"Why Arabs Lose Wars" Topic

Or indeed when someone drops white phosphorus all over the UN compound where youre trying to keep body and soul together…

This is starting to sound quite a bit like on Colonel Walter Kurtz…

Just as quite a lot of the trouble around the world died down when the Soviet Union collapsed, I think there is reason to hope that a collapse of Middle Eastern oil income, as a consequence of multiple energy developments in other parts of the world, will reduce significantly the threat from radical jihadists.

We have difficulty with these opposition forces because we show restraint, whereas they do not.

I agree completely with Milites. We have forced our military to fight with one arm tied behind their back in order to somehow sway world opinion in our favor, as if that matters.

I'm not advocating indiscriminate slaughter, but I definitely feel that if you are concerned enough about something to actually go to war over it, then you owe it to your military forces to apply direct force in order to accomplish the mission as quickly and decisively as possible, and end the conflict.

Our opponents (and notice I do not say "worthy") have absolutely no compunction with regards to specifically targeting the civilian populace, nor with hiding like pansies within mosques, schools, and medical facilities. It works for them, because they know us only too well. One only has to watch "The Battle of Marjah" to see how our opponents operate – a group of Taliban using civilians as shields while escaping in the open from a target building. Yeah, these are fierce warriors…..

I don't have any answers about this, but let's not play games or fool ourselves when it comes to understanding just what the West is up against.

Yes the battle to disrupt the jihadists money couriers is a tale that I will read with interest, if I ever get into my 90's that is!

Latto, how many people were burned in that, obviously deliberate, strike? Must have been hundreds, I cannot find much information, sorry. On the other hand, the casualties for this attack on a military installation (well I'm sure some conscripts ate there, though the victims do seem a bit old) are easier to find.

link

In fact the list of attacks on the IDF, well anyone's game as it's a conscript army eh, can be found here.

link

I have to agree with essayons7 and Milites about the differences between how the West fights and the tactics used by the forces opposing it.What examples are there of opposing Arabic forces fighting each other and what were the outcomes? Against Israel there seems to be more wins then losses. Robert

I'd imagine you'd have to look at the Iran/Iraq War to find inter-Arab (I know, I know, the Iranians and Iraqis are NOT Arabs, but you know what I mean here…) conflict with a meaningful depth of coverage. It would be interesting to look at…

I totally agree the only reason the West "loses" in these counter insurgency conflcits is due to extremely high levels of self restraint.

As LBJ once apparenty said: "they don't dare bomb an outhouse without my say so."

I'm not advocating indiscriminate slaughter

If it works and achieve goals, then it's fine. It worked in WWII with the strategic and nuclear bombing campaigns.

And I've been shot at by snipers, had my home shelled, and lived in air raid shelters so I've seen the horror of it.

The implications of Darwinian laws of survival of the fitter sometimes requires the application of horror though even in "civilised society" and especially when our opponents don't know anything except the application of horror.

Exactly, WWII is not an example to use to show how Western warfare is only suitable against Western tactics. WWII shows just how effective it is when it is only modestly restrained. If a WWII Allied force were deployed to Afghanistan, with none of the artificial restraints imposed, often by people who do not want to win but cannot publically say so, I think the Taliban would soon find out about how effective unrestrained Western warfare was, compared to tribal skirmishing.

We just sent a tenth of the men needed to do the job, handicap them with highly restrictive rules of engagement and have to read acres of, smart Alec, told you so merchants, who would rather saw off their leg with a biro cap, than admit they are partly responsible for the stalemate. We are told to show restraint, why? We are at war. We are told to only target clearly defined enemy structures, bit hard in a village of thick mud walled structures. We are told not to hit mosques, even when they are used as firing points and weapons caches. We have to watch coffin after coffin come home, just so an elite can congratulate themselves on being once more higher moral beings.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if the West unleashed its forces and visited the true horror of 21st century warfare on its self-styled opponents, others, watching from the side lines, might not be so keen to choose the military option. Make no mistake, unconditional war is appalling, but restraint in war is worse.

I'm not advocating wholesale slaughter, but if you sit around spying on our our forces, pick up and then drop a rifle, when you think we can see you, you should be very still and slowly getting cold, in my book. If you hide munitions in schools then we bomb at night and you can explain to the children why all their hard earned efforts are burnt fragments scattered around. I'm sick and tired of talking to students who have had loved ones killed or maimed, because elitist d**ks wants to feel good about themselves as they sip their frapachinos. Rant over, now to bed.

