Hot and Cold: the Extremes of War

Time to put the fire out. Having let it rage on for so long, the West seems to be donning its helmets and getting out the fire hoses. Or so says Mr. Youssef M. Ibrahim — and he’s telling the people of Dubai they’d better be prepared:

     The world of Islam is on fire. Indeed, the Muslim mind is on fire. Above all, the West is now ready to take both of them on.
The latest reliable report confirms that on average 33 Iraqis die every day, executed by Iraqis and foreign jihadis and suicide bombers, not by US or British soldiers. In fact, fewer than ever US or British soldiers are dying since the invasion more than two years ago. Instead, we now watch on television hundreds of innocent Iraqis lying without limbs, bleeding in the streets dead or wounded for life. If this is jihad someone got his religious education completely upside down.

The emphasis is ours. But the sentiment is Mr. Ibrahim’s. Do we dare hope that he is right, that jihad as it is currently practiced and preached is an aberration? From his pen to Allah’s ears.

But Mr. Ibrahim isn’t done with his fellow Muslims yet. He talks about the internecine warfare in Palestine. While he doesn’t say so, have you noticed how vicious they are towards one another? All of them busy killing off potential rivals as they position themselves for power in a ‘government’ as corrupt and cynical as anything Hilter ever devised.

Mr. Ibrahim lists just some of the murder and mayhem since jihad became the disaffected and envious young Muslim male’s fad:
· London
· Madrid
· USA
· Morroco
· Africa
· Indonesia
· Thailand
· Afghanistan
· Egypt
· Yemen
· Pakistan
· India
· Turkey
· Tunsia
· The Netherlands
· Saudi Arabia

Oh, yeah —let’s not forget “the entity,” Israel.

So what has all this mighty Muslim fire extinguished? Muslim liberties and respect in the rest of the world, that’s what:

     The only accomplishment of jihadis is that now they have aroused the great “Western Tiger”. There was a time when the United States and Europe welcomed Arab and Muslim immigrants, visitors and students, with open arms. London even allowed all dissidents escaping their countries to preach against those countries under the guise of political refugees.
Well, that is all over now. Time has become for the big Western vengeance.

Then he reminds his readers of the bit of Western history they don’t teach in those madrasses where little kids are trained for jihad. If they did so, their recruits might be less than enthusiastic:

     What is more important to remember is this: When the West did unite after World War II to beat communism, the long Cold War began without pity. They took no prisoners. They all stood together, from the United States to Norway, from Britain to Spain, from Belgium to Switzerland. And they did bring down the biggest empire. Communism collapsed.
I fear those naïve Muslims who think that they are beating the West have now achieved their worst crime of all. The West is now going to war against not only Muslims, but also, sadly, Islam as a religion.
In this new cold and hot war, car bombs and suicide bombers here and there will be no match for the arsenal that those Westerners are putting together – an arsenal of laws, intelligence pooling, surveillance by satellites, armies of special forces and indeed, allies inside the Arab world who are tired of having their lives disrupted by demented so-called jihadis or those bearded preachers who, under the guise of preaching, do little to teach and much to ignite the fire, those who know little about Islam and nothing about humanity.

There you have it: Muslim ignorance in a nutshell: “demented so-called jihadis.” Islam’s problem is going to be (a) how to cull these mutants from the pack, and (b) how to prevent more of them from being created. Their existence is neither the fault or the responsibility of the West.

The time for pity is long past.

(Hat tip: Mojocar Hawk via Barcepundit). And here is an example of the koinonia in action.

7 thoughts on “Hot and Cold: the Extremes of War

  1. What was that quote about beginnings and ends and ends of beginnings? (I know, I know…)

    Given the time scale of the undertaking, this represents just a tiny time slice of the beginning. The real pudding proof will be if this guy survives more than a year without retribution.

    Unrelenting pressure is the answer. Relentless. Harsh. On all fronts and in all venues.

  2. With all due respect to the writer, he still does not understand some of the possibilities. New laws and restrictions? How about internment followed by explusion? The French are stepping in that direction. If that is not enough, more may be possible.

    How about internment of entire groups, followed by mass expulsion? That seems impossible now, but may not be in some future time. Armies of special forces targetting areas once considered impassible? It is already being done, and more.

    But all that is still as nothing, nothing, compared to what could come. If he wants to really know what could befall his brethren, Ibraham should read about US Army Air General Curtis LeMay. That General took over the air group bombing Tokyo in early 1945. High altitude precision attacks were not satisfactory, because industries were being dispersed by the Japanese into neighborhoods.

