"To win the hearts and minds..."

I'm getting really sick of hearing this 'win the hearts and minds' argument. I just heard a conservative on CNN say that [pp], "...we're not going to defeat 2 billion Muslims, and what we need to do to win the war on terrorism is win the hearts and minds..."

CRAP!!!

How could anyone really believe that we would be able to 'win the hearts and minds' of a group of people who desperately want to destroy western civilization and kill everyone involved with it? These people are willing to fight for generations to meet their goals, and they don't really have anything better to do, so why shouldn't we believe them?

This person IS a conservative, so I can believe it when he states that he believes that we are up against the entire Muslim nation, which is just stupid and typical of conservative thinking, but then to throw out that un-real leftist 'hearts and minds' deal...

I guess this just goes to show how truly detatched from reality we are becoming.

DENY IGNORANCE!

When you hear people talking about the winning the �hearts and minds� they are speaking of the common Muslim man, woman and child and not the radical Muslim militant. We are talking about support and the common thought of the average Muslim. Everyone ultimately will choose a side to support the United States and our allies or the Taliban and likeminded groups.

If the common Muslim believes that the United States only wants to be an occupying power to steal oil from the Iraqi and take over the Middle East people in the groups against the United States will gain more support from the local man. On the other hand if they see the United Stated as a country that wants to spread freedom and democracy to their country and the Middle East and they see schools being built and their children being educated, gaining human rights, free speech and press and a brighter free future then we will gain the needed support to win this war. Winning the �hearts and minds� is really a press the flesh program; it�s making friends or at least keeping people from becoming enemies.

Originally posted by kinglizard
When you hear people talking about the winning the �hearts and minds� they are speaking of the common Muslim man, woman and child and not the radical Muslim militant.

I don't think so. The common Muslim doesn't want to kill anyone. The common Muslim is relatively peaceful, like most of the people on earth. The man I paraphrased was speaking of winning the hearts and minds of those with the heart and mind to kill Americans, Europeans, Jews, and anyone else holding a western worldview.

There is no need to win the hearts and minds of those who have no heart and mind for senseless violence and who value death above life, is another contemporary cliche that I have come to understand to be true.

Dude, I couldn't agree with you more on this. In my opinion, they are attempting to deceive their culture with false pretenses and promises. That is how they plan to "win" their hearts and minds.

It is a form of brainwashing. They forcefeed information into their heads, making them believe in something that will never happen, hoping that they will comply with our demands, while promising them a great future, if only they assist us.

It's classic Sun Tzu #.


Mr. M

I like how we're going about winning hearts and minds so far.

A: Lie to your country about why we are invading Iraq
B: Lie to your country about the mission being accomplished
C: Strike out at anyone who opposes the war
D: Bomb, bomb, bomb. Cry bloody murder about wounded/killed Americans. But don't mention the number of Iraqi civilians that are being slaughtered.
E: Humiliate the prisoners

Now, if those silly Muslims don't get that DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST THING FOR THEM then it's not our fault, is it? I mean, come on! Who doesn't want MacDonald's and MTV and Niketown?

What gets me - what really chaps my ass - is how W talks about how 'they hate freedom' They are not looking at the US invasion as a golden opportunity to freedom. They are hating us more with every passing day. And is it any wonder?

The US is stomping around the world like a spoiled brat, insisting that we get our way.

I am angry at our administration and ashamed of the face they have put on America.

The radical Muslim militant wasn�t born that way. They were born as peaceful Muslims and through societal conditioning and parental viewpoints their outlook on the western societies changed and they embraced the teachings of this radical movement. This war will likely span several generations; the Muslim children of today are formulating their opinions of western culture now. That�s why the current abuse charges in the Abu Ghraib Prison is so damaging. It can lead to more Muslims supporting the idea that the United States doesn�t care about their society or their people.

quote:
I like how we're going about winning hearts and minds so far.

A: Lie to your country about why we are invading Iraq
B: Lie to your country about the mission being accomplished
C: Strike out at anyone who opposes the war
D: Bomb, bomb, bomb. Cry bloody murder about wounded/killed Americans. But don't mention the number of Iraqi civilians that are being slaughtered.
E: Humiliate the prisoners

Now, if those silly Muslims don't get that DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST THING FOR THEM then it's not our fault, is it? I mean, come on! Who doesn't want MacDonald's and MTV and Niketown? :unquote

Most true post I have read all day. It is heartening to see we are all not lemmings.

