Oh damn, still in this dream.

The Old Man is stable for the time being. Visitors have been trying not to tire him out, which is thoughtful.
Took my amps into John Kelly's workshop without too much of a hitch, though I did get caught in a yellow box due to traffic. If I get a fine, so be it, dammit.

I've been thinking about the 'Clash of Cultures' worst case scenario.
I can't imagine even the most hardened Al Qaeda Islamist really wants a complete and total war against the west. A von Clauswitz total war (the whole of the West's economies and societies given over to the military objective) against Islam would effectively wipe the religion from the map - & with all it's holy sites crisped in the process. (A total war may well include nuclear weapons, especially if terrorists use them first.) The horrors (& expenses) of interning all moslems living in the west, conscription for all able bodied non moslem males leading to perhaps 20-30 million men under arms,  the complete occupation or destruction of Islamic capitals and thereafter Islamic culture - all these are horrific, by anyone's standards. I cannot believe that even Al Qaeda wants a total head to head, even if they say they do, and even if they think they can win such a set of engagements with the one or two nukes that Islamic countries might be able to build and use before the inevitable armageddon.

GWB's neocon advisors have tried to portray Islamists as fascists, conflating the terms into one: 'Islamofascist'. If we go down the WWII route, we will have to defeat them utterly, with all that implies. I can't see destroying the culture that returned Classical Greek to us and has given us the basis for much higher mathematics as being a good thing, merely because of the actions of a few madmen and zealots.

By definition then, if they are not mad, they have more limited (& achievable) objectives, else they would not be pushing us even this far. If they are mad, the moslem community should cauterise them, and quickly, before they tip the balance and everybody loses, but Islam loses even more.

If they have limited objectives we may be able to see just how far those coincide with ours. If not at all, then it's back to square one, but we always have further positions to adopt, right up to, and including (in extremis) all out war. And they (the 'bad guys') have the same choices. I'm sure there are sane Al Qaeda top brass who know what they want, and who also know what would satisfy them in the real world. But I may be wrong.

I know GWB's screwed the pooch over this, but I'm sure we can find a way out before we need to use 'Von Kreige' as our textbook. There should be about a hundred steps before we get to the worst case scenario, but again I may be wrong.

Of course, if I'm wrong, the only decent thing to do would be to join up myself. I rather hope that doesn't happen, as I'm pretty Bolshie and don't take kindly to orders given by idiots. However, I might prefer that to orders given by an Ayatollah: but it's only going to come to either if both sides are completely stupid. Nevertheless H L Mencken might have something pertinent to say about my optimism, or alternatively my belief in human beings rising above such stupidity.