that's still 10 million. Say it's only 1 million, that's still a lot of potential recruits who are likely to keep coming. Not to mention the breeding rate which means the supply won't run dry unless the ideological situation changes.
Maurice,
I agree with you.
Approx three years ago, I was former SOCOM Commander, Retired 4-star General Steiner's driver for an evening. I sat in on his speech. Later we spent an hour chatting. We exchanged signed copies of each other's book and talked WOT.
At the time, Steiner was on the President's 24 man personal advisory council on terrorism.
He told me there are 1.5 billion Muslims on earth.
10% or 150,000 million are militant.
10% or 15 million of them are militant extremists. That is a mere 1% of the total Muslim population. All of these men are willing to travel to a battlefield to kill Jews and Christians.
He then said 10% of them or 1.5 million (.1% of the Muslim population) are capable of a suicide attack on any day.
As you said, they are never going to run out of warriors.
I agree with W's assessment that our best chance at resolution is to give these folks a stake in their own future.
If W is right, the going will be tough but the problem will be moving to a solution.
If W is wrong or we give up to early, the going will be tougher.
We can't call it a religious war because we can't risk bringing in more of the 1.5 Billion Muslims. As I pointed out, even a very small shift in group sentiment could increase their battlefield strength by a huge number of men.
It is the sheer number of their potential battlefield strength (not ours) that has made me believe all along that this war is much riper for expansion than resolution.
In fact, I believe that much of what we are seeing is an expansion of the Palestine-Israel war that was never concluded and eventually grew outside the compact boundary everyone hoped it would stay within.
Unless there is a quick decisive victory, in the early phase wars are much more likely to expand than contract. As they enlarge, an ever greater battlefield victory is needed or the slaughter of humans has to reach a level where it becomes intolerable.
You predict that level will be reached for us at 10,000 American deaths and we will leave the battlefield at that point.
I believe the battlefield has already expanded far beyond Iraq. I predict many many times that number of Americans are likely to die in this war whether we stay in or leave Iraq.
This is not Vietnam. Vietnam was a very small geographical area. And North Vietnam never had serious ideas of regional much less world domination. This one is different. Muslim extremists are conducting attacks world-wide.
Those who suggest the different groups are not organized are dead wrong. The groups are unified by a common belief and purpose. We know long purse strings stretch world-wide and touch each group. Muslim extremists in Asia may not look the same or speak the same language as Muslim extremists in the ME or Europe, but that does not prevent them from being formidable allies with the capability to pursue a common goal world-wide.
The Muslim extremists fervently believe the infidels must convert or be killed to purify the world. They are willing to fight and die for their beliefs.
We have better technology and better weapons. Nevertheless, the extremists will win if we lose the will to fight and die for our beliefs.
If you want a clear view of how we can lose, study Yugoslavia.
France is in the early stage of becoming the next Yugo.
Sweden may be there too.
Like a metastasised cancer the extremists are attacking, killing and making inroads in lots of places within the world's body that we hardly think about.
29 countries have a Muslim population of 90-100%.
14 more have Muslim populations between 70-90%.
The Christian, Jewish and American world has a problem.
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