The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Samuel]

So, who was predicting this before the summer of 1939? They had just fought a proxy-war in Spain, and both sides were murdering dissidents and political rivals on specious grounds that they were Nazis (in the Soviet Union) or Communists (in Germany).

For examples in the past, the first crusade, the reconquista, the 30 years war- all involve ideological enemies that work together to beat up on someone else. And ironically end with betrayal.

[Simon_Jester]

The idea of them going berserk and trying to conquer everybody and their cousin Fred was just... outside the context of the era.

REALLY?! And what have the industrial nations been doing just a few years ago? What were they doing in pre-war days? What was Germany's main thrust of political revanchism after World War I, "nonexistent"? Even the revanchism alone was enough to understand Germany will remilitarize (and as an industrial nation it was well able to do so), the Nazism only added the exterminatorial component to Germany's Grand Reconquista Plan.

Wrong era. You're talking about 20th century Europe, I'm talking about 19th.

YES, the elements for radical nationalism with a side-order of conquest were all there in Germany for at least a century before the Second World War started. But the ways in which that nationalism would be implemented, the amount of actual power it would gain, and how much damage it would manage to do before being brought down by its many enemies... not nearly so foreordained.

[Guardsman Bass]

But were they in a position to actually topple the Iraqi government present?

Not historically. This isn't that history though.

Then you need to actually present arguments as to why they would be in the position to topple the regimes, when historically they didn't have that position, and there is no evidence yet provided that suggests a great strengthening in their position after TBO except for handwaving.

There's still secular Arab nationalism,

Which was pretty much an Arabized version of European ideologies that have been very seriously trashed in TBO.

Only socialism/communism has been trashed. The region was hardly limited to socialism and Islamism as its political philosophies - there were also several constitutionalist and pro-republican movements historically in several arab areas (plus the Ottoman Empire) in the 19th century, and that trend wasn't dead.

Moreover, secular Arab nationalism was hardly just an "arabized version of European ideology".

as part of a sequence of steps that ultimately led to the rise of the Taliban. Are you disputing that?

Nope, but the Caliphate isn't the Taliban, even if they share a common ideology, and there has always been a very strong undercurrent of Islamism amongst the tribesmen of that area.

You still don't get it. I'm pointing out that it took a sequence of steps historically to reach what the Taliban was (and which Stuart basically copied for the Caliphate), and that without these steps, it's highly implausible that you'll get such a regime.

Moreover, "strong undercurrent of Islamism" does not equal "wahhabist style politics and policies" (particularly since the role of Islam in the area was historically quietist - the policy was basically "support the ruler as long as he's a muslim"). Take a look at Swat, for example - the region was heavily Islamic, but it also had a tradition of dancing girls, plus the local muslim traditions (which the wahhabist Taliban has stamped out).

it's implausible to the degree that you notice it whenever you read it.

You mean it's implausible to you for reasons that other people find insufficient.

I've pointed out reasons why it's implausible, and critiqued your reasons. Do you actually have a response other than "I find it plausible, and we'll agree to disagree"?

[Guardsman Bass]

There's always been an impulse to a strict observance of Islam, even if not quite as organized as the Muslim Brotherhood.

That's quite a far cry from what the TBO Caliphate represents.

It's only when Sharia stopped being the basis of Muslim political life in much of the Islamic world in the 19th century that a movement to restore it became viable.

Actually, the movement for making Sharia and the arab states "Islamic" (the idea of "returning to Islam" and "Islam is the answer") emerged in the 19th century in response to the perceived weakening of the Arab World and Ottoman Empire vis a vis Europe. Before that, there was no such movement - Islam's main rule for politics was quietist, i.e., "support the ruler as long as he's a muslim, because 100 years of tyranny is better than one day of anarchy".

Moreover, it was part of a whole host of ideological movements that emerged, some of them Islamist, some constitutionalist, and so forth.

[K. A. Pital]

I do think that Stuart simply goes with his political likes and dislikes; manufacturing "post-facto" plausibility for his political preferences is just intellectual dishonesty.

Taliban-like government uniting all of Central Asia and Middle East? Hardly possible; and so much less possible if the victor parties in World War II (America, mostly) have complete dominance in ME; there is no competition of real superpowers,no real ideological competition. That's bollocks. The rise of Wahhabism in Central Asia required foreign intervention to destroy constitutionalist and other moderate Islamic movements - even in such limited scale as IRL. TBO scale is just wishful thinking, and since the POD is so far away, basically Stuart can invent anything he likes.

That's not "history", "alternative history" or anything remotely realistic. It's fantasy. Of course, that is legitimate, but post-facto ascribing some sort of "innate realism" to it is wrong.

Same with the rest. For example, Stuart doesn't like Chavez. Hopla, he gets booted into the same league as the Myanmar Junta in Armageddon. Why? Because in Stuart's view he's a "nutcase". No matter that Venezuela politically doesn't even resemble Cuba, much less Myanmar or DPRK.

