahead of where we are today. That might not make a flashy campaign slogan, but it's true.

What can really be done anyway? I don't think we can win the "war on terror" (let's get a better metaphor for this too). The Army, the Navy, the Marines, and the Air Force are not going to win this one, because it's not a military problem. It's a complex problem that will likely take decades to successfully combat. We should start by not being assholes...like invading countries halfway around the world for no good reason, for instance.

Getting us out of Iraq will be an early and necessary step for addressing the longer-term threat of terrorism. Let the Islamic world find its own way. If it were not for oil, we truly would not be bothered anyway. As sure as we need the oil, the Middle Eastern countries need to sell it to us. Meanwhile, if we can seriously invest in alternative fuel resources, which we have to do anyway, we can be much more rational about creating a policy to deal with what will continue to be a troubled region for many years to come.

Analogies between Iraq and Vietnam are not perfect, but we did withdraw from the misguided and tragic war in Indochina and communism did not take over the world. When we get out of Iraq we'll discover that terrorists won't take over either. (If we take them at their word, they say they just want us out.) We don't need hundreds of thousands of troops to fight the terrorists. We can refocus our resources and fight them where we need to (like getting that Osama whatshisname guy). But we don't need to occupy countries. Nothing good happens till we get out.

Working hard, in this busy time for you called. This is my friend and the Boke,just established, the time is not long. The issue here isthat everybody can see my Boke, Ha-ha, raising some visibility, which caused trouble to ask your forgiveness! We all hope to see. Please! 如烟往事博客 记忆深处博客 漠北孤烟博客 天涯无悔博客 月光城市博客 寂寞如烟博客 三国演义博客 江南记忆博客 青海日光博客 月复西斜博客 马帮茶道 雨天下雨博客 秋日私语博客 苍凉世界博客 把酒问天博客 逍遥过客 铿锵玫瑰 寂寞雨夜 乡下孩子博客 天上人间博客 我心飞翔 尘封往事博客 岁月如歌博客 庐山之恋 三间茅屋博客 wanqiudaocao

That is seriously foul. Almost sufficient to land a place in department of homeland security. And what would happen if realists, lefty types or just regular folks had a plan for dealing with 'fanatical Islamic jihadism'? Having a discussion with folks that are delusional and lie all the time is very difficult. It doesn't matter what you say the policy won't change until the people in charge change. Sometimes that can be the people in charge of the media -- the CW pundit class has a serious case of head up assism. It is possible that the repudiation of Bush's Love Child will cause a new strand of coverage, although given the gullability of the media and commentariat, it is very possible, that it will only lead to a new round of terror alerts in an attempt by Bush to change the subject.

Important first steps:

1) lick bush (and his neo-colonial conservative imperialists)

2) failing that subjugate bush (with a strong democratic congress)

3) institute intelligent and efficient diplomacy, intelligence, and security

I think a lot of liberal blogs talk about the first two, if not all three.

Jacob Weisberg's analysis is flawed. Like a lot of pundits he is fixated on Vietnam and the McGovern defeat.

As Mark Schmidt argues the present political climate is different from the Vietnam era. For one thing Democrats had started the Vietnam war. Democratic party was on the defensive. Iraq is GOP's war.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/aug/06/a_few_last_thoughts_on_connecticut

"Also, I’m really tired of the Vietnam/Democrats analogy, in which the entire political history of Vietnam is reduced to McGovern’s loss in 1972. The real reason the Vietnam War divided and discredited Democrats and splintered the liberal consensus was because - let’s not be afraid to admit it -- Democrats started that war. Opposition to the war didn’t unify or define the party, it divided it. Nixon won the 1968 election because Humphrey was associated with the war, couldn’t split with LBJ, and Nixon promised - dishonestly -- to end it."

There's no point.

Back in the runup to the Iraq invasion, my impression was that there was a serious discussion underway in what has since become the blogging strata of People Who Think About This Stuff. Here's an example of how that conversation was starting to unfold - deep recognition of the game in play and how to dismantle the threat (hint: if you know how to contain and ultimately dismantle a modern industrial state with 200 million people and a bunch of nuclear weapons, you can probably figure out how to contain and ultimately dismantle 6,000 homicidal religious nuts with good media sense) but deep skepticism that whacking the wrong target with a sledgehammer was going to fix anything.

