Law and order where there is neither?

Try looking at it from an Iranian point of view. It looks to them like the USA is waging covert war against them, and has been for a very long time.

Not only covert.  The Iran-Iraq war was started in 1980 by the Iraq government, extensively supported by the US government, including (later) US military attacks on Iranian facilities.  (The US government sold a few weapons to the Iran government, but that was nothing compared to its support for the Iraq government.)  Iranian casualties (killed and wounded) were about a million people.

Sure, and also it isn't exactly an invalid viewpoint to think that Iran/Contra was not just about getting money for the Contras, but also about prolonging the Iraq/Iran war. We'd supported Iraq until the Iranians started getting too worn out to continue, and then we started selling hi-tech weapons to both sides instead of just one side....

Henry Kissinger had said "Too bad they can't both lose" and after Iran/Contra it wasn't unreasonable for them both to think we were trying to get them to both lose.

... We'd supported ... we started selling ... we were trying ...

I had no part of those actions and did not support them, and my guess is that you didn't either.  Maybe it's picking nits, but I can't help feel that using collectivist language just plays into their hands.

... We'd supported ... we started selling ... we were trying ...

I had no part of those actions and did not support them, and my guess is that you didn't either.  Maybe it's picking nits, but I can't help feel that using collectivist language just plays into their hands.

That makes sense.

I tend to think of myself as an American, and what the US government does with the passive support of its people as something that "we" do even when I'm personally deadset against it. Yes, that looks like a bad linguistic habit.

It looks to me like you arbitrarily say it must be Westphalian or else it's street gangs that mingle everywhere but fight each other based on affiliation. As if those are the only two choices.

It looks to me as if you are looking for a way of fighting wars that does not involve killing people and breaking things.

Anarcho capitalists cannot practice the Westphalian system, any more than native Americans or Muslims can.  Therefore anarcho capitalist wars will look like non westphalian wars, such as the settler wars with native americans, and the war between Christendom and Dar al Islam, which do indeed wind up as street gangs that mingle, not everywhere, but nonetheless mingle a great deal, and fight each other based on affiliation.

This is the way the conflict between Christendom and Dar al Islam was usually fought.  Even when Christendom had a Holy Roman Emperor, and Dar al Islam had a Caliph, it was usually militias, adventurers, bandits, raiders, pirates, and terrorists, rather than large scale conflict between large conventional armies under the command of Kings and Caliph.

In the history of the conflict, Christendom has never successfully occupied any part of Dar al Islam for very long, nor Islam Christendom for very long, except by means of armed settlers, as for example the Jews in Gaza, and Christians in Algeria.  When the Israeli government pulled the Jews out of Gaza, it became obvious that Israeli government had not been protecting the settlers, rather the settlers had been protecting the Israeli government.  This kind of non Westphalian conflict is the way that anarcho capitalist wars will be fought - like the settles in Gaza, rather than like the Six Day War.

You say that given bad scriptures the only two ways to reform a religion are to paper it over with so much obfuscation that the meaning is lost, or else get a new prophet to declare the old scriptures invalid. And since the Muslims have not yet done either of those they are stuck with bad scripture.

Historically, that is the only way that worked.  We do not, in fact, have examples of religions casually ignoring their holy texts.  We also have examples of several new prophets and industrious obfuscators trying to fix up Islam, and the Islamic response, like the early Jewish response to the early Christians, has been to cut off their heads.  The early Jewish obfuscators worked a safe distance from Judea, and did not get any traction until after the Jews had been dispersed.

(Particularly from the viewpoint of an Israeli: they're people just like us, except we don't have to worry much about Indian uprisings these days.)

And, of course, the reason we do not have to worry about Indian uprising is that we used methods less politically correct than the Israelis did.

Henry Kissinger had said "Too bad they can't both lose" and after Iran/Contra it wasn't unreasonable for them both to think we were trying to get them to both lose.

Of course Reagan was trying to make sure they both lost.  Both Iran and Iraq were theocracies that wanted to unite Islam to make war on the west.  And they both did lose. 

If the Rajah's son murdered one Christian and raped his wife and daughters, no problem.  If, however, he murdered another Christian, better connected to outside Christians, the Raja's son would get thumped by that Christian's friends, co workers, and employer.

This sort of messiness goes on today in places like Nigeria.

It's not good for people to have to live with that much violence.

That is the level of violence you generally get along the bloody borders of Islam, any place where a substantial proportion of the population is Muslim.

Consider the news from Indonesia,  a "moderate" Islamic democracy, an "ally" in the war on terror.  http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/each-time-we-pray-we-are-shadowed-by-terror-indonesian-christians-cant-pray-in-a-building-cant-pray.html
"each time we pray, we are shadowed by terror"

There will be war.

Try looking at it from an Iranian point of view. It looks to them like the USA is waging covert war against them, and has been for a very long time.