Trying to manufacture post-facto "rationalizations" for his political fantasy is not really helping it. It's better to simply admit it's a fantasy which has no relation to reality whatsoever. "Realism" in weapons? For sure. "Realism" in history" How can fantasy be 'realistic history', ol' pete's sake...

[muon]

(This post is a few days late, re Part 24 - I wasn't yet registered then, sorry! I hope, given the extensive discussion of this point, my first post isn't considered excessively necro...)

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Long-time lurker, first-time poster. After following Stuart's fine work for the past year, and seeing Baughn reference Yudkowsky and aleph.se in the course of this increasingly intriguing discussion, I figured I should finally join the party...

Stuart: great battle scene in Part 24, but your description of the SPY-1 directed-energy-weapon capabilities in this thread just doesn't hold water.

While I grant the true modern specs of the system are no doubt well beyond the open-source figures, the laws of EM propagation belie your claim that a phased array could generate a literal "pencil beam", mere centimeters in diameter at far-field ranges; indeed, this would render the diffraction limit a myth. As you note, a software-defined radio feeding a phased antenna array can produce an infinite variety of radiation patterns, but the focusing limits (and conversely, angular resolution, i.e. gain) of the antenna system are nevertheless limited by the physical size (diameter) of the whole array. (If this were not the case, one wouldn't need a large array at all, as one could simply "program" even a single antenna to have an arbitrarily narrow main lobe, e.g. large dish antennas would be superfluous - it doesn't work like that.)

Assuming the SPY-1 is operating in S-band (lets say a nice round 3 Ghz), and has an array diameter of 3.7 meters, per the open-source literature. This would give a half-beamwidth (3 dB down) of a bit less than 1 degree (a gain of around 37 dBi). A very tight beam to be sure, but a far cry from the "few cm" waist you were claiming - at an engagement range of ~80km, this would produce an illuminated cross-section well over 2km in diameter, which at 4MW radiated power would mean an exposure of less than 0.1 mW/cm^2 (well within civilian FCC MPE!).

Upping the radiated power to 40MW still wouldn't produce a substantial exposure at that range; the only ways to more tightly focus the power would be to use a larger array (although anything much larger than ~10-20m would be difficult to mount on a warship), or a higher frequency (of course, a shorter wavelength would necessitate many more closely-spaced elements in the phased array to avoid grating lobes).

Moving to X-band (say 10 Ghz) would give a ~10x smaller illuminated spot area than a 3Ghz system, still not that intense; e.g. even 40MW of power radiated from a 10m diameter array at 10 Ghz would still produce a power density of only (very roughly, depending on the precise radiated pattern, but order-of-magnitude correct) ~100mW/cm^2 at an 80km range, comparable to noonday sunlight (impressive for a radar, but still far from a death ray that could roast an archangel as described, unless the angels are in fact much more vulnerable to EM than humans?).

Only by moving well into the millimeter-wave or terahertz regime (or, of course, IR to optical wavelengths) does one get respectable focusing - e.g. operating in the 94 Ghz window would give ~1000x the target power density as the 3Ghz system, but then atmospheric attenuation would greatly reduce the beam intensity at 80km (given expected humidity at sealevel) - e.g. Raytheon's ADS has an effective range much less than 80km.

The only way to focus a beam to a "point" (on the order of one wavelength, ~<10cm for the S-band system as you describe) would be to have an array diameter of the order of the target range; in this case an array ~80km across.

This is one reason the Airborne LASER isn't a MASER system - despite the fact microwaves are generally easier to work with, physics is physics, and you simply can't focus longer-wavelength radiation that tightly, with a reasonably-sized emitter. (A spatially-distributed cluster of smaller antennas works fine for tracking and imaging, but not for power transmission - the thinned array curse would just waste most of the power in sidelobes.)

Of course, if the USN has found a magical (indeed, worthy of a Physics Nobel!) and highly classified way around these fundamental limits... well, then I guess you couldn't tell me.

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EDIT

This might be helpful to people. As I do recall the original SPY-1 was more F then E band, but the active array SPY-1E should be able to do all the lower wavelengths too. Bigger wont work so well given the limited antenna size.

Much higher frequencies than the range for which the array is designed won't work so well, as a wavelength less than (roughly, depending on look angle) twice the antenna element spacing will lead to grating lobes in the pattern.

It's possible that's not the literal beamwidth, but a composite one. In other words, given a series of phased array elements all converging on a space, there could be a very small region of interference where they add up to achieve peak intensity. The beams themselves might actually be wider.

This is indeed how a phased array operates; constructive interference combines the radiated pattern of each individual element into a single much narrower beam (or multiple beams). There is still an ultimate limit to how narrow that single beam can be however, a limit dictated by the wavelength in question and the overall diameter of the array. Very narrow "pencil beams" at higher frequencies yes, but not focusing down to a single wavelength diameter spot at a range of many kilometers with a reasonably-sized array at S-band range frequencies. There are tricks to provide higher-resolution imaging (e.g. ISAR), but not to so tightly focus raw power transmission (again, unless there's some very powerful classified tricks out there!).

