How Long Are You /willing To Be At War?

"they" are terrorists, not Iraqi's.

I don't know McG...at some point I'd have a hard time keeping everybody seperate...sub-humans, humans, neandrathals, superhumans. It seems to me that this seperation of levels of humanity can cause a veil to be dropped on the uniqueness of humanity.

Terrorism is unconventional warfare -- nothing more. The people we are fighting in Iraq are mostly Iraqi's. Some are 'terrorists' in the sense that they might have belonged to terrorist groups before they went to Iraq. All are fighting us because we invaded Iraq. In every case in history I can think of where a country is invaded the factions within that country unite to fight the invader. There's nothing new about this. Referring to them as subhuman is just the way to assuage our guilt for destroying a country and killing enough people that we don't want to count them.

P, I don't think you were over the top. It sticks in my craw too.

Given the enormous range of brutal and terrible behaviour, amply and frequently demonstrated by people everywhere, over the millenia, it always sadly amuses me to see these attempts to deny some of them their humanity.

Of course, we tend to reserve our most enthusiastic attempts to deny the reality of humanity to those whose awful acts happen to be committed by those we have determined to be on "the other side".

kill 'em all let God sort 'em out, right? :wink:

ceptin' for us o' course....

You guys are saying it better...you know what I mean. It is an important subject for me and it certainly is for the US Armed Forces who are training soldiers to kill while not de-humanizing their actions.

au contraire my friend...de humanizing their actions is exactly the idea.....and one must only look as far as this thread to see how well it's working.....the enemy is not human...merely a target, a statisitic, a barrier towards the goal.....in order to be an efficient killing machine, you must not view your enemy as human and you must be disconnected from any feelings towards that person.....that is the idea of miltary training......in the civilian world this trait, coveted and sought out in the soldier, is called sociopathic behavior and considered a mental illness.

Of course Bear , the problem revealed in the Vietnam War is: once you program soldiers that way how do you deprogram them when the rotate home?

answer: Take the usual approach...f*#k 'em...they've served their purpose.....if they act up....lock 'em up......keep a few around for photo ops o' course...

Black Jack Pershing found a way to stop the terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists in the Phillipines just before WWI.

He captured 50 terrorists and had them tied to posts for execution then brought in 2 pigs, slaughtered them, and had his soldiers dip their bullets in the pigs' blood.

They then shot and killed 49 of the terrorists, dumped the bodies in a mass grave and threw the pigs, blood, and guts in on top of them. They then let the 50th one go.

And for the next 42 years there was not a single Muslim extremist attack in the world.

Where can we find another Black Jack Pershing?

Remember, terrorists have no sympathy for you. Only desires of your death. If you choose to throw flowers at your enemy, so be it.

OK, you get the cynics crown. But this is the kind of stuff I have problems with when we demonize an enemy. Satt and John-Bush are dealing with the results from 65 years ago: The invasion of China by Japan. The Japanese were masters of dehumanizing their conquered enemies. Then the Chinese under Mao. UN forces under MacArthur...it never stops.

I suspect it will be hard...there are so many here and around that have a hard on for that sort of action but not if they have to dirty their hands by doing it personally......conversely those willng to do it, probably find it distasteful to do......that's the difference between men of action and posturing arm chair quarterbacks......me, I don't have the balls for it and that's why I don't run around posing and posturing about it......

Larry, not doubting the veracity of your post because I consider you a peer...but I'm gonna have to research that nugget, especially the no attacks for 42 years part.

I agree, posing and posturing by our military is not what we need to win the war on terror.

Innovative action, such as Pershing effectively used, is what is needed. Armchair quarterbacks, such as you and I, can then express our value judgment of the action.

I received it in an email chronicling Pershings career. Could be an Urban Legend. Check it out and let us know.

Obviously you admire this action....there's no more to be said really.

This is so interesting I had to post a lengthy section


Claim: General John J. Pershing effectively discouraged Muslim terrorists in the Philippines by killing them and burying their bodies with pigs.
Status: Undetermined.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]


HOW TO STOP ISLAMIC TERRORISTS . . . it worked once in our History . . .
Once in US history an episode of Islamic terrorism was very quickly stopped. It happened in the Philippines about 1911, when Gen. John J. Pershing was in command of the garrison. There had been numerous Islamic terrorist attacks, so "Black Jack" told his boys to catch the perps and teach them a lesson.

Forced to dig their own graves, the terrorists were all tied to posts, execution style. The US soldiers then brought in pigs and slaughtered them, rubbing their bullets in the blood and fat. Thus, the terrorists were terrorized; they saw that they would be contaminated with hogs' blood. This would mean that they could not enter Heaven, even if they died as terrorist martyrs.

