Bill Roggio describes classic insurgent political theater. After defeating a tribal group opposed to them in Pakistan, Taliban executed its leaders and desecrated their bodies.
Pir Samiullah, a rival tribal and religious leader opposing Mullah Fazlullah’s forces in the Matta region of Swat, and eight of his followers were killed in a Taliban assault on Dec. 16. Two of his aides were subsequently beheaded in public, while an estimated 40 of his followers have been captured. “The Taliban also torched the houses of Samiullah and 15 elders of his group,” Daily Times reported.
After Samiullah was buried, the Taliban returned, dug up his body and hanged it in public. The Taliban made an example of Samiullah and those who oppose Fazlullah’s rule.
Samiullah was the first tribal leader in Swat to raise a lashkar, or tribal army, to oppose the Taliban. He claimed to have organized more than 10,000 tribesmen to oppose the Taliban and protect 20 villages. Samiullah and his followers are members of the Gujjar community, which is a group distinct from the dominant Pashtun tribal confederations that support the Taliban.
Defeating an enemy like the Taliban — or al-Qaeda — is not primarily about killing them; nor convincing them of an idea; still less is it about redressing some grievance. It is about destroying the basis of their power, which is fear. The Surge in Iraq did not start to work until the average man in the street felt reasonably sure he wouldn’t be tortured to death in front of his family. Mullah Fazlullah understands this perfectly. Therefore the execution and desecration of his enemies was meant to send a pointed message: you are are not safe from me. Winning “hearts and minds” is of little use when the Taliban has the population by the short and curlies.
Marlon Brando’s famous speech as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now contrasts the conventional notion of “winning hearts and minds” with the methods used by the Viet Cong. Kurtz came to believe from his experience that evil was stronger than good; and that being the case, either way the enemy would win. Confronting the man who had been sent to kill him to end an embarrassment to the regular army, Kurtz argued that “you cannot judge me”. No one could judge him who didn’t understand the real rules.
Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms.
Socialism understood the rules. And so does al-Qaeda. And leaving a pile of little arms is precisely what, with a little variation for local color, the Taliban or al-Qaeda aim to do to any village foolish enough to oppose them. They will hunt down every tribal leader who resists them in the most vicious possible way. The question is: what do you do with that fact? In the heyday of Colonialism, the obvious riposte was to set counter-terror against terror. Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, the Grave of a Hundred Dead describes how it worked in Burma. Here’s how it starts.
A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face–
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race–
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven’s gate.
But that policy, taken to its logical conclusion, simply makes one side exactly like the other. Brando’s Kurtz understood this perfectly and realization drove him mad. “And then I realized… like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God… the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we.”
The other alternative is to gradually and remorselessly empower the population to resist terror. Community organizing has gotten a bad name of late, being associated with the shennanigans in Chicago, but the process of organizing a grassroots resistance to terrorism is arguably much more genuine CO. The problem is that the process is long and painstaking. It cannot be performed from 20,000 feet. It cannot be accomplished by diplomats or nuclear weapons. And therefore the politicians will probably shrink from it. Bill Roggio describes the handicaps under which resistance to the Taliban operates.
The Taliban hold an advantage over the disparate tribal groups in organization and fighters. The Taliban are organized throughout the tribal areas and the settled districts of the Northwest Frontier Province, while tribal resistance groups operate independently. The Taliban “out-number and out-gun [resisting tribal groups] by more than 20 to 1,” a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal in October. And the tribes receive little support from the government and military. In many cases, they do not want government assistance.
In many cases, the tribal enemies of the Taliban do not want government assistance. Would you?
Isn’t there strictures in the Qu’an prohibiting Muslims from attacking other Muslims?
Of course. But the Taliban are simply being *better* muslims, so much so that they consider all the others not to qualify as muslims.
Islam is as islam does ….
Talk about asymmetric Warfare, Compare and Contrast w/the strictures imposed on our Warriors when dealing w/Captured Islamist Terrorist Leaders.
—
ot,
Real Change
Wish tje DC Mayor was President-Elect, and his Chancellor US Education Czar…
It is interesting that the tribals, who live in the same region under the same ancient martial Pashtunwali sensibility and whose sons and cousins and uncles and fathers are said to make automatic rifles from the very loam of the Kush, should be so thoroughly out-gunned by the Taliban, who are supposedly unsupported, except for maybe a trickle from Quds brigades and some rogue ISI cabals.
I corrected the spelling of “the,” posted it,
and got this:
“You are posting comments too quickly.
Slow down.”
How did we get by before we had Computerized Minders?
Thank you, WordPress!
That’s what you get for thinking we wouldn’t be able to figure out that “tje” equals “the”.
go after the families of the taliban, and hang them in public.
I just guessed that Doug was really posting in Dutch.
Nahncee:
It was eye candy for my inner anal self.
No offense meant.
(just got it again, WordPress is anal!)