[R011]

The fact that you consider common moderate nationalism, the most common, prevailing and long-standing ideology on Earth for nigh every form of government, "idiocy", speaks lots about your mental faculties. Or rather, their nonexistence.The fact that you consider common moderate nationalism, the most common, prevailing and long-standing ideology on Earth for nigh every form of government, "idiocy", speaks lots about your mental faculties. Or rather, their nonexistence.

The fact that you think Nasserism, whatever the f*ck Muamar Khadafi believes in, Baathist fascism, brutally enforced absolute monarchy, and rampant racism, including anti-Semitism, "moderate" shows much about you too.

Nothing was "unthinkable" in pre-war days.

The examples you give, of fear of war tantamount to cowardice and Eastern European business as usual, is a bit different from a movement that held anti-Communism as one of its central themes that had actually been at war with Soviet-backed Communists (and even Soviet troops) a few months earlier.

[R011]

No matter that Venezuela politically doesn't even resemble Cuba,.

It's getting awfully close, though, and its foreign policy, including the support of Marxist terror movements is very much like Cuba when it was a conduit for Soviet aid.

[R011]

Moreover, secular Arab nationalism was hardly just an "arabized version of European ideology"

No, it pretty much is. the idea of nationalism itself, for instance, is basically European. People in the Arab world mostly thought of themselves as belonging to the Umma if they thought of themselves belonging to an entity larger than their local tribe or clan. The trappings of that nationalism: dirigiste semi-socialist economy, cult-of-personality leadership, republican rather than monarchical government, those are European imports.

I'm pointing out that it took a sequence of steps historically to reach what the Taliban

I'm pointing out that this isn't the Taliban. Certainly Iran didn't get its Islamic government via the ISI

Before that, there was no such movement - Islam's main rule for politics was quietist

Because the regimes themselves were sufficiently Islamic that they didn't need to get involved. Mind you, it's probably more important that the Muslim Brotherhood was active historically before World War II and that Shia clerics, including Khomeini, were politically active in Iran just after it.

[Guardsman Bass]

No matter that Venezuela politically doesn't even resemble Cuba,.

It's getting awfully close, though, and its foreign policy, including the support of Marxist terror movements is very much like Cuba when it was a conduit for Soviet aid.

You mean the FARC? Assuming they are actually giving them quarter in the border areas of Venezuela and funnelling money to them (it wouldn't surprise me if they were, but the proof for that has been somewhat shaky), they're not even close to Cuba, which actually sent troops to fight in a number of civil wars on the sides of whatever the communist faction was (witness Angola's civil war way back in the day).

[Guardsman Bass]

Moreover, secular Arab nationalism was hardly just an "arabized version of European ideology"

No, it pretty much is. the idea of nationalism itself, for instance, is basically European. People in the Arab world mostly thought of themselves as belonging to the Umma if they thought of themselves belonging to an entity larger than their local tribe or clan. The trappings of that nationalism: dirigiste semi-socialist economy, cult-of-personality leadership, republican rather than monarchical government, those are European imports.

Before the 19th century, that was largely true - but you had a number of strong nationalist movements turn up, which, yes, did import European ideas, but also tried to mix it with their local concerns.

I'm pointing out that it took a sequence of steps historically to reach what the Taliban

I'm pointing out that this isn't the Taliban. Certainly Iran didn't get its Islamic government via the ISI

And you're missing the point, again. As I've pointed out, twice, it took a myriad of steps to reach a Talibanesque state. Those steps haven't really occurred in the TBO, and the political environment of the 1950s and 1960s was very different from the context in which they did occur, so what reason do they have to occur as they do in the TBO?

Before that, there was no such movement - Islam's main rule for politics was quietist

Because the regimes themselves were sufficiently Islamic that they didn't need to get involved. Mind you, it's probably more important that the Muslim Brotherhood was active historically before World War II and that Shia clerics, including Khomeini, were politically active in Iran just after it.

[/quote]

Not really - the regimes themselves fluctuated from hard-line in application of islamic law to very lax (particularly in a number of urban and trading areas), but most importantly, as I pointed, Islam was mainly just a justification for whatever regime happened to be in power (as I said, it basically amounted to "as long as he's muslim, you should obey").

And as has been pointed out, the MB was in nowhere near the position necessary to take power in the 1940s and 1950s (not to mention that it's questionable that the sunni MB is going to join up in the Grand Islamic State with the Shiites).

Moreover, why are you assuming that all of these Islamic movements are universalist? That has been by no means the case for all, or even most of them, over the years - many of them tied Islam and nationalism.

[Wojtek_Pod]

That was on 21 August 1939. Being a couple of days off doesn't really invalidate the point that a Nazi-Soviet pact was unthinkable until it happened.

