Carl J. Ciovacco has a fascinating article on the evolution of savagery in al-Qaeda. It was surprising to learn that Osama bin Laden was, in the days immediately after the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, extremely squeamish about shedding noncombatant blood. His reluctance to shed blood was rooted in religious prohibititions. The story of his gradual journey towards unlimited warfare was shadowed by religious doctrinal changes which he himself promulgated in order to justify his new policies.
Bin Laden lifted the restrictions on targeting noncombatants in 1997 — long before September 11 — during the depths of the Clinton Administration, and during the height of optimism about the “End of History” and the triumph of the European Union. In the midst of this self-congratulatory period, Osama bin Laden was declaring war on America. Not the US military, not the CIA, but every man, woman and child in the USA.
This phase begins in March, 1997, with a CNN interview of bin Laden in Afghanistan. In a dramatic change to bin Laden’s view of noncombatants, he hints that civilians may not be as shielded as they were in the past. While he does not say that al Qaeda will target civilians, he basically intimates that if noncombatants get in the way, “it is their problem.”
The CNN interview by Peter Bergen and Peter Arnett was the first time that bin Laden told Western journalists that he had declared war on the United States. Departing from his past strategy of targeting apostate Muslim regimes in the Middle East, bin Laden clearly announced that al Qaeda was now at war with America. His answer to a question regarding the classification of the enemy helps to outline his evolving view of noncombatants. Bin Laden said:
As for what you asked, whether jihad is directed against U.S. soldiers, the [U.S.] civilians in the land of the Two Holy Places [Saudi Arabia], or against the civilians in America, we have focused our declaration on striking at the soldiers in the country of the Two Holy Places…Therefore, even though American civilians are not targeted in our plan, they must leave. We do not guarantee their safety
Somewhat later Bin Laden would expand the degree of sanctioned violence to include the use of WMDs against infidel civilians. After the September 11 attacks and following the American response in Iraq and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda pulled out all the stops. It was now licit to engage in the mass murder of civilians.
Due to the American bombings and siege of Iraq, more than 1,200,000 Muslims were killed in the past decade…The Americans have still not tasted from our hands what we have tasted from theirs. The [number of] killed in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are but a tiny part of the exchange for those killed in Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, the Philippines, Bosnia, Kashmir, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. We have not reached parity with them. We have the right to kill four million Americans – two million of them children – and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons, so as to afflict them with the fatal maladies that have afflicted the Muslims because of [Americans’] chemical and biological weapons. America knows only the language of force. America is kept at bay by blood alone.
Ironically, the latter stages of the American campaign in Iraq counter-intuitively produced a rollback of the al-Qaeda policy of unlimited violence. As the Iraqi population, exemplified by the tribes in Anbar, began to turn against them, the Jihadis began to realize the military disadvantages of inflicting unlimited barbarity upon anyone who opposed them. Despite the shrill charges by the Left of American “brutality” and their romantic characterization of terrorist attacks on civilians as the use of the “poor man’s F-16″, the popular judgment of the two methods of waging war was decisively in favor of the US Armed Forces. Disgusted with al-Qaeda’s excesses, they turned the Jihadis in in droves or pointed them out where precision weapons would snuff them out. Ciovacco writes:
Just as al Qaeda’s targeting of noncombatants progressed in phases, perhaps it is moving into a Phase Six where a limited respect for noncombatant immunity once again exists. In 2005, Zawahiri directed al Qaeda in Iraq to stop killing Shia noncombatants because it was hurting al Qaeda’s greater cause. Furthermore, a top al Qaeda strategist, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has written to al Qaeda in Iraq telling them that its killing of “too many civilians” was undermining al Qaeda’s global strategy.
With the exception of al-Qaeda’s blustering threat to rain down the fires of hell on Americans in the period after the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, the relationship between its propensity to murder civilians and the intensity of American engagement may be counterintuively inverse. Al-Qaeda’s appetitite for civilian blood increased during a period when it was allowed to grow comparatively unopposed. It declined when it was engaged because it had to respond to the competitive pressure of US politico-military efforts to win the favor of population. Once it became clear that terrorism was not only politically unproductive but also incapable of disrupting the protective cloak which US forces had deployed around the population it was forced to change tactics.
It is unlikely that the road will stop here. There will probably be more iterations in al-Qaeda’s policy toward civilians Recently, some al-Qaeda ideologues have proposed random civilian attacks in the West, because the opinion of infidel civilians is ostensibly less relevant to their organizational viability than the attitudes of Pashtuns or tribesmen in Anbar. But it is also entirely possible that the shock of combat with US forces has made a lasting impression on al-Qaeda’s organizational memory.
While much of the debate over military strategy (especially by Presidential candidates) has dealt with the kinetic battlefields — numbers of brigades in Iraq versus Afghanistan for example — it is possible that the future strategies of al-Qaeda will avoid direct confrontations. Lawfare, proselytization, propaganda, etc may play an increasing role in their strategy and their corresponding means of coercion may evolve to emphasize targeted coercion rather than public displays of terror. Although al-Qaeda may continue its campaign of overt terrorism, a significant component of their activity may move into the background. This has always been the case and may become more so in the future.
Clinton Watts a former US Army Infantry Officer, FBI Special Agent and Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point who has studied how Jihadis are recruited, has observed that much of that effort takes place off the battlefield, in quiet backrooms in Islamic neighborhoods . By far the most effective vector for spreading radical Islamic terrorism are “former fighters”. Watts says,
Radicalization: Fear not what you can see, but what you cannot see. … Worry about the flow of fighters into Iraq. Worry more about the flow of fighters out of Iraq.
In the 1990s, much of the West had no fear of what it could not see, often because they chose not to see it. Ciovacco and Watts have described the interaction between Western action and the memetic contentent of the Jihad. Any future warfighting strategy going forward should have an explicit awareness of the relationship between the kinetic and informational battlefields; between the seen and the unseen.
Tip Jar.
We keep being told that Al-Q sunk their own ship in Iraq because the citizens there got tired of their barbarity and turned to the Americans to partner with to drive them out of the country.
Why, then, haven’t the Afghans managed to do the same thing? They had Al-Q in residence *before* 9/11, along with the Taliban, and now Al-Q is swarming back into their country and we’re being told that the Taliban is at least as strong as it was 3 or 4 years ago. Doesn’t that mean that average Afghan citizens are not only putting up with their own home-grown Taliban, but are also welcoming back Al-Queda with open arms?
Does that, in turn, mean that either AlQueda isn’t as bloody towards the Afghans as they were towards the Iraqis, or does it mean that Afghans are even more barbaric than the Iraqi’s and don’t mind behind beheaded?
In other words, why hasn’t there been an Afghan Awakening, and (as I’ve asked before) are the Taliban and Al-Queda two totally different heads of the terrorism snake?
I hope Old Blue can help answer your question, but my superficial impression is that, first of all, Iraqis aspired to be a modern nation; perhaps with Arab or Muslim flavor, but a nation nonetheless. I don’t know whether Al-Qaeda has forced the tribes to make that existential choice. I suspect that where the Al-Qaeda vision requires the tribes to give up their identity a zero-sum clash will ensue. But this goes to the heart of the larger question: Parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan are modern nations in name only. The question of strategy in Afghanistan/Pakistan is inextricably linked to what the place wants to become.
Note in particular the part that states that the less opposition Al-Qaeda has, the more brutal it becomes. This is the true face of humanism. Seeking a man-made definition of perfection, its members can never know contentment and must always engage in eradicating the slightest imagined deviation from the “higher truth du jour”.
The quest for utopianism has slaughtered more innocents than the search for gold ever did or that the search for oil ever could.
Christendom has never been immune from this temptation. However, Islam is infinitely more susceptible. Anybody with the title of “Sheik” (bin Laden has it) can issue fatwas which are rather akin to a Pope speaking ex cathedra. And at any given moment there are about 864,000 Sheiks shooting off their towel-headed mouths and few of their pronouncements inspire ethical behavior. Instead, self-indulgent fantasizing is given the theological green light. This only moderates when the fantasizers start having close encounters with 18 wheelers in the intersection.
Things will change for the better when a cultural transformation takes place in the afflicted areas. Close contact with Americans, especially American soldiers, has always done that. Let us hope that continues. Make that hope and pray, would you?
You don’t have a link to Ciovacco’s article.
The brutality against non-believers will cease when Islam no longer exists. Until that time, there is enough in the Medinan parts of the Qur’an and in hadiths Bukhari, Muslim and in the example of Muhammad to settle no limits whatsoever on how the unbelievers can be attacked.
Muhammad was most brutal when he could get away with it and there was no internal opposition to his methods.
There really is only one way to stay the hand of jihad violence: publicly pronounce the Shehada. Being offered the Dhimma is not guaranteed, and history attests to that fact.
To a great extent, doctrine is driven by capabilities. As Al Qaeda became more capable of organizing attacks on New York City and Washington DC, its doctrine was adapted accordingly. The next development would have involved major attacks with anthrax and dirty nuclear bombs.
Since 9/11, however, Al Qaeda’s capabilities have been crippled. Since the Surge in Iraq, its capabilities have been crippled further.
It’s now a waste of time and effort for Al Qaeda’s strategic theorists to write justifications for massacres of random infidel civilians in the USA or Iraq. No can do.
Rather, we can expect to see a new cottage industry of justifications for targeted assassinations of Pakistani politicians.
“the relationship between the kinetic and informational battlefields”
Unfortunately, when it comes to the informational battlefield, the media is effectively on the other side.
Bill Warner has published interviews and papers and posted them over at frontpagemag.com, where he claims his organization has studied the cummulative death toll from fourteen centuries of jihad. Keep in mind that it is impossible to determine exactly what percent of this number would be non-combatant and what would be combatant, but given the fact that over the course of those fourteen centuries most of the time is can be reasonably argued that overwhelmingly the victims were not combatants. He conservatively estimates that at least 270 million human beings were murdered by jihad.
