CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, January 8, 2007

Shoot and scoot: An alternative to surge and purge

President Bush will order the deployment of about 20,000 additional troops to Baghdad. The objective of this surge of troops into Baghdad is to purge that troubled city of Shiite insurgent elements which are under the command of the Shiite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr.

Hopefully, “surge and purge” will succeed; however, this observer suggests a slight modification to “surge and purge” which I shall call: “Shoot and scoot.” Here’s how it works: Some graduate of either the U.S Army or the U.S. Marine Corps Sniper School is ordered to shoot al-Sadr and scoot. “Shoot and scoot” would rob the Shiite insurgents of their leader in Baghdad and, at the same time, deprive the Iranians of al-Sadr, their main agent in Iraq.

Unfortunately, in the larger sense of our attempts to guard Western Civilization from radical Islam, we face even bigger challenges than a mopping up operation in Iraq. The birth rates of white Europeans are well below the 2.1 children per household needed to maintain their population majorities. Meanwhile, Muslims from both the Middle East and Africa are flooding into Western Europe with birth rates of six or seven per household -- a birth rate that will outnumber the original white, European stock within two generations, i.e., 44 years.

So, if you have plans to tour Europe and see it as depicted in today’s travel brochures at which you look so longingly, you better go now. Already mega-decibel public-address systems are blaring out five-times-per-day over Paris to call the Muslim faithful to prayer while the great Catholic cathedrals are virtually empty – except for tourists.

The white women of Western Europe are not likely to increase their birth rates, so Europe will lose its current culture unless it overturns its open immigration policies. Ironically, unlike the United States, the nation-states of Western Europe have strict control of their borders. But their ultra-liberal immigration policies make their strict border controls of little value.

It would be nice if the tide of tan and black folks flooding in from the Middle East and Africa would come with a live-and-let-live religious philosophy. Unfortunately, they come with the teachings of the Koran which clearly state that there are only three ways to deal with the infidels: They must convert to Islam or they must be killed or they must agree to submission which means paying huge taxes to support the local mosques or other forms of radical Islamist extortion.

Once in place, the radical Islamists demand that their culture be recognized and valued. This raises the question: Should each culture be allowed to continue whatever practices its culture demands?

Under the Hadd edicts of the Muslim Law of Sharia, women suspected of adultery are stoned to death. Brothers are authorized to behead sisters who bring disgrace upon the family. The genitalia of young females are mutilated by removal of the clitoris. The hands of thieves are cut off. Will the traditional culture of Western Europe be willing to live side-by-side with Sharia?

When the British ruled India, they let their subjects continue their cultural practices. But they ordered a stop to the Hindu practice of suttee -- the custom under which a live widow is thrown on top of her deceased husband’s funeral pyre.

When local leaders complained to British General Sir Charles Napier that, by banning suttee, he was insensitive to their cultural practices, General Napier replied: “You say your custom is to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then, we will follow ours.”

If you think the non-Muslim Europeans have the cojones to follow General Napier’s example, I’ll sell you this bridge linking Brooklyn to Manhattan. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, let’s hope we have the cojones to shoot Muqtada al-Sadr and scoot.

Syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and a former research fellow at the U.S. Military History Institute of the U.S. Army War College. He is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy – two thrillers about terrorism directed against the United States.

©2007. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com