What was "unthinkable"? Dude, just a year ago France invalidated a pact with Czechoslovakia easier than taking a roadside shit. Pilsudski made a pact with Hitler to carve the nation up despite Poland itself being in danger of Germany.

Hello everyone!

A small nitpick: Józef Piłsudski couldn't made such a pact - for the simple reason of being dead for a few years at the time.

Thank you for an entertaining story, Stewart!

[K. A. Pital]

A small nitpick: Józef Piłsudski couldn't made such a pact

The pact was made earlier than you would think...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2% ... ssion_Pact

The fact that you think Nasserism, whatever the f*ck Muamar Khadafi believes in, Baathist fascism, brutally enforced absolute monarchy, and rampant racism, including anti-Semitism, "moderate" shows much about you too.

How is that any different from the other nations of the period, in the region and around it? Please do explain. Moderate is a relative term. Say, some medieval kingdoms were "moderately" nationalist while others were extremely so; that doesn't invalidate the fact that by current standards, both would be "extremely" nationalist.

The examples you give, of fear of war tantamount to cowardice and Eastern European business as usual, is a bit different from a movement that held anti-Communism as one of its central themes that had actually been at war with Soviet-backed Communists (and even Soviet troops) a few months earlier.

"Eastern European business as usual" in pre-war years constituted war and forced annexions. So I'm eager to hear how would you explain that away. "Impossible", "unthinkable"? Why the USSR could not make a nonagression pact with a nation that it considered threatening? Because... ideological conflicts? The USSR changed it's ideological doctrines more than a few times since the Civil War. Your explanation for that would be "impossible" and "unexpected"? What a load of bullshit.

It's getting awfully close, though, and its foreign policy, including the support of Marxist terror movements is very much like Cuba when it was a conduit for Soviet aid.

Supporting foreign insurgents was the business of everyone and his dog back in the 1980s, and I doubt XXI century is significantly more enlightened to consider that something "outrageous". In any case, Cuba is not mentioned as deviating from the Human Alliance, but Venezuela is - which is just damn stupid. That's a cheap, pathetic and ridiculous stab at Chavez personally because he irritated Stuart. Oh my.

Sudan is part of the Human Alliance Apparently, and so are most of subsaharan Africa, which is kinda ridiculous considering the truly idiotic nature of their nations and governments, including very fierce Christian belief (most of them should've been dead after the Message, the rest serving Yahweh). And why Mugabe is not mentioned? Who knows.

Chavez, Kim and the Myanmar junta only are deviating. Uh-oh. That's nothing but stupid.

Like I said, rationalizing fantasy is not really an option.

[BR7]

(This post is a few days late, re Part 24 - I wasn't yet registered then, sorry! I hope, given the extensive discussion of this point, my first post isn't considered excessively necro...)
[SPY-1 as directed energy weapon]

You ninja! I was going to say almost exactly the same thing. Anyway, here's some of the relevant math.

[MKSheppard]

Um, modern Islamic fundamentalism is inextricably linked with the Third Reich and the Nazis.

And given that the Nazis do much, much, much better in TBO; Islamic fundamentalism gets off to a much stronger start than in @.

Additionally, with the Soviet Union so badly smashed in the war; all of it's energies are going towards rebuilding post-war, and cleaning up Nazi holdouts in the Ukraine, etc; it can't export it's brand of Secular Socialist Arab Nationalism to counter the Islamic Fascist Arab Nationalism pushed by the Nazis before their atomic demise.

To summarize a timeline involving one of the co-founders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Amin Al-Husseini:

WWI: He participates first hand in whatever you want to call the ethnic cleansing of the Armenians.

1917: He arrives in Palestine

1920: Begins organizing riots etc against Jews and a reign of terror against other islamic leaders in the area.

1921: British, in yet another of their bone headed rules; they appoint him the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, despite him coming in fourth place in a vote

1928: He becomes a central founding member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which preaches Wahabbinism. By the way, Hassan al-Banna, another founder of the Brotherhood, was an ardent supporter of Nazi Germany.

1929: He incites more riots in Palestine; leading to the massacre of the Hebron Jewish community.

1930s: Arab-Nazi groups spring up across the Middle East. For example, Young Egypt's slogan is a direct translation of the Nazi slogan "ein volk, ein reich, ein fuhrer!" Anwar Sadat spent four years in a British prison during WWII for collaboration with the Third Reich. Gamal Abdel Nasser's brother translated Mein Kampf into Arabic, etc.

1936: Al Husseini begins to liquidate people who oppose him, or who have less than total loyalty to his vision. He iced two Sheikhs connected with the Al Aqsa Mosque, a Sheikh on a religious court, the Mayor of Hebron, and 11 Mukhtars (community leaders) and their entire families.

1937: He visits Germany and meets Adolf Eichmann to discuss the "Jewish Question".

