re: "Lawfare v. Warfare: Bin Laden family uses a little “Alinsky” on US and Obama"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") gets this exactly right.

Money quote(s):

"The death of bin Laden is being described in some quarters as an “extrajudicial killing”. In fact, bin Laden was always considered to be an “unlawful combatant” by us and as such had no such protections. In warfare, the targeted killing of an enemy, in this case unlawful combatant, is quite legal.

So what you are seeing here are competing premises, one saying terrorism is simply a criminal act and therefore terrorists must be treated as common criminals would be treated as well as afforded various rights because of that status. The other says they are enemies who have declared war on the US, committed numerous acts of war and, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, are “unlawful combatants” and enemies whose targeted killing is an accepted practice of warfare.

Lawfare vs. warfare.

I think we’ve been pretty clear since the beginning, with the AUMF (which the Obama administration ironically used as the legal basis for its raid into Pakistan), that we’re at war (and yes, I also accept the AUMF as a declaration of war) what we consider these terrorists.

Second guessing by all the world’s hand wringers should simply be ignored. This is not a criminal matter. It is a military matter and it was executed as such. The lesson it teaches other terrorists who’ve declared war on “the Great Satan” is we are relentless and remorseless. Those are two good messages to send."

re: "Mr. President: War Is Not A 'Struggle' Or 'Situation' "

Mark Tapson at Big Hollywood is adamant about nomenclature (among other things).

Money quote(s):

"President Obama jettisoned the admittedly empty and useless phrase “war on terror,” a label which pleased pretty much no one, primarily because it didn’t specify an enemy"

"The aim of all this muting of the language in the War with No Name is twofold: for the Obama administration to distance itself from George W. Bush’s “politics of fear,” and to whitewash a plain fact that liberals are suicidally reluctant to acknowledge - that we are at war with radical Islam."

"“Our administration does not believe in a clash of civilizations,” Vice-President Joe Biden announced at his February address in Munich, referring to the now-famous title of Samuel Huntington’s prescient 1998 book The Clash of Civilizations. Well frankly, I don’t believe in it either; I believe instead that we’re embroiled in a clash of civilization versus barbarism, and that it is the defining conflict of our time."

Mr. Tapson should be forgiven if he overlooked that the 1998 book was based upon the late Prof. Huntington's 1995 article in Foreign Policy.

My nuanced take on Mr. Tapson's last point is that the whole objective of much of former Pres. Bush's soft-pedaling was to prevent the clash of global/Western civilization with certain Islamic barbarians from escalating into a true clash of civilizations and cultures.

There would be considerable differences of scale between our "global" war as we've fought it thus far and a "world war" as could have resulted (and might yet).

"(T)he left in general think the conflict is just one big cultural misunderstanding which can be resolved by reassuring fundamentalist Muslims (like the mythical “moderate Taliban“) that we’ll sit down with them, listen to their so-called grievances, and make whatever concessions are necessary (like throwing Israel under the bus) to move forward as mutually respectful partners in a brave new world of prosperity and inter-faith pablum."

"Muslim extremists have been hammering home the point for decades, all across the Muslim world, that America, the Great Satan, is the enemy. Believing he can defuse Islamist hostility by being more “respectful,” by engaging them in still more “dialogue,” and by offering to make their grievances right - all of which the Islamists consider signs of weakness - is a fantasy."

"(A)s much as Islamists would like us to believe this clash is about American foreign policy, it isn’t about their grievances, though their skewed perspective on our foreign policy sometimes provides them with useful recruiting points. In the words of a former Hezbollah leader: “We are not fighting you because we want something from you. We’re fighting you because we want to destroy you.”"

&

"(O)ur Islamist enemies love death more than life, reject freedom in favor of absolute submission to a totalitarian ideology, and won’t be happy until the world is entirely Islamic. They cannot be swayed from their goal by promises of economic prosperity and peaceful coexistence with infidels."

re: "A Warning"

The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road discusses the utility, and likely necessity, of disproportionate response in the war on Islamicist terrorism.

Money quote(s):

"By implication, any escalation of our current conflict, most particularly further attacks on American civilians with or without weapons of mass destruction, will evoke a comparable response from us.

This is a great pity. It would mean that additional thousands of Americans had already died at Muslim hands."

"The proper time to strike with maximum force was when the video clips of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 atrocities in the streets of their hellholes, handing out candy and firing AK-47s into the air, reached the United States. When nattily dressed Muslims in Iraq and Iran jeered at our naivity and vulnerability, and wished our suffering had been even worse. When mullahs and imams in Cairo and Riyadh decreed that the Great Satan had finally gotten some of what was coming to him.

We would have put the other Muslim-majority nations on notice that American blood is to be treated as sacred -- that we will not allow anyone to spill it without suffering in Biblical disproportion. That's what world-record military superiority is for. Not "humanitarian aid" or "disaster relief." "

After 9/11, Pres. Bush decided against a strategy of massive retaliation, de-linking in his public statements and actions the religion of Islam and and individual muslims in general from responsibility for the attacks.

I suspect strongly that had he been inclined to take the other approach, he would have found considerable domestic political support. People (and I include members of Congress in that set) were scared, and were looking for someone to act.

"Our failure to act on it has already cost thousands of civilian lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Our restraint in responding to the blows dealt us will ultimately cost us at least as much more; Islamic militants and the states that sponsor and shelter them have already made it clear that they consider it evidence of weakness and lack of confidence.

They will strike us again."

&

"One way or another, they will strike us again. More Americans will die, and fear will blanket the land once again. Many will cry out for answers: Why did our "leaders" not act to prevent a villainy so easily foreseen? Why was it necessary that the innocent die en masse before the evil could be identified and punished? Hadn't we already had warnings enough?"

Pres. Bush made the decision, deliberate or or conditioned, to de-escalate (relatively speaking) rather than massively relatiate. He gave the moslem world a chance not just at survival but at freedom, democracy, &tc;. Considering the long odds against success, his approach (with fits and starts) has been surprisingly successful, mainly due to the efforts of the “troops,” military and otherwise.

The survival of the islamic world, and indeed ourselves, depends upon him having been right. The American people will not tolerate a second bite at the 9/11 apple.

_____

Hat tip to KG at Crusader Rabbit ("Islam has two allies here in the West - the Left and political correctness. The fight is with all three.").