Charlespg wrote above:
[[ Sorry but the west has some very unpleasant choices to make and lines to cross if its to survive ...]]
Charles, you understand.
I've been saying as much on this forum (and on "that other" forum before this one) for years now.
Compared to ISIS, the Nazis looked almost civilized. I said "almost".
I found myself quite depressed in the weeks following the September 11 attacks. I realized immediately that The West faced an almost-impossible choice.
One side of the choice was to confront one-quarter of the world's population, and literally drive from within them the demon of islam, no matter what would be required in terms of savagery or weapons of mass destruction. This would be the Biblical struggle of Armageddon, no way around it.
But the other side was the choice The West would probably make: to try to fight on a limited scale, against regimes that come and go but really don't change the enemy we face -- undoubtedly the greatest existential battle of human history. That's exactly what we did in Afghanistan, and then Iraq. Now we seem to be afraid to do anything.
I've said this before, and I'll repeat it:
Someday, The West is going to wake up and confront the reality of the enemy before it.
That realization is going to come at one of two possible moments:
- Either just before it's to late for The West to do what's necessary to save itself, or...
- Just after it's too late, when victory is no longer possible.
Which will it be?
Winston Churchill:
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."