Has been since the Iranian's started sponsoring terrorist movements that murder Americans.  Remember that as soon as Khomeini took power, he said that the US was the great Satan and took the US embassy hostage.  Very shortly thereafter, was sponsoring terror.

Dar al Islam is at war with us, whether or not we are at war with them.  Always has been, always will be.

The Peace of Vasvár, and a thousand similarly one sided peace deals, prefigured Oslo and the rest.

The reason the US is in trouble in Afghanistan is state building:  "Oh, the price of building a nation is our allies?  No problem. We want peace at any price."

Those who are willing to pay too high a price for peace will never know  peace.

As a result of the Peace of Vasvár the caliphate damn near took Vienna, which would have given them most of  Europe.  I predicted the price of our betrayal of our  friends in Afghanistan would in the end be very high, and lo and behold, it has been very high.

The reason we have war now is the usual reason that it has been for a thousand years, that we were too eager for peace, and our enemies will never agree to peace.

Always, over and over again, we win a victory, and expect peace.  No peace ensues.  So we concede land for peace, as at Vasvár  we abandoned our allies - and we get a war far more dreadful.

What usually happens is that the west wins an decisive and overwhelming victory, for example the six day war, the capture of Saddam, victory in Afghanistan, and then looks to cash in that victory, and then is distinctly confused and puzzled that it cannot find any teller to cash in the victory.

We generally think that the Battle of Vienna was the decisive turning point in the war of Islam against the west, and it was, but the reason that the Battle of Vienna was a decisive turning point and Battle of Saint Gotthard was not was that the Battle of Saint Gotthard was followed by the Peace of Vasvár, which gave away most of what had been won, similarly to the aftermath of the six day war, with the result that Vienna was almost taken in the Battle of Vienna, while the Battle of Vienna was followed by sixteen years of hard fighting, regaining everything that had been lost by the Peace of Vasvár.  The battle of Vienna was a turning point
because the victory was followed up, treated as a basis for war, rather than a basis for peace.

When Islam attacks, you have to keep fighting until they come looking for peace at any price.  You have not won until they do.  When the US made peace and dismantled the Northern Alliance, it was the Peace of Vasvár all over again.

We should have treated the fall of Kabul as the basis for utterly defeating the Pashtuns, rather than the basis for creating a friendly Pashtun government.  We got a government that is in cahoots with the Taliban, and our aid money funds the Taliban.

We gave the Pashtuns Afghanistan back, and put our allies in their hands, in return for bugger all.  For that, they despise us, and we deserve to be despised. It was a classic "what must we give you to get peace?" deal, resembling the the Peace of Vasvár and the end of the first American Barbary war.

The way to win against  Islam is to realize that there never has been peace and never will be peace, only higher and lower levels of war. 

And always, the level of war is lower in proportion to how much we are hurting them.  Only when we have settlers taking their lands, do we get a level of war that is quiet enough that for us scarcely distinguishable from peace.

It looks to me like you arbitrarily say it must be Westphalian or else it's street gangs that mingle everywhere but fight each other based on affiliation. As if those are the only two choices.

Anarcho capitalists cannot practice the Westphalian system, any more than native Americans or Muslims can.  Therefore anarcho capitalist wars will look like non westphalian wars

Well, I can't argue with that. Classical aristotelian logic. It's either A or not-A, only two choices. So every war must be a Westphalian war or a non-Westphalian war, every nation is either democratic or non-democratic, every nation's population is either muslim or non-muslim and they either have a theocracy or a non-theocracy and their economy is either capitalist or non-capitalist.

I think we've carried this about as far as it's going.

When the Israeli government pulled the Jews out of Gaza, it became obvious that Israeli government had not been protecting the settlers, rather the settlers had been protecting the Israeli government.

Surely it had to be one or the other.

Where the F U C K did you get the idea that I'm a progressive (AKA liberal or socialist)? 

Conversion based solutions to Muslim problem usually mean making Muslims into Christians, or making them into progressives.

I'm not into converting anybody.  And I consider muslims no more of a problem than christians.  (I'm an atheist, my son, and I've read every "holy" book around, from the KJV I was given for perfect attendance at Sunday School when I was eight to the Baghavad-Gita I was handed at the San Francisco airport when I was headed to Travis AFB and the Koran that came with the Encyclopedia Americana I bought from folks shilling in front of a Travis BX.).  And I'm sure as hell not a "progressive".  I'll defend myself and my loved ones from any religious or political idiot who threatens them (which is too damned many, and you act like one).

Henry Kissinger had said "Too bad they can't both lose" and after Iran/Contra it wasn't unreasonable for them both to think we were trying to get them to both lose.

Of course Reagan was trying to make sure they both lost.  Both Iran and Iraq were theocracies that wanted to unite Islam to make war on the west.  And they both did lose. 