Nothing succeeds like success and nothing fails like failure. Islam has been surviving for 1400 years on the inertia of its expansion caused by the unfortunate mutual exhaustion of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires at the exact moment that the southern arab tribes under Muhammad began the assault. Now the Salafists and the Khomeinists believe that the Americans and the Russians are in exactly the same position, weaker horses ready to submit. Barbarians appear and need to be destroyed, more importantly they need to be publicly humiliated and then destroyed. The Khmer Rouge were not humbled by UN sanctions or fund raising sing-a-longs. The Vietnamese invaded and killed them. When the Taliban, as a community, are destroyed by massive, disproportionate violence, so totally and visibly that parents speak of it in hushed tones to frighten children into eating their vegetables, then the world will be safer for doctors and lawyers and missionaries and feminist rights activists.
It’s time to arm and train regular folk…
time for the world to learn of charles bronson…
the ONLY way to beat the bad guys in those seedy areas is by quiet murder….
Is there anyone who does not mourn the loss of the old Belmont Club? Pajamas Media’s WordPress engine is a huge step back. Not even a Preview button, no embedded spellcheck and no formatting tools such as link, quote etc.
Lifeofthemind:
Frankly, I love Belmont Club, no matter its formatting tools. New, old, no matter — just good analysis followed by good comments. Keep it up, Wretchard! F
Noticed the parents of Johnnie Jihad are asking Bush to pardon their poor little misguided traitor. If he does and fails to pardon Ramos and Campeon his reputation will be forever savaged.
In light of this
“The other alternative is to gradually and remorselessly empower the population to resist terror. Community organizing has gotten a bad name of late, being associated with the shennanigans in Chicago, but the process of organizing a grassroots resistance to terrorism is arguably much more genuine CO.”
Robert Kaplan’s article
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200510/kaplan-us-special-forces
is instructive, as is his book of the same name as the article.
And so is this
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/vietnam/hochiminh.html
It may be that Pak Fed, in the federally administered tribal areas, may not be able to administer the territory between Afghanistan and civilization. The Pakistani army cannot fight it the politicians cannot buy them off and they have not shown they can be trusted to be good when left alone.
Big decisions to be made by President Obama and bigger still by India and Afghanistan. China had decided to attempt to buy off the Taliban. Swat is now the fifth province (or sixth or seventh) to be nearing 100% in Talibanish control.
I say we find we must leave Afghanistan, we do so a la Sherman, and march to the sea, right through all five or seven or what ever the number of tribal fiefdoms are there to walk through. I believe there would be a lot fewer “problems” there than ever before in history, once we got to the coast.
What is occupation says:
the ONLY way to beat the bad guys in those seedy areas is by quiet murder….
programmer reponds:
It is not the ONLY way. Noisy, out in the open, mass destruction has a lot to recommend it.
However, I agree with your first sentence. It is time to arm and train regular folk.
Several thoughts occurred to me as I read Wretchards original post:
Where were Samiullah’s outposts, his early warnings of attack? Where were his ready reaction force? Surely, with 10,000 tribesman at his call (even if the number is wildly exaggerated), he had a group on standby ready to defend in place, if necessary. Where were his defensive lines placed? Complacency and confidence in numbers is not just a failing of tribal militia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaoKUj_fUeo
The fallacy is that wiping them all out makes us just like them. It doesn’t.
If only one side or the other is going to be left standing in the end, it’s better that it’s our side.
The evil getting to that point may be the same amount, but the good that emanates into the future from our winning is better.
Operating under the fallacy, however, leads either to their victory, or a grinding stasis in which the interim evil gets drawn out over a much longer time.
Both of which are worse outcomes than gearing up to pile up enemy bodies.
The conflict is on, and its evil cannot be avoided. The modern sensibility doesn’t want to face that.
It’s a war. War means defeat, or killing the enemy in such numbers that they surrender.
Of course there are more and less effective ways of carrying out my shorthand of “wiping them all out”, i.e. organizing friendly tribals to launch widespread punitive expeditions is probably going to lead to a better future than “nuke them all”…but we’re just not going to win these wars until we get enemy body counts in the 6 or 7 figures — and it’s more effective when the fighters rather than the civilians make up the bulk of that number.
To the scathing (at least in the mind of the scather) comment, killing them all makes us just like them, my response is always, “No it doesn’t. It makes them dead and us alive.”
““No it doesn’t. It makes them dead and us alive.”
In WWII we did not arrive at the idea of the destruction of entire cities as a key to victory on 8 Dec 1941. Right up to the end, the USAAF was convinced that precision bombing was the way to go, not the area bombing the Germans and the RAF came up with early in the war.
Instead, years of fighting across the Pacific and one Japanese atrocity after another taught us who we were fighting. The Kamikazes and mass suicides were the final lesson.
A book I recently read describes how the men of a P-38 unit considered the Japanese a worthy enemy to be fought – until on New Guinea when they found a site where the “comfort women” had been slaughtered rather than let them be captured by the Americans. After that the Japanese became an enemy to be exterminated. Lining up fighters wingtip to wingtip in waves to drop tanks of napalm on Japanese troops was a pleasure.
I think that by now we should have learned the lesson the Taliban and other Islamic Fascists have been trying so hard to teach us.
i vote bio warfare if there is any way it can be reasonaly contained… it is just not tolerable that this valley of barbarians should so threaten the stategic balance and inflict massive political damage on us. sorry.
If you talk to any professional soldier (of which I am not) they will tell you to a man (or woman) that the U.S. cannot sink to the level of Al Qaeda, et al. They will tell you that our respect for human rights and our religious and moral codes prohibit acting like our barbaric opponents. Especially in our treatment of captured terrorists, most professional soldiers decry Gitmo and the mistreatment of those under our control.