Well, personally, I could care less why they lose, but am glad they do.

"We have hamstrung our forces, so that instead of employing overwhelming force brutally and ending a conflict quickly, we drag it out for a decade to appease humanitarian sentiment…..

As for Vietnam it was winnable, we just did not want to pay the price, rightly or wrongly, of driving home countless advantages offered to us, during the conflict".

I agree completely with the above analysis.

Sadly, today, politicians and the military brass worry more about how things will look politically, than in doing what's needed to protect our own troops, and to win wars quickly.

After WWII and Korea, the presence of the media significantly impacted the way wars have been fought.

If they'd been heavily present and embedded with the troops during WWII, and households in the USA had TVs at that time, we'd have lost both the European and Pacific campaigns as well.

I agree. Take the media out of these conflicts and they will be over in months.

In what way do you think it would WarDepotDavid? Do you think that most of these conflicts would have a different outcome because of media coverage? That the Arabs would be on the losing end of the stick in most of their conflicts?Robert

Hell, Vietnam was won up until Walter ing Cronkite started with the 'we will never beat the VC' line after Tet. The NVA officers will flat-out admit it. They spilled the blood of an entire generation to make that assault, and still couldn't win.

It's the same in Afghanistan now.

When the Brits were in Afghanistan, they acted like the Romans. Raid one of our towns? We will send soldiers to either collect a number of rifles, or kill your tribesmen until you surrender the number of rifles we demand. "Yes, representative from Leeds, the soldiers only destroyed military fortifications." Every single house in Afghanistan has loopholes and a crenelated tower if the owner is rich enough.

[ it, anything else I say would be Blue Fez]

Well, I suppose we may be better than the Germans and Italians at this sort of thing. And Yugoslavia was a 'sideshow' in WWII. But even with much less restrictive rules of engagement they couldn't walk over the Partisans.

Romans pacified 'trouble spot' areas through long term occupation. 'Shock and awe' works against formed armies and a central government. In certain parts of the world killing off a whole lot of the population just increases the resistance.

The current rules of engagement in Afghanistan are not helping, but neither would blowing villages off the map.

A big problem is Western publics are often gutless when it comes to warfare.

E.g. why was the sinking of the Belgrano so controversial?

It was an enemy warship in a time of war. Fair game in my eyes.

But even with much less restrictive rules of engagement they couldn't walk over the Partisans.

The Germans and Italians did not deploy the might of their armies.

They deployed second rate units or relied on locals to do the policing.

But deploy the might of the Wehrmacht and tell them to kill anything that moves and I'm sure they would've subdued the Partisans quickly.

E.g. something like mass deployment of chemical weapons and mass incindenary bombing against civilian centres.

Then there's enforced starvation by scorched earth policy etc.

We are talking "winning wars without restraint" here.

Recently the Sri Lankan army won a long term year old civil war against the Tamil Tigers (LTTE). The war waged between 1983 and 2009.

The eventual answer to this long running civil war massed concentration of conventional firepower without restraint or care for collateral casualties.

Prior to this the Sri Lankan army was too weak to engage effectively.

It worked and for the first time since 1983 Sri Lanka is at peace.

Evidently the contributors to this thread who see no irony in posting "I am not advocating indiscriminate slaughter, but…" have failed to understand the basic elements of war among the people. A lot of them seem to have lost sight of the Master Principle of War, as well.

Provoking an excessive response from the security forces is one of the very few ways a modern guerilla fighter has of achieving their aims, and terrorists rely on this. Calling for such an excessive response is thus fairly clearly a way of offering aid and comfort to the enemy, and no amount of gormless bleating about "the liberal media" changes that.

If any of those who favour untrammelled application of extreme force are old enough to remember the Cold War, they must have been very disappointed never to have enjoyed the envigorating experience of widespread outbreaks of instant sunshine.

"The purpose fo war is to drive back the unrighteous enemy, not to exterminate the human race."

All the best,

John.

We choose to restrain our potential power, against those who strain every sinew to fight to theirs, now tell me again who is superior?
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clearly the latter!

