Think about it some, folks. The governments of some of the Muslim nations now supporting the US war on terrorism are also facing a very real threat of revolt at home by very militant & very fundamentalist fanatical groups. Those groups would seize on their government’s continued support of the US if the bombings continued during Ramadan.
This is simply a speculation of the OP – not a fact.
It is not extablished that continued U.S. military action throughout Ramadan will make anyone angrier, or compromise any kind of Saudi or Pakistani support.
CNN basically pulled this poll question out of thin air, as far as I can see. It’s interesting to think about, and thus a good poll question (I guess). But who with any influence in the real world has called for a month-long cease-fire during Ramadan? Why would anyone assume we must stop our military actions in the face of something which has not and may not occur – viz widespread Muslim insult.
All I’m reading in this threads are a lot of assumptions about Islamic reaction to fighting through Ramadan and a lot of non sequitirs.
bordelond:
I dearly hope you are not making the mistake of seeing my reference to the Tet Offensive as a non sequitur.
Well, these folks, for example.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by bordelond *
Angrier? I’m not so sure the people in Pakistan or Indonesia that are protesting and rioting could get any angrier. Many are convinced that we are at a war with Islam. Isn’t it a little reasonable to suggest that disrespecting Ramadan could further fuel the fire. My guess is that if the people of Pakistan overthrow their government, that might compromise support. And, of course this is speculation.
Well, so far the powers that be in the coalition DID think it was a good idea to not bomb on the Holy day. I believe we have stopped bombing twice on those days. So somebody is obviously thinking along the lines of being careful not to insult.
If we’re really worried about it, how about offering the Taliban a deal: we won’t kill any Afghans during Ramadan if they don’t. There’s no way the Taliban will accept it, and we can claim that they were the ones the chose to continue the war.
from El_Kabong’s link:
IOW, they get to fight during Ramadan, but we don’t. And they call us racist?
That’s pretty convenient I’d say. Assuming there’s no Taliban or Al Queda dopers, let’s just announce we’re not going to bomb, and then go all out 
And let’s not forget that the 1973 war against Israel was started on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
In short, in a war, you can’t be observe the enemy’s holidays. They would (if they could) bomb us on Christmas, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Why shouldn’t we bomb during Ramadan???
Another point, religious considerations aside. Winter is coming. Winter, I am told, is fairly brutal in Afghanistan. If we halt the war for Ramadan on Nov 17, it will be much more difficult to pick it up again afterwards; which could result in a danger to American soldiers.
Zev Steinhardt
Well said zev!
i wouldn’t sweat it. the mobs aren’t going to get any angrier. doesn’t anyone remember all the way back to september, 2001 when the taliban were warning a worldwide jihad against USA if we attacked afghanistan? well, that isn’t happening in any large scale. now what - are they pushing that deadline back to ramadan?
Zev, I totally agree that a loss in momentum by our troops is not a viable option. Winter will play a big factor in that, although I read today that the cold could actually be an advantage to us due to some hi-tech thermal guidance system that could very accurately find their hiding places.
I am concerned a bit about Pakistan though. It is a strong tactical advantage for us to be able to operate from there. There have been warnings that the protesters might attempt to take over our military operations center (or whatever you want to call it) or even attempt to overthrow the Government. How feasable is this? I’m the first to admit that I don’t have a clue. But there is power in numbers and this region is far from stable.
With what army? Surely we can secure our operations center against a small-arms carrying mob? And in their self-interest, would not the Pakistani government perhaps sanction our use of military power to defend the operations center against potential invaders?
For Pete’s sake – how can the U.S. do anything militarily if we are constantly hamstrung with a billion-and-one ticky-tack rules? The U.S. might as well submit to any terrorists’ will in the future and become a vassal state of a Taliban/Bin Laden-led Afghnaistan.
I’m having a hard time seeing the gray area here between making our immediate military objectives our #1,2 & 3 concerns AND surrendering to any and all terrorist threats from this point forward.