That is an awesome figure. Clearly, it had to be sanctioned in Islamic scripture and tradition.
We don’t need to look any farther afield to find the basis for this sanction to kill all unbelievers.
One of the strongest recruitment tools for gangs, terrorists, “radical movements” and other criminal enterprises is the ignorance many youths have about their own history, family, and culture.
One problem with “Year Zero” thinking, of starting a new day free of the shadows of yesterday, often leads to deracinated racists who will fight fanatically for a label without having the haziest understanding of the culture they claim to fight for.
It is easy to say the following:
The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
It is easy to say such things — and very dangerous. Christians and Muslims and Jews are not merely differentiated by identity labels, but by serious theological differences that will not go away merely by proclaiming that they don’t matter. Moreover, to even claim that these differences aren’t important is an insult to devout worshippers of each of these religions; peace is best kept by recognizing how important theological disagreements can really be.
Aboriginal tribes ought to feel the cold chills of abhorrence upon hearing a speech called “A World That Stands As One” that calls on tribal customs to be vanquished, for minority traditions to be subsumed into a homogenized culture. Any traditionalist subculture that resists the advance of “mainstream” corporate culture ought to see the threat represented by Senator Obama’s speech.
I am not fond of identity politics nor am I happy with racial barriers. In some respects, my views could be considered to be assimilationist. My views are very definitely integrationist. And yet, talk of destroying cultural differences, talk of remaking the world to tear humanity away from the bonds of tradition, talk of breaking down native resistance to the demands of invaders, such words become a declaration of cultural warfare against those who care and care deeply about cultural continuity. Can’t we let the water of time erode the lingering animosities of yesteryear instead of insisting on breaking them down with a sledgehammer? There must be space for those who refuse to stand as one with the tyranny of “Year Zero”.
Not all walls are bad. Some walls are called dikes, in Louisiana they’re called levees, and when the walls came tumbling down in New Orleans, none but a killjoy would celebrate. Senator Obama at least had the grace not to celebrate that disaster. Sometimes, a wall is all that keeps the river – or the sea – from rushing in.
I keep hearing about “a world that stands as one”. But what about freedom? Yes, America and Europe ought to cooperate, but this cooperation must be a matter of choice, not a matter of compulsion. To say that partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice, to say it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity, these are ominous words. Whatever else can be said about Lyndon Johnson, when Charles de Gaulle left NATO and told American troops to leave, our troops left. For an American to have told de Gaulle how “partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice” would have be taken as an insult and rightly so.
Yes, America needs allies. But America needs willing allies. Our ideals are not that of ancient Athenian democracy that would go to war to compel the loyalty of its allies, for Americans – at least some Americans – take the ideals of liberty seriously.
Whenever the customs of others do not intrude upon basic decency, we ought to respect our differences. I’m calling for toleration, not celebration, for any call to celebrate differences all too often trivializes them. When a religion does not intrude on the laws of our land, it should be left alone, for we should not insist upon breaking down barriers merely to satisfy the lusts of the iconoclast.
Let’s not seek to erase the religious heritage of the last three thousand years merely because it becomes fashionable to do so.
(Italics are quotes from Obama’s Berlin speech.)
I’ve tried to fix the missing hyperlink problem.
Now I don’t know what the exact functional relationship is between al-Qaeda’sideology and feedback. We have been told that the relatinship between brutality and resistance is positive: the more you fight the Jihad, the more you encourage it. This was almost became an article of faith among self-described “sophisticates”. But what if the relationship was inverse, flipped over certain ranges or was an aggregate function where each behaved differently?
My intuition is that a judicious combination of conciliation and resistance will bring the best results. It will be necessary to redress what needs redress; but it will also be necessary to hold fast where resistance is indicated.
Mike: It’s now a waste of time and effort for Al Qaeda’s strategic theorists to write justifications for massacres of random infidel civilians in the USA or Iraq. No can do. Rather, we can expect to see a new cottage industry of justifications for targeted assassinations of Pakistani politicians.
The goal, of course, is for al-Qaeda to obtain control of the “Muslim bomb” by suborning the Pakistan military. This is the sum of all fears, and al-Qaeda may find a new urgency to their quest is added by Obama’s call for a nuclear-free world. But it didn’t help our cause very much to piss off the Pakistani people by supporting a strongman against the very principles of democracy we say we’re trying to spread in the region. I suppose geopolitics was working against us there. Pakistan airspace is literally the only way to supply our forces in Afghanistan without dropping stuff directly from orbit.
Wretchard,
I’m all for honest conciliation, when it’s called for and may be effective. However, the history of Islam’s relationship with the unbelievers is overwhelmingly one of brutality, murder, spoliation, and parasitism. I’m not saying that there have been no incidents of kafirs committing acts of brutality against Muslims. I’m sure it’s happened, but in the big picture, methinks it is very insignificant.
That is why the best thing that any kafir can do, right now, is to get that book by Ali Sina, “Understanding Muhammad: A Psychobiography” Also, any book written by Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or, and Andrew Bostom will further inform. I find that the most compelling stories and arguments against Islam come from former Muslims themselves.
Nope. I learned a long time ago that it serves no useful purpose going into the confessional and making up sins just for something to tell the priest about, thinking it would make him think I was not guilty of pride. The truth will do just fine. Islam is a savage and barbaric cult that only takes conciliation as weakness on our part. And that’s a very dangerous place to be with dangerous dogs that sense you are afraid of them.
Lawfare, proselytization, propaganda, etc may play an increasing role in their strategy and their corresponding means of coercion may evolve to emphasize targeted coercion rather than public displays of terror.
Which is why it remains equally vital to begin the legal dismantling of Islam throughout the Western world. It needs to be stripped of all religious protections and shari’a law must be declared a direct violation of human rights. As a handbook for genocide, the Qur’an should be banned as well.
fred: The brutality against non-believers will cease when Islam no longer exists.
Which is why the war with Islam is an all or nothing proposition. Few people, and even fewer politicians, seem to realize this and it only fuels violent jihad.
Mike Sylwester: Rather, we can expect to see a new cottage industry of justifications for targeted assassinations of Pakistani politicians.
Originating within Pakistan or the West? Only one of those alternatives is truly useful in ending Islamic terrorism.
Alexix: Christians and Muslims and Jews are not merely differentiated by identity labels, but by serious theological differences that will not go away merely by proclaiming that they don’t matter. Moreover, to even claim that these differences aren’t important is an insult to devout worshippers of each of these religions; peace is best kept by recognizing how important theological disagreements can really be.
Muslims routinely display a rather vivid comprehension of this. How is it that such a vital distinction seems to escape Christians and Jews, (in that respective order)?
Pakistan airspace is literally the only way to supply our forces in Afghanistan without dropping stuff directly from orbit.
I’m not entirely convinced of that. The United States could buy food supplies from Afghan farmers; each farmer who grows wheat is a farmer who does not grow the opium that funds the Taliban. (There is a limited amount of arable land in Afghanistan.) The United States could buy Russian weaponry and ammunition, ensuring a supply line that cannot be easily snapped even by the Russian government. This “cash tether” could solve many supply problems.
Using the “cash tether” leaves only two problems — cash transfers and troop rotation. These would require air access to Afghanistan, although the United States could theoretically use a trans-Caucasus/Kazahkstan/Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan air corridor to bypass Pakistan. Astute diplomacy in Turkmenistan would strengthen such an air corridor. As long as the requisite tariffs were paid, I doubt there would be any problem with arranging charter flights delivering men and cash to Afghanistan.
Pakistan may think it has NATO by the throat, but it doesn’t. We desperately need to reconfigure our supply system, though.
Zenster: Which is why the war with Islam is an all or nothing proposition. Few people, and even fewer politicians, seem to realize this and it only fuels violent jihad.
I disagree. One of our Founding Fathers, John Adams, signed a document to the effect that America was NOT at war with Islam. It reads like this:
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Another consequence of this treaty is that the United States is purely a secular nation, quite to the contrary of assertions made by certain members of the Christian Right.
Alexis:The United States could buy food supplies from Afghan farmers; each farmer who grows wheat is a farmer who does not grow the opium that funds the Taliban.
But the end result of growing wheat is you have a lot of grain, and it’s bulky, it needs a lot of water to grow and it requires trucks and roads to move it in sufficient quantities to make it worthwhile to grow. Afghanistan has few trucks and fewer roads. But it has a lot of mountain footpaths. That’s why poppies are an ideal crop there. It’s a hardy perennial, so to speak, which doesn’t need much water to grow. Farmers can have women and kids walking on goatpaths hand carrying bundles of poppies to their buyers and make enough cash for the operation to be worthwhile. And the only viable solution would be for the US to simply buy the whole crop every season and destroy it.
Teresita: Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The fact that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”, has nothing to do with the war on Islam. You seem to be casting this as a religious war. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
While Islam is fighting a religious war—better known as jihad—it’s opponents are fighting for their very survival. This is the bottom line. Furthermore, I sincerely doubt that John Adams had a thorough understanding of Islam’s nature. While the first English translations of the Qur’an entered into Western culture between 1649 and 1734, it remains unlikely that John Adams had access to one of these relatively rare documents. Without direct access to one of these early editions, there is also no way of knowing if the concepts of taqiyya and kitman are correctly transliterated within them. Nor can it be determined if a host of other crucial declarations and terms were conveyed in their true sense.
Finally, the West’s war with Islam is not based upon religious differences. This conflict arises from divergences in political beliefs, such as the inalienable rights of man. The right of America’s citizens to live free of theocratic tyranny is one of the most fundamental and basic freedoms of all. While Islam’s wish to impose such governance is religiously based, our rejection of it is grounded in political terms and, therefore, does not enter into the distinctions made by John Adams in your above quote.
