Not disaster for us. Americans are funny that way. Ask the Japanese.

That way lies disaster, for all sides.

Well, I guess it's "disaster" for us in the sense that it represents our least favored outcome, but that's nothing like the disaster it would mean for Arab and Muslim societies.

Unfortunately, for us to take that action would require great loss on our part, most likely a city, or many, many killed by a bio attack. In which case it really is a disaster.

Scott, our least favored outcome is losing due to not fighting back. The chances of that are slim and none.

The root cause here is the perverted Arab version of Islam. Wahabbism is merely the most extreme form of Arabic Islam, and the most extreme form of Wahabbism (which has many different sects, generally rooted in tribes within Saudi Arabia)has regretably spread to non-Arab Islamic countries courtesy of Saudi oil money. THAT is the real cause of the current culture of terrorism. The latter is not merely the Saudis exporting their secret civil war - Arab culture in general was already headed there for reasons explained by Bernard Lewis, David Pryce-Jones, etc. But its spread outside Arab culture is due to Saudi funding.

The Arabs interpreted Islam in light of their very tribal culture, just as the Irish interpreted Catholicism in light of Irish culture. Note the extreme differerences between the quite sensual Italian version of Catholicism with the "sex is evil" Irish version. Protestant Christians have their own extremists, such as Southern Baptists, many of the quite different, pastor-dominated, churches of the Assemblies of God, etc., but those tend not to be associated with particular geographic areas.

IMO the only non-Arab Muslim country which might be subject to genocide is Pakistan, and that due more to its possession of WMD making it necessary for America to use WMD to abate the threat there than to Islamic extremism being really rooted in Pakistan. The latter is a long-term problem. The former is a short-term one which IMO is more likely to cause a catastrophic population loss aka genocide, and thereby abate the long-term threat too.

Pakistan is just too over-populated and impoverished for most of its population to survive once its transportation infrastructure (i.e., port unloading capacity and food distribution system) is subjected to nuclear attack.

Pakistan is not a long-term threat once Arab oil income is gone. But its possession of WMD makes it a short-term threat. Pakistan's own nukes are the deadliest threat to the survival of its people. Pakistan is otherwise pretty much a failed state - there is a non-trivial chance that its intramural hostilities will have the same effects as American nuclear attack, i.e., collapse of its transportation infrastructure and ensuing megadeath. Only that is when we'd have to go in to keep Pakistan's nukes from falling into the hands of Al Qaeda's successor terrorist organizations, and IMO we'd have to use our own nukes in the process.

But the Arabs are in greater peril, especially Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians. IMO there is about a 50/50 chance that the former will cease to exist, with ensuing megadeath, from domestic reasons alone within 5-10 years. Only about 10% of Saudi Arabia's labor force are Saudis. When they lose their oil income due to civil war, the 5-6 million foreign workers will leave and the whole country will fall apart. Given its climate, most of the population which does not flee to other countries will die in place.

#1 places to leave for one's health: Saudi Arabia, Gaza, the West Bank, and Pakistan in that order.

Important initiative re: Iran. Please tell this to the world!!!!

Also important article

Petition

Thanks Amir, I won't forget.

Dear Mr. Katzman:

You wrote:

"For one thing, it might stem the steady cultivation of hate within their societies, by attaching real costs to fostering or tolerating it."

I believe that it is the tragedy of the Arab world that the cultivation of hate is a tiger from which they dare not dismount. To do so they would need to accept pluralism. OBL is right: traditional Arab society cannot survive pluralism.

The rulers certainly find themselves riding a tiger, and dismounting is indeed very dangerous because those cultivated habits of hate would look for a focus - and guess who the target might be.

Dave, the truth is that nobody knows if it's possible to induce a dismount using methods short of total war. Or to foster pluralism in Arab societies.

It's to our credit that before we find ourselves at a point where total war is the only realistic option, we're going to try to find another way. These measures must be informed by a hardheaded grasp of human nature as it is, not by utopian fantasies that so often create what they profess to prevent. We'll also need to be honest with ourselves, to try to learn as we go, and to make changes along the way.

I, for one, hope we succeeed before escalation becomes necessary. Sounds like Tom Friedman is in the same mental space these days.

Dear Mr. Katzman:

I, too, believe it is to our (and GWB's) credit that we are trying to perform a very laudable and virtuous thing.

I am skeptical, however, that it can be without our being PREPARED to wage total war. This is a paradox we don't appear to be prepared for. Further, I believe that the position of denial held down by our erstwhile allies and our own domestic tranzis maximizes the likelihood of such a war.

Dave,

I tend to agree with you. Just one thing: "Mr. Katzman" is my dad. "Joe" is fine.