1941: Helps out with the pro-Nazi coup in Iraq (Stuart, how far does this get in TBO?)

Travels to Berlin and meets with Hitler, and later is made a highranking person in the Nazis plans for Bosnia. Serbian-Cyrillic alphabet outlawed. Orthodox Serbs forced to wear Blue armband. Jewish Serbs forced to wear Yellow armband. Takes the title of "Protector of Islam" and approves the Penjani plan which called for liquidation of the Serbian population. Hitler refuses to implement it. I guess he was busy with the Jews.

1942: He personally intervenes to block a Red Cross Exchange of 10,000 Jewish children for Nazi POWs in other countries. The children die in gas chambers.



1943: Amin Al-Husseini is made a Prime Minister of Pan-Arab Government by the Nazi regime and given some staff and a building in Berlin. He begins planning Concentration camps in Palestine, when the Nazis eventually get there. He becomes a close friend of Himmler, and personally insists on seeing a private tour of Auschwitz, where he tells the SS Guards to "work faster".

1944: Gives a speech in Berlin to Muslim SS Auxilaries: “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, History and Religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.”.

Co founds the Arab League (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen), and is appointed President in Absentia of the Fourth Higher Committee within it.

1946: Yugoslavia requests his extradition for War Crimes. Egyptian government refuses to extradite him. British grant him amnesty(!!) and he returns to Palestine. Yasser Arafat meets him and begins to work for him.

1948: Upon the declaration of the State of Israel, Al-Husseini proclaims: “I declare a Holy War, My Muslim Brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!” Additionally, the First Gen Sec of the Arab League proclaims that the war against Israel in '48 “will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

1949-1952: Al Husseini is directly implicated in providing safe haven to ex-Nazis in Arab countries.

1962: Becomes President of the World Islamic Congress, which he also co-founded.

So with this ahem, pedigree; of various Arab groups -- It's really quite easy to see the Caliphate arising post-war given that the Nazis do much better; and given how many "banner bearers" of so-called Secular Arab Nationalism, like Sadat and Nasser were Nazi sympathizers before jumping ship post WWII to become clients of the USSR.

Additionally, why the hell do so many Arab mass movements adopt the freaking nazi salute? They KNOW what that means.

[MKSheppard]

Record of the Conversation between the Fuhrer and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 28, 1941, in the Presence of Reich Foreign Minister and Minister Grobba in Berlin.

Source: Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, Series D, Vol XIII, London, 1964, pp.881 ff.

The Grand Mufti began by thanking the Fuhrer for the great honor he had bestowed by receiving him. He wished to seize the opportunity to convey to the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich, admired by the entire Arab world, his thanks of the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially the Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches. The Arab countries were firmly convinced that Germany would win the war and that the Arab cause would then prosper. The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists. Therefore they were prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in the war, not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion. The Arabs could be more useful to Germany as allies than might be apparent at first glance, both for geographical reasons and because of the suffering inflicted upon them by the English and the Jews. Furthermore, they had had close relations with all Moslem nations, of which they could make use in behalf of the common cause. The Arab Legion would be quite easy to raise. An appeal by the Mufti to the Arab countries and the prisoners of Arab, Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan nationality in Germany would produce a great number of volunteers eager to fight. Of Germany's victory the Arab world was firmly convinced, not only because the Reich possessed a large army, brave soldiers, and military leaders of genius, but also because the Almighty could never award the victory to an unjust cause.

In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and unity of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. They had the fullest confidence in the Fuhrer and looked to his hand for the balm on their wounds, which had been inflicted upon them by the enemies of Germany.

The Mufti then mentioned the letter he had received from Germany, which stated that Germany was holding no Arab territories and understood and recognized the aspirations to independence and freedom of the Arabs, just as she supported the elimination of the Jewish national home.

A public declaration in this sense would be very useful for its propagandistic effect on the Arab peoples at this moment. It would rouse the Arabs from their momentary lethargy and give them new courage. It would also ease the Mufti's work of secretly organizing the Arabs against the moment when they could strike. At the same time, he could give the assurance that the Arabs would in strict discipline patiently wait for the right moment and only strike upon an order form Berlin.

With regard to the events in Iraq, the Mufti observed that the Arabs in that country certainly had by no means been incited by Germany to attack England, but solely had acted in reaction to a direct English assault upon their honor.

The Turks, he believed, would welcome the establishment of an Arab government in the neighboring territories because they would prefer weaker Arab to strong European governments in the neighboring countries and, being themselves a nations of 7 million, they had moreover nothing to fear from the 1,700,000 Arabs inhabiting Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, and Palestine.

France likewise would have no objections to the unification plan because she had conceded independence to Syria as early as 1936 and had given her approval to the unification of Iraq and Syria under King Faisal as early as 1933.