Another consequence of this treaty is that the United States is purely a secular nation, quite to the contrary of assertions made by certain members of the Christian Right.
Nowhere is that in dispute. The Christian Right’s routine flirtation with theocracy discredits them utterly. While Christian and Islamic versions of theocratic rule most certainly diverge in many respects, they are both fundamentally flawed and represent invalid forms of government with respect to America’s constitutional law.
Alexis, the level of Water Poverty in Afghanistan probably precludes any chance of them growing anywhere near a sufficient surplus of wheat to feed our troops. If anything, that is why they grow poppies. The opium crop buys far more wheat grown in other climes with plentiful water supplies. Like much of the MME (Muslim Middle East), importation of wheat is actually a way of importing water.
Teresita: Do NOT destroy the opium crop.
Convert the whole plant into something useful
Namely petroleum. Then refine it into useful products.
You will be able to produce enough to meet the limited needs of Kabul and a couple of other places.
The secret to success will be to use wind,solar, draft animals and even manual labor to provide the energy for the conversion. That way you avoid a petroleum overhead that eats up the gains.
This may not be a commercially viable way of doing things as the cost of the equipment can easily preclude any real return on capital. Nonetheless, revenues should exceed operating costs making it a good way to put Taliban
on the rocks.
Trouble in Afghanistan is not Iraq, it is that nobody has applied the kind of thinking General Petraeus brought to Iraq. Which is that if you want people to be on our side, pay and employ them in ways they understand.
And by the way, this illustrates how too much government here (The War on Drugs) enables our enemies there. All other forms of unitary government and prior restraints do the same to one degree or the other. Including those measures you approve of.
Signing off now, have a long day ahead of me with my new street sweeper. 8 Guage you know. Have got no use for those puny 12 guages.
NahnCee:
There hasn’t been an Afghan Awakening because we’re trying to build a modern, Western-style, ethnically balanced National Army and National Police loyal to Kabul, the capital city of the newly-empowered Westphalian nation-state that monopolizes the legitimate use of force, so friendly Pashtun Irregulars, tribal levies, militias, and lashkars that might turn into a warlord’s private army are discouraged. We are trying to set up an organization to extend the writ of Kabul throughout the land, and that has never been done before.
The Brits tried to get a Helmand Awakening going, and Karzai pitched a bitch.
US general rejects UK militia plans
CLC’s Good, Arbakai Bad
No Sons of Afghanistan Need Apply
Pashtun Irregulars Disbanded
What Happened to the Afghan Security Forces?
Constructive Criticism from a Counter-Insurgent Supporter
NahnCee said:
We keep being told that Al-Q sunk their own ship in Iraq because the citizens there got tired of their barbarity and turned to the Americans to partner with to drive them out of the country.
Why, then, haven’t the Afghans managed to do the same thing?
Perhaps the problem is cultural.
One can look all through history and, while there is brutality, naked conquest, and imperialism all through the Arab world, one also finds hospitality toward strangers and even chivalry on the battlefield.
Reading accounts of the Afghans involving the Greeks and British, as well as the Russians (especially Oleg Yermankov’s Afghan Tales: Stories from Russia’s Vietnam) I have seen no mention of Afghan hospitality yet. There are plenty of accounts of Afghan tenaciousness and brutality, however. Anything I’ve read by the Brits makes the Afghans out to be nothing but petty bands of highway killers, scattered in the mountains, as opposed to an actual people with a sense of culture.
Of course someone who has spent time in Afghanistan may show up here and say I’m dead wrong, but until then I think the Afghans don’t rise up against Al Qaeda the way the Arabs do because harsh punishment, fundamentalism, and violence have been the norm there.
Teresita: “I disagree. One of our Founding Fathers, John Adams, signed a document to the effect that America was NOT at war with Islam. It reads like this:…”
Consider this extract from wikipedia: “In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, and John Adams, then the ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from Tripoli. The Americans asked Adja why his government was hostile to American ships, even though there had been no provocation. The ambassador’s response was reported to the Continental Congress:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. [15]
American ships sailing in the Mediterranean chose to travel close to larger convoys of other European powers who had bribed the pirates. Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20% of United States government annual revenues in 1800.”
Subsequent to the period of the treaty you cite, we fought the Barbary Wars to put an end to the piracy and the enslavement of American citizens. The U.S. Navy was born in response to the threat in 1794 and was in construction during the period of the treaty.
Adams language was in the context of a treaty constituting appeasement and, in my opinion, should not be given too much weight in discussions of the present “unpleasantness”.
The cover of “religion” should not deter us from obliterating this self-described/b> totalitarian political movement, dwarfing in its evil those we have previously overcome.
Nahncee- Iraq because the citizens there got tired of their barbarity and turned to the Americans to partner with to drive them out of the country.
Why, then, haven’t the Afghans managed to do the same thing?
Because before the US went in, it was the Taliban who had replaced warlords and anarchy and was settling disputes between Pashtuns, while continuing warring against ethnic Uzbecks, Tajiristanis, Haziri, etc.
When the US went in, the Taliban was disliked for over-reach. But the US created its puppet with Karzai and blithely assumed the neocons “democracy” would soon have them loving Israel and women casting off burquas.
Never happened.
Instead we just created a power vacuum as Karzai and his corrupt minions bunkered down in Kabul and the US itself was more interested in “schools for kids” crap than controlling the countryside. So the Taliban moved right back in – all but invited by Karzai’s coruption and the feckless US presence. And the difference now is the Taliban is always “there” while the US helos in, throws money around, dispatches squads to hunt “evildoers” then helos out and villagers don’t see them for another 3 months.
Now every deal in NE Afghanistan and most the poppy sales nationwide go to the Taliban, with Karzai’s people and a few warload governors wetting their beaks on the rest.
Like, this should not be a surprise. The Soviets and THEIR puppet leader were in the same situation, except their puppets were more honest…
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Dave – Do NOT destroy the opium crop.
Convert the whole plant into something useful
Namely petroleum. Then refine it into useful products.
You will be able to produce enough to meet the limited needs of Kabul and a couple of other places.
The secret to success will be to use wind,solar, draft animals and even manual labor to provide the energy for the conversion. That way you avoid a petroleum overhead that eats up the gains.
Sorry Dave, that’s mildly deranged. Poppies are not a viable oil source or able to make “exciting ethanol source” even.
Same with the notion of wind, solar, and donkey-powered oil refineries.
But your thinking on how the War on Drugs undermined our military and counterterrorism efforts is quite cogent.
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What Canoneer and C-4 said:
We call the Taliban in Afghanistan Islamists as do the Taliban for their purposes.
In fact, stronger ties seem to remain to be Pashtun connected.
Then there’s the problem of a sanctuary across the border, just like Vietnam.
This was all foreseen by some of us, and reported on 4 years ago by ABC News w/videos of training camps, propaganda, and Raids, but was generally just kicked down the road.
Alexis:
Cannoneer can fill you in on the Sheer TONNAGE of Diesel alone to support present numbers:
It’s staggering.
All of the above is why Westhawk considers it foolish to send in more troops.
(War Nerd)
The Taliban Strikes Back
After six years of ignoring Afghanistan, things have gotten bad enough to force American officials to pay attention.
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What’s scary now, for the ISAF’s chances of holding on to the country, is that the Taliban seems to have learned its lesson.
It never had a reputation for sophistication, and its hillbilly Pashtun ways weren’t exactly calculated to win hearts and minds.
The Pashtun have always been a little strange.
They have probably the most anti-women attitude of any tribe on earth. Here are a couple of Pushtun proverbs that give you the general idea:
“Women belong either in the house or in the grave,” and
“Even one’s own mother and sister are disgusting.”
They don’t even claim to find women attractive; for the typical Pashtun warrior, the sexiest thing around is a little boy.
(Tony informed us of that 5-6 yrs ago)
—
There are a lot of very familiar patterns in this story. If you zoom out from Wanat and look at the bigger situation in southern Afghanistan, you’ve got the classic ingredients for a long, bloody guerrilla war: a big ethnic group on both sides of an artificial border, difficult terrain, and dirt-poor peasants with a long tradition of fighting just about everyone who comes along, from Alexander the Great to the 19th century British.
The Pakistani/Afghan border is 1,500 miles long, and the people living on both sides of it are Pashtun, the biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the support base of the Taliban.
The Taliban started as a Pashtun resistance to the Northern Alliance warlords, mostly Uzbeks and Tajiks, who took power after the Soviet pullout in 1989, and the Taliban is still mostly Pashtun.
The reason you don’t hear so much about the ethnic angle is simple: Neither side wants to push that angle in its propaganda.
The Taliban would like to claim to be defending Islam, and the Americans are happy to go along with that, so they can say we’re fighting Islamic terror.
But the fact is that the Taliban stands for old-school Pashtun tradition more than for Islam.
And the Taliban is divided even further, with complicated loyalties to local warlords and tribal chiefs.
Muslims, watching the events in Iraq, have just seen their own Stalingrad. Their best army has been surrounded, captured, annihilated. They are trying to comprehend the number of casualties and also the enormity of the lost position, resources and effort.
Now what? The Germans hoped that a new miracle weapon would stun the enemy, that Roosevelt would die and be replaced by a weak President and that the enemy Alliance would fall apart. These desparate hopes masked, however, a growing recognition among ordinary Germans that no matter how much they sacrificed and cooperated with each other, they would not be able to impact the future course of events. The spirit of practicality and initiative dissipated, replaced by a spirit of magical thinking and resignation.
And then suddenly came the era of Konrad Adenauer. Practicality reappeared immediately, and initiative soon afterwards. Bland, traditional, moderately religious Adenauer’s sudden appearance and lasting impact was predictable only in retrospect.