Reading the news of Ethnic crimes, beatings, Tamil newspapers being stormed, the continuing torture of Tamil civilians who have been taken in for questioning and hard line Buddhists inciting violence against Muslims I'm not sure I would say Sri Lanka is at peace

Am I missing something in this thread; did the US declare war on the Arabs? All of them?
And the Arabs are winning by the sound of it because the US isnt genocidal enough?

You Boys have gone collectively mental – the Belgrano was a warship in time of war, so legit target and deserved what it got. Completely different from advocating collective punishment of civilians, house demolitions, detention without trial, free fire zones and all the rest.

For one thing it doesnt work, for another thing your "enemies" are in saudi arabia, thats where the funding comes from for the madrassas, the propaganda, the flying lessons and all the rest. Maybe youd all be better off writing to your congressmen than trying to persuade Lt Calley to come out of retirement and write a tactics primer.

Right, that my rant over. Back to work for me.

The Germans and Italians did not deploy the might of their armies.

They deployed second rate units or relied on locals to do the policing.

But deploy the might of the Wehrmacht and tell them to kill anything that moves and I'm sure they would've subdued the Partisans quickly.

E.g. something like mass deployment of chemical weapons and mass incindenary bombing against civilian centres.

Then there's enforced starvation by scorched earth policy etc.

We are talking "winning wars without restraint" here.
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problem is that to do that one would have to live in a fascist state like Nazi Germany (never heard a critique before re the anti-partisan war that says effectively that the Germans were not cruel enough! reluctance to sanction war without restraint is gutless? – shades I have to say, sorry, of Himmler and his 'we have to have the moral courage to be ruthless' speech – of which the Kurtz one in Apocalypse Now is a copy really).

It does seem a very US pov to judge by the location of those advocating a 'kill 'em all' strategy – so far I think that most of the posts disagreeing with implementing more effective versions of German Eastern Front anti-partisan ops/sordid murder campaigns 'those Krauts were too soft')are from the UK.

Its very easy to blame the media and world opinion (Britain did not pursue a policy of acting without restraint in the 1920s over there and I'd dispute that any Western army – save the Nazis – has ever done that to the degree some seem to propose here) but ultimately we live in civilised (or semi-civilised) countries with moral codes based primarily on Christianity – not that i'm implying that atheists etc could not see that war to the knife/utterly without restraint is wrong and counter-productive – unless you effectively kill everyone off.

If my country started behaving like that, even I as a Christian in law enforcement would be straining every sinew to undermine it.

Re the Sri Lanka example – perhaps we could have won in Ulster by shooting every male in the Bogside (and killed off all the male children too), including any off duty visiting US service personnel who might have been helping the bhoys, then assassinating everyone in NORAID in the US

When such tactics were used (as by Cromwell in Ireland) then justifiably they brought shame to the name of England in that country for hundreds of years and just engendered more hatred (you only stop future generations being embittered by such action by ensuring there are no future generations – the idea that such massive use of firepower etc would scare off/cowe people who are inspired by an ideology is I think underestimating the resilience of the human spirit – for good or ill).

Yeah. What he said!

Agree with GNREP8

Yes. Well said.

latto6plus2 has made a lot of assumptions.

Nowhere has it been said that genocide is the answer – those are his/her words. Ridiculous, if you ask me.

Oh, and Lt. Calley was a moron; you are taking an anomaly and applying it to the entire military (hmmm, sounds a bit like saying all "Arabs" are terrorists – perhaps you should examine your own prejudices). In that same vein, I wonder whether latto6plus2 thinks the jihadis have been "genocidal enough" since their "collective punishment" of civilians outweighs any incidents caused by the Western powers?

Funny how, when an airstrike goes wrong, it is automatically assumed that it was MEANT to strike the civilians, but no thought is given to the fact that some spineless Taliban cell has surrounded themselves with those civilians to purposely use their deaths as a propaganda tool.

As for being at war with "all the Arabs", well, that's something you'll have to take up with the original poster – again, it's a disingenuous assumption on latto6plus2's part.

You should either fight a war to win, or roll over and accept whatever you were too much of a coward to resist.

With that, I'm outta here lest I get all blue-fezzy….

