Why Middle Eastern Nations need to wipe out Islamic Extremism.

Can you name any counter insurgency war in history that has ever involved quick victory?

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Except our current rules are winning. ISIS has been suffering defeat after defeat for the last year and half.

 

Where are you getting this idea they can annihilate ISIS easily?

When has an insurgency ever been defeated easily or quickly?

 

take a look at Turkey's and Saudi Arabia's military.... two of the biggest militaries in the world.

of course they could defeat ISIS easily if they wanted to. By easily i mean it would be quick but it doesn't mean it will cost $$ and lives...

 

Bull(*)(*)(*)(*). No insurgency in history has ever been defeated quickly or easily.

 

Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia, 1966-1967.

Good question! Insurgencies quickly supressed are soon forgotten and so difficult to name. This one is remembered because it occasioned the death of on of Mr. Obama's heros.

 

Then Liberals are just going to have to swallow their pride and ban the Middle East from the Western World. Because as you openly bemoan: The Middle East will NOT positively reform any time soon. Even if we assume, that magically the present-day leaders of the ME would get rid of ISIS, their next move is to become ISIS and to continue their tyrannical reign(which started the ill-fated Arab Spring to begin with.)

Apart from Obama's folly, the Arab Spring showed us that reformation of the Middle East is still another eon away, at best. But reformation is possible with colonization and in fact is the last time the Arab World knew peace(the Ottoman Empire.)

An Ottoman restoration is not possible, because the present day theocracies are ISIS in nature(Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular.). It would just become a modern day "caliphate", and THEN you'd get your big war against the West. The biggest fear for Washington(and probably why they kept the ME divided for as long as they have) was a revolutionary religious state that would have the money and power(as well as possibly nuclear material in the modern day.).

We're damned if we do, damned if we don't in the Middle East. Our keeping them divided opened up the terrorists, their uniting would invite a global war against the West, which would lead to a MILLION times fold of catastrophic damage. In learning of this, Washington chose the "best" of horrible decisions.

However, these decisions are no longer the decisions we can take. We can no longer afford to divide the ME. And we can't play possum with other theocracies.
We only have two practical decisions to us: Keep the ME out of Western Civilization, or Colonize the ME and Westernize it.

Those are our only two options. What we've been doing is playing that game where you try to hit the head that pops up and then it ducks at the last second. I want to end it, even if it means I'm heartless. Being heartless is the most important criteria of a commander in chief.

 

The Turks and Saudis are knee deep in funding Muslim extremism , I don't see why they would wipe out the monsters they helped create. Their concern is Iran, not what their proxies are doing.

 

You should probably study some history of the ME and North Africa with particular attention to Iran, Iraq, Libya and Egypt..

 

Ah yes, the mighty "Army" of Che that numbered less than 75 men...

Less than 100 fighters does not an insurgency make.

 

Your offering colonialism as a solution to problems that colonialism is also largely responsible for. Now, I do NOT condone terror or any other act of killing or harming innocent people. But what we should understand is the following:

Before colonialism, the Arab/Muslim world had institutions, it had an academic culture, a literary culture, ideas as to how governments should be structured, with a single sweep that was all destroyed and dismantled. Today, there are people like Ibn Sina and Chaung Tzu, but you will find that many Arabs would rather read Derrida or Sartre. Today, Persian and Arabic are no longer languages of discourse, they have been gobbled up by English. They have their own forms of dress but they've stopped wearing them. You'll see men in Kabul wearing trousers, but can you point to me where exactly in ''the west'' men are wearing Fez caps or shalwars? The fact is we live in a world where Europe and America have total hegemonic influence, from economy to culture. Countries like Egypt or Pakistan or Iran are all consuming countries, they consume Western made cheap goods, they consume Hollywood films and American YouTube videos. But what do they produce? Nothing. They go and copy whatever ''the West'' do, more than you think, the Arab/Muslim individual in Saudi, or Pakistan, or Libya, or Egypt, have accepted Western ideas and culture, a lot.

If you look at the post-colonial states, they were built from the start to fail. These useless republican nation states were nothing but cheap imitations of European states, they had no chance of blossoming, they couldn't thrive. The Arab/Muslim world should not have been forced to follow what 'Western' thinkers codified. Secular liberal democracy was not a choice made by the Arab/Muslim world, it was forced on them in the post-colonial republican nation states. The Arab/Muslim world must instead build its own political systems in its own socio-cultural frameworks, as the Ottomans and those before them did. The Arab/Muslim world should stop trying to get into the master's house, it should rebuild its own house.

 

Perhaps I'll do what Margot said and read Arabic history, though I'm well aware of at least the major events from 1949 onward. As well as generally, the fall of Ottoman as previously mentioned. However, allow me to counter some of the statements you made here since I find them largely political(in the context of the Arabic World.) If Western Government failed in the Middle East, it's because as Middle Easterners, you did not want that Republican form of government in the first place.