Hitler attacked Stalingrad in August 1942, and Adenauer was elected Chancellor in August 1949. A seven-year cycle. Bin Laden attacked the USA in September 2001, and the entire population of Iraq will vote for the first time in September 2008. Another seven-year cycle.
Trish, whose husband was there (Pakistan) had this to say:
“PakMil sucks and they’re inclined to some serious treachery. (The other guys got our fucking night vision.) Really, really bad combination.
Cut ‘em loose and you’re gonna have to take care of all those target packages yourself.
Rock.
Hard place.
NATO agreed to take over Asscrackistan when it looked like a good deal.
Now it’s the booger on their finger that they can’t get rid of.
(Want more air mobility? Lease it, for Chrissake.
We fly every goddamned thing that’ll get off the ground and stay there awhile.)
What’s wrong with ‘Stan? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with ‘Stan.
Nowhere near enough of those motherfuckers have been killed.
Nowhere near.
And it ain’t got nuthin’ to do with number of uniforms.
Or the Afghans, who are good enough.
Get with it.
Or go home.”
(Has happier reports now from Columbia)
So AQ is perhaps on its sixth phase regarding the mass murder of the filthy Kaffirs, and 9/11 shifted America from phase one (taking no heed whatsoever of Islam’s wide ranging war against us) to phase two: slightly noticing. This isn’t to minimize the shattering loss of our heroic soldiers, or the spending of staggering treasure to “win hearts and minds. But I remain skeptical that much we have done will secure anything approaching a lasting stasis between us and them which leaves our side unmolested by the Muslims.
Islamic Jihad is, after all, a multifarious endeavor to spread Islam and subvert “infidel” systems until they are destroyed or subborned to Islam. When the going gets tough this Islamic sewage, they may temporarily show an organic reticence to give vent to their full impulse towards the genocide of us. But that impulse remains in any event. Any turning away from that full impulse may be good, I suppose, but what have we done to actually defeat it? I suggest very little.
What may prove far far worse for us in the long run is the extreme likelihood that after temporarily rolling back the most violent tactics Islam nurtures and is prepared to unleash against us, that America will revert back into our phase one mentality. What does it auger for us if we simply (and temporarily) roll back the direct genocide impulse of Muslims, and leave entirely intact those other aspects of Jihad with which they are subverting us?
It means we will allow them to gain far more footholds, far more launching points, and far more foot soldiers within our camp the next time their cherished dreams of our genocide resurrect. In short, we will have accomplished little more than a brief respite in the violent pacing of the Islamic onslaught, and will have done much to strengthen those less overtly violent aspects of Jihad!
Teresita,
Thomas Jefferson had a completely different take on Islam than did his friend John Adams. Jefferson actually got a copy of the Qur’an when he was in London and READ IT. After he read the blueprint for jihad, when he was President of the United States he ended John Adams’ policy of appeasement and paying the jizya to the Muslim pirates. Jefferson decided that the only way to deal with those savages was to give ‘em the cold hard steel. I’m not making this up; this is all history. In fact, Jefferson and Adams apparently had some heated disagreements over the policy of paying off the Muslim pirates.
I’m glad Jefferson won that argument in the end. The major difference between those two men was that Jefferson undertook the project of reading the Islamic scriptures. It was that tedious, laborious task that made all the difference – and today it is because of our intellectual sloth and moral torpor that prevents the peoples of the West from understanding the true nature of the threat.
As usual, I agree with Zenster on this: Islam is not a religion and should be deemed a hostile political ideology. Once stripped of its current status as a religion, when people have properly digested and dissected it, we will be prepared and armed against it. It uses its current status as a “religion” within our legal system in order to further all of its strategems of jihad. As usual, it is the lawyers and politicians in this country who follow in lockstep the dumb academicians who provide cover for Islam. This has to stop.
I’m tired of reading the pap about some sort of rough moral equivalency between Islam and Christianity. As usual, people who fall into this trap do not know both of them at any substantial depth.
For some historical perspective on Afghanistan, you might want to read up on Josiah Harlan.
AQ was able to marry into the local tribes along the afghan/paki border region. This has bound them into the system of loyalties in the region.
AQ was unable to replicate the marriage pacts in anbar among the saudi cousin tribes. In anbar the tribes people only like to marry their cousins. Outsiders are not welcome to the dance. the combination of killing locals and then trying to marry in was what made the great awakening so alert.
OT: Sitting in Paul Krugman’s chair at the NYTimes <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/opinion/25brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin”David Brooks says Obama jumped the shark.
This hilarious London Times piece makes a similar point.
“Now I don’t know what the exact functional relationship is between al-Qaeda’s ideology and feedback. We have been told that the relationship between brutality and resistance is positive: the more you fight the Jihad, the more you encourage it. This was almost became an article of faith among self-described “sophisticates”. But what if the relationship was inverse, flipped over certain ranges or was an aggregate function where each behaved differently?”
I think there is yet another aspect to the type of brutality that Al Qaeda has practiced since the beginning of the Iraq war. It can be seen in the increasing sadism of their practices. Beheading while very intimidating to the group of folk Al Qaeda wishes to intimidate, is after a short time, not enough to contain them. So the blood lust decision to increase the violence against enemy combatants, includes torture and vile measures– flaying, skinning alive etc.
Because this lust acts like a mental illness, the non-combatant then becomes the means to satisfy the need for blood letting. And on and on in a cycle of violence that makes excuses to justify its need for easy victims. The Taliban’s rule followed the same route of decline as to a large degree did the Shah of Iran in needing to hold on to power.
There seems to be a human reaction to the breaking of a taboo, in this case the taboo against torture, that once broken cannot easily be halted. In a culture that promotes successful violence as a badge of honor or even a passage to leadership, the slippery slope is the easy path.
Western civilization has built into its culture greater obstacles and greater punishments for breaking the taboo, it is not celebrated as the elimination of a weak link or as an acceptable action.
It is for Islam a cart and horse question or perhaps a chicken and egg. Which come first the sadist or the Islamist?
One of the more interesting aspects of Ian Kershaw’s biography of Hitler, which will probably be the standard, if it is not already, is his treatment of how the Holocaust was an evolutionary process. It did not spring ex nihilo from Hitler’s forehead, all at once, but evolved gradually, from the anti-semitism that was a bedrock principle of the Nazi movement combined with and fueled by a built-in tendency towards radicalization in which Hitler and his most fanatic followers egged each other on incrementally to bloodier and greater atrocities.
I would lay odds that Al Qaeda worked and works in the same way, and I suspect all criminal enterprises headed by fanatics are similar. The Fanatic-in-Charge offers his acolytes a millenarian future, attainable but for the Other blocking the way — and the acolytes fall all over themselves piling up bodies to get to Nirvana. The Leader sees their efforts, indicates his pleasure and the cycle begins again.
“Which come first the sadist or the Islamist?”
Go to Ali Sina’s psychobiography of Muhammad. For that personality disordered narcissist sadism was besides the point. Everything must serve Muhammad’s narcissistic need, so that his sock puppet deity, “Allah,” made all things – ALL THINGS – possible and acceptable to further the aims of jihad and the domination of other human beings. If this demonic nexus manages to rope in criminal sadists (and it did and it does)and they serve Allah’s ends, so be it.
Now, for those who still refuse to get past the numbing moral equivalencies that level Jesus of Nazareth and Muhammad, please take a very deep and close examination of how these two men lived. How they treated other human beings and what they said and what they did says about the nature of God. Do not let reprobate, straying, and dishonest Christians be the measure of who Jesus was and what he lived for.
Muhammad was a thug, a murderer, a thief, a pedophile, and a lying scoundrel. There were no limits to his grandiosity and what he was willing to get “Allah” to sanction.
From there it is but a short step towards the objectification of the human being. I am not pleading with any of you to become Christians or Jews. That is besides the point. What I do plead for is a fair and honest evaluation of the what underlays the jihad impetus and what that means for human civilization.
Literally, in Islam it is no sin to do anything depraved to the kafir. Their dualistic ethics only favor fellow Muslims. Pay heed to that.
I am watching Sen. Obama with Pres. Sarkozi at joint news conference. Obama is reminding of importance of traditional American-French cooperation/alliance and the importance of winning in Afghanistan. Sarkozi agrees and rails against the inhumananity of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Both understand the importance of depriving al Qaeda of sanctuary in Afghanistan or Pakistan from which to plot and train for future terror operations that could hit either country. Say the Western World has an obligation to deal with other problem areas as well. Darfur is cited. Obama is talking about a careful drawdown of forces in Iraq and reallocation of assets to Afghanistan. Finally Obama is talking about Iran and the existential threat to Israel, proliferation danger, and change in balance of powers should the mullahs get the bomb.
I can’t honestly argue with any of this.
Fred:
I agree with you that Islam has scriptural, theological, and historical legacies that make it congenitally militant. I also agree with Teresita that the United States is congenitally a secular state that is not at war with any religion. The problem comes whenever a religion declares war on America or declares that American laws simply do not apply to worshippers in the United States.
This is one of the reasons why I watched the FLDS saga in Texas with so much interest. Despite my natural antipathy against social services, I don’t think Texas’s capitulation to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints necessarily set a good precedent.
I am inclined to think that Ataturk unleashed a monster when he abolished the Caliphate. Although he was not averse to creating the reality of a Caliphate (and the Organization of the Islamic Conference is unfortunately the closest Islam has to Ataturk’s ideal caliphate), he saw how the Constantinople Caliphate had become a fiction. The advantage of a Constantinople Caliphate was obvious for western powers. A weak Ottoman Caliphate at the mercy of western powers would be able to change the customs of Islam and set precedents that undermined concepts such as jizya. For that matter, the Palestinian Mandate for the United Kingdom was ratified by the Ottoman Caliphate, so the State of Israel could be theoretically considered to be a legitimate successor state of the Ottoman Empire according to Islamic precedent.