The only reason the US got involved in the moslem/islamic/Arab/Persian "Jihad" is because of 9/11 … otherwise … the US really does not care what God or Gods you pray to or if you treat the females of your populations like chattel, or make them wear Burkas, or won't let them go to school etc., etc. It's a bad stituation for them. The US may not like the Human Rights violations, but will not go to war over it … The US and other nations went to the 'stan to kill terrorists … period. Note, Iraq was one of the more secular of the nations in that region … but their continued violations of UN Sanctions, support of terrorism, threats, etc. that could or would cause instability in the region was the cause of two wars … not because they were moslems … And the US has sent aid to the 'stan for decades because it is and will always be a failed state … And helped expell the USSR as payback for the USSR's support of the NVA/VC during the US's war in Indochina … It's all about politics and not religion … But back to the 'stan and that region. It certainly does not help the moslems kill or main little girls on the way to school. And note moslems in the PI beheaded a couple of little girls on their way to school there as well … It really does not help the West's view of "islamists" with these type of atrocities … In the US the Amish community is considered quaint, productive and harmless … The islamists' ways are anything but quaint, productive or harmless … Just my thoughts. My mind may change when some Amish strap on fertilizer bombs and blow up a church … or mosque for that matter …

applying it to the entire military (hmmm, sounds a bit like saying all "Arabs" are terrorists – perhaps you should examine your own prejudices
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certainly no-one on the British side is saying that about the entire military, though there are seemingly difference of approach that were clear in the Afghanistan and elsewhere – I wouldn't take that to mean that the British Army doesn't want to win but that many of its officers and men might be unhappy with a winning wars without restraint approach (i recall that a friend of my fathers was booted out of the FFL for refusing to fire on civilians fleeing a village in Algeria – my dad and the others who knew him thought he did the right thing)

I admit Im exagerating whats been said here, because I find it really quite disturbing. Thomas Hobbes is talking chemical weapons and mass incendiaries against civilians (presumably arabs) for example. I mentioned Calley as an example of what some posters seem to be advocating – no holds barred, "the true horror of 21st century warfare".
The general tone has become "we could win this if we were allowed to".
Win what? Afghanistan? Not that many arabs there.No afghans involved in 9/11. Iraq? no iraqis involved in 9/11 Saudi? No sau – oh wait a minute.
Where is this war?
The war on terror? Well youre not going to win if youre allied to its main financial backer and idealogical proponent are you.

Oh and the Taliban arent the only ones to hide behind civilians.
link

Fezzy enough for me, Im out.

You know, I've lost track of who's on which side here.

I'm the goodies :)

You know, I've lost track of who's on which side here.

Sounds like Real life

Latto, which one, the scientist, the camp one or the commoner?

YouTube link

I tend to agree with GNREP8. Though my US POV is not the "kill 'em all" one. Robert

Kaos
Sorry – I would not mean to imply that all Americans take that POV.

Milites
Scottish and glasses – Id have to be a dim Graeme Garden, though Ive never been able to grow a decent set of sideburns.
I always thought Tim was posh not camp; still its an excuse to watch them again!
Cheers for that.

latto6plus2 wrote:

Oh and the Taliban arent the only ones to hide behind civilians.
link

OK, fair point, but I beg leave to doubt that the Taliban would court martial anyone for doing it.

All the best,

John.

The Goodies, now that was a curates egg of a programme, if ever there was one. Glad to help the nostalgia trip latto.

On the IDF soldiers being convicted, there is a difference of frequency, the Taliban use it as an established tactic, just as Hamas, grab children and use them as human shields. The IDF soldiers, as John said, were imprisoned, after due process, and in the same article a soldier was convicted of being a thief. The odd idiot does not make it an established IDF policy, big difference really.

Interestingly, the Germans were accused of such behaviour during WWII, with civilians being driven before soldiers, to act as human shields. Is this behaviour common amongst fascists?

One thing that Westerners don't understand about many wars fought in rest of world and motivation for fighting is that these wars are existential and driven by ancient hatreds and not some vague ideals or principles of national interest.

As stated I was in Croatia in 1991. The war was about annihilating your enemies and taking their land or annihilating your enemies and keeping your land.

All sides committed "war crimes."*

War in Rwanda was the same – there were key land issues that the people thought could only be resolved via genocide.

In fact in the past wars were just as existential and just as extreme. Once you defeated your enemy you slaughtered them or enslaved them.

I'm proud the Croatian army kicked the Serbs out. After all it was them or us.

In many ways it's Darwin's laws in action.

