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Entry: Killing Women and Children First Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/killing_women_and_children_first#34292 Post contents: Mr. Zmirak, “We will have to make our decision soon. If security experts are right, we need not wonder if someday terrorists will pull off another 9/11, this time with greater firepower, setting off a dirty bomb or releasing anthrax on our shores. It’s a matter of where and when. And how we will respond." I find the bulk of your entire argument to be inaccurate, dangerous and misleading. But let us focus on the pivotal point of this discussion, determining how we should respond to the nuclear attack of an American city by Islamic terrorists. The WW2 analogies you are relying on to support your claim that civilian punishment is an ineffective mode of warfare does not reflect the reality of what has occurred in the Islamic World. The use of brutality and excessive violence to crush and deter Islamic militants is not atypical behavior in this region and has frequently occurred with success. Arab governments rarely demonstrate moderation when dealing with radical Islamic movements. Syria, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia have all faced threats from Islamic extremists and have successfully crushed them without mercy. Thomas Friedman has called this phenomenon “Hama Rules,” named after a city in Syria leveled by President Hafez al-Assad: “In February 1982 the secular Syrian government of President Hafez al-Assad faced a mortal threat from Islamist extremists, who sought to topple the Assad regime. President Assad identified the rebellion as emanating from Syria’s fourth-largest city—Hama—and he literally leveled it, pounding the fundamentalist neighborhoods with artillery for days. Once the guns fell silent, he plowed up the rubble and bulldozed it flat, into vast parking lots. Amnesty International estimated that 10,000 to 25,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in the merciless crackdown. Syria has not had a Muslim extremist problem since.” Sent at: 2008 12 01