Vorlonagent

4, 6. I never meant to suggest that we, the US, or the world focus on Radical Islam to the exclusion of every other kind of terrorism. But I'd add that not everybody deserves equal attention either. Islamic terrorism distinguishes itself. They're #1. And by a large margin. We should act like it. This also brings up the definition of "what is a terrorist?" Is it any form of political violence or disruptive disregard for the law? What identifies the domestic terrorists you refer to *as* "terrorists"? 5. The longer we wait to confront Radical Islam, the closer to a holy war it will be. We have a president and news media that are reluctant to speak the name of the Enemy. I'd be less concerned it that didn't also reflect a reluctance to act against the Enemy. Islamic Terrorism is never going away as long as people of Obama's mindset are in control. They simply do not want to do confront it. It is reflected in their language choices. We can be clearer who the enemy is when we talk about them. Who and what Radical Islam is and isn't. But even the unbiased facts are scary. In the teens of percents of Syrian refugees are sympathetic to Radical islam. Doesn't mean they are terrorists because sympathy and action are two different things, but it begs the question of what percentage of them are or could become radicalized. It's bothersome to think that taking in refugees is a near-sure bet that we're taking in terrorists. Donald Trump advocates closing the door to islamic refugees because of the realization that there will be terrorists mixed in with them. He raises a valid point, even if his manner of delivery turns around and obscures it again.

Because it would actively hinder our objectives to do so? I'm still unclear on what we get out of walking on eggshells around radical islam. Drachefly posted a whole article on why we should do it and what we supposedly get out of it, but as you can see I was not impressed. It seems like coddling the easily-inflamed feelings of those whose whole point is attempting to assert control over our actions. It feels like appeasement and co-dependence.

What military action against Iran were you thinking of then? I think if we'd given the Iranian Greens the help they needed to stand their ground, it might have made a big difference. Who was supposed to be running Egypt? The Islamic Brotherhood or the Egyptian military? The Islamic brotherhood. Their goals and allegiances were in line with radical islam. Are you really saying the US could absolutely count on the military to block any support for radical islam that the civilian government might want to give? Because I'm not buying it if you are. The military moved against the civilian government over power and the spoils of corruption, not any sort of principle.

1, 4: It's important not to muddy the waters here. Islamic terrorism is a thing. It's a phenomenon. It has unique in goals (and some methods) from other forms of terrorism and political violence we may observe or experience. We're focused on Islamic terrorism at the moment. 5. I agree. So why was the Obama administration so reluctant to admit islamic terrorism is islamic (or sometimes is terrorism)? The people killed in the Florida nightclub were killed by radical islamists and it was an act of terror. Both government and the news media initially tried to ignore the "islamic terror" part and tried to change the topic to gun control. 6. I disagree, because religious intolerance isn't a focused thing. All religions compete to some degree so all are a little bit guilty of this, save possibly some of the far east faiths which are awfully laid back about belonging to multiple faiths besides theirs. The author also commits the sin of equivalence. When you lump all acts of religious intolerance together, harshness of the individual acts of intolerance are de-emphasized. That's why I say "muddying the waters." Radical islam distinguishes itself in the degree it is willing to do harm. It merits being called out on that. So again I ask, why does our president and media bend over backwards to avoid talking about the elephant in the room?

How do you know he hasn't?

I like...

How many "Moderator candies" do I need to make him evolve?

Maybe "Exposition Man"...

The ramp-up I'm referring to is getting our military hardware and people where they need to be in order to start the job. It takes time to prepare an invasion. I can hit the highlights for you but suffice to say it would be where the saying "Amateurs study tactics. Generals study logistics" comes from. It did go badly...For the Greens. Who predicted it? Who said, "Hey, no problem sending weapons to the radical islamists running Egypt now. They (the radical islamists) will be out of power before they can use them, guaranteed." That's a great way to put a bunch of weapons in the hands of people like ISIS. Of course the Islamic Brotherhood didn't do much with their American goodies. They didn't have time. They were figuring out how to put a government together (something else that takes time), most importantly how to personally profit from said government. They tried to take some of the more lucrative bits of corruption away from the military, who shut them down instead.