    So General LeMay decided on a different attack form. His B-29 bombers would be loaded with bombs of fire. These airplanes bristled with machineguns and even cannon to defend against fighters, but the Japanese did not have such a good force for fighting in the air at night. General LeMay reasoned that if his forces bombed at night, then machineguns were not so needed; most of them were taken off of the bombers. The critical factor in bombers of that day was weight; by reducing the weight carried in one area, more of something else could be carried.

    Machineguns came off the airplanes, more fire bombs went in the bomb bays.

    With the machineguns gone, ammunition was not needed, it was taken out, and more fire bombs put in. With the machineguns gone, the men to operate them, their parachutes and oxygen bottles were not needed. They were removed.

    Still more fire bombs were loaded.

    Then General Le May’s bombers, virtually defenseless, stuffed with as many fire bombs as they could lift off the ground, were sent on a calm night over Japanese cities. The firestorms that resulted were stunningly huge. More people died in one night in Tokyo from fire bombing than in Hiroshima from nuclear bombing….and the next night, LeMay’s bombers came back to deliver more of the same, and again another night, and again, and again, and again…

    Or consider Berlin, where entire bombing raids were sent to a single square area of a few blocks. Thousands of tons of bombs were dropped in one day by the Americans on that one square. The next day, they moved to another square on the map, and obliterated it. And the next day, and the next, and again, and again.

    THAT is the face of Western rage Ibraham should begin to consider; the rage that systematically destroys a city block by block, or that disarms bombers of men and guns in order to carry more incendiary bombs to burn down a city that much more.

    At this time, American congress member Tancredo is considered strange and even unbalanced for his suggestion. But as the jihad continues, there could come a day when his proposal seems to be “just common sense” to a majority of Americans…

  3. Andrew, I think he can get away with it…he’s a former writer for the NYT and I doubt he’s in harm’s way.

  4. graf —

    You certainly took his “fire” image and ran with it!

    I disagree to this extent: we had to do massively then what could not be done with the precision of today. But I do not doubt that the “Western tiger” is being roused. France is starting to expell her problems; I think Britain will follow.

    Tancredo’s option is valuable because it opens the floor to discussion of harsher metrics. In that, he has done a service.

    Bombing Mecca and Medina wouldn’t have much effect. Not nearly as much as doing that in Iran. Which is where I think we’re headed.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Ibrahim’s warning is salutory, though his is a lone voice. Perhaps it is the beginning of a chorus?

    We need to find a way to damp down the crazies in Islam who’ve hijacked the conversation. Not because we’re nice guys but because that’s the best way to end this thing: make them irrelevant.

    Should this happen, regular Muslims won’t be afraid to speak up.

  5. Dymphna writes:
    Bombing Mecca and Medina wouldn’t have much effect.

    Oh, dear lady, I must disagree in the profoundest fashion, though it grieve me.

    One of the pillars of Islam is a pilgrimage to Mecca, for those with the wherewithal to do so. It is a requirement for a believer. If Mecca were to cease to exist, one of the pillars of Islam would also cease to exist. Great strife would surely be loosed upon the world, but Islam would have to either change, or vanish. I do not recommend this course, but if Islam continues to threaten nuclear armed countries other than the United States (recall Beslan, for example) then this unthinkable action could become thinkable. No pit to stone Satan, no well to drink from, and so forth.

    Not nearly as much as doing that in Iran. Which is where I think we’re headed.

    Iran’s generation of theocracy threatens Islam hugely. Suppose that the mullahs were to fall, due to any of several causes, and in the following chaos huge numbers of Persian Moslems publicly and proudly proclaimed that they were now free of they tyrrany of mullah and Islam, and pleased to become Ba’hai, … the effect upon other Moslems would be most interesting.

    I chose LeMay because few know of this piece of history of warfare. It is all very well to talk of the horror of Magdeburg in the 30 years war, or other such things, but some of LeMay’s B-29 pilots and bombadiers still live among us, that is recent, and thus the awe-ful spirit of vengence they deployed can still exist, if enough Americans feel their backs against the wall. Of this I am certain.

  6. “Let them kill each other off.” Sounds like a lot better war plan than what we have now. In fact, we should work behind the scenes to cause internecine warfare throught dar al-Islam.

  7. Having them kill each other off is a good strategy except for one thing: they want to take the Israelis with them. And a lot of other innocent people.

    Read Michael Yon – you’ll get the idea.

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