They firmly believe that our compassion and respect for law and order make us different from them, and that if the West does sink to AQ’s level, what we are fighting for will have been lost. I agree, and take pride in the fact that we continue to hold the moral high ground in these conflicts. We do well to adhere to the laws of war in combat, and reflect greatly upon our nation when we refuse to respond to the enemy’s atrocities with reprisal in kind.
But like Wretchard said above, we are constantly running a great risk because the fear AQ et al. induces is so much stronger. We also have to recognize that our refusal to respond in kind may encourage our enemies to continue their deplorable attacks, because they may continue to do so without fear that we will hold them to account.
The origin of our “laws of war” and Geneva Conventions and Protocols did not arise from a desire to unilaterally seize the moral high ground during combat. They arose out of a MUTUAL agreement among enemies that some weapons and tactics were too destructive and disgusting to use. War is complete hell, and a professional army’s objective is to win as fast as possible. The initial reasons nations adhered to Geneva, and thereby limited their military effectiveness, was because of an understanding that their opponents would also refrain from use of the same tactics and weapons.
There is no such mutuality of restraint today when we fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Our adherence to morality and legal warfare is a luxury that we can afford right now, and should adhere to as long as possible. But we can’t forget that the future may not allow us these luxuries.
For what it’s worth, I too preferred the old Belmont Club format. I have no idea what that entailed for Wretchard running it, but if it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, I’d choose the other.
It speaks to the excellence of the clientele that the commentary is just as good, if not better, as it was at the old joint. Or the excellence of the boss.
rds – I believe the notion is: Cartago delenda est.
As my irreverent un-PC son so impishly said to a shocked crowd at a high school junior congress tournament: Sometimes, some people just gotta go.
The key is to bring Justice to these areas, not mass casualties. Though they are not mutually exclusive.
And yet the Taliban knows that Hamid Karzai took Kandahar with two hundred fighters, 12 Special Ops guys and a steady stream of smart bombs.
buckets concludes:
There is no such mutuality of restraint today when we fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Our adherence to morality and legal warfare is a luxury that we can afford right now, and should adhere to as long as possible. But we can’t forget that the future may not allow us these luxuries.
programmer responds musingly:
Okay! So when can “we go medieval on their #$%”? Who or what determines the ratio of our deaths (and the deaths, perhaps, of our loved ones) to the deaths of enemies that makes it okay to increase the effectiveness of our killing engines, but in proportion, of course? Isn’t it rather immoral to prolong the sway of evil over mortal man if we possessed the means to end it? Do cancer cells have rights? Or should we just cut them out? But of course, silly me. I keep forgetting that the educated elite have made these calculations and will give permission to loose the dogs of war when they determine it meet and proper to do so. Screw it, say I. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Some people should be killed, need to be killed.
That includes every swinging Richard who has taken an overt act to extend the dominion of Allah on this earth.
My griping was directed at the techies and not at the host.
@buckets you are correct about the Laws of War being predicated on mutuality. Wars against aborigines and pirates were always more savage, as colonial and civil wars also tend to be, because there is less likely to be the element of shared professional respect that moderates the behavior of a civilized warrior. Men have been subjected to thousands of years of training on how to control violence, when to act, when to submit, when to take a prisoner. Much of the concern about women in combat comes from the fact that they are outside of this tradition and therefor may be less constrained in their conduct. Anyone who has seen two adolescent girls fight know that it can be a far more dangerous situation than when boys start challenging each other.
10. Lifeofthemind:
Islam has been surviving for 1400 years on the inertia of its expansion caused by the unfortunate mutual exhaustion of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires at the exact moment that the southern arab tribes under Muhammad began the assault.
……….
Its also the case the second pulse of Islam under the ottaman turks came to its climax and was turned back during the 1500′s at the Gates of Vienna in 1532, at the battle of Lepanto 1571, 1492 in Spain against the Moors, Ivan the Terrible against the Muslim Tartars in 1552.
Why the advance and why the push back? imho islam is a late empire religion. It institutionalizes very good predatory instincts. It smells weaknesses well and provides the tools to exploit them. The problem with islam is that it is not free. People are enslaved. So they are not creative. Therefor it cannot create or invent.
Islam advanced through the late medieval period as Europe rottted and then islam declined as spiritual revival and then scientific and technological innovation gave europe the advantage.
This is what we are witnessing today: a slow passage from old empire to new empire. (here I use the term empire loosely –rather in the terms that Churchill mentioned “empires of ideas”.)
programmer said:
“To the scathing (at least in the mind of the scather) comment, killing them all makes us just like them, my response is always, “No it doesn’t. It makes them dead and us alive.””
Also, not killing them makes us unlike them since they’d still be alive while we would all be dead.
Don’t you love al Qaeda and the Taliban? They’re perfect enemies (sort of like HIV is the perfect disease). How long before they puncture Obama’s balloon and remind everyone that the moonbats are imbeciles? At least G.W. gave us some breathing room.
Charles writes:
“The problem with islam is that it is not free. People are enslaved. So they are not creative. Therefore it cannot create or invent.”
