BOMBS ARE FALLING

So now the bombs are falling on ISIL targets in Syria. A new line has been crossed. Is it going to work?

And by that, I don't just mean: Can the job be done by dropping bombs from U.S. (and other) aircraft and training local fighters to provide the necessary boots on the ground?

There's a bigger issue involved: the so-called War on Terror itself. This activity ("terror") is merely a weapon anyone may pick up and use at any time. All folks need is a reason.

It's classic asymmetrical warfare. You can't take on the enemy in some massive frontal attack, so you jab your knife at the exposed edges. You harass. You annoy. You poke at the Great Satan and do whatever you can. Let Allah grant you his help.

Maybe you can hit a famous building so hard Allah will take it from there and bring the structure to the ground. (In the case of the World Trade Towers, it was something to do with an aviation-fuel fire and a tangle of insufficiently insulated steel beams.)

Rather than clobbering terrorists—before, during, or after an attack—we should consider discovering and short-circuiting the reasons for that attack in the first place.

So why are they attacking us? Why do they hate us?

It's simple: They are deeply religious folk who are defending their religion from attack and scorn.

And yeah, I know, Prime Minister Cameron pointed out ISIL fighters were not true Muslims, that Islam is a religion of peace, that ISIL is lying when they claim a religious reason for their actions.

Nonsense. The man is just raining PC honey on a growing segment of Great Britain. No mainstream politician can afford to be seen as anti-religion, no matter what the religion.

But check this out: No religion whose very name means "submission" can be held entirely blameless if its adherents go on a rampage, looking for a new and wider population to coerce into this holy process. (Or to kill if they refuse.) Ultimately, the radicals want a Global Caliphate: Submission from All.

Christianity is not much better. There is a long and nasty history of worldwide "missionary" work issuing from that particular pack of nonsense.

So how do you stop religious people from acting out, from pressing their case with guns and bombs and steel?

This is a tough one. Humans don't just love their various religions, they are afraid to examine them. (There is literally no way to judge God's response to such an inquiry.) Folks bound up in religions that encourage members to fear God are especially unlikely to look into the details of their beliefs.

(According to the Bible, on one occasion God got so pissed off he murdered everybody on the planet, save eight. You really don't want to offend that guy.)

If you tried to explain to a bunch of religious people the error of their thinking, you could expect them to stick their fingers in their ears and chant "la-la-la" until they saw you had stopped talking.

Or they would simply kill you to put an end to the threat of what could be fatal contamination.

Generally, you can't argue people out of their beliefs. Those notions didn't get in there by reason and so can't be removed by that process.

And any attempt to ridicule beliefs would meet with great opposition from Islamists. They appear to be especially touchy in this area. It would be like pouring gasoline on the fire.

Still, this might be a promising area for attack. If you can't utterly destroy a given religion, you may be able to modify certain attitudes within that religion.

(You can, in theory, utterly destroy a religion, but it involves killing [or converting] every member [man, woman, and child], as well as eradicating all sacred texts and artifacts. Even the most rabid Christian missionaries were not able to complete this task in the New World, hard as they tried.)

You can't prove to a Muslim that his religion is false, but maybe you could prove to him the U.S. is not actually in a war against him. Unfortunately, such arguments are becoming more difficult every day and may soon pass the Point of No Return—if they haven't already.

It would be difficult, but perhaps you could get Islamists to mellow out when it comes to "defending" their religion from a myriad of non-lethal and casual threats. How many people were killed because Protestants referred to Catholics as "mackerel snappers"? I would hope not many.

Mild criticism such as the political cartoon in the Danish newspaper (showing Mohammad with a bomb under his turban) should not have caused the furor it did.

On the other hand, those radical Muslims who dream of a Global Caliphate may need to be terminated with prejudice. In fact, they might insist.

In the end, it could take hundreds (or thousands) of years for humans to give up religion altogether.

But don't hold your breath.

Besides, the trouble with religion (or dangerous nonsense of any type) goes much deeper than a simple ignorance of how the universe operates. At base, there appears to be a fundamental flaw in the human brain.

Is anybody working on that problem?

FLOATING DEATH, OR: DEATH FROM ABOVE, PART TWO

President Obama's plan to deal with ISIL is drawing a lot of criticism from folks who scoff at our ability to do the job with just air power.