1. Today’s terrorism is overwhelmingly Muslim, and its roots pervade the Muslim world Agreed here. That simply means specificity is in order. "Radical Islam" is a very specific term that the Obama Administration doesn't seem to use much. 2. Our enemies want us to associate them with Islam. 3. We must choose our language to thwart the enemy’s strategy I think this overstates how much radical islam cares about what we think. 4. The links between Islam and terrorism are partial, manufactured, and severable. No they're not. Not in the sense of these groups ever having been or ever being secular or extra-religious. Islamic terrorism is a creature born of ultra-conservative Islamic teachings. Sunni terroists are usually Wahabbists. We might get the mainstream to disown them perhaps, but the beast must be named and named properly: "Radical Islam". This is their monster. 5. The president should bend over backward not to call out Muslims for terrorism. Not convinced by the author's reasoning. Obama may know what he's doing, but that doesn't mean that he's doing something sensible. 6. The enemy isn’t Islam or religion. The enemy is religious violence. The proper term of this is "muddying the waters" There is a specific and defined enemy whose handiwork is found in a whole bunch of places. Its name is "Radical Islam" and its functionaries recently drove a truck through French Bastille Day celebrants. 7. We should talk about Muslim victims of terrorism. 8. We should talk about Muslims who fight terrorism. Of course we should. 10. The rest of us need the help of Western Muslims Of course we do. "Radical Islam" calls out both who the problem is and who it isn't. These were questions that were dealt with since the early days post 9/11. This guy writes as if that all never happened. It's obvious to anybody who cares that the US has no gripe with muslims in general but a certain group in particular so the "walking on eggshells" act is unnecessary. This whole article seems predicated on the idea that words speak louder than actions.

Agreed. So why aren't we ramping up for military intervention? The same reason France the the UK didn't ramp up to deal with Hitler in the 1930s. Appeasement. And I repeat: Handing Iran the ability to build a nuclear weapon is a threat that is orders of magnitude above all the inmates at Guantanamo. Any mind that could conceive of a nuclear Iran as a good or even acceptable thing is a mind that could seriously consider releasing everybody at Guantanamo. I'll pull back on Apology tour. I am usually more versed in my terms and events than that one. Best I can find is a John Bolton quote from the time: “Even without an express apology, there will likely be moral equivalence like: Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and we bombed Hiroshima. We’re all guilty, but let’s put it behind us,” Bolton wrote in a New York Post op-ed published Thursday. What could we have done to help the Iranian Greens? First welcome them rather than remain aloof and neutral as Obama did. And since the old Iran regime would not be going down without a fight, the Green would need material aid up to and including arms and ammunition to succeed. When you ask why we would cancel and arms sale because of an election, you make an equivalence between the incoming and outgoing governments. You are saying that US interests would be equally served by going ahead with the sale to either the previous or current government. I disagree with that. I'm not sure anybody is in a good position to publicly account for US weapons ISIS got from the Iraqi armory and US weapons they might have gotten directly from the US. Reminder: Obama pulled US troops out of Iraq, setting the stage for ISIS. (I am not saying that Obama knowingly set the state for ISIS specifically, but US troops were what put the spine in Iraq's national defense and Obama pulled them out with great fanfare about leaving behind a safe and stable Iraq) http://www.newsweek.com/why-obama-ignoring-iran-cheating-nuke-deal-479689

That's....Sounds depressingly expected and reasonable

That was uglier than I expected. I honestly expected that a Dane Resistance would have always kept minimizing civilian casualties in mind when running missions. Al Queda's resistance to the US occupation of Iraq failed in part because they were completely heedless of civilian casualties. You may remember al Queda invented the phrase "involuntary martyr" for the people caught in the crossfire between them and US troops to try to put a happy spin on the ones they hurt or killed with friendly fire (US troops certainly did hit civilians with gunfire, but US troops were also pretty well trained and pretty good at hitting what they were aiming at. Al Queda's fighters were generally neither) Over time, al Queda in Iraq lost volunteers and charity contributions, eventually having to pull out of Iraq and retrench with the Taliban in Northern Pakistan.