Of course this is not to say individual muslims are not creative. Of course they are. But fundamentalist islam is a drag, a brake on creative thought. Muslims will disagree, for sure. But do not creative muslims work generally under/exploit a system, locally and globally, that is functionally western and capitalist?
A main element of strategy in the ongoing war against AQ/Taliban/Wahhabbism should be to keep the price of oil low. The effect will continue to be that of a neutron bomb on undiversified oil producing economies such as Saudi Arabia, which likes to use its proceeds to promote jihad. Our president-elect does not intend to pursue a policy of low-cost oil, however. If the finances for jihad improve and present further perils for the US forces in Afghanistan, and if he decides to retreat from Afghanistan, one might see a replay of the US exit from Vietnam. This kind of ignominious US retreat has been the dream of Bin Laden from the beginning of the War. The left in the US seems to have seen the US humiliation in Vietnam as a virtue. I suspect they might invite further humiliation as an antidote to and penance for US ‘arrogance.’
Perhaps at some point Pakistanis and Afghans might decide they have had enough of the Taliban and the NW Territories. That would be a start of a solution.
Chalk me up in the camp of “teach ‘em a lesson and get it over with fast.”
I wonder how the Iraq war would have gone had the US, in the first Fallujah battle, simply leveled the place and everyone left in it. Turned it to dust. Oh my, the Left would scream. Whatever. They scream anyway. They scream if a Jihadi gets a boo-boo on his finger. So what? Let ‘em kvetch.
But how would the rest of the Arab world, criss-crossed by terrorist tentacles and supporters and enablers, have responded? As it is, in the early parts of the war there was great fear across many countries. Khadaffi wet his pants so bad that he gave up the farm. I think a lot of other Arab countries would have turned in similar ways against the Jihadis in their midsts, were it not for the relentless carping of the Left and the Democrats, and Bush’s feeble non-response to it all.
What sighs of relief must have been breathed in many a palace as the Big Men realized Bush wasn’t going to clip them after all. That wimp. He let a bunch of screaming women and men-without-chests shove him around. Poor Khadaffi probably said “Damn! I flipped too soon!”
One can’t say for sure, of course, but I think had we early on met resistance with massive destruction, the whole thing would have ended far sooner with a fraction of the US casualties and costs (and, for that matter, a fraction of the Iraqi losses), and the Loons in Iran would’ve dropped their bomb plans post-haste.
Really, when the first twerp crossed the border from Iran into Iraq to fight, our response should have been to level a half dozen Iranian palaces and say “Let it happen again and the next round will be ten times as bad.”
In a fight you knock your opponent out as soon as you can. Why we choose to stand around with our hands tied while two-bit punks punch us in the head is beyond me.
In America, where Muslims don’t face wanton bombings or public beheadings, they still adhere to the doctrines of Islam, and to Jihad. They fund Jihad globally — they cheer when Westerners are massacred — they claim victimhood and oppression at our hands despite our insane appeasement of them…
I watched a PBS special by Irshad Manji on Islam a couple years ago. She’s the somewhat famous lesbian apologist for Islam in America, a regular “expert” on Islam featured on CNN and PBS who asserts that reformation of Islam is not only possible, but underway today. In her PBS apologia, I couldn’t help but notice that she even had trouble convincing her mother about the mutability of Islam — and when she went to her local mosque to film a sequence with her mother, two men emerged from the building and intimidated her out of the parking lot, in essence forbidding the filming to continue. If Muslim apologists like Manji don’t even feel empowered on American soil, if Muslims with the backing of PBS don’t even have the balls to continue filming in the local mosque — then it’s clear that it doesn’t take much to cow the Muslim mind. The mind shackles of Islam are deeply damaging to the victims of that ideology — and I feel for their plight — but I am CONVINCED that Muslims are irretrievably lost to humanity — I’m convinced that NOTHING we do will ever salvage them from the sewage in which they swim — the sewage of Islam. Further, I am convinced that as long as we permit them to live amongst us — we too become threatened by the corrosive effects of Islam — we too will gradually be subverted by this hideous belief system. There is nothing we can do to “win their hearts and minds”. As long as their Islam remains intact, there is no situation we can bring about or arrange which will permanently quash the terroristic totalitarian supremacist impulses which animate Muslims in the world.
Our best path is to insulate ourselves from Muslims at every opportunity. Their hatred of us should make this relatively easy — they consider us unclean, subhuman, after all. We must stop pretending their creed is compatible with our own. We must stop their emigration to the West immediately, and reverse it.
We killed the Japanese. It’s taking them a few generations to die, but there’s no turning back now. Their birth rates are so far below replacement rate that they will no longer exist within three or more generations. Even their Imperial throne has no males to carry on the line.
The Germans killed the British. It’s also taking them a few generations to die, but the signs are just as clear. Islamists move into neighborhoods once filled with British families, and the churches are as empty as the mosques are full. The best and brightest of Britain died in World War I, and WWII finished them off. Britain still has some bravery and honor in their people, but so does Japan. In the end, these few cannot restore a nation.
We must do this to the Islamists. Kill their best and brightest young men and keep on killing them until their mosques are as empty as British cathedrals and Japanese playgrounds. It’s us or them.
