The Mash Banger gets another one!

[DeistPaladin]

I am already dead-stop against them, you, or any religious fruitcake seizing the levers of power, and I will defend that position at the point of a gun if need be (with apologies to Minimalist).

Thank you. Both religions are dangerous. It's just that Christianity has been muzzled and caged.

You just reminded me that recently I read a self-described atheist (or at least claimed to be) post that Europe should bring back Christianity as a bulwark against Muslim fanaticism.

I replied this sounded to me like taking up snorting cocaine in order to avoid getting hooked on heroin.

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If Christian's are considered sheep, then by that biblical analogy, by default everyone else becomes a goat.

What's important is that we respond methodically so that we can win that war.

OBL goaded us with his attack on 9/11 and it worked better than he could have planned. Not only did we stay in the quagmire of Afghanistan but we invaded Iraq and toppled HIS enemy, Saddam. The whole reason why ISIL exists at all is because we stupidly destabilized the region and gave them some fantastic propaganda, bringing more to their cause.

Step 1: Identify Your Target Clearly
We need to get clear who our enemy is and attack only them, not other governments that had nothing to do with them. We missed that point under the last administration. Attacking Saddam because of 9/11 would have been like attacking the Soviet Union because of Pearl Harbor. Both Saddam and Stalin were bad men and certainly not our friends but they were our enemy's enemy so Saddam should have been at best a secondary target.

Step 2: Isolate Your Enemy; Gather Allies
The next step is to isolate your enemy and rally as many allies to your cause as you can. Fortunately for us, this should be fairly easy, since ISIL is so brutal that they make enemies wherever they go. Still, Al Qaida did the same and yet we managed to squander that edge. Let's not make the same mistake. We're not at war with Islam. We're not at war with Sunni Islam. We're not going to set up a puppet regime so we can take their oil.

Step 3: Take Them All The Way Out!
War is a terrible last resort when all other options have failed but when it is "go time", as I believe it is now, take them all the way out. Go for the jugular and don't stop until they are gone or have surrendered. We missed that point as well when we dropped a few bombs, toppled the Taliban and called it a day. We had a chance to capture OBL and crush Al Qaida. W Bush squandered that opportunity, announcing on television that he didn't care. We have paid a terrible price for his negligence.

We missed all three steps in how to win a war with the last administration. Let's hope cooler heads prevail this time. I agree we do need to destroy ISIL but the "Hulk SMASH!!!" approach to war that the GOP is fond of will give them exactly what they want.