The West is fooling itself when it comes to Islam in the Middle East
“All of us here today understand this: We do not fight Islam, we fight against evil.” ~George W. Bush
“We are not at war against Islam. We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam,” ~Barack Obama
Surely we are not at war with Islam. If we were, we’d kill everyone who professed the Muslim faith. The problem with Obama’s and Bush’s statements is that they lead many to underestimate the level to which Muslims in the Middle East and Asia support the jihadists. Throwing out statistics that show only a small percentage of Muslims are responsible for the destruction wrought is a bit like saying that because less than 1% of Americans serve in the US Army, only 1% of Americans support the US military. People fail to realize the power of both the “our team” mentality and religion, especially in parts of the world where the people have little hope in this world and nation states have been shamed in war by America and Israel.
Many people throughout the Muslim world gain satisfaction when the US suffers a setback at the hands of extreme Islam. Otherwise, the extremists could not exist to the extant that they do. Polls throughout the Muslim world show that Muslims in the Middle East support the actions of the jihadists. Most Muslims, even those living is Western countries, support Sharia Law, which is fundamentally at odds with Western values. In a poll of 9 countries, Turkey was the only nation in which a majority of the people said that Sharia should not comprise the law in entirety, or be a “source of legislation.” Pakistanis, despite the billions of military and domestic aid poured into their country by the US, continue to despise Americans. Most Pakistanis also wish that bin Laden was not dead.
People shocked at the recent Egyptian election results should study some history. I’ve long said that Egypt was the spiritual center of jihadism, not Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia made good fodder for the Left because of oil. Egypt, in the poll cited above, had the highest percentage of people that believed Sharia should be the sole root of law.
The Muslim countries that have in recent years received the most American aid are Pakistan and Egypt. Approximately 25% of the money used to fund the Pakistani army comes from American aid. The top recipients of US foreign aid in 2011 are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and Egypt in that order. Egypt has routinely ranked among the top nations in the world in the number of dollars given to it by the American government.
There appears to be an inverse correlation between the positive views in a country when measured against the amount of US aid provided to it. The argument of course is that America is trying to show these countries that the US is not the enemy. This method of appeasement is failing. In a poll published by the Washington Post shortly after Mubarak stepped down, 79 percent of Egyptians viewed the US negatively, with 20% saying they have a positive view of the US. This is a sharp decline from the Bush years when 30 percent of Egyptians viewed the US positively.
The problems in giving countries like Pakistan and Egypt lots of money are macrocosmic of what I saw happening in local projects in Afghanistan. The money will always find its way into the hands of America’s enemies because they are the most ruthless, devious and aggressive portions of those societies. They also in many cases have a monopoly on violence, something the state usually lays claim to–if it is not a failed state. In Afghanistan the people were not “all in” for the Americans. They really didn’t care that much, at least in areas far from Kabul, if the insurgents blew up a few American Imperialists. They’d take five bucks to plants a bombs and be on their way. In one fell swoop they’d made a month’s wage, killed some infidels, impressed the locals with their “bravery”, and maintained a semblance of national pride.
Egypt’s Mubarak held the forces of Islamic jihad at bay with the only weapon that works against it: Decisive brutality. As with Saudi Arabia, Egypt was a police state, as much because of the extremists as Mubarak. Only with extreme vigilance could the Egyptian government survive. Frankly, Mubarak may have been the West’s only hope in Egypt, but starry-eyed Westerners with a Democracy fetish ran him off, unleashing a hoard of militants, radicals and young men electrified with a rage whose dynamo was built in 1967 and 1973 during the humiliating defeats of the Egyptian Army at the hands of the Israelis. The effect of these defeats upon the Arab psyche cannot be overstated.
The Arab Spring has generated nothing resembling Western democracy and displays brilliantly the weakness of Democracy itself: People can vote for any horrific idea they choose. Hitler was democratically elected. Muslims have voted and acted exactly how we should have expected them to. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists now hold power. The Salafists in Egypt hold the same views as al-Qaeda and Hamas. Christians are trying to leave the country, fearing for their safety.
The revolutions in Egypt and Libya were hardly induced by only few extremists. In fact,it seems the revolutions enjoyed the backing of millions upon millions of extremists. It is the same sort of thing we saw in Nazi Germany. Many Germans were not Nazis or did not take part in the actual fighting. But most of them wanted to see the Nazis win. And so it is with Muslims in Libya, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. The Muslims there overwhelmingly want to thrash Israel and the United States in any manner they can. If the terror proxies can trounced by the hyperpower or the Jewish state, we can of course expect the “innocent” population of “moderate” muslims to melt back into the woodwork.
Islam unifies people against Israel and the West. As Mark Steyn writes in his book, America Alone, the draw of Western “McWorld” to the average Arab male is vastly overstated. Secularism is about as un-motivational as a Rosie O’donnell workout video. It is meaninglessness and provides no promise of power or life after death, no cloak of righteousness; something that means far more to a poor 23 year old man in Cairo than does the promise of flipping burgers.
Now Israel has a monstrous number of problems on its hand, all coming to bear at once. Iran wants the bomb and is not far off from getting it. Egyptians are muttering that they want the Camp David Peace Accord “adjusted.” 20,000 surface-to-air missiles are missing from Qaddafi’s stockpiles. The current American president’s negative comments about Netanyahu were caught on an open mic.
The vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East are not jihadists or terrorists. But most of them support the actions of extremist Islam when those actions are directed against Westerners or Israelis. Our money and McDonald’s cannot possibly fill the same void that is filled by Islam. And Democracy, as with any form of government, is only as good as the people that comprise it.
So what is the answer? Does America have to kill every last Muslim? Not any more than it had to kill every last German or Japanese. America has only to decisively defeat the front-line troops of Jihad. But decisive victory may no longer be something the West is capable of, despite its overwhelming superiority in almost every facet of military and economic might.
The Arab Spring has not created Arab states that are more stable or less violent. It has provided kindling for another 100 years of Jihadist immolation. Our children’s children will see The Long War continue.
Paul Krugman: Repugnant
Paul Krugman penned a spectacularly awful article in the New York Times regarding 9-11. He has outdone himself as a left-wing zealot whose hatred of America bleeds into his vitriolic episodes.
I myself do not like sloganism in regards to 9-11 or much else. It violates a law of good writing: avoid the cliche’. But Krugman’s articles border on the insane to me. His ideas on economics are ludicrous. Interestingly, Krugman disabled all comments on the article.
Donald Rumsfeld tweeted that he was cancelling his subscription to the New York Times over Krugman’s article. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
To those who died in the Towers, on Flight 93 and the Pentagon 10 years ago: I salute, honor and remember you. And to those who have and will die fighting the global insurgency called al-Qaeda, you could give no more.
The descending Arab Winter
The new government in Egypt appears unable to maintain law and order. In my opinion this will likely snowball. Look for armed militias to begin roaming the streets, first to maintain security. Then, as certain militias gain power and notoriety, look for warlords to step to the front.
In Libya, raiders looted Gadaffi’s surface to air missile stores. There are thousands missing, and with no air targets in Libya, it’s safe to say that al-Qaeda will get control of some of the SAMs and use them in other theaters. Air travel, civilian and military, just got more dangerous in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.