Buckets says, “There is no such mutuality of restraint today when we fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Our adherence to morality and legal warfare is a luxury that we can afford right now, and should adhere to as long as possible. But we can’t forget that the future may not allow us these luxuries.”
A luxury we can afford right now, really, and like programmer muses, who decides when we have reached the proper cost to benefit ratio? Who, when, I guess that is why we have leaders who are supposed to make those decisions.
A cancer analogy: you have a good chance of surviving cancer if it is found early, isolated, and surgically removed. Once it has metastasized and spread throughout your body, your chances of survival are slim. You can no longer surgically remove the cancer, but must go in with chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in the attempt to kill the cancer cells, suffering loss of innocent cells along the way. Extreme, but you do this to extend your life a few miserable years in the hope that you get them all. Kind of wish you had detected and removed those cells early on, huh. Analogy works better if for some reason it was morally wrong to do early screening, or if we can somehow make early screening of bad guys morally correct.
Reading the article excerpt, I count that the Taliban killed 11 people and captured 40 people. Surely those 51 have a lot of relatives and friends who can continue the fight.
There are about 10,000 tribesmen defending 20 villages, which is an average of about 500 tribesmen per village.
Does the loss of 51 tribesmen mean that all 10,000 tribesmen in all 20 villages have been defeated?
It seems to me that the remaining 9,949 tribesmen should be able to defend themselves from further attacks and should even be able to counter-attack.
“”"”"”"”But that policy, taken to its logical conclusion, simply makes one side exactly like the other.”"”"”"”"”
Does it? Really?
We Americans are the only ones to have actually used nuclear weapons. To any rational being with a solid knowledge of history, Americans cannot be compared to their WWII enemies, even when allowing for, not only nukes, but carpet-bombing of civilians, internment of Japanese-Americans, and a segregated military. The philosophy of “moral equivalence” is our Achilles Heel. Unless we are able to compartmentalize our ruthless actions against monstrous enemies, we are lost.
If we were to create intense “kill zones” for the Taliban (merely a hypothetical), and wipe out large numbers of them, will we then proceed to enslave our women and stone gays to death?
Right, I didn’t think so.
I believe that RDS is correct…using the same tactics as one’s enemy is not enough to “make us the same as them”.
Choice of military tactics is a measure of commitment to the fight. *When* those tactics are used may be a useful measure of the values of the underlying society.
As a westerner I see our truly brutal violence as brief and atypical episodes in an otherwise peaceful history. Conversely Islamic countries seem to find brutal violence a normal part of life with brief and atypical periods of peace.
If we must stoop to their level long enough to eliminate a threat with overwhelming force? So be it as long as we retain our ability to return to peaceful lives thereafter.
Morton Doodslag:
“Their [the moslem's] hatred of us should make this relatively easy — they consider us unclean, subhuman, after all. We must stop pretending their creed is compatible with our own.”
It is interesting how that Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at the President has become the hero of the Arab world (not surprisingly, the moonbats seem overly joyful about that stupid stunt as well). I’m reminded of how Arabs were dancing in the streets after 9/11. The hatred remains very widespread and just below the surface.
President Bush’s actions after 9/11 were arguably our best alternative to events that would have lead to Wretchard’s Three Conjectures. There are millions of Moslems alive today because Bush chose the middle path after 9/11, i.e. he didn’t “go Roman” against the Moslems but at the same time he pushed the moonbats into the background and opted for a robust military response. I think(?) there are educated Moslems who understand that Bush showed remarkable restraint through application of appropriate military force. Unfortunately those educated Moslems represent a tiny minority of the Islamic World.
Good Guy Militias — ‘community based local defence forces’
We need indig irregular proxies to terrorize the terrorists for us. We’re too civilized, diffident and squeamish to allow our own warriors to do the dirty deeds. The multiculturalists of the West cannot tolerate valuing the life of a Sahib at fifty dacoit heads. Disproportionate response can get you tried at The hague, don’t ya know.
One question that must be asked: Why do we need to wipe out the Taliban?
It is clearly in our interest to destroy Al Qaeda and modern Islamofascism, and to keep them from taking over nuclear Pakistan. Do we need to destroy the Taliban to do so?
The Taliban are a blight on humanity. But there are many of these around the world’ is there a reason to pick on the Taliban rather than the others, other than to take out Al Qaeda?
Is there a way to stop Islamofascist terror without taking on the tribes of Pakistan?
The sad thing is about fighting the Taliban is that a Taliban victory against its local enemy is at least as much of a defeat for us as defeating our soldiers in pitched battle. We won’t stay around forever in Pakistan; local tribes will. If there is any way at all to arm the local tribes against the Taliban (and against the Pakistani government!), that would be good.
We need to arm as many anti-Taliban factions in the region as possible. That way, if any one tribe turns against us (or gets turned against us), we still have other allies. Of course, the Pakistani government won’t like this arrangement. On the other hand, the Pakistani government (egged on by the local media) hasn’t been extremely unenthusiastic about fighting the Taliban, given how the Taliban is a Pakistan creation in the first place.
At the present time, however, the Pakistani government acts as the “system administrator” for the Northwest Frontier. That tilts the field in favor of the Taliban. Moreover, if the United States continues to rely upon a Pakistani supply line into Afghanistan, the United States won’t be in any position to arm local tribes aganst the Taliban.