In these circumstances he was renewing his request that the Fuhrer make a public declaration so that the Arabs would not lose hope, which is so powerful a force in the life of nations. With such hope in their hearts the Arabs, as he had said, were willing to wait. They were not pressing for immediate realization for their aspirations; they could easily wait half a year or a whole year. But if they were not inspired with such a hope by a declaration of this sort, it could be expected that the English would be the gainers from it.

The Fuhrer replied that Germany's fundamental attitude on these questions, as the Mufti himself had already stated, was clear. Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests. Germany was also aware that the assertion that the Jews were carrying out the functions of economic pioneers in Palestine was a lie. The work there was done only by the Arabs, not by the Jews. Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.

Germany was at the present time engaged in a life and death struggle with two citadels of Jewish power: Great Britain and Soviet Russia. Theoretically there was a difference between England's capitalism and Soviet Russia's communism; actually, however, the Jews in both countries were pursuing a common goal. This was the decisive struggle; on the political plane, it presented itself in the main as a conflict between Germany and England, but ideologically it was a battle between National Socialism and the Jews. It went without saying that Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle, because platonic promises were useless in a war for survival or destruction in which the Jews were able to mobilize all of England's power for their ends.

The aid to the Arabs would have to be material aid. Of how little help sympathies alone were in such a battle had been demonstrated plainly by the operation in Iraq, where circumstances had not permitted the rendering of really effective, practical aid. In spite of all the sympathies, German aid had not been sufficient and Iraq was overcome by the power of Britain, that is, the guardian of the Jews.

The Mufti could not but be aware, however, that the outcome of the struggle going on at present would also decide the fate of the Arab world. The Fuhrer therefore had to think and speak coolly and deliberately, as a rational man and primarily as a soldier, as the leader of the German and allied armies. Everything of a nature to help in this titanic battle for the common cause, and thus also for the Arabs, would have to be done. Anything however, that might contribute to weakening the military situation must be put aside, no matter how unpopular this move might be.

Germany was now engaged in very severe battles to force the gateway to the northern Caucasus region. The difficulties were mainly with regard to maintaining the supply, which was most difficult as a result of the destruction of railroads and highways as well as the oncoming winter. If at such a moment, the Fuhrer were to raise the problem of Syria in a declaration, those elements in France which were under de Gaulle's influence would receive new strength. They would interpret the Fuhrer's declaration as an intention to break up France's colonial empire and appeal to their fellow countrymen that they should rather make common cause with the English to try to save what still could be saved. A German declaration regarding Syria would in France be understood to refer to the French colonies in general, and that would at the present time create new troubles in western Europe, which means that a portion of the German armed forces would be immobilized in the west and no longer be available for the campaign in the east.

The Fuhrer then made the following statement to the Mufti, enjoining him to lock it in the uttermost depths of his heart:

1. He (the Fuhrer) would carry on the battle to the total destruction of the Judeo-Communist empire in Europe.
2. At some moment which was impossible to set exactly today but which in any event was not distant, the German armies would in the course of this struggle reach the southern exit from Caucasia.
3. As soon as this had happened, the Fuhrer would on his own give the Arab world the assurance that its hour of liberation had arrived. Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations, which he had secretly prepared. When that time had come, Germany could also be indifferent to French reaction to such a declaration.

Once Germany had forced open the road to Iran and Iraq through Rostov; it would be also the beginning of the end of the British World Empire. He (the Fuhrer) hoped that the coming year would make it possible for Germany to thrust open the Caucasian gate to the Middle East. For the good of their common cause, it would be better if the Arab proclamation were put off for a few more months than if Germany were to create difficulties for herself without being able thereby to help the Arabs.

He (the Fuhrer) fully appreciated the eagerness of the Arabs for a public declaration of the sort requested by the Grand Mufti. But he would beg him to consider that he (the Fuhrer) himself was the Chief of State of the German Reich for five long years during which he was unable to make to his own homeland the announcement of its liberation. He had to wait with that until the announcement could be made on the basis of a situation brought about by the force of arms that the Anschluss had been carried out.

The moment that Germany's tank divisions and air squadrons had made their appearance south of the Caucasus, the public appeal requested by the Grand Mufti could go out to the Arab world.

The Grand Mufti replied that it was his view that everything would come to pass just as the Fuhrer had indicated. He was fully reassured and satisfied by the words which he had heard form the Chief of the German State. He asked, however, whether it would not be possible, secretly at least, to enter into an agreement with Germany of the kind he had just outlined for the Fuhrer.

The Fuhrer replied that he had just now given the Grand Mufti precisely that confidential declaration.

The Grand Mufti thanked him for it and stated in conclusion that he was taking his leave from the Fuhrer in full confidence and with reiterated thanks for the interest shown in the Arab cause.

[Shroom Man 777]

Perhaps the thread could be split, since we're veering into TBO stuff rather than Pantheocide stuff?

[BR7]

Perhaps the thread could be split, since we're veering into TBO stuff rather than Pantheocide stuff?

I think it's been split already.