The Arab Spring and global insurgency
Recently, Israeli Major-General Eyal Eisenberg predicted an “Arab Winter” in which the revolutions taking place around the Arab world culminate in a multi-front general war against Israel. While it remains to be seen if that’s the case, I take a very dim view of what’s happening in places like Egypt and Libya. Not surprisingly, many on the Left are overjoyed at the Arab Spring. To them, it’s about Muslim hippies fighting The Man. At an intellectual level, they may sense the guile and will of Jihadist Islam, but they willfully ignore this in favor of Coke and a Smile in Muslim lands.
The Arab Spring fits quite nicely into the Global Insurgency theory of modern terrorism. This theory posits that Islamic Salafists (those holding to rigid, medieval views of Islam and life in general), are not only working in local insurgencies, but hope that various uprisings around the world will eventually coalesce into a greater Islamic state. It is similar in ways to Mao’s and Lenin’s doctrines. The local fighters of course do not think at this level, worrying only about their immediate needs. But people at the top of al-Qaeda and similar terrorist organizations do think about the big picture.
We must also consider how clever al-Qaeda’s masterminds are. Jihadists, for instance, have actually studied the homosexual movement in America in order to find out how such a small group can cause so much change on its behalf. I believe that many in the jihadist movement came to recognize the Western mind’s affinity for a popular uprising. In stead of a “top down” jihad, with men like bin Laden and Abu Zarqawi getting lots of media attention, the jihadist movement is now trying to put a grassroots face on its global insurgency. And it’s worked brilliantly. There’s very little to indicate that those who’ve seized power in Egypt and Libya know very much about running a country, but al-Qaeda got what it wanted: the removal of secular Arab leadership from the Sinai Peninsula with all the trappings of state power left intact and with no Western troops on the ground to make sure things turn out the way the West would prefer.
The Palestinian cause represents the great Red Herring for al-Qaeda. Arab despots and terrorist groups need the Palestinians because it keeps the worlds eyes off what those Arab leaders are really doing. No mater what happens, they can keep pointing to Israeli “oppression”, which is why Palestinians never really want to come to the discussion table and cut a real deal; they’re being manipulated and funded by terrorists in order to maintain pressure on Israel. The Palestinians are being used as a classic, global insurgency agitation tool. The Palestinians will continue to sucker-punch Israel. Al-Qaeda et al hopes that Israel will respond in a way which negatively changes world opinion against the Jewish state, thus opening Israel to attack by Arab states without Western intervention.
The Long War gets longer
Moammar Gaddafi has been wrenched from power by a group of rebels whose composition remains ambiguous and possibly quite dangerous.
In the end, it seems like the West is worse off than it was a year ago; the entire Sinai Peninsula is essentially under the control of the combined forces of al-Qaeda in Iraq, The Muslim Brotherhood, and a rag-tag group of insurgents whose loyalties will likely go to the highest bidder. We now have to worry about Gaddafi’s massive stocks of surface-to-air missiles and his alleged loads of chemical weapons. What? WMD you say? The rebels descending on Tripoli have already raided some of the Libyan military’s weapons stores. We must assume that al-Qaeda has operatives stalking the land trying to get their hands on weapons not otherwise easily obtained. After all, the highest numbers of foreign fighters that entered Iraq to join the insurgency were from Libya and one of the Libyan rebel leaders admits to fighting and recruiting for al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Without NATO forces on the ground, expect chaos to reign and civil war-lite to be the order of the day in Libya.
Meanwhile, the media largely ignored events in Egypt prior to the recent death of Egyptian security officers in clashes between Palestinians and the IDF. Egyptian prisons were opened up after Mubarak resigned, releasing hundreds if not thousands of hard core jihadists. Many Egyptian police stations are subject to attack and some have been abandoned. The gas pipeline between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai has been attacked 5 times. Yet nary a peep from the media, whom loves a good revolution. A look at history shows bad things happen in Egypt when the jihadists are released from jail, even in an act of goodwill. Sadat paid the price for such folly.
Perhaps most troubling is that Egypt and Libya border one another. While it may not be the Caliphate, it seems the same forces are active in both countries, and their proximity will make whatever plans al-Qaeda has in the region all the more tenable.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and its the elements that are most willing to employ force in the Muslim world that always fill the voids. Fundamentalist Islam has doomed the Muslim world to these options: Either a heavy handed if anti-extremist ruler controls the country with harsh laws and uses of his security forces to crush extremists; religious extremists maintain power in many of the same ways while funding proxy terror orgs, as Iran does; or fundamentalist militants rain chaos and destruction, such as in Somalia and Yemen.
None of this bodes well for Israel, and ultimately the West. The Long War just got longer.
Libyan debacle
Hi there. We’re al-Qaeda and we’re here to help. John Rosenthal explains why the American intervention in Libya was a result of amazingly credulous politicos.
Alexander in the Af-Pak War
America no longer has the will to fight and win wars. If our enemies are able to weather our airstrikes, we are wholly unprepared at nearly every level to place sufficient pressure on fanatical guerrillas whom find war a preferable state to peace. Never in history has an army enjoyed such a monopoly on firepower and mobility as does America, and yet been so unwilling to use it.
We are blessed by the geographical bulwarks of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and cursed with partisan demagogues in Washington who know little of military history or the culture of war. Perfectly willing to start a war, the politicians don’t want to hear what it takes to win it. No matter how much data multi-million dollar computer networks feed those in the Pentagon and Congress, few of the recipients of that data can feel our wars; the data crunchers and politicos can know the wars, but the visceral sensations of ground commanders and grunts will always be beyond them, as thus we can assume that almost all of their decisions will prove inadequate. When war does not fit into comfort zones or proffered theories, many believe we just need to try harder to make the theories work. Few would question the theories themselves lest horrible answers become truths.
Washington’s elites are safe when we lose. The 25 year old squad leader in Afghanistan is not.
The quaint mythologies of counterinsurgency theorems have us following a Yellow Brick Road paved by Non-Governmental Agencies and State Department aid money. We hoped that Oz was a place where suicidal zealots laid down their rifles and stopped making bombs in exchange for a school house and a new pair of shoes. When the curtain was thrown aside to reveal the Wizard, we saw his bloody hand raised skyward, grasping the severed head of the school teacher. And even when the sheer brutality and power of the Taliban terrorist revealed itself, we refused to believe what we saw. We prefer to think that all men want peace, that brutality doesn’t work, and that killing cannot be the answer. Convenient dreams for those in Washington whose greatest daily danger is a Tweeted revelation of sexual misconduct. We question ourselves whereas the men of old, seeing the world more clearly than do we, quickly identified the problem and dealt with it. Swimming is oceans of information, we find it more difficult to choose proper paths, but the ancient warriors of yore, though lacking technological aids—perhaps because he lacked those aids—instinctively discerned human psychology.