(28)Lifeofthemind and others here bring up important distinctions.
We need to distinguish between ‘fighters’ and ‘population’.
I like the analogy between girls and boys. In a physical and overly general sense, boys are expected to be ‘fighters’. They cant tell you why or how they know this, it is implicit.
There is an unspoken cultural code about that. An 11 year-old boy getting picked on cant tell you why – but he knows that even if outmatched and defeated on the battleground behind the ballfield after school, so long as he stands up, lands a few good punches, wipes away the blood and tears, and walks home alone to face his parents, the incident will not likely happen again. He has earned his silver star.
Girls, I think, (sorry, correct me ladies if I am inaccurate) engange in more protacted campaigns. Much more about strategy than tactics.
We need both.
A book I read recently by Deborah Lipstadt concerning the press coverage of the Holocaust during WWII by the American press at the time covers some of these issues very well.http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Belief-American-Coming-Holocaust/dp/0029191610/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1229626706&sr=11-1
One of the most skeptical groups were US/Allied soldiers concerning Nazi attrocities. Having faced each other in battle they could not believe that their opponents were possibly supporting something so fantastical, so outside anything they could imagine.
Quote from one of those who saw it firsthand:
“Excepet those few who has the task of liberating those that remained. I cannot imagine the trauma of walking into what was left of… In the words of one such liberator:
We are as we are, we saw what we saw, and we remember as we remember. So be it. These are my memories. It is enough for me that I feel what I do feel, and I am now attempting to thin those feelings out. And I use you, the reader. I must purge these feelings on someone, and if I have readers, it is they I am using. I apologize to you, and I ask for your understanding.”
http://remember.org/witness/herder.html
To bring it together. There are important differences between warriors and population.
There are important differences between girls and boys as well. This has nothing to do with the eternal struggle between evil and good. All sides equal out when the Taliban behead an entire tribal leadership.
There is a distinction which has been lost in most of our western culture between good and evil. In US high schools today ‘evil’ is a verbotten word.
In a world without good and evil where are the lighthouses?
Spindok
“”"”"”"Is there a way to stop Islamofascist terror without taking on the tribes of Pakistan?”"”"”"”"
Excellent question, to which there is no excellent answer. The short answer appears to be: no.
It may seem odd to compare terror with humor, but the two phenomena seem to be intertwined. Sadly, violence often becomes a means to delineate what is funny and what is not.
Even at a jocular level, the West does not appear to comprehend how turnabout is fair play. Leftists who take the side of a shoe thrower fail to comprehend how their turn is next. If shoes can be thrown at President Bush, why can’t they be thrown at King Adbullah of Saudi Arabia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, various embassies of Arab states, or the Finsbury Mosque? Why not? For that matter, why can’t somebody throw shoes at David Letterman, Jim Carrey, William Ayers, or Code Pink’s Pinkshirts? Why not?
If a shoe barrage get directed against the Chicago Messiah Himself, does it suddenly stop being funny? How would the Left react once its heroes get treated with the same contempt they celebrate now?
The balance of terror isn’t merely about torturing people; it is about delineating what is or is not funny, and what is or is not rude. If it is “funny” to humiliate certain people or groups and not others, that is just as political as the more graphic terror of the Taliban.
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t face a barrage of shoes the next time he comes to New York, it will be abundantly clear that the Islamists and their allies have a de facto monopoly over symbolic humiliation, even humilation of merely a jocular variety.
Shouldn’t this un-PC thinking be extended to other noble Islamist terror organizations. The list of candidates is not short: Hamas, Hizbulla and others in ME, LeT in Pakistan, the asian (Indonesia, Phillippines, Thailand) groups, the african (Algeria, Sudan, Niger, Somalia).
The right question is probably “if not now then when”
At the present time, however, the Pakistani government acts as the “system administrator” for the Northwest Frontier. That tilts the field in favor of the Taliban.
I would say that is an accurate assessment. My question: Is possible to influence the Pakistani government in such a way that the field becomes tilted in our favor?
I have suggested requiring it to openly side with us against Islamic extremism and allow our military and/or intelligence assets free reign in country. Theoretically that would allow us to root out bad actors in the government, the intelligence service, the military, as well assault the enemy and protect those who would ally with us in the tribal regions.
Wretchard’s invocation of The Surge strategy isn’t by accident, I think. Reading this comment thread reminds me of the anger and disillusionment on display before The Surge in Iraq. Could a similar strategy, tailored for differences, work in Pakistan?
Morton said: “Their hatred of us should make this relatively easy — they consider us unclean, subhuman, after all.”
Morton, I have lived and worked as a college professor in two countries on the Arabian Peninsula for over three years now. I have not experienced what you described. in fact, I have found the opposite to be the case. (That includes a number of interactions with the folks at Al-Jazeera, by the way.)
That said, I readily concede that my contacts and experiences may not be representative of the entire Muslim or even Arab world.
Bonnie: We must do this to the Islamists. Kill their best and brightest young men and keep on killing them until their mosques are as empty as British cathedrals and Japanese playgrounds. It’s us or them.
Thou shalt not commit murder.
1John.3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
X3NA,
I’m concerned more at the moment with my earthly life.