The problem is that Iraq, and the mindless descent into chaos that followed, has poisoned the well of ideas. There is absolutely no reason to engage with the Bush Administration on these issues (or any issues, for that matter) because this government will never, ever engage in a good faith discussion. Any attempt at rational discussion simply marks you as the enemy. Can any of you think of a single exception since Bush became President, on any policy topic?

It's no longer about Al Qaeda, which has been seriously degraded as anything beyond a brand name. It is about unwinding the damage that this administration has caused so that we can get on with dealing with the real problem - a deadly serious one - of transnationsl syndicates who use terrorism as a routine politcal tactic. The rule of the hole is in play here. When you are in over your head, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Matt has it mostly right, "lefty" blogs are used to thinking in practical solutions and all the practical solutions are boring grunt work. Do what we already know to do, just put in more effort and be more efficient.

But the "lefty" blogs, once again being practical, don't see "jihadism" as a major problem. If the government does its job, it is a non-issue that gets resolved in the background. The "righty" blogs exist to find someone/something to attack, so they WANT to talk about it all the time. Unfortunately, none of their solutions will ever work, just make the problem worse.

Where the "lefty" blogs fail is reassuring people that the "jihadists" are not a serious problem. It should be pointed out repeatedly that BUSH is the one who purposely ignored the machinery Clinton put in place to deal with terrorists and allowed 9/11 to happen. If the government had done its job, we would have been safe. We need to demand a better government, we already had the mechanism in place to protect us, the Bush administration didn't execute competently.

TT

By the way, "Islamofascism" = "Communism" in the language of propaganda. It conveniently fits the vacuum for the enemy other that unites the fearful (and enables a number of continuing conspiracies).

That the Nazis and the Soviet Union were massive degrees more powerful and dangerous (to the point of absurdity) doesn't really matter to the people shouting "Islamofascists" and "Islamic jihadists". It fits the script.

Perhaps some Transactional Analysis is in order, or better yet a real progressive revival resisting this kind of dangerous and deceptive rhetoric.

Kevin is correct that the liberal blogs do not offer much of substance on the terror issue. But the more important issue is that the democratic politicians fail to do so. Aside from partisan politics, there is little reason for not having a high level of cooperation between the parties.

By the way, Lieberman's loss was clearly about Iraq. Kevin and others who say it was not because other pro war democrats were not targeted is silly. The circumstances of other pro-Iraq war senators up for reelection did not lend themselves to a challenge and, in any event, the fact that others were not challenged on Iraq does not mean Lieberman did not lose becasue of Iraq. It is obvious he did to anyone looking clearly at the situation.

I think the consensus is that Weisberg is an ignorant hack, and that there's no really good reason to take his advice about "perpetual defeat" or anything else since he obviously buys into every other empty slogan tossed out by the conservative movement. I understand there's a certain, ahem, decorum to be preserved between top-level pundits, but if you can't call Jacob out for being so clueless, at least your commenters are not so shy.

Other than that (I was the "matt" who wrote the dissertation at 2:03), everything dj moonbat said.

What to do about jihadism? I'm an American residing in Pakistan. Most people are as scared of jihadis here as they are there. The best way to combat the ultra right Islamic parties is to be seen doing actual good -- supporting education, health, development. Pretty much the exact opposite of what the US is actually doing and even more disheartening and worrying for moderates and progressives here than there. US policy in Iraq and Lebanon galvanizes the right here just as 9-11 has strengthened the right there.

First -- how large a problem is it? In the past 10 years, cancer has killed 5,000,000 Americans, traffic accidents have killed 500,000 and terrorism has killed 3,000. And nobody in their right mind believes that Arabs can pull another 9/11.

Yet we have spent half a trillion dollars, and had another 2,600 Americans killed in Iraq, and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, all in the name of the "war on terrorism".