I am very much against halting American military action during Ramadan. Bombings, maybe – but our Special Forces teams need to stay in country and continue the search for Bin Laden and his lieutentants. I don’t buy the threats that there are 100s ready to take Bin Laden’s place. If there were, why wouldn’t they already be raising hell now? Megalomaniac psychotics with the resources and will of Osama Bin Laden don’t grow on trees – they are very rare birds.
That’s the price you pay for being one of the good guys.
Otherwise we might as well start bombing civilians, torturing prisoners, and get as down-and-dirty-nasty as our foes…
Just going from what I’ve read on the subject, no, if the current Pakistani regime wants to remain in power. It was mainly through veiled threats that the US was able to establish bases on Pakistani soil in the first place, and (feel free to correct me), it is generally not considered cricket to open fire on the unarmed (or even lightly armed) citizens of a host country if they decide to protest one’s presence there.
There’s too many ‘ifs’ here to make a definitive judgement, but IF the US continues its campaign through Ramadan, and IF mobs began to storm US military bases in Pakistan, and IF the US military opened fire on Pakistanis; I can’t see where this would do the US cause any good.
Protesters – no problem. Invaders – problem. You don’t mean that U.S. soldiers fired upon at point-blank range by Pakistani civilians MUST stand down, do you? Of course, best case would be for a Pakistani militia to guard our bases.
Yeah, there are a lot of “ifs”. I agree about that.
I’m not yet convinced that campaigning through Ramadan = certain popular, armed, and summarily SUCCESSFUL revolt in Pakistan & other Muslim nations. I’d hate for our military to be hamstrung by a condition that has a very, very low chance of occurring.
I find the actual accusation that this is “a war on Islam” is evidence that we can do nothing right in some peoples opinion.
Our president made it a point to say how we approach this, and what we would do. You don’t believe him? Fine. Our military is taking extraordinary steps to try to avoid civilliam targets (we know that it’s not always possible), and our people, for the most part, do not want Afghan civilians killed. What have we done to show any intention of starting a war on Islam? If the U.S. would be at was with any of the nations (other than Afghanistan) they would know it. We have enough military cpability to take them all out, at the same time. Combine that with Britain, and we have more than enough. What on God’s (Alla’s) green earth makes anyone think we are at war with them if they are still standing?
The very idea that we must compromise our efforts to stop for a holiday is crazy. We have been treated to a first-class surprise attack resulting in thousands of deaths here, but we must worry about the Taliban’s and Al-Queda’s Holiday observance? That’s completely silly, since these are people we are prepared to kill - not civilians, but fighters and terrorists, and we want to make sure they can observe the Holidays?
The more I thought about this question, the more I found myself favoring a pause. It might gain us a PR edge, and I don’t see much military loss. There can’t be much left to bomb. Given the altitude of much of the country, my guess FWIW is that winter will have set in well before the end of Ramadan.
OTOH if the Northern Alliance is fighting the Taliban on the ground during Ramadan, then perhaps we should feel free to support them.
A pause in bombing only, or a pause in all military action?
In line with what December said – why not tell the world, “We’re stopping the bombing”? And then do it – no more bombing. That doesn’t mean we stop the “war on terrorism”. We continue full bore in our efforts to track down and capture terrorists in the US and abroad. We continue to send re-con flights over Afghanistan. We continue the commando raids on the targets we’re able to identify. We continue to fire missles at any Taliban assets that pose a danger to our re-con and commando forces. And, when and if we find the cave that is hiding Bin Laden, we can bomb the shit out of it whether we’ve previously “stopped the bombing” or not.
The rationale: We’ve hit all the targets we could easily find. The bombs are now falling closer in, and have a higher risk of civilian casualties. The longer the bombing continues the more pissed off our “coalition partners” (not to mention opposition mobs, and muslims the world over) are getting. It seems that we could get a nice PR bump by saying “We’re done with the bombing”, at very little actual cost in terms of our ability to continue the war on terrorism and the hunt for Bin Laden.
Bin Laden is a hero to many of his followers, the equivelant in some ways to a movie star, idolized by radicals and * even their children *. I will agree that not everyone has the financial resources of ObL but he is idolized by some. As crazy as it sounds, I think there are many radicals that dream of being in his position. Killing him is only chopping off the tip of the iceberg. IMHO