Enter Alexander The Great. Imagine for a moment that future technologies could spring the Macedonian king back to life and the modern social and political delusions that prevent decisive victories in war have vanished by the wayside. Now place Alexander in command of history’s most powerful military and charge him with defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan. First, we’ll have to listen to Alexander give us a history lesson. Contrary to revisionists whom extol the invincibility of Afghans fighters, Alexander was never defeated by the people inhabiting the land we now call Afghanistan. And then he would tell us that his tutor, Aristotle, wasn’t about giving peace a chance; the father of Western philosophy implored young Alexander to force Hellenistic ethnic supremacy upon the world of the barbarians.
To the Neo-Alexander, defeating the Taliban begins with an offer to meet insurgent leadership at the bargaining table. And here’s the offer: Submit or die. This language resonates with the Taliban at a far deeper level than does the current Coalition Force offers of reintegration and power sharing. A reasonable man, Alexander offers the Taliban their religion and way of life in exchange for their weapons. The sovereign lines of the Pakistani border mean nothing. They are semi-porous membranes that hold back American power and allow insurgents to move freely to and from their safe havens in Pakistan. In response to each suicide bomber making his way from Western Pakistan, Alexander orders biometric identification through DNA testing, and using covert CIA intelligence cells seeded throughout Pakistan, identifies the village from which the suicide bomber originated. The Macedonian orders B-2 bomber and Reaper drone strikes on all known Madrassas in the village. No apologies are offered for civilian casualties. The retributive strikes are timely and painful. The suicide bombers quickly transform from heroes to sources of great pain in the villages. Soon, being a suicide bomber is disgraceful, not honorable.
The terrorists resort to using their greatest weapon: The media. In response, all media embeds are ordered to leave Afghanistan. Journalists stream into North and South Waziristan, hoping to document American atrocities. Members of the Haqqani Network set up ad hoc repeater stations, hoping to broadcast propaganda from small, handheld Motorola VHF radios. America counters by dropping electromagnetic pulse bombs at random intervals into the tribal areas. These weapons destroy any modern electronic equipment, leaving journalists to their pens and notebooks and Haqqani insurgents to courier communications.
As for terrorist infiltration along the Pakistan border, Alexander knows that not every infiltrator can be stopped. However, it is possible to make crossing into Afghanistan too painful a gamble. Areas along the border are declared free-fire zones. Approximately 5 kilometers on each side of the border are free-fire; that is, since the areas are assumed cleared, anyone in those areas can be fired on. The 5 kilometer range allows for ranges of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and Haqqani Network rocket fire, such as which killed two American Soldiers at FOB Salerno in May of 2011 (with no punitive action taken by the US military out of respect to our Pakistani “friends”).
Entire villages will be held accountable for the actions of individuals that live within them. Villagers in Afghanistan always know what goes on within the village. Villages where US forces are attacked will be subject to curfews and those found to be involved in insurgent activity shall be given a field trial by US military officers and if found guilty, executed. Special Operations night raids and air assaults will be constant in areas infested with Taliban, al-Qaeda and Haqqani fighters. Protests by villagers about the night raids will be ignored, as most of these protests are spawned by agitated insurgents. The cooperation of local villagers is the goal, but America under Alexander will place the safety of her troops and the destruction of the insurgency above the safety of villagers. Civilian casualties will be avoided when possible, but local Afghans will need to provide intelligence and information to American forces in order to ensure that America kills the right people. Otherwise, the insurgents will merely use civilains as living shields. Cooperation will help both the Afghans and America. The “sanctity” of the people will no longer be assumed; entire populations can be just as evil as individuals. The terrorists will be held to the same standards that the US military is held. All war crimes will be prosecuted in the field if possible.
The shrines of dead al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters will be closely monitored by payed CIA informants. Sympathizers who come to venerate terrorist grave sites will be followed, and at a convenient time, interviewed and their biometric data entered into a huge data base known as BATS–Biometrically Automated Toolset. These people will be placed on watch lists, denied entry to US bases, and denied the possibility of serving within Afghan government security forces for 5 years. Individuals assessed to be of a higher threat level shall be denied access and government work on a permanent basis.
Alexander will reward the friends of America. India, the largest democracy on Earth, will be provided special trade rights. She has earned it. A full embargo of Pakistan will commence. We have treated our enemies better than our friends in hopes that our goodwill would bring them to our side. But they mistook our goodwill for weakness. Those who fought bravely beside us, such as Britain, did not get 4 billion dollar rewards, such as did Pakistan.
Every chance will be given to those in the Federally Administered tribal Region of Pakistan to formally surrender Siraj and Jallaludin Haqqani, the familial leaders of the Haqqani Network. America will make war for a better peace denied her by maniacs. Letters will dropped in each village in North and South Waziristan, telling the inhabitants to give up their weapons and submit to searches of their residences. Aggressive actions taken by Pak military units will result in 5,000 lb GBU-28 Penetrator Bombs being dropped on all Pakistani nuclear missile sites, which have been carefully tracked by the National Ground Intelligence Center and the National Geospatial Agency for years. Alexander–a genius at war–knows that this war will escalate. All wars escalate. But no one can out-escalate the United States Military.
Villages not wishing to submit to search will be given 24 hours notice to evacuate. Then the village will be razed by Fire Support Teams (FIST) utilizing 155 mm Howitzer fire and B-52 Arc Light strikes and tactical airstrikes under the guidance of Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) teams. Not only will there be no apologies for these actions, Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) units will broadcast images of the destruction to other villages, warning them of the implications of resistance.
Anything less than the above guarantees an American defeat in Afghanistan. If our leaders cannot do what Alexander would do, they should save the blood of our Soldiers and Marines and bring them home. And they should never again begin or escalate a war for political gain if they don’t intend to win it.
Bin Laden, COIN, and the absurdity of war without escalation
Recently, concerns have arisen about retaliatory attacks by al-Qaeda stemming from the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
This concern stems from the current small-wars counterinsurgency (COIN) meme; that by killing one enemy, you create 20 more. However, this idea should by no means be considered a maxim. Essentially, recent COIN methodology hoped for war without escalation, something that Clausewitz found to be absurd. Clausewitz states that almost all wars must escalate:
“War is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force. Each side, therefore, compels its opponent to follow suit; a reciprocal action is started which must lead, in theory, to extremes…To introduce the theory of moderation into the theory of war itself would always lead to logical absurdity.”[1]
But we know there is a limit to that escalation, otherwise history would have known only one war and it would have consumed all of humanity. The question is always: What is the enemy’s breaking point?
To illustrate the necessity of escalation in war, let’s picture two men arm wrestling. As the match begins, one man—let’s call him Joe–thinks he is much stronger than the other (Steve) and doesn’t wish to humiliate or hurt his opponent, but does want to win, so Joe exerts only a percentage of his maximal possible force. But suddenly Joe realizes that Steve is stronger than Joe expected, that his opponent actually seems to be giving it his all and doesn’t seem at all to care if Joe loses face in the masculine battle. Joe cranks up the force, feeling a bit stupid at underestimating his opponent. Steve senses Joe’s increased intensity, and he, too, leans into the match, his face turning a darkening red. Now Joe again applies more pressure, and for once he sees Steve’s arm begin to move toward the table. Steve is still giving it his all—his will is not yet broken—but he simply doesn’t have the power necessary to bring Joe’s arm down. Finally, Joe senses victory and gives it everything he’s got. As Steve’s wrist moves to within an inch of the table, Steve sees that defeat is inevitable and that further resistance will only bring pain. Steve’s arm goes limp and Joe wins.