And of course, that half trillion dollars has mostly been counterproductive -- as observed by other posters above, all it has accomplished is to turn a stable secular Arab country (not that different from Egypt) into a breeding ground for more jihadists (which it was not before).

Meanwhile, there is very little discussion of what this enemy is after. We are told that "they hate us for our freedoms". Occasionally, some brave voice (most recently Lincoln Chaffee) points out that the solution to our problems requires a just solution of the Palestinian problem -- but these voices are drowned out. They never reach the American people.

So Kevin, Chaffee has an answer for you: to deal with the jihadists, let's start by applying real pressure on Israel to return all lands acquired in 1967. (This used to be the official US position, by the way, until W was elected. Nobody's talking about it any more).

Rationalist has it spot on. We have, in large part, made the jihad. Bin Laden has indicated that his quarrel is not with us per se, but with us when we have troops on Muslim soil.

Now, Israel rightly deserves our support (albeit not a blank check), but short of that, a large part of this "jihad" has been self-inflicted.

"Fair comment? Or foul? I want to be convinced I'm wrong, so let me have it with both barrels in comments."

Cool.

You are frequently a moron. A moron who internalizes right wing talking points and parrots them back out in the hopes of appearing "serious".

This is just another case of that. You have accepted the nonsense that Wahabi jihadism is the same as Shia fundementalism. You have internalized the bullshit that these people want to end their lives destroying America, as opposed to having largely valid grievances or political ambitions.

They don't hate us because of our way of life. They don't really care if we drive a lot, buy a lot of useless shit, each a bunch of fatty foods, and listen to prefab souless music.

They hate us because our country has its hands in everyone elses pie, and doesn't like to share it. They hate us because we built Israel over their lands and kicked half a million arabs off those lands. They hate us because we continue to side with Israel, protect it from every attempt by the international community to reign in that aparthied state, rearm it even in the middle of a war it would have otherwise lost, and let it define the relationship the US has with every Muslim state.

They want us out of their lives, usually for good reason.

You unblinkingly accept that the very few who actually would kill themselves to kill Americans have any real power. They got lucky that America was handed over to incompetants in 2001, and in spite of numerous flaws in their plan, the government failed to stop them.

They. Cannot. Hurt. Us.

Their biggest wet dream of an attack is a mosquito bite on this country. They are pissants that could be ferreted out with law enforcement, espionage, and surgical special forces actions. There is no place in the world Al Qaeda has a big enough foot hold that it requires several divisions of military power to destroy them.

If the US was "serious" about defeating Al Qaeda, it would empower the internation criminal court, sign intelligence sharing and law enforcement treaties with the rest of the world, and stop doing things that aid Al Qaeda to gather money and followers. It would stop supporting "friendly" dictators.

No "serious" analysis of our geopolitical policy could come to the conclusion the US is "serious" about defeating Al Qaeda or terrorism in general. A LOT of liberal commentators and bloggers have in fact pointed this out. The fat you don't give them credence while internalizing the bullshit of the Mashall Whitmans and Glenn Reynolds of the world says a lot more about you than the reality-based blogosphere.

Way, way foul. I'm not so sure you even touched the ball, so I'm pretty sure it's just a plane old strike.

This is a false parallel. Bush has granted himself enormous authority to launch and run a war and he has done it very badly. Of course, he also set low expectations for his ability to articulate his rationale, which is one reason why we're even having this discussion.

But to shift any of the moral burden onto Bush's critics is silly. He got us into this mess and until November there's nothing we can do about it but raise hell. Everything else is too clever by half.

republican_strategy()
{
propaganda()
}

enum enemy
{
nazism
fascism
communism
islamofascism
}

void propaganda()
{
try
{
if enemy
{
win
}
else
{
throw bums
}
catch bums
{
lose_and_regroup
}
end try
}
}

Beyond what I said immediately above, if it's not clear, my vote is "foul."

Weisberg and other liberal hawks don't want to admit they are, were, and always have been wrong on the substance of the issue and not just the execution of it in Iraq.

Unfortunately, Israel/Hezbullah give people like Weisberg a chance to gin up their spin machines anew.