...So trade 1 terrorist for 1 deserter and throw in the others as a surprise bonus. Why not trade all 18 release candidates? Mainly because the other side wanted those 5. Convenient that all 5 of the people wanted were release candidates... Moreover, trading 5 known bad guys is excessive. Trading even 1 is excessive. It establishes a "going rate" for hostages and encourages taking more hostages in order to get more bad guys released. I'm honestly surprised that Obama hasn't made more trades save for how poorly the first one went over politically. I would expect Obama to understand that you don't do deals like this with terrorists, but he made one anyway. I believe he did so to show the US as "generous" be was likely taken as a sign of weakness. Let's look at the Obama track record in the mideast. The Apology Tour. Turning up his nose at any support for the Green revolution in Iran. Jet fighters to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, running guns more or less indiscriminately to anybody opposed to the Assad government in Syrian civil war, including the group that would become ISIS, and finally his Iran Deal, which Iran cheats on daily while Obama pretends not to notice. In Conservative circles, the Obama administration is infamous for substituting bland euphemisms for phrases like "terror attack" or "radical islam", presumably to avoid offending the easily offended. I am aware of but not citing the "stand down" order attributed to Obama during the Bengazi attack because it's not confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. Nor am I using Obama's ridiculous assertion that the attack on the Bengazi compound was because a protest of some anti-islamic Youtube video got out of hand. That was a lie for the 2012 campaign, not cozying up to terroists. Obama's finding an excuse to arrest and confine the filmmaker, however, was. None of this is direct evidence of Obama's attitude toward the Guantanamo inmates but is evidence of his attitude towards the mideast and radical islam. I'm building as case that Obama is following a variation of "appeasement" in dealing with the people who least like us in the mideast (and elsewhere, but save that for another day). And appeasement is in line with my past (but admittedly unsupported) assertions about foreign policy by the US Left. Obama's Iran Deal essentially greenlit an Iranian nuclear bomb (but attempted slow down how fast they get one) while funneling to them tens of billions of dollars of formerly frozen Iranian assets. I have no words to adequately describe how completely inane I see Obama's agreement but I can say this: The Guantanamo inmates put together barely move the threat needle compared to a nuclear Iran. If Obama is willing to let Iran get nukes, however slowly, why not release everybody at Guantanamo? US internal politics is the only reason I can think of. In fairness one has to balance the above against US drone strikes taken against some terrorist leaders and the assassination of Osama bin Laden. I see those as nods to the practical realities of politics inside the US. Obama has to look tough. He has to look like he's "doing something" about terrorism for the domestic crowd. The majority of his emphasis and actions lie in the appeasement side of things, however.

Really? Dane Resistance Fighters routinely opened fire on nazis in the middle of a crowded street specifically to incriminate the Nazis with the Dane civilian casualties?

I'm not terribly happy with either party myself. My official Party affiliation is "Decline to State." I am a political party consisting of just myself. While I am a strong Foreign-policy, Economic, and Small-Government Conservative, I have next to no loyalty to Social Conservatism. And that's all Republican leaders want to talk about...or do anything about. The upcoming US election is a great one for voting third party. My track record coming off the blocks here hasn't been all that good, either. Yesterday was my first-ever red-letter warning from The Old Hack or any moderator here. And I've been active on the CMX boards since like 2010... Yeah, there's my problem with Guantanamo. President Bush tried to have his cake and eat it too. He maintained that Guantanamo inmates were "unlawful combatants" but did generally try to treat them according to the Geneva Accords. There was a story blurb out near the end of the Bush presidency that the average Guantanamo inmate had gained 10 lbs since being incarcerated there. The fighters that the US captured did NOT conform to the codes of conduct prescribed by the Geneva Accords. For example: the Accords spell out that a combatant must wear something that makes them easy to differentiate from civilians. They wore nothing of the sort. Being able to throw down your gun and melt into the crowd is a part of the point of being a terrorist. There's more I can dig up if needed. Suffice to say, they fought in civilian clothes, they fought in the midst of civilians whenever possible so as to maximize collateral casualties that could be blamed on the enemy...not exactly playing by Hoyle here. Ergo "unlawful combatants." The Geneva Accords do state that a nation that has signed the Accords must treat a nation that hasn't signed as if they did...BUT...the other nation has to hold up their end. The enforcement mechanism for the Geneva Accords, to the best of my knowledge, is complimentary. There's a code of conduct in place. As long as the non-signatory acts accodingly (pardon the pun), the signatory side is obligated to do the same. If one side deviates by X amount from that code the other side is given license to deviate to the same degree. So you uphold the code because you want the other side to do the same...even if the other side didn't sign. When you examine how inmates at Guantanamo are treated, proper context demands that you also ask how US soldiers were treated by al Queda or the Taliban, because that sets the limits the US operates under. The US is therefore being very, very generous to the Guantanamo inmates. Any deviation from code of conduct described in the Accords by the US is well and completely justified by the enemy conduct against US captives.