“Thou shalt not commit murder”
This is like the old Maxwell Smart joke. When told that as a last resort, if about to be captured, he was given a poison pill that would kill in 30 sec, Max’s response was “How do I get them to take it?”
A “Shoe Thrower” makes no sense at all to someone from Springfield, Ohio. I doubt that the average citizen of Zimbabwe cares much about that right now either.
Likewise, most Iraqis dont know or care that one guy calling another a “dog” in the US is a masculine compliment. ‘Y’all know.
Of course what really matters is that Bush ducked nicely and the other dude missed. Then the Shoe-Thrower had to apologize after.
Lets admit; that is the most important part.
Simple schoolyard stuff – nothing more.
Spindok
X3NA,
To kill without hate, but with love for our fellow beings, brought about from necessity such as self-defense, or to prevent great evil, I suspect, meets God’s requirements for acting within the spirit of God. We must act on faith that we will be judged fairly when we stand before the Lord.
Each of us must make that decision, to fight or die. However, were you and I to share a fox hole, I would kind of like to know ahead of time what your decision was.
“But that policy, taken to its logical conclusion, simply makes one side exactly like the other.”
No, it makes one side dead and, hence, unable to participate in or shape the future. It’s a brutal solution, but it has its uses.
41. John Moore:
One question that must be asked: Why do we need to wipe out the Taliban?
It is clearly in our interest to destroy Al Qaeda and modern Islamofascism, and to keep them from taking over nuclear Pakistan. Do we need to destroy the Taliban to do so?
The Taliban are a blight on humanity. But there are many of these around the world’ is there a reason to pick on the Taliban rather than the others, other than to take out Al Qaeda?
Is there a way to stop Islamofascist terror without taking on the tribes of Pakistan?
Dec 18, 2008 – 12:52 pm
________________
Yes.
Engineer further oil price drops.
Engineer further oil price drops.
A very important insight. Islamic radicalism is inextricably linked to the particular sect that generates its ideology and which funds it. That point of view is largely, but not entirely in the KSA. Egypt and other places host similar ideas. You could argue that Western Europe is now locus of this idea. And it’s largely funded by oil.
That’s why Obama’s belief that things begin and end in Afghanistan or even in Pakistan is less than persuasive. If a giant natural upheaval should swallow Afghanistan and Pakistan into the bowels of the earth tomorrow, it would still not be over. To really strike a body blow means finding huge new sources of energy, not just dinky windmills, and revitalizing our culture; that is at least as important as sending 20,000 more men into Afghanistan. If the current administration goes forward with its carbon penalties, bans on coal, aversion to nuclear power, cultural self-hatred and political correctness, the gains of sending 20,000 men to do battle with the Taliban may be undone.
the thing is these guys have already taken over pakistan and who knows where else; it’s just a giant front organization – a hostage behind which the taliban and whoever can laugh while they sell heroin to everyone and send out suicide bombers and watch it on BBC. i understand the oil thing but honestly it doesn’t take $10s of billions every year to fund these guys; a bunch of semi-feudal farms over a vast countryside, a nice international narcotics ring in which poor innocent farmers do the work (more hostages), and big smiley face UN-member government – presto! destabilize the international system (such as it is) at will.
from what I’ve read, the incoming administration knows perfectly well that oil has caused current account problems that are unsustainable. While they’re not keen on the national security argument–just because it is national security–they are aware of it. Further they are keen to end on the environmental problems caused by oil coal and anything else carbon. But they’re not stupid. I would guess that obama would go for T Boone Picken’s plan of converting over US trucks to gas as an intermediate step. That would kill 25% of US demand for oil–which would go along way toward keep world oil prices down for 5-10 years while the US and everyone else–retools.
59. Charles
That makes a heck of a lot more sense than TBP’s plan for windmills.
When TBP speaks, always keep in mind cui bono
I recall, without exactly recommending, the tactics of the KGB when Yasir Arafat’s terrorists began to throw their weight around in the 60s and 70s. Apparently, they tried one of their operations, the kind which succeeded against Israelis and Westerners, against some Russians.
Instead of alerting the media to point out the horror, the KGB figured out the perpetrator. Without any publicity at all, some of his intimate parts were removed and sent to his superiors with a suitable message about a nasty future if such terrorism wasn’t stopped, now.
Apparently it worked.
We are fighting for TWO hearts and minds, the Taliban’s and our own.
Our own is more important. Just as the local tribesmen in Afghanistan need to feel safe before they will confront the Taliban, we need to feel ‘safe’ that we can live with ourselves after we wipe them out. For this to happen, things need to get worse fefore they will get better. After the London blitz, there were no moral pangs when Dresden was firebombed. After US losses in the Pacific, Atom bombs were a blessed relief.
And if our own hearts and minds are not won before we lash out, we will end up with the German and Japan problem – self hate/castration/no children.
So things will need to get worse before they get better. Time is what we are talking about. Give the enemy time to reform, or time to allow us to wipe them out with a clear conscience.
But lose, they will.
ADE
That makes a heck of a lot more sense than TBP’s plan for windmills. – John Moore
I always thought Pickens threw out the windmills for Green cover. A bribe or a disguise. Oilmen know their numbers. If there’s anybody that gets the “density” issue, it’s an oil man.