Consider the above analogy with no escalation. Both men would sit at the table forever. The parallels to war are obvious. Some may say that it is desirable that neither side escalate. This is only the case if the war is not a shooting war, otherwise the killing would continue albeit at a slower rate, but for a much longer time. At some point, one side’s will is sure to waiver. It is highly unlikely that neither man in the arm wrestling match would choose not to escalate his use of power. If neither man wanted to win an arm wrestling match, why did they take part in the first place?
The fallacy is that a war can be won without escalation. If there is no escalation, it is not a war; it’s an intellectual debate.
Yes, killing one man may indeed create 20 enemies. This doesn’t mean the one man should not be killed. Killing him would only be a mistake if analysis showed the enemy capable of out-escalating the killer. There are a number of factors that dictate the level to which an enemy can escalate and many of them are not directly related to military strength. In any case, no nation or enemy can escalate ad infinitum. To worry that al-Qaeda can escalate forever and always grossly overestimates their power and the constant media messaging hinting as al-Qaeda’s plots for revenge provide the terror group with moral courage. It’s been said that America can’t kill an idea. That’s true, but also moot. America needs only make the actual practice of harmful ideas more painful than mere thoughts. The COIN argument that killing one enemy makes 20 also shows itself to be overblown when we think about the effect of al-Qaeda and the Taliban killing one of our service people; do 20 more American soldiers magically sprout on the battlefield? After enough deaths in a fight, do some Americans not begin to ask: Is it worth fighting on? Losing soldiers has a real effect on our will and combat effectiveness. It is the same with our enemies.
Of course, escalation need not take place at all costs. There comes a time when the negative results of escalation outweigh anything that can be gained from it. That, too, is the same for our enemies. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) learned the cost of its Total Terror campaign and it also underestimated the ability and will of America to escalate. AQI poisoned the sea in which it swam by killing too many Iraqi civilians and then America destroyed the insurgency by killing a lot of terrorists. The violence in Iraq dropped dramatically.
Will al-Qaeda plan revenge attacks for bin Laden’s death? Probably. Would al-Qaeda have attacked the United States or other Western nations if bin Laden remained alive? Absolutely. But in the end, al-Qaeda, like Japan at Pearl Harbor, banked on a knockout blow that it simply didn’t have the power to deliver. Both escalated without giving thought to America’s ability to match and surpass her enemies’ violence. To fret reprisal and hold back America’s power just as al-Qaeda strands ready for collapse will only empower terrorists and allow those almost dead to regenerate, to mock their betters in a war they know they can’t win without our help.
[1] Clausewitz, On War, Pg. 76.
Target: Bin Laden
Knowing the rules
I read an article written by David Killcullen, one of the world’s top counter-insurgency men. He stated that the populace in a counter-insurgency want to know the rules that have been set in place for them. They want to know their boundaries, what will bring punishment and what will bring reward.
I believe that one of the biggest failures of the last 8 years in the war in Afghanistan is the lack of effort in reporting the real reasons and intentions for America being in the country in the first place. Since General Petraeus took over, there’s been a concerted effort to rectify this, but there’s a long way to go.
As Washington Post writer, David Ignatius points out, according to recent polls, Afghan haven’t a clue as to why Americans are in their backyard.
Nature abhors a vacuum. And so it is with information and propaganda. Whenever Coalition Forces fail to fill information gaps, we can be sure the enemy will oblige. Add to this the propensity of people in the region to believe the wildest of mythology–a neck-tie is a secret symbol of Christianity, Osama Bin Laden is a CIA operative–and you have a formula for unending war. Many Afghans, since they may not have even heard of 9-11, can only assume that America is in-country to do what every other invader has tried to do: Become a colonial power. And since America is primarily a Christian power, we must want to destroy Islam, too. No Afghan tribe that believes these things will ever fully support our efforts. And we need full support if the people are to be the eyes that find insurgents, not just a level of support that takes our money and goes about enabling the Taliban. The Taliban aggressively speads its message and rules through Shabnamah or Night Letters as well as face to face contact. The message and rules? Cooperate with the Coalition and you die. The Taliban has won the information war in to this point in Afghanistan. After researching the subject for an intelligence paper I wrote, I believe it is the number one reason that this war has lasted so long.
In a land rife with illiteracy, getting the word out is a huge task. But it is doable. When I visited a refugee camp in Afghanistan, I saw 25,000 inhabitants whom were ripe for Taliban picking. I made sure when I spoke with the camps leader to ask him why he thought America was in Afghanistan. I also told him that he needs to tell all of his people that America is here to fight al-Qaeda and trans-national terrorists, that American soldiers don’t want to spend years in his country; they want to go back to their family and friends. But we needed his help.
Every leader that interfaces with various tribes in Afghanistan should have a list of things that they tell the people. On that list should be an explanation for American presence and the rules that the people are expected to follow: Do this and we help you. Do this and we kill you or arrest you. The messaging should also include a laundry list of all the horrible things that the Taliban does, and a negation of the myth (propagated as much by Western media as the Taliban) that Americans kill more civilians than the insurgents do. All of this should be SOP with every engagement.
Tyner’s argument is junk
I know that just about everyone has heard about John Tyner, the 31 year old who threatened a TSA employee with arrest, 
should they touch his “junk”.
I have a degree in law enforcement, and am fairly well versed in law when it comes to searches and seizures. I’m not however, a lawyer, though I’ve faced them many times as a witness for the State of Maine in criminal proceedings. In my current professional field, I’m trained to resist the urge to let media coverage determine what’s important. It’s called a “shiny object”. That is, it glitters in the media spot light, so many assume that the story is in fact a new or important story. In reality, this situation has been addressed decades ago in courts of law. And no one really cared until this was caught on video, and the entertainment media began its usual drum beat, harkening the long awaited cataclysm so many on both the Right and the Left believe so imminent. Plus, people think it’s funny that Tyner used the word “junk” to denote his genitals. To me, he just displayed a severe lack of class.
Let’s look at this issue, first, from a legal perspective. Many are saying that this is a violation of peoples’ rights of privacy. I’m not sure if they mean that the courts have improperly allowed the 4th Amendment to be trampled on, or if TSA is ignoring the law. But they would only be correct in asserting the former, because the courts decided decades ago that people being searched at airports and at customs checkpoints in fact are submitting to consent searches. There are signs that tell people that they will be searched before they pass through the detectors and into the screening area. We need only look at the 4th Amendment to see that it places no more emphasis on a body than it does a bag that a person carries:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
There is no special protection for the human body. The person, house, papers and effects are offered equal protection under the law. But it’s this pat down that has people up in arms. Yet, as long as there have been x-ray machines in airports, people have been placing their bags into the machines to be what? Searched. With X-rays.