Nice to meet you, Joe. It's a flaw of my upbringing: I was to address everyone by their name and title until invited otherwise.

Total war won't solve the problem either - it will just move the problem around.

Collapses of civil infrastructure in Arabia, Pakistan or most anywhere from city-busting nuclear attack, civil war, etc., would result in truly massive refugee flows to anywhere else possible. People won't stay in place to die of thirst, exposure, starvation, disease, violent disorder, etc. Those who think the world would be better off without Arabs should keep this in mind. Unless the whole world goes down at once, there will always be some place better to run to.

Here's a factoid on how potent a push even local warlordism can create. The Chinese population of Japanese-occupied Manchuria soared in the early and middle 1930's, despite the exceptionally brutal Japanese rule, because it was preferable to living in warlord-ridden northern China. The only people allowed to be nasty in Manchuria were the Japanese and there weren't that many of them there, so it was heaven for Chinese compared to China.

The social collapse from civil war situations I expect to occur in Saudi Arabia, and which might occur in Pakistan, will make northern China in the 1930's look like a walk in the park.

IMO the only possible solution to the Arab & Arab-fostered terrorism problem is to uplift their pathologically psychotic culture. It might be necessary to thoroughly smash it first, and they are quite capable of doing that to themselves even if we don't.

IMO this will happen in Arabia, and might happen in Gaza, the West Bank and Pakistan (which is going Arab in nuttiness due to Saudi-funded Wahabbic madrassas). IMO the Israelis will eventually do something really drastic to the Palestinians if the latter don't do it to themselves first, and there is a fair chance that we'll use nuclear weapons in Pakistan in the process of terminating their WMD threat once their civil war gets going.

But then we'll have to deal with the aftermath. Most won't die, save possibly the Palestinians if Israel does what America would have already done by now. They'll just be in refugee camps someplace else after a brutal reality check.

The thought of 100 million Arabs running for Europe via Cyprus, Greece and the Balkans boggles the mind.

Tom,

This is Dunnigan's latest on the fate of the Palestinians:

http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=ISRAEL.HTM

...But the most important result of this war on terror, and the terrorists losing ground, is the increased Palestinian willingness to make a deal. The Israelis have gained the upper hand in the battle with the terrorists, and most Palestinians are getting tired of living in what amounts to a large prison camp. The Israelis are still offering essentially the same deal that was turned down by the Palestinians three years ago. Both sides still have their "we want it all factions," and both sides have to deal with these extremists if any peace deal is to work. But in that respect, Israel is at a disadvantage because it can control it's extremists (the most far out of whom want to take over the entire West Bank and expel the Arabs), if the government is willing to pay the political cost. The Israeli settlers on Palestinian land have the backing of about a quarter of the Israeli population. But the Palestinian extremists (who want to destroy Israel and drive all Jews from the Middle East) have the support of about half the Palestinians. Israelis have to worry about what happens if peace is made, and an independent Palestinian state is established. That means no more Israeli troops, police or undercover agents working in the Palestinian territories. It means the Palestinian terrorist groups, who are unlikely to completely disappear, can freely bring in materials for building bigger rockets and bombs. What happens when these rockets start falling on Israeli territory, killing Israelis, and the Palestinian government finds that it cannot, or will not, take on the terrorists again? The terrorists, and their Palestinian supporters, believe that, in the long run, their attacks will work, and drive all the Jews from the region. This is what has been taught in Palestinian schools for generations. The Israeli extremists know this, and that's one of the justifications for their plan to expel the Arabs from the West Bank.

Peace is a relative thing in this part of the world. For many Palestinians, any peace deal is mainly a truce, so that more weapons can be obtained and more attackers recruited and trained. But the situation is not hopeless. Arab Moslems and Christians have been at each others throats in this area for over a thousand years. The Christians are still there, although they have been emigrating out of the area in much greater numbers in the past few decades. In some places, the Moslems and Christians get along, in other places, there is either fighting, or a sort of truce. The farther away you get from the Middle East, the easier it is to be optimistic about peace there. But up close and in your face, the situation is pretty ugly. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians will be relative, and probably temporary.

The reason for the relative peace between Arab Christians and Muslims is that the Christians have some place to run thanks to western christian missionaries.

That is not true for the Jews of Israel.

What is more is the fact that Palestinian terrorists, operating in the Palestinian authority sanctuary, will use any WMD they obtain, in any quantity they can get them, as soon has they have them.

"What is more is the fact that Palestinian terrorists, operating in the Palestinian authority sanctuary, will use any WMD they obtain, in any quantity they can get them, as soon has they have them"

I which case you can kiss most of the Middle East goodbye. Except Iraq now, I guess. Lucky them. Get invaded, and you live, despite the stupidity of your cousins.