Jimmie, Iraq had a more secular government than the US has.  While Hussein may have gone to church on the right days of the week (like US politicians) there was no religious rule in Iraq until Bush 2 declared an unjustified war with no declaration by Congress.  Iran is different, but both countries were dealing with governments installed by US (usually covert, but poorly hidden) action.  Jeez I cry, now you're gonna claim that we were defending a democratically elected regime in southeast Indo-China back in the 60s.

By the way, don't ever include me if you say "we" to collectively describe voters or politicians in the US.  I ain't neither.  While I've been known to vote, it's almost always against.  Only person I ever voted for in recent history was Ron Paul (and while I know for a fact he got at least two votes in Jersey in 2008, none were listed).

jamesd prated: <quote>We do not, in fact, have examples of religions casually ignoring their holy texts.</quote>

On what planet have you been living? No religion pays slavish attention to every jot and tittle of their sacred holy texts. Even so-called inerrantists practice cafeteria <fill in the name of the -ism>.

The militantly hysterical anti-Islamists who claim, on the basis of their alleged expertise in the Quran, that 1.6 billion Moslims are a terrible existential threat to the rest of the world, never apply the same standards to the holy texts of Judaism or Christianity; otherwise, they'd be advocating the abolition of all three religions and their adherents, root and branch.

Can you spell "hypocrite" or "intellectual dishonesty" or "double standard?"
 

On what planet have you been living?

He did say "casually". As he explained, there was a painful transition for both the Jews and the Christians before they stopped waging violent wars against unbelievers.

For a more detailed discussion of this issue, this article, which I saw mentioned in another forum (particularly its second page) might be of interest.

Of course Reagan was trying to make sure they both lost.  Both Iran and Iraq were theocracies that wanted to unite Islam to make war on the west.  And they both did lose. 

Jimmie, Iraq had a more secular government than the US has. 

That is Islamist propaganda, like the variious clerics piously proclaimed as being "moderate" despite being up their knees in the blood of innocents.

The Baath party fully funded and directly controlled Sunni Islam in Iraq.  All Sunni clerics were direct employees of the state, and the Sunni religion fully funded and operated by the state.  Shiite religious festivals that distinguished Shia from Sunni were forbidden. Shia were required to conform to Sunni religious practice and discontinue Shia practices.  Jews and Judaism were forbidden. Christianity was permitted, but had to be practiced inconspicuously.  Christian evangelism and proselytizing were forbidden.

That is not a secular state.  Saddam is well described as "Islamo fascist"

Khomeini took power, he said that the US was the great Satan and took the US embassy hostage.  Very shortly thereafter, was sponsoring terror.

Yes, and how far did he get?  Just about nowhere.  Sure, people might cheer at a speech (especially if government goons are nearby), but your (and his) argument, that people should be hated and killed because of their religion, got essentially no traction.

But what happened when Bin Laden promoted terror primarily because of massive atrocities committed by the US government against Muslims?  Plenty of traction.  When people see family members and friends and neighbors killed, maimed, stolen from, made destitute, and tortured by US government agents and agents of other governments supported by the US government, then a significant fraction will be aroused to active opposition.  (Of course, the US government helped this along, such as by saying that an empty political gesture was worth the deaths--mostly from malnutrition and disease--of 500000 innocent Iraqi children.)  In addition, Bin Laden tried to use your hate-and-kill-people-of-the-wrong-religion argument, but (from all the intel that I've seen) opposition to the massive atrocities against innocent people was the primary motivating factor for Bin Laden's active supporters.

Note that I do not justify Bin Laden's actions.  His stated purpose was to get the American government to invade southwest Asia, causing massive opposition among Muslims and massive oppression of Americans (who would be forced to pay for the war), leading eventually to the collapse of American society.  After the 9/11 attacks, the US government followed Bin Laden's plan and appears determined to follow it to the end.  That would mean massive harm (including death) for many innocent Americans who opposed the atrocities and the war.  Those of us who do not share your (and Bin Laden's and Khomeini's) collectivism oppose harming innocent people (Muslim or not, American or not).

Saddam is well described as "Islamo fascist"

I suppose that depends on your definition of fascism--by most definitions that I've heard, the Iraq government (during Saddam's reign and since) could be considered fascistic.  This appears to be your justification for killing (and maiming and torturing and stealing from and making destitute) huge numbers of innocent people who are oppressed by the Iraq government.  Since the US government is (by those same definitions) more fascistic than the Iraq government, and since you haven't (as far as I know) justified the killing (and ...) of huge numbers of innocent Americans, the obvious conclusion is that you think it is OK to kill huge numbers of oppressed innocent people only when they profess a religion that you don't like.  That attitude is no more acceptable for an anti-Muslim advocate than it is for an anti-any-other-religion advocate.

I'll won't try any longer to argue you out of your bloodthirsty religious fanaticism.  I was a fool to try.