Here’s a case decided in the 9th circuit court of appeals that explains why Tyner did not have the option after passing the the screening area, to simply say that he now did not want to be searched and didn’t want fly:
United States v. Aukai
“The constitutionality of an airport screening search, however, does not depend on consent, see Biswell, 406 U.S. at 315, and requiring that a potential passenger be allowed to revoke consent to an ongoing airport security search makes little sense in a post-9/11 world. Such a rule would afford terrorists multiple opportunities to attempt to penetrate airport security by “electing not to fly” on the cusp of detection until a vulnerable portal is found. This rule would also allow terrorists a low-cost method of detecting systematic vulnerabilities in airport security, knowledge that could be extremely valuable in planning future attacks. Likewise, given that consent is not required, it makes little sense to predicate the reasonableness of an administrative airport screening search on an irrevocable implied consent theory. Rather, where an airport screening search is otherwise reasonable and conducted pursuant to statutory authority, 49 U.S.C. § 44901, all that is required is the passenger’s election to attempt entry into the secured area of an airport. See Biswell, 406 U.S. at 315; 49 C.F.R. § 1540.107. Under current TSA regulations and procedures, that election occurs when a prospective passenger walks through the magnetometer or places items on the conveyor belt of the x-ray machine. The record establishes that Aukai elected to attempt entry into the posted secured area of Honolulu International Airport when he walked through the magnetometer, thereby subjecting himself to the airport screening process.
Although the constitutionality of airport screening searches is not dependent on consent, the scope of such searches is not limitless. A particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it “is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives [] [and] that it is confined in good faith to that purpose.” Davis, 482 F.2d at 913. We conclude that the airport screening search of Aukai satisfied these requirements.”
The law serves us, we do not serve the law. There is a real reason for not letting people just walk away when they see the will be searched. It’s the same thing at police traffic checkpoints. I was a cop for almost a decade, so I have a lot of familiarity with search and seizure law. If a car is seen to turn around and drive the other way as they approach a police checkpoint, the police have the right to pull the car over. This too, is a decades old rule, so let’s not get pulled into conspiratorial arguments about new justices being activists.
The case that upheld the constitutionality of sobriety check points
is US Supreme Court, Michigan Dept of State Police vs. Sitz, 496 US 444 (1990). Also checkpoints have been upheld in US vs. Martinez-Fuerte.
Tyner, argues (rudely) during his interaction with TSA officials, that it is not an assault, only because the government is doing it (the search). Assuming his argument is true, he negated his assertion that he would have the TSA person arrested for assault if they touched his “junk”. What he is really saying is that he doesn’t feel it’s fair that the government has more power than he does. Does anyone anywhere believe that the government doesn’t in fact wield more power than the individual? Would we want it any other way? This fact was settled hundreds of years ago when Thomas Hobbes penned Leviathan. Most people, even Tyner most probably, agree that the state must have more power than the individual. For the state’s primary responsibility is security of the people. In order to provide security, the state must have a monopoly on violence; that is, it must be able to bring more guns to a fight than any gang that decides to pick up arms. If it cannot do so, the state, and all the benefits that come with it, will not last long.
Some will argue that the measures go beyond the actual threat. They also point out that the recent underwear bomber failed in his attempt. Is this the kind of security we want? There are only three pieces needed to make a bomb: Explosives, a switch and a power source. If one can get their hands on the materials, the rest is fairly easy. Do we want to hedge our security on the fact that the last terrorist didn’t correctly hook a wire to the 9 volt battery? How many planes would have to go down before the entire industry shut down? Before people no longer wanted to fly? All because a 20 second pat down–on principle supposedly–is a bad idea. If a bomb were found tomorrow in one of those 20 second pat downs, would people still argue that the searches aren’t a good thing? Is anyone really that offended that a pat down is occurring or are they being pulled into the media hype? I say the latter. Hope is not a plan of action, and not changing the way we screen passengers as terrorists adapt is legalistic insanity. It’s also fraudulent, as many people arguing this type of search really just don’t like the War on Terror. They see it as a Bush legacy.
We need only ask ourselves this question to know whether the pat down procedure will be effective:
If you were a nihilistic terrorist with a bomb, would you target an airport terminal that patted people down, or one that did not?
Effective? Go one month without a screening process at any major airport in America and see what happens. I’d bet my next 16oz. Heineken that a plane would blow up. The hallmark of the modern terrorist is the soft target. Not military targets. Politicians, markets, mosques, political and civilian structures. The terrorist cannot fight our military and win on any regular basis. To give him any more opportunity than he already has to attack the best prize of all is sheer political stubbornness. Why is a plane such a great target? Because even if a suicide bomber were to wade into a crowd of people and detonate, he would not be able to kill as many people as he can with a plane. In a plane, he’d kill a dozen people around him in the blast, and then hundreds more die when they hit the ground. Plus, airlines are a major part of the US and global economy. It’s a node, whose destruction would have a cascading effect. Almost any high school has a police officer assigned ot it. How many shootings are there at high schools? Should we not have a cop with a gun posted at high schools? If the cop makes $35,000 a year, and never has to pull the trigger, should we pull him out of the school because there’s been no violence? Are we that sure that security is only the result of people not trying or thinking about committing violent acts? Human nature cannot be changed. The only way to stop violence is to make it an unviable option.
Walk on to any military base, and you’re subject to search of all your bags and your person. You consented when you came through the gate. Just as people argue that military personnel consented to giving away some of their rights when they joined, so does the person who flies consent to a search when he or she flies. The signs tell him so beforehand.
What we cannot do is fall prey to hyperbolic rhetoric. “Beginning of the end” speak that’s so in vogue. As Ralph Peters said, it is America’s apparent duty to mind the brute children of failing cultures. It is not us that is failing. it is the culture that feels it necessary to place bombs amidst children and innocent civilians. We’re only trying to stop them from doing so.
In ending:
1) Patting people down is minimally intrusive (less than a minute).
2) It likely deters people from wearing bombs under their clothes and bringing them on to planes; we know Islamic terrorists place bombs under their clothes and do so over and over around the world.
3) The procedure is legal since the 1970s, as supported by case law .
As such, John Tyner, though famous for 15 minutes, is just plain wrong.
What I think of the war in Afghanistan now
After having spent four months in Afghanistan and seeing much of the war from the inside, some may wonder if my opinions of the efficacy of fighting there have changed. In short, they haven’t changed much.
While I do see the benefit of having some foot print in the country, I also see that the country’s leaders and outside influencers in Pakistan are playing both sides in hopes that when the US leaves, the Taliban won’t have any grudges. Their actions form a self-fulfilling prophecy and enable the Taliban to continue maintaining some legitimacy.
I want to dismiss the myth that Afghan fighters are incredible guerrilla warriors, able to defeat our troops because of their years’ experience in this kind of fighting. In fact, the Taliban and Haqqani fighters get severely smashed every time they confront US troops. Obliterated. I’m talking 40 bad guys dead, and 0 US dead on several occasions since I’ve been in the country. The way they kill our troops is by paying some dupe with no job to plant a bomb on a road and then detonating it as we ride by.
So why can’t we win? I have several opinions on this. First, we must define what winning is. I think in some ways, we have won. Al-Qaeda is almost non-existent in Afghanistan. The Taliban in many areas is reduced to a loose crime syndicate. And America is still a great place to live. If we read the memo that directed then-General Stanley McChrystal on the objectives of this war, the goal was to “degrade” the Taliban. We’ve done that.