BUSHCO. AS THE SORCEROR'S APPRENTICE

Got onna soap-box and never answered the question.

To wit: think it's substantively true that liberals don't spend too much time discussing how to confront global jihad.

That said, think there's a fair reason for that, so lemme play the liberal's-advocate.

I reckon it seems sorta futile for liberals to spend much time discussing how to fight global jihad most effectively when the Bush Administration foolishly pursues policies that are counterproductively creating more jihadists than they are quelling.

It seems something of a parlor game at this point. We, after all, are not exactly among "history's actors" right now, as that notorious White House source told Suskind so long ago.

Most liberals answers to the question would involve mundane things like alliances, economic aid, diplomacy, training, cultural exchange, focused and discriminating use of force when necessary -- the sort of things right-wing reactionaries delight in ridiculing.

It almost seems like this whole childish neocon experiment has gotta play itself out, be shown to collapsed upon its own organic failings, before people will listen to reason and sanity again. Cuz otherwise, it's a race to the bottom to screech about who's "weak on defense" cuz we don't happen to think indiscriminate use of force and unilateralist bluster are effective.

Might make Charles "shut up 'n apologize, rabbi!" Krauthammer feel better, but it ain't effective.

The Bush Administration's neoconned approach to global jihad is sorta like Mickey Mouse in the Sorceror's apprentice before the wizard returns.

The neocons sprinkle some their patented naive reckless destructive wishful-thinking hope-for-the-best! Candide-w/a-military magic and watch as the threats multiply instead of diminish.

Gosh, who woulda guess that'd happen!

So asking liberals to spend their time commenting on a fictional reality wherein their ideas about confronting jihad matter in the real world is like asking one of the brooms to stop and discuss the neoconnish black magic that Mickey has unleashed that shows he doesn't have the first fucking clue: a) what he's doing or b) how to stop it.

There just ain't enough lipstick to cover the ugly on that pig.

"And yet, much as I'm reluctant to agree with him, Weisberg has a point: aside from kvetching about Bush's policies, the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it."

Give me a break. Just the other day you had a piece up suggesting the nature of the conflict we face, you called it a “Global Counterinsurgency”. I agree that’s what’s in order. And for anyone who understands what that means, the left is not a party of peaceniks.

Done properly the War on Terror is a combination 3 soft and hard uses of US power.

- Diplomatic pressure to force state actors to expel and expunge terrorists, as well as curtail the dissemination of WMD.

- Its also a paramilitary, CIA, run CI Ops in countries where state actors can’t be compelled through diplomacy. North Africa, Middle East and Asia. *And for those who don’t understand what this means, its having the CIA and paramilitary troops in Pakistan, Iran, North Africa identifying and slaughtering terrorists. See Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” for the armature version of what I’m talking about.

- Finally it’s a robust domestic security plan. Sealing ports from nuclear materials entering. Real preparedness for disaster relief. And so on.

Unfortunately, these knuckle heads have pissed away all America’s soft and hard power. We’ve dumped colossal resources into Lieberbush’s useless Homeland Security Department. Our military has crashed and burned on a craggy hilltop in Iraq. And we’ve got John Bolton in the UN doing his level best to destroy it from the inside.

Not to mention having pissed away, what I consider the Height of American power. Three months before we invaded Iraq, we had virtually unlimited hard and soft power. Now, we’re a washed up superpower waiting for China or Europe to take the lead in global affairs.

We’ve been screaming into storm, about this, for years. Personally my throat is parched and I’m tired of it. Lets bring it up once the Dems take back the congress. When perhaps we can begin to reshape our GWOT and America’s place in the world.

T

The Liberalsagainstterrorism is devoted to this subject, and it's got some of the smartest best-informed bloggers out there.

And Obsidian Wings has had discussions of the subject for years. Hilzoy is a big proponent of anti-proliferation measures and Wesley Clark's views (as am I).

But if you want a position paper, go check out what Clark has to say, or read Kerry's speeches - most liberal bloggers would be happy to see such policies implemented and don't need to push them because their readers agree and the Weisbergs out there wouldn't pay any attention if they did.