Folks suggest if there are no American boots on the ground, there will be no effective boots from any other source. And no boots, no success.

Training Iraqi soldiers, they say, was unsuccessful in the past and won't work now. In addition, the idea of training "moderate" rebels in Syria to kill ISIL fighters will never work. Plus, they might use our training and weapons against us at some future date.

So, here's my proposal: Boots in the Air.

American boots, that is. Drones (or more properly, dronettes) that can be launched from larger drones. The "mother" drone flies to a battle area, releases a swarm of dronettes, then relays real-time hi-def camera images to guys at consoles in "death" centers nearby (or half a world away). The guys fly the dronettes into action, searching for targets. Control data are relayed by the mother drone to her lethal children.

All you need is a device capable of staying in the air for an hour or so, carrying a quarter pound of C-4 studded with ball bearings and nails. You fly to an ISIL target and explode the dronette. The soldier-pilot goes out for a smoke and a whizz, then cames back in ready to fly a new dronette to a new target.

More sophisticated versions might fire 10mm rockets at targets. (You don't want a lot of recoil in your weapon, so regular guns and bullets might not work.) Figure a few dozen rounds per machine. In a target-rich environment, you might get a chance to expend them all before your fuel runs out.

An even more sophisticated version might illuminate targets with laser light, leading a dozen fire-and-forget rockets to the enemy—all guaranteed hits.

The dronettes would be aware of one another in the sky, jostling slightly to avoid collisions. Ultimately, you could deploy a "pigeon roost" to take in dronettes low in fuel or out of ammo and automatically resupply them with gas and rockets.

The technology to do all this is virtually off-the-shelf right now.

Boots in the Air, baby. Why not?

DEATH FROM ABOVE

President Obama calls them ISIL, or Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. They used to call themselves ISIS, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Now they call themselves simply the Islamic State.

The name change is crucial.

The Islamic State wants to be the new al-Qaeda. They were originally AQI, or al-Qaeda in Iraq. They were just a splinter group. Now they're looking to be The Group.

Al-Qaeda means the Outpost or the Base. The name is not geographically limited. The Base could be anywhere.

As a name, ISIS (or ISIL) was too limited in scope, anchored to Iraq and the surrounding region.

But the Islamic State? That could be anywhere and everywhere, which is their goal. Ultimately, they want the Islamic State to be worldwide.

Now that al-Qaeda has been decapitated and marginalized, newly radicalized Muslims have to go someplace else. The Islamic State wants to be that someplace else. Now, with the name change, they're properly positioned.

It's estimated they might have 30,000 members. That number can only increase.

In fact, the more of them we kill, the more young men (and women?) will flock in to fill the void. We're about to make them the underdog.

A hero is measured by the size and strength of his opponent. The United States is the Great Satan. We are the biggest and nastiest opponent any hero could ever want.

The more the world sees video of Islamic State pickups disappearing beneath a cloud of dust and explosive destruction, the more angry young men will rush in to avenge the deaths. It's unavoidable.

Every explosion is proof (should any proof be needed) of the War on Islam this country is waging. Muslims are called to defend Islam. As a result, every strike against Islam can only make it stronger. At least, in the short run.

The Islamic State puts out sophisticated recruitment videos showing their triumphs over infidels and non believers. (Killing Shi'ites is okay, because Sunni radicals don't consider them true Muslims.)

Maybe we should be putting out videos of our own. Get Hollywood involved, as we did in WW2.

"Death from Above."

A little something left over from the Vietnam War.

When a member of the Islamic State fires a bullet at your head—or drags his knife across your throat—the fact of your subsequent death is literal proof Allah wanted you dead. After all, nothing happens that is not his will.

We need to suggest that when an Islamic State fighter's machine-gun-toting pickup truck blows up—with no warning; just out of the blue kabloowie—it's the living will of Allah acted out right here on planet Earth.

Death from Above, baby!

And no Star Spangled Banner pumping away on the soundtrack. No Stars and Stripes Forever.
Play Carmina burana by Carl Orff. Play the theme song from the Wrath of God. Make it spooky. Make it supernatural. Make people think twice about joining a group of people that has clearly been targeted by Allah for destruction.

PUNCHING OUT WOMEN

Sometimes it's necessary to punch a woman out.

But not because you find her annoying or clingy or she wants to go dancing when you want to stay home or she burned the toast again at breakfast.