Fortinbra, you made my day!

G

In order for a country to be a super power they use the hearts and mind of the people of other countries around throught intimidation and fear, In order for USA to be the most powerful nation in the world is with a show of our military capabilities, What the goverment does not tell you is that the mind and hearts that is triying to win is the people of this country not the other way around. Intimidation win's the other countries not compashion. Most americans never understand that because we are under the mind and heart control of this goverment. But the rest of the world does and that is why they are so angry at us the USA and to them we are invaders, bullys and pushers of our beliefs to them our so call freedom is not atractive at all.

Originally posted by kinglizard
...were born as peaceful Muslims and through societal conditioning and parental viewpoints their outlook on the western societies changed...

...Muslim children of today are formulating their opinions of western culture now.

Yes, they were born peaceful, as everyone was, but it's not just as simple as societal conditioning and parental viewpoints... I think that's understating the actual reality. Many of these Muslim children are spending years in schools with curriculum specifically designed to drill into their minds that their ultimate purpose in life is to be a warrior for Allah, that they are currently engaged in a Great Jihad to destroy all of the infidels on Allah's green earth. These particular children are NOT forming their own opinions. You have to live in a FREE society to be able to form your own opinions. This is much more serious than I think people are taking it. I don't mean we should freak out about it, but everyone should be looking at the reality of what the situation is...

War has been declared on all of western society. And while their numbers are few, they have a great potential from which to draw. One tenth of one percent of the entire nation of Islam is still 200,000 people, which is significant, when they use the tactics that they do, and the tools of their destruction are so readily available. The recent abuses of POWs has served as direction, purpose, and motivation for soldiers of the extremist cause, and could very well could carry the consequence of rallying more extremists to fight.

Remember, no one is invincible. We could lose tomorrow if Saudi Arabia decided to withdraw the full holdings they have in American business, banks, and stock market. We would be paralyzed.

[Edited on 10-5-2004 by DeltaChaos]

What are we supposed to do though? We can't just sit back and let that kind of radicalism fester and grow. We will have a never ending supply of terrorists comming here and destroying our way of life, the more they hit us, the more we get scared, and the more a fearful population allows thier rights to be stripped away.

Look at the media in these countries, they are often controlled by the government who finds it very useful to blame us for all the worlds problems, and thus keeping themselves in power and able to further abuse their citizens. They screw their people, and we get blamed. The only way to change that is by spreading free and open governments in the region, and to convince the population that we are not the evil bastard we are portrayed to be. We need to fight through this current scandal, and show them we believe in justice.

Will this be hard? Yes.
Is is even possible? we don't know.
But if we don't try then the alternative is spending the rest of our lives in fear, and in self imposed chains.

Originally posted by TheEXone
The only way to change that is by spreading free and open governments in the region, and to convince the population that we are not the evil bastard we are portrayed to be.

But we can't just spread free and open governments. They don't want them. What they want is Islamic law, for the most part. You can't invent freedom or democracy for anyone. If they want it, they need to earn it, like everyone else who is free did. And everyone else who did it did it by standing up and kicking some ass. Right now, most of the Arab/Muslim world looks at US as the ones who need our asses kicked. No matter from whose perspective you look at it, we are the occupying force.

I think we have two choices. Either ignore them and hope they go away, which they wont. Or we can eradicate them. There is no reasoning with them, because they believe that we are literally the devil, and that all members of western society must be destroyed.

And what would it matter to most of these people if they planted a nuke or two? THEIR land is already covered with depleted uranium, so what soil they have has been effectively salted, and they live in a desert, so I'm sure they wouldn't mind an ever-so-mild nuclear winter. Basically, what I'm saying is their lives suck, and they know it as well as we do. They value death over life because their lives have sucked for so long, and they just want a slice of the pie. In fact, they want the whole pie, they suck so hard. They know they don't have much to live for, so why not sacrifice themselves to kill 3 or 4 of the perceived enemy? And they also know that they're never going to have any weapons better than AKs and RPGs, so they just use IEDs made out of nitrates and coagulant. You know what they really want to get their hands on is a nuke, because they know that's probably their only chance at being anything but highly annoying and innefectual. Enough.

I think a lot of Americans grossly underestimate the hatred many muslims have of all things western.