With no more Caliphate, the world of Islam has entered a prolonged interregnum. Usually, an interregnum is ended by the rise of an emperor, but that has not happened. There have been many pretenders, from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Ayatollah Khomeini to Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even Moammar Qaddafi, but no man has been able to claim the mantle no matter how hard he has tried.
Whatever else can be said about Saudi control over Mecca and Medina, it feels very insulting to most traditional Muslims (whether Sunni or Shi’a). The House of Sa’ud is considered to be a family of desert bumpkins with an alien theology regarded as thuggish by Muslim standards — and this house of clowns has the keys to the Muslim holy places. What a joke!
It is a measure of how low Islam has fallen to find a family regarded as the lowest of the low controlling Mecca and Medina. Imagine if a church of Virginian snake handlers became the ruling family of New York, or if an illiterate Guatemalan peasant without even a high school education became the President of Harvard. That’s what it would probably feel like being a Muslim where Wahhabis control Islam’s holy places.
It may be true that Islam cannot reform itself. I think it is certainly true that Islam cannot reform itself as long as the House of Saud keeps the keys to Mecca and Medina. The problem, how I see it, is not whether the Saudi royal family should be overthrown; that’s a given. The problem is to ensure that when the present Saudi regime is overthrown, the alternative becomes an actual improvement over the status quo. As it is, the most likely successor to the House of Saud is the present Iranian government, and Iranian regime in control of the Arabian peninsula is not a prospect I find pleasing.
sirius_sir,
Nor can I. But I’m willing to bet that Sarkozy has the better grasp of the Iranian threat and he most likely prevailed on Obama in this joint statement. I trust Sarkozy more than I trust Obama.
Now, that’s something. Trusting a French politician more than an American one is not an easy thing for me.
Still, Obama stands on his arms adviser, Joe Cirincione, and his view that the missile defense system has to go. Most Americans are not aware of this, and that is a deliberate thing I might add. Most Americans, I think, favor missile defense and even the deployment of lasers into space, for defense of the nation and our allies. Obama does not want his opposition to this to be known far and wide.
But, I’ll bet Sarkozy knows Obama’s plans better than the American people do and he is alarmed enough to plead his case.
Teresita, if I may belatedly respond, it’s my recollection that Pres. Bush was indeed heavily questioned and criticized in the wake of 9/11. There was much talk about a failure to connect the dots, remember? Personally, I don’t give either Bush or Clinton high marks in dealing with bin Laden/al Qaeda prior to the attack. But then, even post attack there were many who refused to see the danger.
The difference as I see it between Bush’s situation pre-9/11 and Obama’s should he be elected is this: Bush was in effect continuing the Clinton policy of not taking al Qaeda as seriously as warranted. In fact, Bush campaigned on a non-interventionist foreign policy platform. It was bin Laden’s miscalculation that changed his mind and affected his subsequent course of action. Obama on the other hand says he will change the Bush policy and de-emphasize Iraq. To what extent he does is still open to question. But the danger for him is that he will upset what is increasingly becoming perceived as a successful policy. The war is won, we are now being told. No doubt some saying this mean to help Obama make Iraq seem irrelevant. But this tact might well backfire. If Iraq was won under Bush then how does Obama explain if under his direction things go all to pieces? I suppose he could say, “It’s all Bush’s fault” and get more than a few to nod along. But that’ll be a hard sell to make in other quarters.
On a side note, I believe you at one point said you voted for Bush in 2004. At another juncture you’ve stated the reason the Left supports Obama’s Afghanistan policy while rejecting Bush’s Iraq policy is that the former doesn’t carry the ‘blood for oil’ taint. But if my memory is correct and you supported Bush even after the invasion, then you must have initially rejected this calumny. What turned you around?
fred, I trust Sarkozy more at this point as well. Sarkozy is proving a pleasant surprise–a pro-American French President who seems to be arguing the benefit of a sane and strong foreign policy to both our populations. You may be right that he is having a salutory effect on Obama, and if that is so perhaps our good Senator should extend his stay in Paris and continue to learn more than just “Merci beaucoup.”
fred,
That IS a real twist, i.e. trusting the Frenchman over the American… but, I’m in complete agreement with you.
I’m aware of Obama’s intent regarding the missile defense program, which I rank in importance right up there with drilling for our own oil and stopping illegal immigration. As much as McCain rubs me the wrong way with his aisle-crossing, he’s got one helluva sacrificial personal story, and on the issues I just listed, he’s 2 for 3 (missile defense and drilling). Too bad that, if he gets elected, we may wind up speaking Spanish under missile free skies while filling up our cars to the tune of a buck a gallon.
Obama is unqualified for the job of POTUS for soooo many reasons, but for me, his willingness to kill missile defense is a deal-breaker all by itself. Add to that his opposition to drilling… no way can I vote for the guy.
Cheers,
Triton
I’m sorry, this is way off-topic. Just had to share…
He ventured forth to bring light to the world
It occurs to me that B. Hussein’s road trip didn’t work according to plan. I have the feeling that Hussein might have been drinking too much of his own Kool-Aid. My impression was that Hussein expected the people of Jerusalem to be holding palm branches when he came to visit the Wailing Wall (didn’t happen). Likewise, his speach at the Wailing Wall was supposed to be another Sermon on the Mount (it was a nonevent). My impression was that Hussein wanted a Star Wars finale in front of the Brandenburg Gate with Angela Merkel pinning a medal on him like Princess Leia honoring Luke Skywalker (that didn’t happen either).
After it was all said-and-done, Hussein received no up-tick in the popularity polls (the whole exercise was a waste of time). I’m also getting the impression that some of the MSM is getting a little tired of Hussein doing the empty hype routine.
Is it possible that Hussein has “Jumped the Shark” before the Democrat Party Convention?
“But the fact is that the Taliban stands for old-school Pashtun tradition more than for Islam.
“And the Taliban is divided even further, with complicated loyalties to local warlords and tribal chiefs.”
Now the above is about the only part of that war nerd piece that I find reliable. So-o-o it is what makes the Wahabi traditions seem more like that good old time religion to them. But self enforced poverty is a damnable offense to folks who see others getting more and retaining their dignity. Then of course there is the religious police and stoning to death stuff that just irritates the local farmer who is tired of being poor and in many cases (not all) given the option would give up the old ways for a steady and more reliable life style.
In fact they’d have to be stupid not to, and those guys are on no way stupid. Thus I think that once again it comes down to a minority of thugs bullying the locals in order to get their way.
Claiming the attacking force was all local Afghanis is not a reasonable claim without support. Nor can I accept it as accurate. There are to many flaws in the narrative and too much caricature of locals that is not only unreasonable, it is just wrong. I would Ask the BTDTs before accepting such an excuse for journalism.
cedarford: What would you think of rifle bullets made from curtain rods? How about sending laundry to Hawaii and back on sailing ships? Or taxicabs that run on charcoal?
Would you consider a spaceship that flies on laughing gas and old tires?
All these and others are part of what human beings have accomplished in order to solve vexing problems under trying conditions.
Any organic substance can be converted to crude oil. The quantities obtained vary by
composition of the input. I fail to see where the complete opium poppy plant would be inadequate for the purposes described.
A W. W. Grainger 35kw PTO generator can be powered by manual labor. 35 KW should be adequate for manufacturing 50 to 75 barrels
of West Texas Intermediate per day (average).
Some standard 500 watt farm and ranch wind generators can keep a bank of Sears diehards charged. In turn, the latter can provide all the auxillary power needed plus provide
juice for momentary power surges. So forth and so on. The petroleum proposal will meet with varying degrees of success PROVIDED it does not consume more oil than produced.
In addition to which, the very act of setting up the facilities will provide an antidote to
Taliban/AlQaeda instigation. The indig in those areas are basically raiding societies.
Religous fundamentalism can easily escalate the desire to raid into fanatical homicide.
Uncle Stupid has taken it upon himself to suppress one of the few productive enterprises going thereby punishing people for doing things like they ought to and helping our enemies reward the same people for inherently unethical and inimical behavior.
And in constructing the facilities, local hire labor can too be employed. Perhaps
a portion of their pay could be in the form of wind-up radios with LED-equipped table lamps attached. Anybody is going to prefer
that form of illumination to what they currently have. And if the radios happen to pull in Radio American Imperialism, the locals will get exposed to folkways highly toxic to our enemies.
Afghanistan was initially a rousing success because the Special Forces had enough sense to take the countryside and leave the urban alone. The occupation IMMEDIATELY set about
eliminating any and all traces of such an astute approach. I do believe that I am sufficiently deranged to sabotage anything Foggy Bottom can come up with.
socialism_is_error: Adams language was in the context of a treaty constituting appeasement and, in my opinion, should not be given too much weight in discussions of the present “unpleasantness”.
Le Bingo.
The cover of “religion” should not deter us from obliterating this self-described totalitarian political movement, dwarfing in its evil those we have previously overcome.
Which is all that religion really serves as for Islam, a cover: A fig leaf that ostensibly clothes what is otherwise the naked bloodlust of this world’s most barbarically savage and totalitarian theocractic movement.
fred: Islam is not a religion and should be deemed a hostile political ideology. Once stripped of its current status as a religion, when people have properly digested and dissected it, we will be prepared and armed against it. It uses its current status as a “religion” within our legal system in order to further all of its strategems of jihad.
Legally banning shari’a law, the qur’an and Islam in general will the first significant step in repulsing Muslim colonization of the West. Anything less—barring a nuclear holocaust—will amount to nothing more than appeasement. As Morton Doodslag noted:
When the going gets tough [for] this Islamic sewage, they may temporarily show an organic reticence to give vent to their full impulse towards the genocide of us. But that impulse remains in any event.