Fair point. Apologies where and if needed. I will make a greater effort to avoid this in the future.

There's no shortage of terrorist recruits no matter what is said or not said in the US. The people get a steady diet of anti-US propaganda from government and the clerics regardless of what gets said over here. Obama makes "Muslim outreach" a major goal of NASA's and it means nothing. Trump calls for blocking all Muslim refugees and it means nothing.

Sounds like they got the same writer for EGS spellbooks...

Yes I do think Obama wanted (and probably still wants) to release them all. It's common for the US Left to sympathize with third-world people and organizations with loud resentments against the US. Foreign policy from such people tends to boil down to "be nice to them." If that fails, "be nicer to them." Honest signalling that the US has put its abusive ways behind itself, combined with material generosity to make good for past misdeeds, will lead to positive relations. It just takes time and lots of niceness. A grand show of generosity would be to release all the Guantanamo inmates. The real world doesn't work this way, however. The terrorists don't see the niceness or generosity, they see weakness to be exploited. I admit that I only have one data point of real proof for the above. Obama released 5 Guantanamo inmates in exchange for 1 US Army deserter.

Reminder, Pandora's voluntarily shapes her Marks to be descriptive of the spell they represent. That's not required. Susan's Mark, for example, was a Venus symbol which in no way related to the function of the spell she got. If Pandora Marks Diane, Diane will get some kind of descriptive Mark. If she gets Marked by Jerry 2.0, all bets are off.

Especially Maxima going full-on super-speed...

That was certainly true of John Boehner's term as Speaker of the House... Boehner seemed more interested in sitting at the "cool kids" table with Obama than the interests of his own Party. Donald Trump owes his nomination to Boehner's shallow self-interested handling of his Speakership.

The US is not set up to handle a multiparty system well. It's just different than the parliamentary system you guys use. Not better or worse. You have to differentiate desired action from limits on action. My point with Guantanamo is it'd be long closed if there were no harsh consequences to closing it. And of course that only a Democrat would consider closing Guantanamo. I never intended to lump you in with US Leftists. I apologize if that impression came across. I tried to be very clear about who I was ...and by implication who I wasn't...talking about. I primarily know the US and did not wish to make claims beyond it. Politics as a football game...completely agreed. Regardless of your definition for "football." Blackstone's Formulation should be satisfied. First understand that the inmates at Guantanamo are Prisoners of War, not criminals. No enemy combatant from any war ever got civilian due process from an enemy nation. Nor should the inmates at Guantanamo. Edit: Terrorists who have performed acts in the US or EU (for example) could be considered as criminals or enemy combatants. The inmates at Guantanamo were all captured in time of war. They are most definitely POWs. Due process for a Terrorist captured in a theater of war is the same due process that an enemy soldier gets: Hearings to be held (per the Geneva Accords) to separate enemy soldiers from people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hearings have been held for all inmates at Guantanamo. All the good guys or mildly bad guys were released by GW Bush long before Obama took office.. What's left are by definition all genuine bad guys. The worst of the worst, in fact. When to release the last Guantanamo inmates is a tricky question. When do they stop being a threat to US civilians and military personnel? When is the war really over? Nobody has yet really delved into the question of how to treat a NGO (Non Government Organization) that wages warfare. Neither ISIS or its precursor al Queda are proper "governments" or "nations", though ISIS aspires to the status. We've all tried to act as if treating them like a governments works just fine but questions like "when do you release POWs? "When is the war truly over?" show how awkward the fit can be at times.

Thanks! That's a crap-ton more than I ever knew...