How can they lure us into war when we're pretty much already at war with them? After all, haven't we been fighting a War on Terror for too many years to count? That automatically puts us at war with ISIS; they've just given us more targets to aim our toys at.

Regarding our tactics against ISIS I have been ashamed to be thinking that a few dozen neutron bombs might be a good solution. Ashamed because I'm a libertarian and that is not a libertarian response, nor probably an objectivist one Libertarians make a big deal out of sticking by their principles so it bothered me that I really just want to wipe them all out.

I've been thinking, then, that a better solution, and a very easy one militarily, would be to destroy the power grid that supplies the areas controlled by ISIS. There would be no, or minimal, direct loss of human life and it would make it damned inconvenient for them to leverage the internet for publicity.

That was probably OT, sorry.

Religion relies on belief in a spiritual existence. Maybe humans should wait until they are in such an existence before exercising the activities of religion.

Lots of the more intolerant, extremist Islamic texts aren't in the Quran, but in the Hadiths. Since Muhammad was himself illiterate, the Quran was transcribed from interviews of his followers, or their descendants, attempting to recount what he said, much like how the Christian New Testament was assembled. The Hadiths were added later, and even among Muslim scholars there is some debate whether these writings bear any connection to the Prophet, or were simply added to help convert Arab tribesmen by incorporating existing tradition and practices into Islam.

There are Muslims who speak out against the extremists, but you can thank the media for not giving them the light of day. Remember the watchword of the media: "If it bleeds, it leads!" Panic, hysteria, and violence draw more of an audience than calm and civilized action. News people are self-serving and amoral, so a charity bake sale doesn't stand a chance against a murder story.

1) Agreed. We must give them an alternative but also a safe way to act on it.

2) Agreed, again. This is not a war against a nation-state. We must discard the Geneva Convention.

3) Actually, one of the main reasons the Christians went into the Holy Land in the first place was in recognition of the real threat posed to all of Europe by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The reason they invaded the Holy Land is to keep the war away from Europe (sound familiar?), and in that regard they were entirely successful. They did manage to hold the Holy Land for several centuries before being driven back out, but in that time they pretty much halted the advances of the Muslims until they got bored and declared war on each other instead. I would also point out that the Spanish civil war was also largely a Christian v Muslim war and the Christians were successful there in beating back the Muslims.
After all is said and done, however, you are right in that Christianity isn't going to be militarily successful against Islam. It's also why I believe that the only really successful attack is one based on changing their philosophy and mindset.

4) Agreed. You have one group of narcissists who think that everyone else should just accept their own superiority trying to talk to another group of zealots who believe in their OWN superiority. The difference is that one side is more than willing to use their guns to assert their superiority, while the other just wants to assert their hot air.

There is no way that I think anyone would adopt the approach I outlined but my points are:

1) It is a flaw in their ideology that will persist as long as the mainstream allows it to stand and that makes all culpable.
2) Conventional approaches used when at war with the governments of other countries is futile. There are no countries or governments involved just a bunch of cockroaches rampaging and killing that believe dying in this activity is the ultimate good and will be rewarded in heaven.
3) Christians have never had good results in their Crusades against Islam because Christians limit their savagery.
4) Our idiot leaders think they can do business and negotiate treaties, based on reason, with people that at their best are defying their God by not slitting their throats.

The numbers I've seen from the CIA place extremists at 15-20% out of a 1.2 billion population worldwide. That's 200 to 250 million psychos willing to go murder people for religion. That's a lot of people.

I don't disagree that there are adherents of Islam who don't agree with the extremists, the problem is that until they speak up, they are irrelevant. Those who don't vote get voted for by those who do.

As for the acts of America, I completely agree that we should not tolerate aggression by these zealots. The problem I see is with the religion itself - not just the extremists. When it is written in their canon that it is okay to beat one's wife, that it is okay to deceive one not of Islam, that it is okay to kill someone who abandons the Islamic faith, that it is okay to rape a woman who was the victim of rape, and much more, I can not in any way condone the continued existence of such a philosophy or religion. If they want to alter their faith to do away with such things, we can talk. Until then, however, these are people based on a religion with principles I find utterly repugnant.

