November 25, 2006

A Word on Genocide...

Not everyone pays attention to the reader comments. For those you who do, you may have noticed a wide variety of commenters here at The Jawa Report. I've heard the comments section described as the "Mos Eisley Cantina" of The Jawa Report. You can certainly find all manner of "species" there. At times, those who yell the loudest and are the most abusive have their voices heard most clearly. It can be an uncivilized place--even by local standards. On the bright side, only the Sith Jawas and their padawans carry weapons, so if you can handle some yelling and a little shoving, you'll probably get in and out in one piece.

I've noticed there's a certain group of Jawa commenters for whom the answer to every problem seems to be to "nuke Mecca," to nuke this or that Arab city and/or otherwise kill massive numbers of Muslims in some genocidal campaign. To my knowledge, none of the commenters offering these solutions have ever been able to explain how this plan is supposed to work out in practice to our benefit. I suspect there's a reason for that. I suspect that "nuke 'em" is a knee-jerk, emotional reaction, and little (if anything) more than that. Little (if any) thought given to winning the long-term conflict. Little (if any) thought given to a long-term strategy.

If you really think nuking Mecca, Riyadh, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Islamabad or all of the above is a good strategy for winning this conflict, then you really ought to do the rest of us the courtesy of laying out what you expect to happen in the aftermath of the suggested nuclear holocaust and why. If you haven't really considered what happens in the aftermath, then you shouldn't be surprised when others are disinclined to take the idea seriously.

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 01:46 PM | |