It’s called hudna and that’s all we’re going to get until Islam’s spine is snapped like a dry twig. Were Muslims to abandon the quest for a Global Caliphate, they would have to foreswear a central tenet of their faith. That supremacism is a core element of Islam, just as much as jihad, zakat, salat, the shehada, the haj, shari’a law are similar pillars. None of them can be removed without rendering Islam utterly alien to what it is today. None of them will be removed unless—and more likely until—enough Muslims DIE BECAUSE OF THEIR REFUSAL TO MODERATE.
I have little confidence that Islam will see any sort of light in this matter. It is the most benighted force on earth and so convinced of its own ascendancy that little short of a total holocaust will denude it of that illusion.
Alexis: The problem comes whenever a religion declares war on America or declares that American laws simply do not apply to worshippers in the United States.
Which is why it becomes increasingly vital that Islam be debunked as a putative “religion”. Once that clerical error (as it were) or improper categorization is rectified, whole new pathways for combating Islam will have opened up.
Wretchard it is quite likely that the next step for AQ would be nuclear attacks on US cities with “borrowed” Pakistani nukes. Trusting that US legalism and particularly Democratic leaders particularly Obama would not respond.
Thus they could kill and intimidate their way as they always do, with the US forces in Iraq, hamstrung and far away, and the “soft target” in the US unable to respond.
The advantage of this is that little training would be required. Merely smuggling of various contraband to test routes and methods, and a few technical people sent to meet the shipment (likely through Mexico, in a cargo container). Or perhaps Canada.
From AQ’s perspective, a Nuclear attack on the US does many advantageous things. It shows they, not Iran, are Muslim leaders because they, not Iran, nuke the US first. Second, it makes Americans surrender to Islam (in their view) and puts Islam and Muslims in command positions. Recall their goals are to fly the flag of Islam over the White House. Third, they believe they will get a general surrender and retreat from the ME and Afghanistan, to allow the re-establishment of the Caliphate. This is the Wonder Weapon move, with the caveat that they have the ability to borrow-steal actual existing wonder weapons from Pakistan.
Obama’s weakness and Muslim-friendly tones, deeds, words, background only make an attack more likely. They’ll know what a McCain would respond with, but with Obama it is easy to persuade themselves (and also highly likely in reality) that a US city lost to a Muslim nuke attack would result in groveling apologies by President Obama.
Zenster:
Would Aztec human sacrifice count as a religion in your book? Would Carthaginian child sacrifice count as a religion in your book? Would the ritual burning of a wife at her husband’s funeral count as a religion in your book?
From my point of view, all of these practices are evil, all of these practices are religious worship, and all of these practices are aspects of religion that no truly civilized state will permit. The Aztec state theology, Carthaginian baal worship, and traditional Hinduism are all religions in my book. Calling them religions doesn’t mean that we are required to tolerate barbarism in the name of religious freedom.
A man who murders his son because he thinks his deity told him to is still a murderer.
Zenster has it right.
Whiskey:
But as long as the teleprompter does not fail, he’d get high marks for the soaring rhetoric and inspirational tone of his response.
Alexis:
“Modern” Hindu India.
(some of the self-rationalizing comments are “interesting.”)
– From ‘untouchable’ to role model –
ALWAR, India (CNN) — At birth, Usha Chaumar’s life story had already been written.
So-called scavengers collect the garbage, feces and urine of higher caste people.
1 of 6 Illiterate and married off at age 10, Chaumar was forced into the only livelihood her family has known for generations.
As a Dalit, the lowest level in India’s complex caste system, she was a so-called scavenger, a person who collects the garbage, feces and urine of other higher caste people. In the eyes of many, that would make her too disgusting to touch.
“They used to call me all kind of names,” Chaumar, now 33, said. “I used to feel very bad. but what could I do? I didn’t have any work to do but this job.”
—
Wadeusaf:
At least I warned you it was the Nerd at the Outset!
Doug,
To pick up from the other thread,
…the memo IS addressed to Condi, and deals almost exclusively with “Al-Qida” and also it loudly declares some operational types of decisions that would need to be made, without support. Perhaps the support was in the two tabs, perhaps the support would come out of the proposals and papers the memo requested the principals get together to ask for.
“How could this statement be justified?
““No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.”“
The memo did not propose a plan, but shared thoughts about a future whose future emphasis on Al Qaeda Clark rightly felt he needed to help shape. Where is the plan in the memo, the closest thing to a plan was making a decision about funding the Northern Alliance for the Spring campaign against the Taliban, and whether or not to continue to fund the folks whose information on Ben Ladin’s whereabouts were ignored, not used or had plans aborted.
In hindsight the one compelling statement from the memo is the one made in reference to the Cole, calling the response to the October 12th bombing a “complex decision”, which should be responded to “at a time, place and manner of our own choosing”, and “not be forced into knee jerk responses.”
Were I the NSC, I would have asked for details of humint, and contacts with the NA. I would have been frustrated by the lack of humint and the lack of a mission statement from which to proceed. I would have placed on the back burner anything till such contacts and statements were ready for prime time.
From what we learned after 9/11, I think I would still be waiting. Yet the need to fault someone for a decision that could only be considered criminal if the context was after the fact of 9/11. Most of the Bush team had not even been given their office keys, nor finished cleaning up the mess in those offices left from the previous tenants. And you want to call deferring to a later date consideration of items that Mr. Clarke was not even prepared to present(if the memo is to be believed) much less defend?
Why is this even an issue?
Zenster: I have little confidence that Islam will see any sort of light in this matter. It is the most benighted force on earth and so convinced of its own ascendancy that little short of a total holocaust will denude it of that illusion.
Henry Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Hitler’s Nazi government in July, 1938, for writing his four volume series The International Jew. It read very much like the sort of thing I’m seeing on this blog, but it substituted “Jewry” for “Islam”.
Whiskey: They’ll know what a McCain would respond with, but with Obama it is easy to persuade themselves (and also highly likely in reality) that a US city lost to a Muslim nuke attack would result in groveling apologies by President Obama.
Americans wouldn’t stand for it. If Obama tried that, he’d be looking at a low-tech lynching, no matter how many Secret Service guys he put out there.
“We *urgently* (underlined) need such a Principals level review on the al Qida network”
Despite Clarke’s request, there was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until September 4, 2001.
Clarke, as you know, was transferred out of his position.
From what we have learned about increased chatter that summer, Washington being on high alert due to warning signs that Al Qaeda was planning some type of attack, and what Clarke, Tenant, and Scheurer have said, combined with the memo outlining Clarke’s reasons for why he was urgently calling for a meeting, not having that meeting for 8 more months goes beyond the transitional grace period, in my mind.
—
“(if the memo is to be believed”
I don’t understand what you might be getting at with that comment.
I refuse to believe that Al Q was not discussed for eight months. Especially with the USS Cole situation having not been addressed. I don’t know perhaps I am being more generous, but even with the alert status and with the chatter, neither the FBI nor the CIA could offer actionable (detailed or not) intel, not humint, nor sigint, except for what was kept from discovery by midlevel agents and the infamous wall.
If Clarke, Tenant and Scheurer could not make their case in a compelling and reasonable way, why is it criminal to fail to hear them? I understand the difficulties they faced, residue from the previous admin kept to ensure continuity with the incoming one, but they failed to adjust, they failed to make the kinds of effort to be heard that would ensure deliberation. But at that level of service, they’d better not be timid, so I doubt it was from a lack of trying. Perhaps their personalities could not adjust to working with the Bush team, I don’t know.
Keeping them on did seem unwise on the one hand, but I appreciate the necessity of trying to work with them.
What I meant, The memo infers that Mr. Clarke was prepared with the facts, names and options required to determine a policy. I am not convinced that was the case.
I don’t know about Benj, (haven’t read those 6,000 words) but I did not suggest anything criminal.
The memo had a plan attached as well as another document.
Condi could have taken issue with the plan, rather that declare that there was no such plan.
Clinton had sufficient intel about the training camp to launch his favorite weapons, and Clarke was urging the meeting to address issues that could be discussed for possible action prior to deciding on what to do wrt Cole:
“Third, when and how does the administration choose to respond to the attack on the USS Cole. That decision is obviously complex.
We can make some decisions, such as those above, now without yet coming to grips with the harder decision about the Cole.“
teresita: i think the word you are looking for to substitue for islam here is “nazism” (check out the sales figures fo “Mein Kampf” in the middle east). you dismiss all the criticism of islam as mindless bigotry but i notice you don’t actually defend islam, just attack your fellow citizens. there’s a word for that, too.
Perhaps more could/should have been done prior to 9/11 by the newly-installed President to take down al Qaeda. What action taken would have thwarted the attack and follow-on efforts? First the hijackers would had to have been picked up and imprisoned. The word for that nowadays is illegal detention. The next necessity would have been a unilateral pre-emptive attack on a sovereign country which would have been decried an illegal war and occupation. Granted, Bush may have in so doing prevented an imminent attack no-one in the wider population would have credited as being feasible. Anyone suggesting such a thing as happened was possible would have been called either manipulatively evil or delusional. The President would have been impeached and ended his presidency after one term in utter disgrace. A Democrat (name your pick) would have replaced him and Saddam Hussein would be supporting terrorism inside and outside his country to this day. And perhaps bin Laden would have escaped nonetheless, in which case our 9/11–perhaps administered with a nuclear kicker–would have come sooner or later regardless.
From a link from Glen Reynolds’ Instapundit….
The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them — when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.”
Zenster: [Teresita seems] to be casting this as a religious war. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While Islam is fighting a religious war—better known as jihad—it’s opponents are fighting for their very survival. This is the bottom line.