There are Muslims who recognize that not everything in the Quran should be taken literally, just as Christians and Jews accept that God doesn't now call for the destruction of non-believers, as recorded in the Old Testament. Polls appear to put this number at about 35% of the Ummah, compared to roughly 10% extremists, so there is some hope for the faith.

Will the excesses of the jihadists result in a Muslim Reformation, or will it further radicalize the faith and result in a worldwide bloodbath? We can only hope for the former, and encourage those within Islam who call for it when the opportunity presents itself. In the meantime, we should show that criminal, abhorrent acts against America and its friends must be dealt with swiftly and finally.

While its an interesting idea, if you want to weight the targets, either go for their money or go for their ideology. A dirty bomb on Mecca or Medina would put an awfully big crimp on one of the five pillars of Islam...

Personally, I don't think the military strategy works except on the hard-cases, and for that you'd have to take out the mullahs. What you need is a change of philosophy: you need to give them a reason to abandon their mentality of hate and choose a different path.

Korea was never declared a war. It was a Police Action.

Having personally visited Cyprus and toured the Green Line there with the UN commander, it is a myth that international peace keeping works. Korea is yet another example. All that has happened in those two circumstances is to foster and prolong the hatred. Most now don't even remember the time before the separation, they just teach their children to hate the other side. It's this same pointless mentality that brings us Israel v Palestine.

What works is getting the two sides to reconcile their differences and declare peace - like East/West Germany and more recently Vietnam.

Absolutely. One has to clearly define the enemy first. Then one has to toss the stupid Geneva Convention out the friggin' window. Let's not hamstring ourselves with outmoded military doctrine when the other side isn't concerned about it.

One can argue that Korea was still pretty cut/dried, but the nation as a whole was fatigued from war and wanted it over, which was why they signed the armistice.

The only problem is that you can't destroy a philosophy/religion militarily - especially when it owns about 1/5th of the world's population. You have to convince them to choose a different way of life.

Of course with Islam, this gets very complicated in that their own ideology proclaims the "right" to execute dissenters, which is probably why we don't hear any of those so-called "moderates" in the media calling for restraint on the "religion of peace".

I agree. The u.s. has not waged a war it intended to win since WWII.

Very well said DD. Once the decision is made to use military force the politicians need to step back and let the military do what they do. I would prefer we stay out of the war with ISIS. They appear to be surrounded by others that hate them and I think they are better equipped to handle the situation. Hope school is going well.

This topic is particularly pertinent to my own life because I expect to be in the armed forces in the next few years. I am willing to do anything to protect my freedom and the freedom of my loved ones, but I am quite uncomfortable with the idea of being sent to another long war that the politicians and the media will force this country to lose. I think we should be involved in this conflict because the consequences of multiple Islamic states under ISIS would be catastrophic to the United States. However, we should, as many others have said, go in with full force and full intentions of winning the war. I do not believe any group of politicians is seriously going to enact total war in the present day, but hopes arise nonetheless.

"There would be no game of chess if the pawns refused to play."

It's when politicians run wars that gets us in trouble. We should not go to any war that we aren't willing to fight. If we go we should do what soldiers are trained to do, kill the enemy. After the military gets there, let them run it, period. And as for John Kerry (from in the article), I personally wouldn't believe anything he says about any war, based on his record of course. He might as well borrow a paint brush from Obama and start painting red lines too.

Another reason for not following Obama is you never know if he means it, and when he will say or do nothing, leaving is allies all alone and feeling betrayed.

Please explain your characterization of Krauthammer.

In lieu of nuclear annihilation (which makes a dirty mess of the natural resources that we need) I suggest using the weapon used on 9/11 instead, which was either a weapon of mass destruction, or a weapon of utter stupidity depending on which explanation you think is a "conspiracy theory."

There is the danger that the idiots that run the US may decide that anyone they define as "domestic terrorists" deserve like treatment.

We don't have what it takes to control this situation. Guys like Sadam and Bashir do, because these cultures are not ready for democracy. Using our vastly superior military as a constrained police force is beyond foolish.

I agree with CoolDigger. The states there need to police their own people. If we do go over there are a military, we need to make it clear that doing otherwise will not be tolerated, perhaps by instituting another territory, as the example.

+1 for truth.