In other words, you gave it no chance to succeed and every chance to self-sabotage it. So to blame Westerners for not strongly upholding your own government, is well convenient at best. But, the choice lies as it always does with you, the Arabic Peoples. You could have created a "Republican Form of Arabic Government" if you had so chosen, but the Middle East did not take those steps.

If the Arabs don't take that step, and the step of excluding the terrorists from their midst, the struggle between us will continue. As both of us see in the other, a form of living that cannot be contemplated. We can't stand to see human rights violated, and you can't stand to see the interpretation of your religious faith not followed.

We acknowledge your religious faith, but we ask you to acknowledge higher order, that being humanism. It doesn't have to be immediate, it can be phased in. But women must go to school, they must grow in the Islamic economy and they must have their own self-dependence. You don't have to socially accept gays, but there's no reason to prohibit their romance, or to execute them for it.

The US made its advances throughout the 60's-70's. Likewise, if the Arabic World makes the right decisions, by 2030, the Arabic World might be saved. Once more aspire to the greatness of the Egyptian Pyramids! To a time where Arabia, where Persia was at the height of its glory!

 

By the end of the Ottoman Empire much of the ME was illiterate, apolitical, sleepy and stagnant.. In 1950 Saudi Arabia had few telephones, roads, cars etc.. In 1940 they had no concept of a work week or a week-end or getting paid for a day's work.

Nearly every face had smallpox scars.. 98% of children under two had malaria.. I could go on.. I remember.

They are no longer illiterate.. 67% of university students are women... They invest heavily in healthcare, education, desalination, historic preservation etc..

And they will come into modernity in their own time, on their own terms in sync with their culture are traditions.

 

It is indeed vitally important for Muslim nations to take the lead in eliminating this. We become known for what we do- and if we are associated with a group, we become associated with the reputation that the group acquires. This applies in lots of situations; for example American travelers being treated a particular way because of the way the people of another country perceive America. It applies to all of us- and that include peaceful Muslims being mistreated because the reputation of Islam has become synonymous with hate and violence. You simply must clean your own house, or you will be perceived as endorsing it as it is. Perhaps not PC acceptable- but it is reality, and that will determine end results.

Nobody has more to lose than the Islamic world. It is in their best interests to become respectable in the world's perspective. However, so long as extremism is supported by Islamic leadership, that will be impossible. They could resolve this fatal flaw of hate and violence by choice, if they so wished. If it is left to the world to resolve it, it can only be done with greater violence. The ball is truly on the Islamic side of the court, but Islamic leadership clearly doesn't understand that yet, and it appears unlikely that it ever will. Those who object to extremism place themselves at high risk, because the sympathy for it is both widespread among both the people and leadership.

 

How many do you require? Castro started with 135 and was reduced to 75 after the first battle. If more than 100 are required, then Castro's insurgency was defeated after one battle.

 

And Castro went on to recruit how many more? He was also part of a larger communist insurgency that included more than just his group.

 

Funny you should say. Of course they did not want a form of government that was forced upon them.

No. We did give it a chance to succeed, it simply failed for us. Not everything that works in 'the west' will work in the Arab world. As I said, these were cheap imitations of European states, built from the start to fail. I will also mention that it was the natural course of things for these systems to be stopped. How can you expect a people to uphold a form of government that was forced upon them? I will also mention something else: even when our democratic systems were working, they were being replaced by foreign powers. See the democratic coup in Iran, 1953, where, when the Prime Minister, Mossadec, attempted to nationalise the British oil company, was removed and replaced with a dictator.

They can and must take the steps to defeat terror in all its forms. I don't see, however, why you would ask the Arab nations to follow a 'Western' system of governance. I'm not saying the current governments of the Middle-East are all great, far from it, but we should still be trying to build our own future, our own political systems out of our own socio-cultural frameworks.

Women can absolutely have rights, I am not opposing women's rights. In terms of 'socially accepting gays' you must remember that the term 'homosexual' is a Western social concept. In most parts of the world, sexual identity isn't really recognised. I don't approve of the execution of gays at all. In terms of prohibiting their romance, they probably shouldn't be romantic in public, but I've yet to fully formulate an opinion.

That won't happen as long as this slave mentality to Western culture/ideas remains. Those ancient empires built their own political systems, produced their own academic ideas and norms, this is why they succeeded. At the moment, we just swallow whatever 'western' people do. We have abandoned our own forms of clothing, abandoned our academics of old, abandoned our languages, too. As I said, its time to stop trying to get into the master's house, and time to try building our own house.

 

Che was just stopped before he could recruit more, hence his insurgency was short lived, which answers your original question. And he too was part of a larger insurgency.

If being hard to defeat is part of your definition of insurgency, then it is impossible to have an intelligent discussion. It happens not to be part of my definition.

 

Che's "insurgency" (read: "tiny group of bandits") were never popular and never had much support from the population.

No real insurgency with thousands of members has ever been defeated quickly or easily. The FARC has had considerably less fighters than ISIS at any given time and they still aren't defeated despite the actions of Colombia and the US 60 years later.

 

The Middle Eastern Nations absolutely need to do more than they are doing and I am certain they will do more once Assad is gone...which I figure will happen this year.

AA