But the one conclusion that I’ve come to that means the most to me is this: Democracy is a reward. Democracy is not a cause, it is the result of doing the right things. The people of Afghanistan have not earned Democracy because they refuse to change the way they do business. And they must suffer the consequences. The people of Iraq have earned the right to reap the benefits of Democracy (much to the chagrin of the Left) , as they demonstrated in the Anbar Awakening. To ask that Democracy be the cause that brings success to Afghanistan is like buying a teenager a new BMW in hopes it brings him a sense of responsibility.
I must point out that General Patraeus has made it clear we only need to make Afghanistan “good enough”. We don’t need to make it Switzerland, as he quipped. He is absolutely correct, and I do think that a good enough Afghanistan is in reach. But until the problems in Pakistan are dealt with, good enough is not possible. Our military leaders know this.
This is not a military failure. The military has defeated the Taliban on every battle front, though I don’t think we’ve been nearly aggressive enough. There’s also the problem of defining the enemy himself. Any guy can pick up a Kalashnikov and call himself Taliban, just as any person could now call himself a Nazi. So when do we know the Taliban has been defeated? The problem at this point, does not have a military solution. It is a Rule of Law problem and the result of cultural failure. The military part of the problem had been solved. The puzzle that remains is the endemic collapse of stabilizing social structures within Afghanistan. Chaos begets chaos. Corruption fathers corruption.
The War on Terror has not been a failure. Al-Qaeda suffered a massive strategic defeat. It’s plans are consistently disrupted, its fighters arrested or eliminated, many of it’s leaders killed or facing trial. The Taliban barely has a corporeal existence in Afghanistan, but its ghost remains in the form of criminal gangs and warlords. There are very real and positive results that’ve been gained from ignoring the defeatists. And we should continue to fight Islamic extremist. It is a fight that will continue in some form for the rest of our lives. That does not mean it’s not worth fighting. And the whining of the Left over this fight will also continue. We should throw them a couple of bones, like allowing gays in the military or legalizing pot. And then we should ignore them.
Our lesson should be that nation building while under fire is a bad idea. You don’t fix social structures while the enemy shoots at you. You smash the enemy, grab as much power as you can, than build. In most places you have to let everything burn out before you move in, and that can take generations.
The fact is, we’ve reduced the threat to America by fighting in Afghanistan. We just shouldn’t be giving the teenager a new car.
Afghanistan
I arrived in Afghanistan almost two weeks ago, flying into Bagram Airfield, then moving to Kabul and finally back to Bagram.
I was transported by semi-covert convoy from Camp Julian to ISAF HQ. I’ll leave the description of the vehicle that I travelled in out of this writing for security purposes. Armed men, contractors working in one of the world’s most unstable countries packed in around me, each carrying Serbian M-92s, 7.62mm, shelled in body armor, sleek Oakleys covering their eyes. We moved through streets packed bumper to bumper with cars and shoulder to shoulder with people. Garbage floated everywhere, piles of random junk stacked high on the sides of the road, craters from IED blasts gaping at us.
I gained a sense of hyper-alertness. Only a few months prior, insurgents killed several officers with a Vehicle-born IED just down the road from where we were driving. Though our vehicles were non-descript, the people somehow knew who we were. I could tell by their looks. I know that look from my days as a cop. The simmering distrust, the envy, the sniggering smile. They knew we were ISAF.
Every few hundred meters we would get sought in a knot of traffic, the bearded driver would swear. “Why’s he taking this fucking route?” Referring to the vehicle in front of us. Every time we stop, I watch for bulging robes, wires sprouting from sleeves, and stumbling gate and blissfully high face of an insurgent, high on heroin, ready to visit paradise. My doors combat locked, the heavy, hidden armor of our vehicles..can it resist a suicide bomber up close? No way. I know better. I imagine a holy warrior, perhaps only a few days prior a dirt farmer, striding up to my door, my last vision: his thumb depressing a plunger. I’d be blown out the other side of the vehicle, my insides liquified if my body held together at all.
We stopped. We raced. We clenched our weapons. But Kabul only winked at us. At anytime she could kill us. But not today. It would be too easy, no fun. Better to play with the mouse before it dies. As we drew closer to ISAF headquarters, it was as if the chaos and dirt melted away. I saw the Afghan police officers suddenly appear pressed uniforms, where only a couple of kilometers before , they appeared dishevelled, unshowered. A sense of calm and order arose as we approached the NATO base. It was an oasis from the anarchy that grips Afghanistan.
Since then, I’ve flown Blackhawk to several districts. What’s the war like? Well, let’s just say that American power and ingenuity are plainly evident on our bases, but Afghanistan’s tribalism, warlordism and primitive state rule the hinterlands. Behind our walls, we are invincible. The foolish man who hopes heroism will come in the form of an arching mortar round into an American base is quickly annihilated in a shower of 30mm cannon, belched from the nose of Apache gunships. Sometimes, they manage to get in, but their losses are catastrophic and for the most part, the insurgents have given up attacking our bases.
But the roads are a different story. Kidnappings, murder, theft. These are the tools of the Talib highway man. And don’t think of this as Taliban against NATO. It’s NATO against Chaos. Just because a man is Taliban or HIG does not mean he kidnaps foreigners for ideological reasons. He may just want money. He may be doing the bidding of his boss who wants regional control.
They are a giant mob, and we’re the cops. The mob is feeding on its moment of freedom, on its rage, rolling itself into a juggernaut-snowball. Only order–any order–can stop this. I don’t know if we can “win”. but I sense that if we leave, hundreds of thousands of civilians will die in the struggle to fill our vacuum. And we won’t be left with anything that amounts to a peaceful, liberated Afghanistan.
Afghanistan: Let the bodies hit the floor
A recent incident of friendly fire in which German troops killed Afghan troops riding in unmarked trucks highlights the problems in fighting this war.
How many insurgents did US Marines kill in the Marja invasion? No one knows, it’s classified. But every friendly fire incident or errant Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone will be reported with excruciating precision.
The primary thing we stand to lose is national prestige, and every friendly fire incident and civilian death chips away at American hegemony. If we win, well shouldn’t a superpower beat a group of illiterate, rag-tag geurillas? If we lose–perish the thought–every backwater despot will want a chance to strut his stuff on the world’s stage.
We should make public enemy body counts. Since Vietnam, the United States has made it policy that it not release body count numbers. As General Tommy Franks stated: “We don’t do body counts.”
I believe it’s time we did release body counts. Americans need to see why our Soldiers are dying, even if it’s only to show that we’re at least making others pay for killing us. Moreover, America needs to show who is actually killing the most civilians. In Iraq for instance, al-Qaeda killed civilians by the thousands, every year of the war. And yet we allowed some in the media and many activists to run with the numbers when it came to civilian deaths. They spun the story to read that America actually killed those innocents. America’s fault was that of failing to exert enough power, not of exerting too much power. And for that catastrophic mistake, we reaped the whirlwind. We tried a quarterback kneel with more than two minutes left in the game, then fumbled and watched our opponent run the ball back for a TD to tie the game. Slapped awake, we sent thousands more troops in clamped down on lawlessness, something we would have done as second nature fifty years prior.