All but one was shot, their bodies dumped into the grave, and the hog guts dumped atop the bodies. The lone survivor was allowed to escape back to the terrorist camp and tell his brethren what happened to the others. This brought a stop to terrorism in the Philippines for the next 50 years.

Pointing a gun into the face of Islamic terrorists won't make them flinch. They welcome the chance to die for Allah. Like Gen. Pershing, we must show them that they won't get to Muslim heaven (which they believe has an endless supply of virgins) but instead will die with the hated pigs of the devil.



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Subject: How to end the war quickly if you have absolutely no respect for pigs!

An Israeli friend recently informed me that the UK fought the Islamic terrorist attacks by burying the criminals with a pig. Apparently the Islamic belief is that if ones' body is buried with a pig (because they are considered unclean) their soul will go to hell. I did a little research into this subject matter and found it to be true. This got me thinking.

If we put a baby pig on every airline flight then all suicide terrorists would abort their missions as they would not want their souls to go to hell. Additionally, if we drop shipped, oh say, 100,000 pigs into Afghanistan I think our recon and assault efforts may be more successful. Apparently Muslims dislike the very sight of pigs A LOT!

They are also adamantly opposed to alcohol, thus we spike their water supply with a few thousand gallons of moonshine, get them drunk and turn the pigs loose. The war would be over in a weekend.




Origins: The
desire for simplistic solutions to complex problems has spawned several widely-circulated messages of late which seek to transform a fight against terrorism to the easily-manageable level of a horror film or a comic strip. Today's popular notion is the concept that a pig is to a Muslim as a crucifix is to a vampire ?- simply arm yourself with a porker, and you can use it to render even the most fanatical terrorist helpless, sending him cowering in fear lest he come into contact with anything porcine.

Such notions reduce an extremely widespread and diverse religion ?- and the people who follow it ?- to a monolithic entity with a single set of beliefs and rules to which everyone adheres. Islam has a variety of sects and sub-sects just as Christianity has a multiplicity of denominations; assuming that all "Muslims" believe and behave identically is like assuming that all Catholics and Baptists believe and behave identically because both of the latter groups are "Christians." In one sense, messages such as the ones quoted above could be considered as silly as Muslims' proclaiming that a good way to throw the USA into disarray would be to "bomb" America with juicy steaks on Fridays, because "Americans are Christians," and "everyone knows Christians who eat meat on Fridays go to Hell." Never mind that not all Americans are Christians, that not all Christians are Catholics, that not all Catholics believe in exactly the same things, that not all Catholics are equally religious or faithful, and that even the "rules" of Catholicism have changed over time.

Also implicit in this type of reasoning is the notion that "terrorist," "Muslim terrorist," "fanatical Muslim" and "devout Muslim" are all synonymous. They aren't ?- just as not all Muslims are terrorists, not all terrorists are Muslims; one need not be devout to be fanatical, and not all religious fanatics are devout. Religion can be just as much about politics and power as it is about faith, and counter-religious behavior is often justified or sanctioned in the service of a "greater cause." The terrorists who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 were reportedly seen partaking of alcohol and engaging the services of naked lap dancers, activities which should have been anathema to true Muslims. Perhaps they were Muslims in name only, maybe they weren't all that devout, or possibly they rationalized that Allah would overlook their transgressions with booze and women since they were about to die in the service of Islam. Whatever the case, concerns about the afterlife probably wouldn't have dissuaded the hijackers from their plans to crash Flight 11 into the World Trade Center had a few pigs turned up on board the plane. If Allah was a concern, well, the hijackers could choose to believe that Allah would understand and make allowances for true warriors of the faith ?- after all, the Koran teaches against suicide in the first place.

Nevertheless, the idea of subduing militant Muslims by threatening to bury them with pigs has held currency for many years. Just a few weeks before the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, Deputy Israeli police minister Gideon Esra suggested in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot that Palestinian suicide bombers be buried in pig skin or blood. In the 1939 film The Real Glory, Gary Cooper portrays Dr. Bill Canavan, an American Army doctor in 1906 Manila who "tries to protect the native population from ruthless invaders" (i.e., "Muslim fanatics"). At one point in the film, the Dr. Canavan character drapes a captured Muslim in a pigskin and proclaims that henceforth that all slain Muslim rebels will be buried in pig skins, thereby discouraging their "savagery" by threatening to prevent their entry into paradise. And, of course, the above-cited anecdote about General Pershing's handling of terrorists in the Philippines has been circulating widely ever since September and has been making the rounds even at the top levels of government in the USA:

[quote="Bi-Polar Bear"
Obviously you admire this action....there's no more to be said really.[/quote]

I admire innovative and effective actions that save the lives of my fellow countrymen, albeit at the expense of the lives of our enemies, don't you,?

I'm not discounting it Larry, but it seems you popped into the thread and offered up an example of what I was decrying...I would say it was perfect timing.