January 12, 2011

The Lizardian/WARI Doctrine (for Winning the War Against Radical Islamism)

Hatched by Dafydd

The war against radical Islamism (WARI) is completely winnable; but we have not, to date, taken the necessary steps to win it. George W. Bush made a good-faith beginning, but we need to build on what he started, expand where necessary and harden what we already have, in order to have a chance for ultimate victory.

I'm not a military or foreign-policy expert, nor a historian, nor a philosopher; my formal training is all in math. I am a clear thinker, however -- which is worth more than the yammering of most "pundants," as Bush would call them (total value: a bucket of warm spit).

So what, from the perspective of this "subject-matter generalist," do we need to do? I reduce it to "the Four Dees": Defund, defend, debate, and defeat.

Defund the terrorists

Defund the human-sacrificing Moloch-worshippers. We must remove all prohibitions against drilling for our own oil and natural gas. It's all right to retain restrictions to ensure we drill in the most environmentally sound way that is economically feasible; but there is no excuse for banning oil and natural-gas production anywhere in American territory -- thus forcing us to rely upon our mortal enemies for the lifeblood of the United States.

In addition, we must charge full steam to the metal to develop, bring online, and improve the performance of non-petroleum energy sources, especially those that can produce energy in large quantities, such as nuclear power plants and solar-power satellites; but spot-sources, such as rooftop solar cells and windmill farms, are useful as well.

And there is nothing wrong with conservation, so long as we don't fantasize that it can take the place of energy production; it makes good business sense... for example, pushing (via an "X Prize," say) high-temperature ceramic engines for cars, so they can more thoroughly burn gasoline or other inflammables -- and flywheel technology to capture the energy from braking and use it for acceleration -- all in order to obtain dramatically better mileage, perhaps as much as 80 to 100 miles per gallon.

The overall goal is to scale back, by orders of magnitude, the moolah we in the West fork over to the Arabs, the Russians, and our pal, President for Life (and Beyond), Oogo Chavez of Venezuela.

Defend the homeland

To quote Patrick Henry, "The great object is, that every man be armed."

Outside the United States, the first line of defense is the American military. But inside the country, where the military services cannot normally operate (under the Posse Comitatus law), the first line of defense is the armed American citizen.

The problem of course is the patchwork of anti-gun and anti-concealed-carry laws that liberals have erected, with the sole purpose being to nullify the very sentiment propounded directly above; since the late 1960s, the New Left has vigorously, at times viciously, opposed the very idea of individual self defense and defense of family, the neighborhood, and society in general. They insist that all social defense must come from the police.

And then they demand that the police likewise be disarmed, as in Great Britain.

Thirty-seven of the fifty (or is that fifty-seven?) states have shall-issue Carry Concealed Weapon (CCW) permit laws, where the state authorities are required to grant a CCW to any adult who passes a background check and a firearms safety class; and Vermont does not require a permit to carry concealed in the first place. But in the twelve remaining states that do not have such laws, CCW permits are granted capriciously, by cronyism, or not at all under any circumstance; these twelve states comprise about a third of the population of the United States (32.3%)... and of course no state CCW permit is valid in all other states.

Considering the war we find ourselves engulfed by -- and the inability of police or even the Army, should it come to that, to be everywhere at once -- the only solution is to rearm the citizenry. I would suggest that Congress (when we again have a responsible, adult Congress) should rely upon its Article I, Section 8 authority "to provide for the common defense," to "make rules concerning captures on land and water," "to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions," and most particularly "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia" to make the appropriate laws to allow every law-abiding, qualified citizen to carry a concealed weapon legally in every state and the District of Columbia, including on commercial airplanes, trains, and buses.

I am not a lawyer; but I believe it would be absolutely constitutional, under the enumerated powers of Congress listed above, to enact legislation that would (a) redeclare that all able-bodied men, and women this time, between certain ages, comprise the "unorganized militia;" and (b) enact a Federal CCW (FCCW) permit that supercedes all state, local, and federal gun-control laws.

The FCCW would require a background check, some training in combat shooting, firearms legality, and I suggest also training in behavioral profiling. The FCCW permit must include a photo of the holder and his biometric information; those attempting to board public transportation while armed are required to show their permits, and in some cases may also have to use a digital thumbprint to identify themselves.

In other words, rather than trying to make America a "gun-free zone" -- that is, a victim-disarmament zone -- let's return to our foundational principle of individual responsibility for defending the nation and the innocents within it against the enemies who strike by stealth, assassination, and mass murder.

It seems to work fairly well for the Israelies (though Janet "Big Sister" Napolitano insists it wouldn't "scale up").

Debate the real issues

It's urgent that we begin an honest discussion of the threat of jihadism and dawa, and the rights and duties of citizens of a free country.

The president must take the bull by the horns and look the facts in the face: Islam is not a "religion of peace;" but then, neither is Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Shinto, Sufism, socialism, or Buddhism. No religion is uniformly peaceful; all have troubled histories of violence and murder, especially in their early stages.

