800 Years

[pederito1]

One might be forgiven for thinking that in 800 odd years the West would have learned that you cannot destroy Islam by military action. But then Cameron is no Lionheart with his puppet master from overseas holding the strings. Yuk.

[Workingman]

I think this might be a nod to the news that RAF Tornados have started bombing missions in Iraq. The only boots on the ground are going to be those of the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi army.... unless Iran joins in. So these air strikes will be surgical in nature. Thankfully we are not going to see the blanket bombing of Dresden or Hanoi being repeated. We are also not going see Hiroshima or Nagasaki again. Modern warfare means that targets will be acquired from high level surveillance aircraft or satellite and the weapons will be stand-off fire and forget. No low-level bombing runs this time.

Just a word about Moslems. I lived and worked among them for a number of years, and although their culture is mightily different from ours at one level most of them want to go from day to day, just like us. However, their religion, Islam, permeates every facet of their existence. It tells them what to do, when to do it, how to behave and what to think. It binds them and blinds them in equal measure. It can be a force for good, but far too often in modern times it has been hijacked by darker forces. These radicals, for want of a better word, can steer Islam's followers in the direction they choose due to the total adherence to Islam of the Moslems themselves. It is a vicious circle.

It is ironic that in Christianity an attempt to rid itself of heretics and heresy, the Spanish Inquisition, led to revolt and a more liberal interpretation of the Bible. It is beyond time for Islam to do the same.

[Suff]

Well he didn't say he would destroy Islam, he said he'd destroy the radical threat that IS(add you last two letters), were to the world. Now that's a totally different goal and other areas of Islam, running scared, are joining in.

Remember the original Islamic "state" as it were, ran right over to Spain. I notice IS didn't talk about reinstating their "Caliphate" all the way to India.

And, as Ghengis Khan proved, you can stop Islam and you can control it. However I don't believe that destroying cities to the last woman, child and animal is quite so socially acceptable today. Effective as it might have been with barbarians who insist in living in the 7th century.

As far as I can see, this is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. When "serious abuse" consists of touching someone inappropriately; how do we deal with people who believe that vicious murder is an acceptable weapon of the state?

As far as I can see, we can only lose. At least in the first instance. However I can guarantee that our squeamishness over dead civilians will vanish if we find a ravening horde on our border willing to sacrifice themselves to see the death of our society. Then the old Army maxim of "Do unto Others as they would do unto You; only do it first" will come into play.

[Kaz]

It frightens the life out of me, I'm glad I shan't be around in a couple of hundred years time to see either China or Islam take over - which I think they might. What a horrible world it would be..............

[pederito1]

I. too, WM, have lived in and been a consultant in a Muslim country for several years with a mix of Islam and a sprinkling of Christians, I was thinking more of the Americans apparent propensity for dropping bombs on people and firing off missiles oblivious that they might be committing a terrorist atrocity in attempting to solve the worlds problems by so doing. Yemen for example or even Khartoum when Clinton was trying to take the heat off Monica. Being amongst them I did become aware of how easy it is for a militant tendency to develop and only tough regimes like Saddam`s, Assad`s, Mubarak`s or Gaddafi`s could keep things in check. Certainly Western puppet regimes cannot and how much those and the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan have led to ISIS I would not like to speculate.

[Suff]

What we have to remember is that they really do have a true "peasant class" with people who live their whole lives in grinding poverty and hard work then, when they are old, are cast on the rubbish heap unless they have family to support them.

In this pool it is lucrative fishing for the radical who wants to blame someone for this lot.

Only strong and, sometimes, quite violent regimes can control them. Note that they are as vicious to the population at large as they are to us. Their people live in abject fear unless they are one of the "faithful".