Their language and culture are steeped in us/them terminology and chauvanism.

The Arabic term for islamic countries is "Dar-es-Salaam," literally "the house of peace."

The Arabic term for western (non-muslim) states is "Dar-es-Harb" or "the house of war."

Does this make you think that the average muslim is predisposed to let you live in peace?

"...The only way to change that is by spreading free and open governments in the region..."

Yes, by bombing the hell out of them until they love us.

".. and to convince the population that we are not the evil bastard we are portrayed to be..."

By bombing the hell out of them and humiliating the prisoners.

".. But we can't just spread free and open governments..."

Because we can't spread what we don't have.

".. What they want is Islamic law, for the most part..."

And the conservative right who has the ear of Bushco wants Christian law here. It's the same thing, just different flavors.

"...No matter from whose perspective you look at it, we are the occupying force..."

And we are bombing the hell out of them. Why don't they love us? Why don't they see us as the enlightened liberators we are? Why?

"... I think we have two choices. Either ignore them and hope they go away, which they wont. Or we can eradicate them. There is no reasoning with them, because they believe that we are literally the devil, and that all members of western society must be destroyed..."

This, in a nutshell, is the hubris of Imperial America.

First, there is at least a third choice outside of ignoring them or eradicating them. How about understanding them? How about working with them? To say that the only real choice we have is to eradicate them is to behave exactly as they are doing.

Who voted America to be the worlds superpower? Might does not make right.

Originally posted by Fortinbras
First, there is at least a third choice outside of ignoring them or eradicating them. How about understanding them? How about working with them? To say that the only real choice we have is to eradicate them is to behave exactly as they are doing.

Who voted America to be the worlds superpower? Might does not make right.

On the third choice:

All the extremists want us to understand about them is that they are out to destroy us, since that is the only communication they've relayed to us in the last two decades. What I currently understand personally about the extremists is that they are completely willing to sacrifice thier own lives for the deaths of others, that they intend to continue, and that if they could eradicate us all in one fell swoop, they would surely do so.

Working with them. Now I think I understand our difference. I draw a distinct line between the nearly 2 billion average peace-loving Muslims and the possible thousands of fundamental extremists. To work with a group of people who are reasonable is one thing... to work with a group of people with a collective neurotic bent for killing and destruction, considering suicide an acceptable method for doing so, I would see as impossible. Can you understand their line of reasoning? Do you follow their logic? I do. Their logic and reasoning leads back to their original statement which is that they have declared war. They intend to kill us. Shall we send you over as a special envoy to try to reason, negotiate with, 'understand' and 'work with' these people? Would you be willing to do that for the rest of us so that we can be done with this whole thing? You know what they'd do? They'd kill you. And now, they'd probably torture you a lot, too.

And just as a sidenote: Who voted us the superpower? Well, I guess we did, didn't we? Since it is the overwhelming reality and all...

But you're right when you say that might does not make right. This invasion of Iraq, while it may have been necessary eventually, was poorly timed, poorly planned, and as such, is now being poorly executed. America will not live this down for some time.

No one voted the U.S as superpower it happend when the Soviet Union fell which I don't think anyone here doubts would have done alot more damage to the world if they would have won the cold war.

I would argue that they do want free and open governments. Look at Iran for example while they initialy supported the islamic revolution, it now seems most are ready for a change, the conservative Islamic rulers have just recently blocked most people from voting because they knew they would be voted out of power. Remember that I speak of the moderate muslims who would push for an Islamic government, but not one that is repressive or extreemist. Even Bush said last week in the interview with an Arab T.V station that democracy in the middle east will reflect the culture and values of the people that live in it. No one has ever said that they are to copy our form of governement, or adopt christain values.

People often atrribute things to Bush, and his administartion they have never said, or done because it fits the image people have of him. He has made many mistakes, and failed to plan for this whole occupation, but that must not deter us from doing what has to be done in order to secure peace and freedom for ourselves and the world.

Finaly I would like to say that people are born with an ingrained desire for freedom, its built into us because we are by definition able to make choices and that is the foundation for freedom. It is only when we are pressured by fear, manipulation, and intimidation that we willfully give up our freedom. Even so it still lies within all of us, and it can never be truly broken because to do so we would cease being human.

Find the desire for freedom in the people of the middle east, bring it out, and fight for it and we will truly win their hearts and minds.