It seems to me that it only takes one side being motivated by religion for it to be a religious war. That’s because wars – any and all wars – are won by breaking your enemy’s will to keep fighting. If your enemy’s will to fight is fueled by religion, then you must either break the religion or subvert it to your own purpose.
That the secular West just “doesn’t do religious wars” puts us at a disadvantage, because to win such a war requires our societies to step well outside their comfort zones. To win a war against a religiously motivated enemy, it is not enough to win hearts and minds. We must also win souls. Short of converting Muslims out of Islam outright, this means somehow convincing Muslims that they can resist Islamic supremacist tyranny, or at least refrain from supporting or partaking in it, without risking eternal damnation by Allah for doing so.
Never mind the death sentence for apostasy that such a notion entails. It’s one thing for some kafir entity such as the U.S. to ask Muslims to risk their mortal coils for a greater purpose; quite another to ask them to risk their immortal souls. This is the disadvantage I mentioned, and it is large indeed, but clearly not insurmountable. The peoples of Iraq were willing to make this leap of faith by standing up to al Qaeda, al-Sadr and other supremacist tyrants. To the extent that this was encouraged/assisted by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the U.S. is already effectively engaged in religious subversion for the purpose of winning a religious war.
I missed some pictures with captions on the India link.
Here’s one you just couldn’t make up, outside the U.N.:
“The U.N.chose her and others like her to raise awareness of the world’s sanitation problems.“
Thus they could kill and intimidate their way as they always do, with the US forces in Iraq, hamstrung and far away, and the “soft target” in the US unable to respond.
I thought there were always planes circling the skies above us, laden with nukes, prepared to retaliate on a moment’s notice should anyone be foolish enough to do something foolish. Would we *really* respond to Pakistan/Afghanistan with boots on the ground if an American city were nuked?
If you’ll remember the days immediately after 9/12, if Bush had not done something authoritative and demostrable, he would have been impeached. And we, the citizens of the United States of America, would have continued impeaching SOBs until we got one who *would* go over to the Middle East and kick some serious Arab butt.
You can’t convince me that even B Hussein could withstand a tsunami like that if the terrorists were actually to get lucky enough to explode a nuclear bomb on American soil.
Although would to God it had been unnecessary to do so, the most important benefit of the last 7 years has been the cumulative human experience acquired in fighting against radical Islamic terrorism. This has taken many forms. Leadership insight, combat doctrine, increased capabilities in translation, better intel etc. Collectively this human capital is probably more important than the total of hardware improvements, though of course, the two work together.
My guess is that our new informational riches will make it possible to prosecute the war on terrorists in a more non-kinetic way. My greatest worry about an Obama administration is the advent of a Commander in Chief who simply believes he knows better; that is willing to discount the mass of human capital described in the previous paragraph. Sometimes an Alexander arrives to cut the Gordian Knot. But the key assumption is that it is Alexander. I’m better that in Obama’s case, Alexander is someone he knew selling gyros in Chicago.
Right now it is important to understand what we have gained, as well as what remains to be gained, before resetting the whole damned operating system. Obama could do that. But I have no real confidence that he will. Phrases like the “audacity of hope” and “yes we can” and “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for”, if you had heard them uttered in the trenches of the Somme, or at the Bulge or in the underground warrens of anti-Marcos Manila would make your blood run cold.
Yeah, but if a warrior turns out to be a big Bono fan, who knows his reaction to the Messiah?
to wit:
BONO: This is our moment. This is our time. This is our chance. To stand up for what’s right. We’re not looking for charity. We’re lookin’ for justice!
RUSH: This is Barack Obama yesterday in Berlin.
OBAMA: People of Berlin! People of the world! This is our moment. This is our time.
BONO: This is our moment. This is our time. This is our chance to stand up for what’s right. We’re not looking for charity. We’re looking for justice.
OBAMA: People of Berlin! People of the world! This is our moment. This is our time.
—
Surely, everyone must be bowled over by the sheer audacity of absolutely limitless audacity!
(esp given what [little] he’s got to work with, which becomes more obvious daily)
Wretchard, you need to remember that once a President is elected he’s not necessarily annointed for the whole 4 years. See Richard Nixon for example Number 1, and Bubba Clinton for whisker-close example Number 2 of what mighta been/almost.
(And for what it’s worth, John F Kennedy for example Number 3.)
If we’re nuked and B. Hussein refuses to do anything about it, I really think there might be a problem with him finishing out his term of office. And, unlike France and the rest of the civilized and uncivilized world, America has the laws and the wherewithal to throw the bum out if he’s not performing up to expectations.
Cedarford said:
“Sorry Dave, that’s mildly deranged. Poppies are not a viable oil source or able to make “exciting ethanol source” even.”
I beg to differ.
Yields in gal/acre:
corn 18
hemp 39
soybean 48
safflower 83
sunflower 102
peanuts 113
opium poppy 124
rapeseed 127
olive 129
oil palm 635
source:
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html#ascend
Before you get into lye and alcohol needed for transesterification, consider that this oil will run straight from the press if it is preheated to lower the viscosity. Diesel engines get hot.
Run the coolant through your 55 gallon drum supply tanks = hot fuel.
Use a little lye and alcohol and you have straight diesel to kick start the process.
Their are African countries using this process for electricity right now.
I bet the Afghani’s already burn this stuff in their Petromax lanterns. (Finest Lantern ever made).
Americans are making Biodiesel out of soybeans (check it’s position on the list and selling it as commercial biodiesel for at least the same price as diesel. I think they call it B-1.
Notice the yield of opium poppy vs. soybean on that list.
Take a look at that list again and see that the quest for control of Israel could be construed as a “War for Oil”
Following up on the biodiesel production from poppies, we had 124 gal/acre of oil.
A July 2007 article in The New Yorker,”The Taliban’s Opium War” states:
Doug Wankel walked up to an angry-looking farmer who was watching his field being destroyed and asked him, through an interpreter named Nazeem, how much he got for his opium. Twenty-one thousand Pakistani rupees for a four-kilo package, the farmer said, and he harvested three to four kilos per jirib (a local land measurement equivalent to about half an acre). He added, “I get only a thousand rupees per jirib of wheat, so I’m obliged to grow poppies.” That comes to about thirty-three dollars from an acre of wheat, and between five hundred and seven hundred dollars from an acre of poppies.
source: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/09/070709fa_fact_anderson?currentPage=3
$600 acre $4.80/gallon
—– x —– =
acre 124 gal
And nobody’s shooting at you.
Will the Army’s equipment run on this stuff?
Does anyone think that the Germans have any special abilities or insight into assessing leadership qualities?
Just thought I’d ask.
Doug,
The memo had a plan attached as well as another document.
Condi could have taken issue with the plan, rather that declare that there was no such plan.
Clinton had sufficient intel about the training camp to launch his favorite weapons, and Clarke was urging the meeting to address issues that could be discussed for possible action prior to deciding on what to do wrt Cole:
The “plan” was from 1998, the other was a list of things not done, drawn up in December of 2000. I have my doubts about the former being a plan, and despite the chatter which occurred later on in the summer, there was nothing to indicate a strike on the US was imminent, at least nothing that made it through the bureaucrats to a principals desk much less the presidents desk.
And nothing, at least, that made it past good old “doc in a sock”. Meanwhile we had to replenish our stocks of Cruise missiles, and discussions were ongoing about what was desirable, what was doable or why.
mark_b; Thanks for the “surge” on my behalf.
Figured poppies would be viable but did not know they would be that high.
By the way, if you are not doing anything, check out the line of “free play” products utilizing a minature wind-up generator.
A toy to us. A great leap in standard of living to others? Looks that way.
As the old saying goes: “Got a lemon? Make lemonade”.
I think that Afghanistan and Iraq are different battlefields and require different strategies. As Wretchard notes, Iraq is a more advanced state and it has oil. The stakeholders have a bigger incentive to find a peaceful equilibrium. Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan is far more tribal and parts of it rely on poppy as a cash crop.
Currently, I fear Afganistan/NW Pakistan far less than Iraq in 2006. It’s going to be a mess for a long time, but let’s face it, this is a very primitive enemy. A lot of it to me seems purely local warlording that we should stay away from. We should commit a sustain engagement to keep the Taliban and al Queda pinned down and slowly roll it back, but to expect a quick turnaround like the surge is unrealistic. I think any politician that emphasizes Afghanistan over Iraq is making a mistake. The biggest effort should be to make sure we win in Iraq and make sure the Pakistan nukes are never used. Iran is a different question.
Can we nuke Pakistan, too, while we’re at it?
Just as an aside to one of the earlier posts, one of the benefits of going into Iraq was in denying the Taliban and Al Queda a refuge in another country. Saddam had already taken in many of the people we were after or who had fled the battle in Afghanistan and it is hard to imagine that he wouldn’t have found other ways to be a thorn in our side.
We were able to get more cooperation from Pakistan than I would have thought possible at the outset of the conflict but it appears we may have to set a different course in the future. They are equal parts powerless and disinclined to be much more help than they already are.
A rational person will never be able to understand the appeal of Islam when all it has ever wrought is slavery, suffering and destruction to any land where it has been ascendant. I have said before that if we can figure out what is missing in the hearts and minds of people on the left, or who are adherents of other, similar barbaric death cults not founded by Marx that makes them embrace totalitarianism then we will be well on the way to solving the problem. You see it writ small in such things as trans-fat, dancing or smoking bans and writ large in environmentalism, Islamism or communism but the base desire to control the actions of others when they are no threat to you is a strong one in the human psyche. It is so strong that we will make up entire religions or “scientific” fields of study whose sole purpose is to appease this instinct.
Since no one has cracked this nut yet we have a handy short-hand way of referring to such a propensity… we simply call it “evil”.