You will never understand until you're having sniper bullets whizz by your head and your home town is being levelled by someone who has decided that what's yours is theirs.
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*Warcrimes are kind of a dubious hypocritical thing. Apparently it's ok to kill someone with a Laser Guided Missile but not hack them up with a machete like in Rwanda.

It's ok to place sanctions that will deprive normal people of food and medicine and increase infant and overall mortality rates like Iraq between 1991 and 2003.

But it's not ok to simply machine gun these people down.

In some ways it's more sadistic to have someone die in agony due to starvation and disease created by sanctions than to simply gun them down.

Then there's right 2 protect (R2P)- NATO isn't even investigating a number of errant strikes in Libya that caused massive civilian casualties. But that's ok because NATO was protecting those people from Gaddafhi by blowing them up with NATO LGB's.

But in the West's eyes, sanctions, interventionism and guided bombing campaigns are humane.

No, no Afghanis were involved in 9/11, however, the terrorist organization, that was responible for that atrocity, Al Quada, was operating out of there. And AQ has a mixed bag of members from various islamic countries … So the US/NATO took the war to where the enemy was … when I was a Grunt in my distant youth, we called it "Payback" … As far as "winning" goes, we can't use the WWII example. I think all that the West can do is prevent any terrorists attacks. And attrite them it large numbers every time the opportunity presents itself. Everyone that's removed from the battlefield, is one less to be concerned about …

So the US/NATO took the war to where the enemy was

Why didn't US/NATO also take out Saudi Arabia who funds terrorism (and most of 9-11 guys were Saudis) or Pakistan whose Interservice Intelligence is responsible for recruiting, training and funding of terrorists. Saudi funded madrasas (religious schools) are main recruiting grounds for terrorists.

US-NATO policy is based on "low lying fruit" i.e. picking on easy targets.

Afghanistan and Iraq 2003 were easy targets. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were not.

Hence no bombing of Syria even though they've done exactly what Gaddafhi was threatening to do e.g. indiscriminate targetting of civilians (including use of Fuel Air Explosives and maybe even chemical weapons).

It's like waging war on Austria in 1941 instead of Germany.

Everyone that's removed from the battlefield, is one less to be concerned about

As proven in Times Square New York, Fort Hood, London, Madrid, Africa, Toulouse and now Boston, the threat is not battlefield based. It's in our own neighbourhoods.

Lax immigration policies and politically correct policing strategies have allowed terrorists to operate on home soil.

Western line is "Muslims are good, evil terrorists in Afghanistan are bad." And then some Muslim fellow whose lived in West for a long time blows up some marathon runners, shoots his fellow soldiers, tries to blow up Time Square or kills some Jewish kids in France.

I remember before 9-11 watching some extremist Muslims protesting in England demanding a British muslim republic and death to Tony Blair.

Not surprising a number of them including some prominent preachers were arrested post London subway attacks.

Why weren't these people arrested prior 9-11? Why let them spout their hatred against their adopted countries and act as recruiting agents for terrorism.

And after a Muslim gunmen shot some soldiers and Jewish kids in France, French authorities arrested dozens of extremists who were living in France.

A depressing lot of nonsense being posted.

The German Army developed finely-tuned excuses for losing, whether it was the stab in the back of 1918 or weak allies in 1944. Now it's our turn.

I'm aware that since COL Harry Summers honed the fine art of Vietnam apologia ("we coulda won, actually we did win if we hadn't have been beat by Jane Fonda-types at home"), generations have trotted out this chestnut to justify why Vietnam actually was a win.

And look – the same loser excuse is now being applied to Iraq II and Afghanistan.

Facts are: Yes, the US Army could likely "win" if it pulled out all the stops. But that alternative has not been available since the age of TV news, and that should have been obvious to everyone going in. Many armies (esp, I hate to say, the Brits) have won counterinsurgencies while restraining themselves. Rather than whine about not being able to win the war under the applicable conditions, the Army should adjust itself to reality and try to win the war it has.

The US Army is now on our third counterinsurgency conflict in as many decades, and rather than learn and adapt, adopt different tactics, and engage with our political leadership (of whatever party is in the WH) to set realistic goals, their tactics seem to be:
1) insist all is going well, while concentrating on cherry-picked metrics that prove whatever you want;
and 2) insist for the sake of all the armchair generals, that we could have actually won, if it wasn't for the lying press, or spineless civilians, or whoever else is restraining them.