The rough beast of Islam is such a danger today because its childhood has stretched across centuries, as it slouches towards the world caliphate. What Islam needs, if it is to endure, is to pass from minority, through puberty, into adultery. (Wait, I don't think that came out quite right.) If it doesn't grow up and start acting like a modern adult, the rest of the world will ultimately have to smash Islam flat; it will become an existential threat, and no other choice will be available but destroy or be destroyed.

In order to live in relative peace, Islam needs a reformation; essentially, it needs to admit that humans by nature have free will, including religious freedom. Only then can an enlightenment, or age of reason, begin -- one hopes without the need for a Thirty Years War. Thus, we need to clarify to the nation that we are not fighting all of Islam, only that portion that refuses to accept freedom... including the freedom to dissent from Islam.

Moslems who accept that they can convince but must not coerce will be unmolested; those who believe in spreading Islam by the sword (or by dawa), and who practice what they preach, must be targeted by relentless legal, military, and social interdiction. America and the rest of the West must unify, not against all Islam, but against that understanding of Islam that is incompatible with the individual freedoms at the core of modernity.

(At the moment that understanding composes a huge but undetermined chunk of Islamdom; it's pretty ugly. But hundreds of millions of Moslems don't support jihad, don't want to see a world caliphate under sharia, and would be perfectly happy living in civilized countries with rights and liberties.)

That case has never been made with real clarity to the American people; it's high time we elected a president who will make it, who will speak to us about radical Islamism the way Ronald Reagan spoke to us about Communism and other totalitarian, paranoid styles.

Defeat the enemy

We must mentally prepare America for the struggle ahead, in a serious way. George W. Bush started doing this, but he didn't follow through; it must be a "total war" against ignorance and wishful thinking.

In particular, he or she must make Americans understand that, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war against the enemies you have, not the enemies you wish you had.

Yes, it would be less nerve-wracking to have a clear-cut, comprehensible enemy like the Axis in World War II, or even the Communist North Vietnamese and their "mini-me" Viet Cong terrorists. It would be wonderful to look forward to an eventual surrender signed in a brick schoolhouse in Rheims or on the deck of the USS Missouri... but that's not going to happen.

This is a different kind of war than we are used to seeing in the last hundred years; it has more in common with the Indian wars than with the wars of the twentieth century. Nor will hostilities ever completely cease; new "prophets" will always arise and try to rekindle the flames of the salafi, the wahhabi, al-Andaluz.

But the war can still be won: We will have defeated the radical Islamists when no government on Earth will befriend them.

We have a long way to go; but if we can envision the end of the war, we will have heart enough to see it through. Our problem to date is that presidents and prime ministers throughout the West have offered only two visions: Perpetual warfare with no visible progress -- or surrender and dhimmitude. This is proof positive that we're not using the correct "grand strategy" against this enemy. We need clear and unbiased thinking in the Pentagon, the State Department, and within the intelligence community; anyone who is not on board for victory, real victory, must be discharged (which likely means we need an end to public-employee unions, who of course fight against merit-based termination with every fiber in the book).

When no nation befriends radical Islamism, all nations will fight it; and without a government-protected home base, without friendly territory, they will be about as effective as neo-Nazis and state secessionists.

The de-lemma we face

Everything above depends upon several conditions:

  • We need a Congress and POTUS that actually intend to win the WARI, the war against radical Islamism.
  • We need lower-level government functionaries, flunkies, and nomenklatura who do not see America itself as their greatest enemy, wasting time and treasure fighting against any war measure that might actually be effective.
  • We need a citizenry that wants the United States to survive into the twenty-second century; that believes in the sacred rights, liberties, and freedoms we enjoy -- and the equally sacred duties we accept; and a citizenry that believes (this is the really controversial part) in something greater than themselves.

    Most would call this last belief "God," or more precisely, the ethical-monotheism that Dennis Prager writes about; but it's acceptible if some call it a "higher calling," so long as it's centered around traditional American virtues. These include liberty, democracy, Capitalism, service, and tolerance of the tolerant (coupled with intolerance of the intolerant). (Note that tolerance is not the same thing as approval or government preferential treatment.)

  • And we need foreign allies equally willing to undertake a WARI, as we cannot do it alone.

None of these conditions is impossible; all are necessary; and the sum is likely sufficient. We can take the first step in 2012, by electing a president who understands the WARI and is willing to fight it, plus a Congress that will enact the bills and consent to the officials (civilians and general officers) who will turn the new president's leadership into action on the ground.

Fortunately for us, such a president and such a Congress, with such clear vision of the urgency of the task and what we need to accomplish it, will have equally useful ideas on the economy, so-called "entitlement" programs, health care, border enforcement and the reforming of legal immigration, enforcing the Monroe Doctrine against Oogo, and most other issues; so there need be no conflict among Republicans, conservatives, right-leaning Independents, truly moderate Democrats, and even those few libertarians (such as myself) who understand that rights may be inalienable (you can't give them away), but they are surely suppressible; and that, for any government to defend liberty, it must first be able to defend itself.

I believe there is something greater than ourselves, and this "something" gives me hope that we will first engage, and then defeat the enemies of liberty, as we have in the past.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 12, 2011, at the time of 2:44 PM

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