There is of course, no option but victory. The resentful leftists who hoped America would fail in both Afghanistan and Iraq have been discredited. The best way to silence any criticism is to win. Please see how the citizens of Paris reacted when the Nazi goose-stepped through the Arc de Triomphe.
Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab was on a terror watch list
Authorities drew up the indictment of Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, who is identified as the person who attempted to detonate explosives on Northwest Airlines flight 253.
Sources state that Abdulmutallab attempted to explode 80 grams of PETN. PETN or Pentaerythritol tetranitrate is a military grade explosive.
I’m familiar with PETN from working on the police department’s bomb squad. It’s used in Det Cord (Cord used for door breaching as well as a tertiary detonating device). Apparently Abdulmutallab’s detonator did not work properly, otherwise, hundreds of people would quite likely have died. Without a detonator, PETN will only burn like C4. Richard Reid, the notorious Shoe Bomber of 2001 also used PETN but only 20 grams. That bomb also failed to explode. Al-Qaeda is aware that the current scanners used by TSA at airports will not reliably detect PETN.
Though further investigation is needed, it appears that Abdulmutallab was radicalized by al-Qaeda contacts in Yemen, specifically Imam Anwar Awlaki whom with Fort Hood shooting suspect Major Hassan spoke to on several occasions.
Incredibly, Abdulmutallab is on a US terrorist watch list but not on a no fly list. Abdulmutallab’s father even called a US embassy warning of his son’s radicalization and asking why he was allowed to fly.
The Army’s political correctness in the Hassan case is beyond shameful–its borderline traitorous. What could have led anyone in the government to ignore the case of Abdulmutallab is anyone’s guess.
Al-Qaeda no longer needs training camps
I’m hiding in Honduras
I’m a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan ~Lawyers, guns and money; Warren Zevon
The stock argument for our current involvement in Afghanistan is that we must prevent the country from becoming a training haven, as it was in 2001, for al-Qaeda operatives.
MuhammedAtta moves through aPortland Maine airport on 091101
This argument no longer holds water. And when we look at the actual situation in 2001, we can see why a full scale invasion was not needed.
Here, in President George Bush’s speech to Congress in 2001, he lays out the US’ demands of the Taliban government. The Taliban is never asked to leave power; only to hand over terrorists, allow the US access for inspection and close training camps.
Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough. The United States respects the people of Afghanistan — after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid — but we condemn the Taliban regime.
It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists.
By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban:
– Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land.
– Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned.
– Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country.
– Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.
– Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.
The Taliban must act and act immediately.
They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate. I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.
That was then. Al-Qaeda no longer needs open ground training camps at which to film its propaganda. Indeed, armed drones have made such terror play grounds an anachronism. What al-Qaeda needs is people, money and hate.
Terrorists training for large scale attacks in remote caves is a myth. The modern terrorist must be computer savvy, and blend in with a targeted populace. Major Hasan was only able to kill 13 US soldiers on a military base because he was one of them. The most dangerous jihadists are educated people, not those wielding rusty Kalashnikovs and sporting 3rd grade reading abilities.
The very event that spurred the invasion of Afghanistan–The 9-11 attacks–was carried out primarily by jihadists who trained and planned the attacks in Western countries. The Hamburg Cell, led by Muhammed Atta, met, discussed jihadist motivations and made contact wth al-Qaeda, all while German intelligence surveilled their two-bedroom apartment on Marienstrasse. Atta received his education at an American university in Cairo,Egypt. Bin Laden chose the bulk of the hijackers from a group of usual suspects: Unmarried, young, poorly educated. All but one hailed from Saudi Arabia. These men did not need to think–they only needed to wield box cutters, then die. They did train for a period in Afghanistan, but they employed no serious technical skills gained in this training.
According to the 9-11 Comission Report, between $400,000 and $500,000 was spent training and preparing for the 9-11 attacks. The majority of this training was carried out in Western countries,using Western institutions. In other words, we need only follow the money.
President Obama should seriously reconsider the poor arguments made for continuing or escalating the war in Afghanistan. The war is not “Over There”. It’s right here.
Attack the Taliban
Crassus: Knew that soccer ball giveaways were overrated.
Search through history and you’ll find something about counterinsurgency that won’t please those who want bloodless conflict: It almost never works.
Actually, counterinsurgency techniques may play into the insurgent’s hand. The techniques take too long and the insurgent wishes to draw a conflict out, to bleed his militarily superior enemy of political and public will.
Martin van Crevald, military historian and analyst, states rightly, that the problems for the superior military power in confronting the guerilla force is not so much political or military, but moral. In order to truly defeat most insurgencies, atrocity may be the only option. In the Third Servile War (73-71 BC), Crassus had 6,000 captured slaves, once led by Spartacus, crucified and hung along the Appian way which linked Rome to Capua. The message was clear as the blood was deep: You revolt against the Empire and you die.
It may be that we cannot win, most times, these types of wars if we adhere to Western values. This is not a value judgement on my part, merely an observation. We must choose what we are to do. There are three options. 1)Attack the enemy viciously, letting morality stand second in line to victory. 2) Involve our fighting men in wars in which many times will result in long, drawn out conflict and end stalemate. 3) Refuse to get involved in insurgencies whatsoever. Fight, destroy, then leave as quickly as possible.
Insurgencies arise from perceived injustice. Insurgencies in Western culture are rare, because the nature of Democracy tends to address, to a large degree, perceived injustice. When a segment of our society feels with significant passion that they have been wronged, they have a vote that gives some sense of power. They can protest. In other societies and in empires of the past, the truly dispossessed have no inalienable rights. The Roman slaves were property. There was no other way to address the injustice but to turn to the sword.
There is virtually no historical record of what is now being used as counterinsurgency techniques being successfully used in quelling an uprising. An uprising is likely to continue until the perceived need or injustice is addressed or sufficient pain is applied to the rebels, pain that makes them stop fighting. The foolishness of some of this over-hyped counterinsurgency bit in its use against modern jihadism, is simple when we hold it to the light: If insurgencies arise from perceived injustice amongst the people, any Western society will simply provide for the people’s need. Most uprisings of the past occurred in totalitarian or monarchal regimes in which all men were not created equal. However, the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the one that boils beneath the surface in Pakistan, is driven by religious zealotry. There is no perceived injustice per se, except that, in the eyes of the Muslim extremist, the world should live according to the Will of Allah, and that Will is interpreted by al Qaeda and its ilk. Even in Palestine, the perceived injustice of Israeli occupation of Jerusalem and the settlements of the West Bank are much easier to rectify than the desires of al Qaeda and the Taliban.
So, the modern jihadist requires something that Western culture cannot provide: That the whole world capitulate to Sharia.
The Taliban is now emboldened by the US’s defensive stance. Instead of ruthlessly hunting the Taliban, the US’s forces are walking through city streets shaking hands with people who care little. They know they don’t want the Taliban to show up and force their sons to fight for the insurgents. Shaking the people’s hands changes nothing. They do not have the ability to fight against the Taliban. Leaving the Taliban intact will not change the problem. It places us in a purely defensive stance hoping that farmers will like us more than the extremists. The Taliban is free to move from one area of Afghanistan to the other until it finds a place where there are no US troops–and there are plenty of those places. Modern counterinsurgency estimates would call for approximately 500,000 troops. Who are we kidding here?