[Wojtek_Pod]

A small nitpick: Józef Piłsudski couldn't made such a pact

The pact was made earlier than you would think...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2% ... ssion_Pact

I apologize. I misread your listing of two separate events as saying that the non-agression pact (in 1934) happening after or during Munich Agreement (in 1938).

Back to the story topic: I am waiting for the aftermath of battle against Uriel. If radar installation is capable of jamming angels' portalling ability, it could be a valid tactic to flood some specific areas with the signal to protect those areas from a surprise attack.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Runaway Uriel!

He should be chased by BLACK HELICOPTERS, dogged mercilessly by REDNECKS with ATTACK DOGS, and he'll be like running down a river in a scene reminiscent of William Dafoe in PLATOON while the BLACK HELICOPTERS incapacitate him with HARPOONS!

"No! I want to live! I want to go back to Yahweh!!!"

*Black Helicopters*

*Micheal Bay camera angles*

*search teams with attack dogs and spotlights encircle Uriel*

*scene blacks out*

Yeah.

[Stuart]

Yeah, yeah. Usual, typical Western snobbery I see. It's smell is... everywhere. "Beacon of light, civilization and philosophy" that spawned Protestantism? Whose key figure, Martin Luther, the most influentical Christian theologian of Germany, basically formed a culture of hatred of Jews, and spread his deeply racist and also classist ("slaughter peasants like dogs") teachings to that "beacon of light" known as Germany?

Don't you know me well enough by now to realize that, when I refer to German "civilization" between 1850 and 1950 I'm being extremely sarcastic? It's worth noting that the only genuine German contribution to civilization coming out of that era was the habit of eating fermenting pickled cabbage. The point being made was that people who do hold to the "german beacon" line of argument would dismiss any suggestion that their beliefs would evolve into Nazi Germany. That whole "it couldn't happen" argument falls flat on its face because it demonstrably did. In the context of alternate history, the principle is to pick a situation that poses some interesting questions, create a back-story that provides a reasonably plausible rationale and then go with it.

Heh, I guess my theory of history is that it's not shaped by freak occurences, but instead by larger laws of economic and social evolution. Individual role in history is small. Hitler was a manifestation of Nazism, but just that and not much more; his circle of power and even the very society of Germany were so deeply racist that frankly, Nazism might have evolved even without Hitler; maybe it would have been milder or more radical, who knows, but the ingredients and the historical dynamic that set Nazism in place were already there, and some form of Nazism would evolve.

I wouldn't disagree with that. My basic point has been that the fundamental drivers that led to the present problems in our timeline and the rise of The Caliphate in the TBO line have their roots in political/religious developments originating in the 1920s and arguably before that. A dispassionate examination of history suggests quite strongly that the socialist-nationalist (I'm using that sequence rather than national-socialist for obvious reasons) and fundamentalist Islamic power centers were growing in parallel (and as rivals) up to the early 1950s. In our timeline, for a variety of reasons including Nazi German backing in the early 1940s and the general appeal of socialist solutions in the 1950s led to the dominance of the socialist-mationalist groups who jumped hard on their Islamic rivals and kept them ground down until the 1980s. At that point the collapse of the USSR, the general eclipse of socialist doctrine in that era and the end of the Cold War caused the clamp-down to be relaxed and the long-suppressed fundamentalist parties re-emerged. It is utterly wrong to suggest that those parties were the product of the 1980s; they were already well established but their emergence on the world stage was suppressed by their socialist-nationalist rivals. Now, in TBO, the destruction of Nazi German, the collapse of colonial opposition in the Middle East, the alienation of local populations caused by high-handed Allied conduct in WW2 (which is historically correct by the way; take a look at the fighting in Iraq in 1941 and the Soviet-British invasion of Iran), the brutal damage inflicted on Russia and the discrediting of communist ideology all served to cripple the socialist-nationalist groups. Therefore their Islamic fundamentalist rivals were not suppressed for thirty years and flowered into what became the Caliphate.

That's good enough for a story that is fiction. What it now allows us to do is to take the "Caliphate" proposed by teh Taliban and al Quaeda and ask "if they got it, how could it be made to work?" And "Could it be made to work". The answers in TBO are an organization something like the Gulf Cooperation Council on our timeline (which consists of the Persian Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and is governed by a ruling council whose decisions are only binding on those countries that vote for in favor of said decisions) ie a very loose and factionalized grouping that only just barely qualifies as a country at all and the answer to the second is that it can't. So, if you think Teh caliphate couldn't work, I agree. the two books that deal with The Caliphate tell you why it couldn;t work.

Then you need to actually present arguments as to why they would be in the position to topple the regimes, when historically they didn't have that position, and there is no evidence yet provided that suggests a great strengthening in their position after TBO except for handwaving.