I'd like a bit better performance from the US Army, myself. I was taught early on, during my own military service, that the effective range of an excuse is zero meters. If that's true, then US Army apologists should stop making arguments founded on hypotheticals and the world the way it outta be, and deal with the real life difficulty of having to win difficult counterinsurgency wars "humanely".

The next time we get into a major counterinsurgency (and you can bet there will be a next time), I hope the US Army has a better plan prepared than simply losing, and then whining "we coulda won if we had been allowed to unleash all our firepower".

History doesn't care about excuses.

Actually the US Army are thought of far more highly in counter insurgency now, and its the British who have to rebuild a very dented and battered reputation. As for winning any counter-insurgency humanely, forget it, unless you are only going to focus on regions which allow unique advantages to be exploited, and I doubt our enemies will be so charitable.

The next time we get into a major counterinsurgency (and you can bet there will be a next time)

I don't think there'll be another Iraq or Afghanistan.

US is currently involved in several insurgencies across the world – Yemen, Pakistan, the Phillipines as well as counter-narcotics operations in Colombia and elsewhere.

These are marked by use of non-conventional forces:

1. Drone strikes/assassinations
2. Use of small amounts of special forces
3. Use of private contractors – including provision of airsupport such as in Colombia (look up Dyncorp)
4. Use of local forces supported by above.

Overall it's counter insurgency on the cheap with a very small footprint and very little political fanfare.

No worries GNREP8. Robert

Well Thomas, I was taught at Infantry School that Blitzkrieg looks for a weak point to attack … So in turn the US/NATO went after a "weak point" or as you say low hanging fruit … And more inportantly UBL and his cronies were in Afghanistan … not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan … As far as your comments about the neighborhood terrorists … We attacked known enemy targets … We are not psychics and can tell who is going to be bad. And in the US that whole freedom of speech thing and not having enough evidence to hold someone are some of the halmarks of the USA … And I'm not sure about your definition of a war crime ie. LGB vs. machete ? But you are entitled to your opinion. Now I do wholeheartedly agree with you second post and with your 4 points … That really is the way of warfare at this time … @ Tuscaloosa, I don't know about Army apologists. After the Vietnam War, the US Military pulled itself up by it's boot straps and re-invented itself based on many, many lessons learned. Again read Thomas 4 points that I mentioned … That seems the way the US is generally doing things and it seems to work. Again the WWII definition of winning does not apply to the current conflicts … As far as pulling out all the stops, the US could "win", by simply Nuc'ing our enemies … But that's not the way we work at least not since the end of WWII …

I am really quite confused by you all. Not sure who told you we are loosing, do they really understand what we are trying to do?

If we operate in Afghanistan long enough for Bin Laden to be brought to justice (done), the Taliban to come to the table to be included in a legitimate political process (done) and the state too begin to develop institutions that are not mere play things of an empowered elite (ummmm, but the ANA are getting there and the ANP are improving all the time) we are doing what we have been sent to do. If we provide a secure enough space for development we are doing what we have been sent to do.

If there is a winning and a loosing from a Western Liberal Democracy point of view we are winning. There is no less democracy or liberalism in the world now than there was 15 years ago. The financial enemy of communism has been revealed as a sick joke. I walk through the streets of many cities around the world and wonder at the defeatism you all speak. Moslems are wearing jeans, voting in elections and enjoying our culture…how many in return are converting to hard line Islam? Two bombers in Boston at are reviled by their family and friends, that were described as loners and losers. Or the thousands of Arabs in that city who are quite happy to work, get paid and drink a beer.

Legion 4… Would nuc'ing them actually be a wind for our way of life? Potential consumers killed, resources wasted, democracy ignored? Nuke them and we really have lost.

Wow, this thread kinda blew up and long.

I was going to say that the US is trying to teach the Afghan soldiers to abide by the Conventions, like their government has said they would.

It doesn't work very well in a nation where family feuds are closer to company-scale firefights (in terms of both number of individuals AND crew-served weapons involved).

I'm running out of popcorn, anyone got bretzels ? <G>

Adam … Nuc'ing them was NOT a serious statement … next time I'll put a smiley face … O.K. … However, I agree with most of the rest of your post … although I don't know if moslems can drink beer or any "spirits" for that matter ? And I'll freely admit the few moslems I've met since I got out of the Army, here in my home town, seem to be pretty good people … So I don't have distain from all moslems … only the ones that are trying to kill us …