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Iraq
Air strikes in Iraq: the battle of ideas is what really matters
2014-09-29
It was impossible to tolerate the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant any longer
Once you're in a fist fight the "battle of ideas" is over and the outcome depends on who's got the better left hook.
Posted by:Fred

#13  Would have been better for all of us if we had let the Japanese strangle Mao in his infancy.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2014-09-29 15:14  

#12  Better than the Nazi stuff would be the complete conversion of Japan from its budo cultur
Posted by: OldSpook   2014-09-29 14:00  

#11   you have to ensure their children don't have similar ideas.

Or that they don't get to have children.
Posted by: Glenmore   2014-09-29 13:51  

#10  Yep. War of ideas. More precisely: Muzzies have to grasp the idea that---unless they change their behavior---the rest of the world will, eventually, go medieval on them.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2014-09-29 13:35  

#9  "Romans would get to experience the effect later themselves." There seem to be many descendants of those Romans around, and their imperial culture is still affecting us. Can't say that for the Carthaginians. Modern China is a direct descendant of old Chinese empires, having been knocked down repeatedly, and arisen repeatedly. My first course in Chinese included a US-born Hmong girl (parents came here in the 1970's) and an Indonesian student (overseas Chinese).
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-09-29 13:13  

#8  In fact it would have been better for Cathago Hannibal had lost thi war as the immense losses at Cannae filled Romae with an implacable resloution and a desire of revenge who could not be fiulfilled with any treaty as hasrh it could be. Only the destruction of Carthago could fullfill this desire

Same thing about Pearl Harbor. For Japan, at least for the kind of Japan Yamamaoto and Nagumo were fighting for, it woud have been better that the entire air fleet lauched on December 7, had become lost, run out of fuel and crashed at sea.
Posted by: JFM   2014-09-29 12:38  

#7  Then touched on Hannibal's victory at Cannae, a total disaster for Rome but did not defeat Rome as they were unwilling to even consider a political solution.

Except, today there are no Carthaginians. Something about a final solution to the conflict.* What we know about Carthage and Hannibal is what the victors wrote.

*Romans would get to experience the effect later themselves. Real history tells us about conflicts of civilizations (not to be found in the fluff stuff put forth as studies history in the education establishment dogma).
Posted by: Procopius2k    2014-09-29 11:30  

#6  What we aimed at, was at destroying both the very idea of nazism.

Which was much easier to do, as our gov't had fortunately, not been infested by the Nazis. Our challenge today appears to be much greater.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-09-29 10:33  

#5  First, you have to deal with the guys who have the bad ideas.

But second you have to ensure their children don't have similar ideas. The goal of the Nurnberg trials wasn't merley to punish croiminals (if you thionk about it most sentences were laughably low respective to the crimes. What we aimed at, was at destroying both the very idea of nazism. With the same goal we forced Germans to visit concentration camps. We will have no peace until Islam becomes as dead a religion as the cult of Zeus.
Posted by: JFM   2014-09-29 10:29  

#4  #1 There is Western military action, but the West is fighting some islamofascists at the behest of other islamofascists.

#2 First, you have to deal with the guys who have the bad ideas.

#3 "When someone with a baseball bat walks into the restaurant you are eating at, and starts hitting people, they have already defined the context of your relationship."

These quotes strike me as salient and relevant quotes in the battle of ideas.
Posted by: JohnQC   2014-09-29 10:13  

#3  To paraphrase a one-liner I heard:

"When someone with a baseball bat walks into the restaurant you are eating at, and starts hitting people, they have already defined the context of your relationship."

Dude and I were talking last night during the game. I brought up the idea that had the Gauls had air power...loosely define as superior artillary...they would have bombed Roman roads and aquaducts, they would have slowed or even prevented Caesar from his conquest, but would not have dissolved Rome. Then touched on Hannibal's victory at Cannae, a total disaster for Rome but did not defeat Rome as they were unwilling to even consider a political solution.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2014-09-29 09:49  

#2  First, you have to deal with the guys who have the bad ideas.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey   2014-09-29 08:14  

#1  Once one side has accepted finlandization the 'Battle of Ideas' is over because the other side won.

There is Western military action, but the West is fighting some islamofascists at the behest of other islamofascists.

Islamofascism is not engaged at all, neither intellectually or physically. Doing so would hurt the enemies' peace partners' feelings and that's verboten.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660   2014-09-29 02:45  

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