W. - "You are either with us, or with the communists."

Did you drink out of the wrong kool-aid bottle? We DO take the war against Al Qaeda and other jihadists seriously, which is PRECISELY why we hate the Shrub with his little Iraq detour.

The point is that republican adventurism in Iraq has done more to enable the jihadists than almost anything else in recent memory. And it has crippled our Afghanistan effort.

Now why is that so hard even for morons like Weisberg to understand?

Jim, you asked for other "pro-war" (defined as someone who voted for the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, and opposes a firm deadline for withdrawal from Iraq) Senators up for reelection in '06 besides Lieberman.

Blue States
Maria Cantwell, WA
Tom Carper, DE
Hillary Clinton, NY
Dianne Feinstein, CA
Herb Kohl, WI

Red States
Ben Nelson, NE
Bill Nelson, FL

Here are the Democratic Senators who voted No on the Iraq War Resolution, but oppose a firm withdrawal deadline, and are up for reelection in '06.

Blue States
Deborah Stabenow, MI

Red States
Robert Byrd, WV
Kent Conrad, ND

Democratic Senators who voted against the War Resolution, support a date-certain withdrawal, and are up for reelection in '06.

Blue States
Daniel Akaka, HI
Ted Kennedy, MA
Robert Menendez, NJ

Red States
--None--

There are no Democratic Senators up for reelection in '06, who supported the War Resolution, but now support a firm deadline for withdrawal.

Did the vice president shoot his friend with both barrels or am I missing a common American idiom?

W. - "You are either with us, or with the drug lords."

Bullshit.

It's the Bushies who have failed to take the war on terror seriously. They failed to get bin Laden, and they turned it into an excuse for war profiteering and political bloodletting.

The next terror attack on US soil will be because Bush did not take his obligation to protect the US as seriously as he took his desire to enrich his golfing buddies. It's a sick joke played on all the gullible idiots who voted for him, and the rest of us who are going to have to pay the $300 Billion (and counting) bill, and the 2500 poor souls who thought they died to protect Freedom.

Foul. There is no point in discussing a rational response to the relatively minor security threat posed by radical Islamic terrorists until the psychotic winger nutjobs who currently sit on the levers of power are removed. The left-wing blogosphere seems to be pretty aware of this and have their priorities straight: first establish an environment in which a debate has meaning, then have a debate.

Most wars are started fighting the LAST war, they say, and we are indeed trying to fight this new war the way we fought old wars.

Excellent point. Before expounding further on that, though, let me tackle this: aside from kvetching about Bush's policies, the liberal blogosphere has chosen to almost unanimously sit out any substantive discussion of the fight against radical jihadism and what to do about it.

1) If the blogosphere consists of the 2-3 dozen top-trafficked liberal blogs plus the two dozen blogs each of those bloggers read, it's easy to make bad assumptions about the tens of thousands of liberal bloggers, because your representative sample is very small.

2) Blogging is afflicted with ADD. The most effective bloggers find a riveting topic and provide a focal point to rally others and get something done. Massive topics like defeating poverty, global warming or global terrorism, can't be easily attacked that way. They get analyzed and discussed, but we move on to things that can be addressed faster. Immediate gratification and blogging work well together.

3) Soundbites and simplicity is US politics today. Long historical backgrounds and complicated analyses get lost in a readership that prefers to scan.

But, back to Chris' point about fighting the last war, I find it useful to gain an understanding of histories, via scholars like Juan Cole and Noam Chomsky. Then to find current realities from people who are in the countries in question, or were there not long ago, I turn to people like Riverbend, or Editor:Myself .... or indie reporters like Chris Allbritton or Kevin Sites (though Sites now works for ABC).

Thus, with the history and present-day covered, I seek sound military analysis from places like Intel Dump, and Foreign Affairs magazine.

Finally, I find it essential to read up on the very few bloggers looking forward, not backward, like John Robb at Global Guerrillas, who regularly defines fourth generation (4G) warfare.