On the contrary, I've given you a reasonably detailed exposition of the background that led up to the Islamic fundamentalist groups being in a stronger position in the TBOverse than was the case in ours. The only handwaving has come from those who swallowed Norseman's demented nonsense and just sit chanting "it couldn't happen, it couldn't happen" - claims that are neither accurate nor relevent. And I must admit I am getting sick to death of hearing that crap.

I do think that Stuart simply goes with his political likes and dislikes; manufacturing "post-facto" plausibility for his political preferences is just intellectual dishonesty.

That is unworthy of you. You of all people should know the level of research that goes into the TBOverse novels - you supplied me with much of the data that was used in Winter Warriors. The only dishonesty here is yours. As it happens, the timeline and basic "shape" of the TBOverse Second World War from exactly June 19 1940 up to the end of the 21st century was worked out in enormous detail. Much of it never appears in the stories but is used to create the world situation and calculate its effects. That model has been constantly refined and developed but it's basic shape remain unchanged. The sort of details covered include things like how India set up a post office savings bank system and what gauge its railway system would end up using (broad gauge by the way). Also things like how inner-city transport in British cities evolved, what the U.S. highway system would look like, how Australia continued to administer its unwanted Pacific mandates, why South Africa expanded as far as it did and no further, how Japan would create its strategic deterrent and why it was shaped the way it was, what sort of tanks the Japanese had, what rifles various armies adopted post WW2 and why Canada eventually carried on using the .303 rifle round. Why the Tokarev 7.62 x 25mm pistol round became one of the most important in the world. This, and much, much more was all assembled to create a world in which various questions could be evaluated and some answers given. Many of the discussions appeared on HPCA in its various incarnations and the ones that didn't get destroyed by the old hosts are still available. Nor was this all my own work, a lot of people contributed time and expertise to the creation of this world and its various aspects. One of them, by the way, is often regarded as being the world's leading scholar on Islam.

again, unless there's some very powerful classified tricks out there!).

When I wrote that section, I was dancing on the extreme edge of what can be said about SPY-1 and AEGIS in public. You'll notice that in the text, I glaze over certain questions for exactly that reason. Also, I used the characteristics of older radars to substitute data for classified material. I don't want to be rude and please don't take offense at this but your post only shows that you don't know enough to know how little you know. That's nothing to be ashamed of, nobody outside a tightly defined community does. There are public domain hints - for example the beam is tight enough to track a target 24 inches across at ranges of over a thousand miles and to detect tiny variations in its trajectory. That's public domain. It's also known that a SPY-1 target designation beam will warm an aircraft enough to make it visible on thermal imagers - that's public domain as well. The beam figures you quote are flat wrong; they were surpassed during the second world war. A target indication radar with the characteristics you quote would be utterly useless. Another example, the fire control radar for an early Talos beam-riding missile could put that missile within 50 feet of its target at a range of 250 nautical miles. Think about the implications of that (beam-riding note, not semi-active). Please, just accept there are a lot of things you don't know and the information in that part of the story was me doing my level best to try and give some hints as to what those things are without getting thrown in jail.

[ray245]

Then you need to actually present arguments as to why they would be in the position to topple the regimes, when historically they didn't have that position, and there is no evidence yet provided that suggests a great strengthening in their position after TBO except for handwaving.

On the contrary, I've given you a reasonably detailed exposition of the background that led up to the Islamic fundamentalist groups being in a stronger position in the TBOverse than was the case in ours. The only handwaving has come from those who swallowed Norseman's demented nonsense and just sit chanting "it couldn't happen, it couldn't happen" - claims that are neither accurate nor relevent. And I must admit I am getting sick to death of hearing that crap.

That's the problem people have when they are reading alternate history. It doesn't matter if the events in the story has a logical link, the only thing that matters to them is the leap of faith required to accept the premise. There's a reason why people still view many events in history as a freak occurrence, as opposed to reasonable end result of all the numerous factors that comes into play.

In my opinion, instead of attacking the rise of caliphate as an implausible event, it would be wiser to attack the change in Halifax's actions as an implausible event.

[Shroom Man 777]

I really think a split of this TBO discussion would be good about now, since this is a Pantheocide thread and diverging too much from that would be ungood. It kind of sucks since I think I kind of started the discussion-divergence. Sorry, guys.

[Serafina]

I really think a split of this TBO discussion would be good about now, since this is a Pantheocide thread and diverging too much from that would be ungood. It kind of sucks since I think I kind of started the discussion-divergence. Sorry, guys.

Besides, they are distracting Stuart. Shame on you, guys!

[ray245]

I really think a split of this TBO discussion would be good about now, since this is a Pantheocide thread and diverging too much from that would be ungood. It kind of sucks since I think I kind of started the discussion-divergence. Sorry, guys.

Besides, they are distracting Stuart. Shame on you, guys!

It's funny that how we ended up going off-topic because we are commenting that people on other forum gone off-topic at a rather fast pace.

It would be better if we can settle this issue once and for all by allowing this debate to take place in the Coliseum.