The other point that needs to be made is that Pakistan and other cultures where Islam prevails as the animating force are inherently weak ones. The meme needs to be spread that Islamic cultures are what they are… weak, backwards collections of individuals too afraid to stand up to tyranny. Our ancestors were much hardier stock and the culture they built a much stronger one for all of its faults. The entire Islamic world reels from one dictator to the next because they have no foundation to resist when the exemplar of proper behavior they emulate, Mohammed, had no redeeming qualities. This is what makes them weak and what dooms them in the end whenever faced by cultures who have faced down their own petty tyrants in the past and crossed the bridge into modernity.
It is ironic that the cultures who have shed blood and freed themselves are considered weak while the ones who kowtow to every two bit imam and where everyone takes to the streets frothing at the mouth after Friday prayers are considered strong. That doesn’t seem to be a winning argument in my estimation and history seems to bear that out. We do ourselves no favors by pretending otherwise. But more importantly, we do no favors to those living under tyranny by indulging in such pretensions.
Just wanted to pop in to second Triton: “Obama is unqualified for the job of POTUS for soooo many reasons, but for me, his willingness to kill missile defense is a deal-breaker all by itself.”
We’re within a few years now robust missile defense, and if something does break out soon with Iran using a lot of missiles, I think the world will see how close we and our allies currently are. Obama’s blithe promises to kill this technology (he can really only delay it, but badly) is absolutely galling, especially when he believes in fantasies like global warming. He’s against offshore drilling. He pretends he’ll consider nuclear power, but he’s dead set against Yucca Mountain as our waste repository – the sole focus of our efforts in that area since 1987!
Back on Topic: This is an extremely interesting topic – where’s Old Blue?
The obvious difference between Iraq and Afghanistan is that the former has actually been civilized, both in antiquity and in the 20th Century. The latter has been a lawless hellhole since Genghis Khan destroyed whatever was there in 1219. As for the current status, we could sure use Old Blue’s insights.
Us dummies out here are ready to go back to the tried and true solution to enemies coming over borders and harrassing our troops – Arclight. B-52′s as CAS. Can’t beat it.
McCain is questioning Obama’s judgment for opposing the Surge, even in retrospect. McCain is claiming that the Surge alone is the cause for the dramatic decrease of violence in Baghdad. But a
map of the demographic shift in the city over about a year and a half shows that the real reason is that the Sunni and Shia have segregated themselves into separate warrens. Where there is less contact, there is less friction. Also, the genesis of the “Anbar Awakening” movement actually preceded the Surge and was a backlash to al-Qaeda’s sheer brutality against civilians. No doubt the addition of five US brigades helped to quiet things down, but it’s not the only factor. In real life things are gray, not black and white.
(Disclaimer: I am still voting for McCain, even though I’m a “gook” and he said he hates “gooks”.
McCain is questioning Obama’s judgment for opposing the Surge, even in retrospect. McCain is claiming that the Surge alone is the cause for the dramatic decrease of violence in Baghdad. But a
map of the demographic shift in the city over about a year and a half shows that the real reason is that the Sunni and Shia have segregated themselves into separate warrens. Where there is less contact, there is less friction. Also, the genesis of the “Anbar Awakening” movement actually preceded the Surge and was a backlash to al-Qaeda’s sheer brutality against civilians. No doubt the addition of five US brigades helped to quiet things down, but it’s not the only factor. In real life things are gray, not black and white.
McCain is questioning Obama’s judgment for opposing the Surge, even in retrospect. McCain is claiming that the Surge alone is the cause for the dramatic decrease of violence in Baghdad. But a map of the demographic shift in the city over about a year and a half shows that the real reason is that the Sunni and Shia have segregated themselves into separate warrens. Where there is less contact, there is less friction. Also, the genesis of the “Anbar Awakening” movement actually preceded the Surge and was a backlash to al-Qaeda’s sheer brutality against civilians. No doubt the addition of five US brigades helped to quiet things down, but it’s not the only factor. In real life things are gray, not black and white.
Oh sorry for the multiple posts, Wretchard, there was something wrong and it wasn’t showing up.
I thought the strategy of the surge was to get troops out among the people, even though it was advertised as a defensive strategy.
mark_b you are right. The strategy had more to do with getting our troopers immersed with the local population to secure first their safety and thereafter their loyalty and cooperation. It also helped to emphasize our commitment to winning.
As the war lasts, the war itself becomes the central issue, and the ideological advantage of the insurgent decreases considerably. The population’s attitude is dictated not by the intrinsic merits of the contending causes, but by the answer to these two simple questions: Which side is going to win? Which side threatens the most, and which offers the most protection? David Galula “From Algeria to Iraq, All But Forgotten Lessons from Nearly 50 Years Ago”
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/summer2006/algeria.html
The Surge, as I understand it, had goals expressed in political, military and security aspects. In that it took the offensive it defended the population.
First it was to secure territory. Second it was to secure the cooperation of the people living in that territory, third it was to introduce the population of that territory to a competent straight shooting and non-sectarian Iraqi Army and police units (with whom the US are imbedded) so they understand at a basic level that this is not Saddam’s army and these are not Sadr’s policemen.
Once that basic understanding is accomplished, the work of cleaning up the bad guys and building the political bridges necessary to reconciliation can begin.
I am curious what the demographic picture will look like in November of 2008, with the return of refugees and properties to rightful owners. I am curious what effect the integrated Iraqi army will have on the map. I am curious what efforts to mend tribal ties of marriage and hope will have on the Sunni and Shi’ah as a whole.
I wonder how long it will take to retreat from the schism that really was not so much of a Sunni-Shi’ah thing, but more of a Saddam, anti Saddam perception. Is is fast becoming a WIN-WIN-WIN situation for all involved in the process.
Ben Franklen: A rational person will never be able to understand the appeal of Islam when all it has ever wrought is slavery, suffering and destruction to any land where it has been ascendant. I have said before that if we can figure out what is missing in the hearts and minds of people on the left, or who are adherents of other, similar barbaric death cults not founded by Marx that makes them embrace totalitarianism then we will be well on the way to solving the problem. You see it writ small in such things as trans-fat, dancing or smoking bans and writ large in environmentalism, Islamism or communism but the base desire to control the actions of others when they are no threat to you is a strong one in the human psyche. It is so strong that we will make up entire religions or “scientific” fields of study whose sole purpose is to appease this instinct.
Since no one has cracked this nut yet we have a handy short-hand way of referring to such a propensity… we simply call it “evil”.
Outstanding post, every letter and dot of it. Please contribute more often. May I post the above quotation elsewhere? (With attribution, of course.) It really sums up the inhuman bonds between Leftism and their (erstwhile), pet Muslims. Lacking any better understanding of the two, we are most certainly better off knowing that they must be called “evil”. The inability to do so is leading our world to the precipice of another World War and bringing America to the brink of a new Civil War.
Srdja Trifkovic has also identified the mysterious inability of modern Western leaders to clearly label this ongoing assault upon civilization:
The elite class has every intention of continuing to “fight” the war on terrorism without naming the enemy, without revealing his beliefs, without unmasking his intentions, without offending his accomplices, without expelling his fifth columnists, and without ever daring to win. Their crime can and must be stopped. The founders of the United States overthrew the colonial government for offenses far lighter than those of which the traitor class is guilty.
Teresita: In real life things are gray, not black and white.
Thank you so much for finally making clear your inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. This is especially the case, seeing as how you are a woman.
One question:
WHEN IS RAPE RIGHT?
Go ahead, answer the question. I don’t just dare you, I will base the continuing credibility of all other comments you ever post at the Belmont Club upon your response to this inquiry.
WHEN IS RAPE RIGHT?
Ergo:
IS THERE NO “BLACK AND WHITE”?
IS THERE NO EVIL?
Any lack of response on your part will be interpreted as agreement that there is no evil or any sort of wrong. You have contaminated this site with enough of your offensive “alternative” viewpoints to where it is time for you to put-up or shut-up. Go ahead, please tell me when rape is right.
I can provide you with a comprehensive logical refutation for any argument on the subject, but I’ll await your answer first.
Remember, No Answer = No Respect. And I hope others here at The Belmont Club will agree.
Wretchard,
It is curious how the recruitment program can be juxtaposed against Saudi efforts to rehabilitate former fighters using a “softly, softly” approach.
From what I gather from Watts and others, the presence of unrepentant former fighters is the best recruiting tool, and in the lack of former foreign fighters is huge incentive to consider other options. That is a stark statement.
Meanwhile Islamist terror is sprouting wings in other places.
Where
the recruitment program = http://www.pjsage.com/Part_II_Foreign_Fighter_recruitment.pdf
also by Clinton Watts
rehabiitate former fighters = http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/104112.htm
Sprouting Wings = http://islamicterrorism.wordpress.com/category/saudi-arabia/
Where it appears I have already said that the links don’t appear to have made it through the filters.
the recruitment program = http://www.pjsage.com/Part_II_Foreign_Fighter_recruitment.pdf
also by Clinton Watts
rehabiitate former fighters = http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/104112.htm
Sprouting Wings = http://islamicterrorism.wordpress.com/category/saudi-arabia/
http://www.pjsage.com/Part_II_Foreign_Fighter_recruitment.pdf
also by Clinton Watts
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/104112.htm on Saudi efforts
http://islamicterrorism.wordpress.com/category/saudi-arabia/ India’s concersn
I remember reading a reporter’s account of meeting OBL at around that time. His description was to the contrary. When OBL discovered that the reporter was an American, he wanted to have him killed immediately. Only the reporter’s host prevented this from happening.
I don’t remember the reporter’s name, but I think it was in a major magazine or newspaper, like Parade, perhaps. It could have been misinterpretation of post facto reinterpretation, but it had the ring of truth.