Ultimately, I presume terrorism, by its nature, will always exist. It's a method of resistance of the small against the powerful. Seeking its eradication is perpetual folly. Seeking its confinement and limiting its spread is a realistic goal. It takes wise statesmanship, active diplomacy, greater human intel, effective military measures and a healthy heaping of common sense to accomplish.

And when all's said and done, ideologues and think tank academics won't be cruising the blogs for better answers. So bloggers will engage in these topics, but few will tarry long when their impact can be greater elsewhere.

That bastion of liberalism, New York City, takes the threat of terrorism as seriously as anyone does. Dismissing liberals as unserious about the topic overlooks the long history of liberal concerns. For example, in the nuclear disarmament movement of the 1980s, it was the liberals raising the alarm that nukes could easily fall into radical hands. Few elected officials listened then. And they dismiss us now because of their selective hearing.

In short, the problem's not that our mouths are shut. The problem's that the power wielders' ears are shut.

Since the number of Jews who have addressed the questions raised by this article is few, and the number of Jews who have considered it seriously, is almost zero, and the number of Jews who have ignored it is almost all, and it is so relevant to what is going on in Gaza and Lebanon, I feel it needs to be posted again:

WHY DOESN'T THE MEDIA PUBLISH THIS? I wonder indeed.

Israel Fakes a Provocation for WAR (the "kidnapping" of Cpl Gilad Shalit)

The following passages in italics are from this article published in the Telegraph on 26/06/2006.

Last night two Israeli soldiers were killed and another kidnapped in a dawn attack by Palestinian militants who tunnelled under Gazas heavily protected border.

The attackers, believed to number seven or eight, surprised Israeli forces when they appeared at first light through a tunnel on open ground 300 yards inside Israel near a kibbutz.

Gaza is built on old semi-consolidated sand dunes. It is extremely unlikely that anyone could tunnel 500, or more, yards in the sandy ground of Gaza (300 yards into Israel plus 200 yards of no-mans land plus more to the tunnel entrance), without the tunnel collapsing at some point, or the Israeli listening equipment, hearing their tunneling activity.

They split into three groups before launching simultaneous attacks on three Israeli defensive positions - a look-out tower, plus a tank and an (unoccupied) armoured personnel carrier, both dug in, facing Gaza.

If you were only seven or eight, would you split into three groups? If you were only two, or three, would you attack a tank over flat ground, manned by four soldiers waiting inside to kill you?

They blew open the tanks rear doors (this probably means it was a merkava) with a missile fired from point-blank range before tossing grenades inside. Two of the tank crew died and another was severely wounded but the final crew member, the gunner, was forced out of the wreckage at gunpoint.

The rear doors are blown off and a few grenades popped inside. Tanks are not made to fall apart. Blowing off the rear doors would have taken a blast sufficient to seriously hurt those inside. The grenades would have then made mincemeat of them.

One wonders, if it is standard practice to wear a bulletproof vest inside a hot tank. One would think that the tank would be bulletproof enough not to require such a vest. Can Israeli tanks stop bullets, or not?

Later reports, from the New York Times and others, tell us that Shalit suffered only minor injuries to his abdomen and one arm, even though everyone else in the tank was severely wounded or killed. Shalit would have been very close to those killed (there isn't much spare room in a tank). And, how exactly did the Jew press find out about this, when no one else seems to have known.

Israeli trackers said they found his blood-stained bulletproof vest close to the Gaza perimeter fence.

The militants force Shalit to take off his bulletproof vest and leave it close to the Gaza concentration camp fence, in order to help the Israelis with their investigation.

By the way, whose blood is it on his bulletproof vest? Did his minor wounds bleed profusely, or was it the other soldiers blood and guts all over him. Pity their bulletproof vests didn't save them.

Meanwhile, two other militants attacked a nearby concrete watchtower.... The troop carrier was also damaged in another attack but it was unoccupied. The attackers then escaped back into Gaza by cutting their way through the perimeter fence.

Interestingly, the attackers escaped easily by cutting through the (electrified) perimeter fence, yet cutting through the perimeter fence in order to get in, was so hard to do, that they burrowed through half a mile of sandy ground instead. Something wrong with this story, perhaps?

