Quote:
Originally Posted by jlomon
This is my point. If you start nuking things, all you do is guarantee militant Islam the hearts and minds of former moderates. Right now OBL and his Wahabbist buddies are still seen as being part of a lunatic fringe to many other Muslim sects who may be sympathetic to his struggle against "the Great Satan" but cannot reconcile his methods with their interpretation of Islam. You'd be driving the moderates right into his arms, which only increases the number of fronts you have to fight on.
You aren't ever going to convince hardliners (of any stripe and belief) of anything. They're dyed-in-the-wool supporters who can't be reasoned with. You want to keep the more moderate viewpoints on the sidelines instead of giving them a reason to join the party. Using a nuclear weapon would be OBL's recruiting wet dream.
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Take a look at Lebanon. How did it happen? Well, the tactic was to buy themselves in. They did construction via Jihad Construction where they replaced windows and repaired houses, etc, etc, for free. Where does this money come from? The few hardliners? Doubtful. It comes from the masses of "moderates". Which means that they just don't want to get their hands dirty but support the same cause and that means they too are the hardliners. You are looking for hardliners by whether they wear a bomb vest or carry a gun. The hardliners are those, to be certain. But they are the others who support them too,
Also, with victory after victory, you call it whatever you want but items like Somalia was a victory, won't it also stoke up the so called moderates? If they are unable to reconcile his methods and his interpretation of islam, they have certainly been pretty silent about it. We have seen them get into an uproar concerning the Dutch cartoonist and it was more than a letter of protest.