The only answer, since we have decided that Afghanistan is so crucial (why is a country that isn’t really a country so important? Why more so than Somalia, which is teaming with militant Islamists?), and that we must be rid of the Taliban, the only answer we have is to hunt them and kill them, never let them gain their balance. Instead, they’re taking full scale military action against our outposts and even Pakistan’s Army Headquarters. We’re losing precious time. Pakistan’s government is far more pro-American than its general populace is. 300,000 uneducated and roiling people. They stand ripe for the extremists’ picking.
Pakistan is planning its third large offensive into the Taliban’s mountain strongholds along the Pakistan/Afghan border. The two previous attacks were repulsed by the rebels. If America is to end this war, we must attack the Taliban. Counterinsurgency plays into the enemies hands by making it easier for him to live and making the war last longer. Not to mention the fact that only an ascetic warrior like McChrystal could think he could make it work with so few men.
In the Third Servile War, Spartacus: forced into southern Italy by Crassus’ legions. Pompey’s army, ordered by the Senate to move south and assist Crassus, marched inexorably down the Italian boot. Seeing that his men were to be crushed between two juggernauts, Spartacus swung his formations around for a last gasp attack on Crassus. But there would be only the freedom of death for Spartacus. The vice closed and 100,000 slaves, slaughtered.
President Obama should give General McChrystal his 40,000 and tell him to destroy the enemy. Like Crassus and Pompey, the US and Pakistan should drive to the enemies’ heart, compacting and destroying him. Yes, we will take casualties, but failing to go for broke risks bleeding us dry of will, money and blood–and we could see Pakistan lose its very existence.
And the fight must be powerful and fast, before the media can yet again rush in to rescue the militant extremists.
Super-Duper Secret plan aimed to–GASP!–kill people who were trying to kill us!
Those bad, bad Neocons from the Bush administration were even worse than we suspected. Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein tell us so, and how could we not believe any of the words that pour from Pelosi’s botoxed face?
She just seems soooo happy, nowadays! Everyone’s forgotten the fact that Nancy likes to waterboard bad people–unless her new and shiny president doesn’t. And he doesn’t. So Nancy doesn’t, and never did.
HHHHHaaapy! Bush and Cheney....BBBaaadd!
An Ultra-Black Operation has recently been outed. And myyyy goodness it’s a whopper. Makes the US government’s use of biological weapons in mass experiments on American citizens look like paddy cake. Know what Cheney knew about, and didn’t even have the decency to tell Nancy? Huh? Can you guess? The US military was trying to kill Al-Qaeda’s leadership! The nerve!
Now, this super-secret plan didn’t actually manage to kill anyone. The US government decided that using Predator drones was better, quicker and safer. But still. Nancy should have been let in on everything that she could possibly use to take the heat off herself.
Now let’s take a look at the way our military is killing our enemies everyday. It’s the program that’s killed hundreds if not thousands of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, endorsed by Bush and Cheney. And Nancy knew about it, too! We need an investigation!
If I were briefing President Obama on Afghanistan
If I were able to brief the President on the current situation in Afghanistan, I would say this: Leave now. Maintain a small force of Special Operations men and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Predators etc) at Bagram Airbase. From there, potential terror training camps can be dealt with swiftly.
We no longer need a large force in Afghanistan, a country with no hope for achieving 20th century competence.
We won. We did what we needed to do, thus achieving strategic victory. Now our troops only present living targets. Al-Qaeda is an ever elongating shadow, badly defeated even as the media told us we were losing.
Let’s leave Afghanistan, whose dark age mindset and advancement cannot possibly be rectified in our lifetime.
Podcast. Episode 1–Gitmo
I downloaded the wrong video to YouTube so the word “Intelligence” is misspelled. Oops. Next time.
Article submitted to the Washington Post
Submitted this a while ago. Enjoy.
Al-Qaeda: When winning means losing
Have you noticed of late that Al-Qaeda has been reduced to the proverbial bearded-lady of the world-stage? No more is the terror organization thought of as a monolithic entity, capable of frustrating even a superpower with its liquid structure and indelible will. It seems that Al-Qaeda is now a sideshow. When we hear of an attack somewhere that involves the once-great foe of the West, we want to know more, but only as a gawker at the circus’ freak tent.
What happened? After all, was not 9-11 the most devastating attack ever initiated by foreign enemies on American soil? Had not Al-Qaeda successfully bombed U.S. embassies in Tanzania , Kenya and Nairobi , almost sunk the USS Cole, one of the most advanced warships in the US arsenal? Mentioning the 9-11 attacks seems almost trite in it’s unsubtly, but we must consider that with the destruction of the Towers and the deaths therein, combined with the aforementioned attacks, it did seem unlikely that America could deliver a similar blow to the blood and treasure of a ghostly—and yet very corporeal—enemy. Terror organizations have no economic mega-complex, no billion dollar warships. So loose is their organization, that it’s difficult to come close in estimating numbers of operatives.
Looking through history, it’s easy to find tactical victories that led to strategic defeat. Carl von Clausewitz defined strategy as, “the employment of battles to gain the end of war.” Perhaps an even better definition of strategy is proposed by the great English military historian and strategist, Liddell Hart: “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy.” Tactics involve the maneuvers and handling of individual elements of an army in order to defeat local enemy forces.
When I was at the Army’s intelligence school, an instructor posed the question as to how Japan was able to score such a great victory at Pearl Harbor . Several of the other students stated that various gaps in America ’s intelligence had led to the devastating attack. My response was that I did not consider the attack on Pearl Harbor to be a victory, at least in the strategic sense. The Japanese had vastly underestimated the economic and industrial power of the United States, so much so, that America was able to break a cardinal rule of war-fighting; engage in a two-front war, one with the Japanese Imperials and the other with the most professional and efficient army in the world, the Wehrmacht. Pearl Harbor was in fact, a monstrous intelligence failure by the Japanese. Within three years of December 7, 1942, Japan ’s representatives were signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri.
Vietnam represents possibly the largest chain of tactical victories leading to strategic defeat, in history. Most people don’t realize that America never lost a major tactical engagement in the Vietnam . The famed Tet Offensive of 1968 amounted to a catastrophic tactical defeat for the North Vietnamese, whose casualties some experts estimate to be 100,000 dead. America and her allies mounted favorable 12 to 1 kill-ratios. The North Vietnamese, Nguyen Hue Offensive of 1972, did somewhat better, but not much. 40,000 North Vietnamese died while South Vietnam and the United States suffered approximately 10,000 deaths.
But America’s strategy–that of containment–was not able to overcome the strategy of the North Vietnamese, that is, the destruction or removal of American forces and the capture of Saigon. In initiating a war of attrition, North Vietnam targeted the weak point in American armor, US will. Clausewitz again: “The importance of victory depends on the importance of the object which secures it to us.” This is not to say that American will is weak. It was difficult to convey importance to Americans, whose sons were dying for a land which they could only see on television, especially when no one really could be brought to believe that Vietnam posed any threat to the continental US. If pajama-clad Vietcong were popping up in the American heartland, the story would have been different.
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