After all this commotion, the soldiers in all the nearby Gaza concentration camp guard-towers, manage to miss a few Arabs running the 300 yards, over flat ground, back to the perimeter fence, miss them when they cut through it, and miss them running across no-mans land to safety. And why, you may ask, did they not return through the tunnel they had painstakingly dug?

Not only did the Israeli watchers sleep during the explosions and pandamonium, but our heroic freedom fighters did not put a foot wrong as they ran through the no-mans land minefield. Allah, was truly with them.

If you believe this sad tale, I have a bridge to sell you.

The Hamas political leadership sought to distance itself from the incident last night when a spokesman said it had no knowledge of the fate of Cpl Shilat. Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman, said: "We are calling on the resistance groups, if they do have the missing soldier to protect his life and treat him well."

Yes, the Hamas political leadership had no idea of the fate of Cpl Shilat, as the story is a total fabrication.

The Jew press then claims that the Popular Resistance Committees, the armed wing of Hamas and the (previously unknown) Army of Islam were jointly responsible for the kidnapping of Shilat.

Why three groups you may ask?

The reason for three groups, is so that each of them might believe that the other has the "kidnapped" soldier, when, in fact, none of them have him. He is sipping coffee in Tel Aviv.

And why did a "previously unknown" group put up its hand?

Well, just in case one of the groups had doubts that the other group had the "kidnapped" soldier, they certainly couldn't be sure the "previously unknown" group didn't have him,... because after all, they don't have any idea who is leading, or anyone in, this unknown group.

So the reason for the weird "I did it arrangement," is so that the Jew press can claim that the Arabs claimed responsibility, when all they have done, is to NOT deny they did it.

Oh yeah, the "previously unknown" group is a Jew invention. It doesn't exist, except in the Jew newspapers.

Of course, shortly, the Army of Islam will need to be created (by the Jews) in order to negotiate the "release" of Shilat.

As part of the fabrication, the Jews chose to have a Israeli/French citizen "kidnapped," as the French have not been slavishly following the Jew script, and this could be used to force their hand in the desired way.

If you are not already convinced that the whole story is a fabrication, ask yourself; What were the four Israeli soldiers doing in the tiny confines of that dug-in tank? Ask your self; How long were they going to continue sitting in that tank? All day perhaps, or till they roasted in the desert sun? Or, till another group of four took over on the next shift? And of course, having four soldiers in just one tank, wont provide a defense, so there will have to be hundreds of tanks and hundreds of soldiers all sitting in these tanks,...

all waiting,... all waiting,... all waiting,.... for exactly what?

Waiting for Palestinian children to throw stones at them, perhaps? Perhaps, waiting attentively for militants to dig a half mile tunnel through sandy soil, pop up, and rush them over flat ground, but not attentively enough to see them approach? Perhaps, they were waiting for the Egyptian army to materialize, Star Trek like, from their bases hundreds of miles away on the other side of the Suez canal? I dont know,... you tell me why?

Yes, the story is a total fabrication. A fake provocation to start a war. Yes, the Jews are evil people.

"Since you're still up and posting, would you please go back to the prior post's comments and get rid of all the off-topic 500 line posts that were used to try to kill off the discussion of Joe Lieberman?

They were posted to get/justify blog registration, possibly by K. himself.

Terrorism is what the newspapers say is terrorism.

But the newspapers LIE (mainly by omission and bias (the most effective lies)).

Someone upthread suggested that one reason why the blogging left has "ignored" the topic of how to address jihadism is the fact that most lack the knowledge to make practical suggestions.

That's as true on the right as it is on the left, but it is true, nonetheless. It is not just ignorance about what it takes to deploy and employ military power. It is equally a lack of understanding about Middle East politics and international politics in general. That's understandable, as either subject is a lifetime study. It is a natural human tendency to pay close attention to the problems right in front of you and deal with less immediate issues only when they smack you in the face.

It is an ironic fact that the segment of the American public with the most direct experience with Muslims and the Middle East is the military. By now, most in the military have spent at least 3/4 of their careers preparing for, being deployed to, and recovering from one Islamic hotspot after another. Some of the experience goes back even further.