More like: when she's coming at you with an axe in her hands and murder in her eyes. Brother, you are not required by etiquette to take that axe in the face.

Just because she's packing double-X chromosomes doesn't give her the right to kill you.

On the other hand, when murder and maiming is not on the agenda, a guy should keep his hands to himself. For that matter, so should she.

Let's everybody take a breath and step back.

Folks get pumped up. They get heated. They get excited. They get overwrought. It's time to back off.

I've heard it said: "A man should never hit a woman."

That's almost perfectly correct. Better: "Nobody should ever hit anybody."

But we all have a right to defend ourselves. In such a case, the words of every snot-nosed, whiny kid takes on new meaning: "He/she started it!"

If you are attacked, male or female, you should be able to react in an appropriate manner. And yes, the blame goes to the one who started it.

But usually men are bigger, stronger, and tougher than their mates. A little restraint is in order.

If I'm seeing the video right, Ray Rice smacked his fiancee as soon as they got in the elevator. She came at him and he decked her with a left. Her head stuck the railing as she fell. She continued to the floor, out cold. He dragged her unconscious body into the hallway.

Apparently Ray was annoyed at something she did before they got on the elevator. He punished her for it, and that started the fight. When she came at him, he was at best entitled to a gentle push-back. (And maybe not even that.) Clocking the woman was a massive over-reaction.

Janay Rice (she's now his wife) wants everybody to butt out. She says the release of the security footage was intended to embarrass her.

It's a common problem: People are convinced they know what everybody else is thinking, what everybody's secret motives are for their actions.

It's a delusion that seriously complicates life on this planet.

PS: I hope Rice saved up some money. Being out of work can put a lot of stress on a relationship, stress that sometimes breeds domestic violence. They say they're getting counseling. Can they even afford that now?

SHOOTING UNARMED PEOPLE

Sometimes it's necessary to shoot unarmed people. It all depends on what they're doing at the time.

Say you hear a noise in the middle of the night and you turn on the light to find some guy in your bedroom. You grab your Glock out of the nightstand and point it at him, saying: "Get out or I'll shoot."

You see he's unarmed: no gun, no knife, no frying pan.

You can see he sees your gun.

Even so, with a little grin on his face he starts toward you, calling your bluff.

Shoot him.

Unarmed people who walk smilingly toward a gun are the most dangerous people on the planet. The smile means he's thinking of all the cool things he's going to do to you after he takes that gun away from you.

Shoot the son of a bitch!

You simply cannot let that fellow get close enough to grab your weapon.

Shoot him center of mass. Then run out of there, call 911.

Forget all that crap about putting a knife in his hand. If you were in fear for your life (and you by God should have been), that's all the defense you need.

Shoot him, if you want to live.

And by the way, if the guy says "Don't shoot" as he comes toward you, shoot him anyway. It's just a trick.

Now, if you're on the street in broad daylight and you're a cop, you might have other options. So-called "less than lethal" weapons.

Whether you have time to holster your gun and reach for some other device depends on the situation. If the man is moving toward you, it may be too late. Holstering your weapon might be a signal to the fellow to kick it into high gear.

Fumble with your new, less-than-lethal weapon, you might not have another chance.

Unless some one comes forward with video of the shooting in Missouri, we'll probably never know what actually happened. Everybody has something at stake: the cop, the friend, the more distant witness.

The autopsy shows the guy was hit six times, but that doesn't mean he was shot six times. Some of the wounds might be consistent with multiple wounds by the same bullet: arms hit while protecting the body or face, the bullet passing through.

It would be hard to charge an armed cop without putting your hands in front of you. Yelling "Don't shoot" at the same time might even buy you a half second or so.

Folks do weird stuff in an emergency.

The video of the alleged robbery showed a big fellow using his superior size as a weapon. He menaced the shopkeeper just by walking toward him. If that was in fact the kid who got shot by the cop fifteen minutes later, the events that occurred just before he was stopped might have influenced his attitude.

Would have influenced mine.

Knowing he was about to be arrested might have spurred him to act in a desperate manner. Was his description coming in over the radio at the moment it all went down? If the cop's door was open, the radio volume might well have been enhanced—loud enough for someone outside the vehicle to hear distinctly. They're meant to work that way.

Unfortunately for us all, too many people already know exactly what happened in the middle of that road. At least, they think they do. And that's all the counts on this planet.