>>>>>>>Everyone that has played the anti-american, wacko card, is eventually taken out, contained or somehow sidelined.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I agree but I hope it is containment and sidelined, not "taken out" because that just leads to more fanatics and mad men martyrs. Interesting poll results in Iran.
>>>>>
>>>>>One counter-example. Taking out Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito seemed to work. Europe and Japan didn't have a backlash of facists.
>>>>
>>>>The context, Evan, the context!
>>>>Hitler et. al. were the AGGRESSORS and their people were reduced to near animal state.
>>>
>>>Irrelevant. My point was that sometimes the movement collapses without the leader. Violence sometimes settles things.
>>
>>Well Hirohito was around for a good long while AFTER WWII. How does that serve your "point"?
>
>He was sidelined by MacArthur. Stripped of any powers, spun to be a person that was a vicitim of the war rather than a cause of it. Then used as a figurehead by MacArthur to unite the Japanese people. Rather masterful. IE he was taken out.
>
>>How did things work out in Korea?... or Viet-Nam?
>
>These support my my point that "taking out the lead of a movement can halt a movement". In neither case was he leader taken out.
>
>>I somehow think that such an event would indeed give rise to countless more martyrs and madmen and make the world a terrible place to live.
>
>To restate my point, taking out the facist leaders in WW2, seems to have killed facism. "Winning" a grinding stalemate against communism, seems to have for most part killed the communist movement. Perhaps the same is possible with the radical, terrorist elements of Islam.

I don't think anyone sees Ahmadinejad (sp?) as the leader of Jihadists or martyrs. If he is "taken out" by warring with Iran it will only fuel the Jihadist's and martyr's movements.
Communism is no where near dead, but rather "the west" has found an accommodation that lets 68,000,000 Chinese Party members get very rich, as well as a few thousand western CEOs, on the backs of over a billion people in a totaly controlled labour pool.

Seems to me that to have a chance to eradicate Jihadist terrorists/martyrdomists that way one first has to have it colaesce around a central figure who gives it direction and leadership. The President of Iran sure isn't that person. Bin Laden doesn't come close. Considering Palestine, Sudan, Tchad, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Somalia, Phillipines, etc I see no clear leader. Bt I do see disparate groups who would grow memberships radically in the event of a 4th consecutive war between the U.S. and a Muslim country.

There are many who feel that the Iraq war was release 0 of 'spreading democracy' and that further wars will refine the process. Building up the army and marines to better handle the war on terrorism easily supports such an hypothesis. But if it's right that's exactly what the world doesn't need!
The war on terrorism cannot be won by military might. Just as the Palestinians persist against the combined might of Israel and the U.S. The USSR's brand of communism wasn't beaten by military might, nor by having its leaders "taken out". It was 'beaten' by "the west's" persistence at demonstrating that capitalism was a far superior system than communism (and communications getting good enough that the people of the USSR could see it for themselves). Now that victory has been achieved capitalism is merging with Chinese communism and capitalism no longer feels any need to prove itself better, but rather that it can become equally adept at exploiting its own workers.