Horse-trading with the public and the politicians.
RDS, six or seven figures won’t do the job. It’s doubtful whether eight will. Nine might – especially if the first one is high. Ten will.
There is one possible exception to this. Six figures might be enough – if it’s the right six figures, and in the right place. Such as in the immediate neighbourhood of a certain rock in Saudi Arabia.
Why has Blago’s Wife gotten a free ride by the press?
She’s the Realtor that set up the Rezko-Hussein land fraud.
- Miller Caller to Tucker Carlson
I always thought Pickens threw out the windmills for Green cover. A bribe or a disguise. Oilmen know their numbers. If there’s anybody that gets the “density” issue, it’s an oil man.
I’ve heard it posited that he did the windmills in order to get right-of-way for the powerlines they needed. Then he could use the right of way to put in his gas pipelines.
‘course White Knight Obama was out of the loop.
…”not the sweet wife I knew.”
ADE,
Self hate/castration… are a general problem of the Western societies and not just Japan and Germany. And I’m not sure what will it take to redirect/convert our self hatred into a required hate and anger toward the islamist and their helpers and facilitators. If we look at Israel, apparently following your logic, the future doesn’t look rosy.
The Bookie, the Realtor, the Arab Crook, and me.
…author unknown.
Marek,
Hug a Pali,
Show the World you care.
Insufficiently Sensitive reminds us of how the Soviets convinced Palestinian terrorists not to mess with Soviet “diplomats”any more.
In a similar vein, Peterike comments:
“I wonder how the Iraq war would have gone had the US, in the first Fallujah battle, simply leveled the place and everyone left in it.”
I’m skeptical of this approach. Let’s remember that the Soviets in Afghanistan practiced systematic ruthlessness against the population, on the grounds that since they couldn’t defeat the insurgents, they would bring the fight to the population that enabled them. They inflicted horrors of a type, and on a scale, that I would never want America to carry out. Still they lost.
Doug,
Yeah, and give him few bucks.
Insufficiently Sensitive reminds us of how the Soviets convinced Palestinian terrorists not to mess with Soviet “diplomats”any more.
Actually, that was Hezbollah in Beirut who made the mistake of kidnapping a Soviet.
John Moore:
Thanks for the correction–I hate making errors like that!
Spindok:
Note that a news media visit to the Shoe Thrower’s home revealed a poster of Che Guevera on the wall.
And allegedly, the Shoe Thrower was upset with both the American intervention in Iraq and the Iranian influence. And he is Shia. If he goes to Tehran and throws shoes he won’t get away with it. He probably would be dead before the shoes hit the ground.
But perhaps the most revealing commenst about the Shoe Thrower were from another Iraqi journalist: “That guy always acts like he thinks he is smarter than everyone else and is always trying to get attention.”
In other words, he is an Iraqi version of Dan Rather.
@ 74. JPS
Not only that, but it was the members of their family members that the kidnappers received in delivery, not their handlers.
E.g, Russians found out who the kidnappers were, “asked nicely” their family members for members they wouldn’t miss much, with some token of identity like a ring or a hand written note about the authenticity of ownership and then used known channels for delivery.
Pir Samiullah may have thought he raised a lakshar of ten thousand tribesmen, but apparently he was mistaken. Most of those tribesmen are still there, but have been cowed into submitting to the Taliban. And most of them will not be good foot soldiers for the Taliban, either. Killing another human being, up close, is not for everyone. Most people are not hardened to it, and will shrink from it, sooner or later.
Certain aspects of Islam seem to encourage the sort of pathological psychotic behavior, to be a true killer, not just a soldier doing his job. History has shown this; it’s not just prejudice against “the other”. They share a similarity with the Schutz Staffel and other elite “killer” groups in history; the willingness to kill and the lack of moral hesitation in doing so.
Perhaps what has pulled Islam down after each success is the inability to control or dispose of this cadre of killers that their belief system seems to be able to create. Salah-e-din built a strong Islamic kingdom by conquest and deal making with rivals, and governed wisely and selflessly to hold it together, but after his death the kingdom he built quickly fell apart to squabbling and fighting.
To stop the metastasis of militant, psychotic Islam, we need to be able to apply enough force and military intelligence at the point of attack to identify and defeat those that need killing, for sure. But not so much that we kill indiscriminately. Because we have to keep up the pressure and the counter-offensive for years to come, and we will need the alliance of those Muslim tribesmen who are not crazy with killing, such as the Sons of Iraq formed from the Sunni’s who turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq. At some basic level, we have to persuade those tribesmen, those Pakistani and Afghan “hillbillies” who fought the Soviets to a standstill in the 80′s, that our fight is their fight.
buckets said:
There is no such thing as univeral morality, period. Humans are part of the animal kingdom and as such, subject to the same rules of survival as every other species. We are not special.
Laughter Kills, We should look for every opportunity to humiliate and ridicule our enemies, and we should use the word enemies not adversaries, we should not seek to prevail we should fight to win. The differences matter. When some jihadi was caught trying to escape dressed as a woman in a Burkha we should have put him in a bra and panties and lipstick and hung him on camera. The impact on the respect shown to a communities women should be effected by the behavior of the people of that village. Honorable warriors get treated with honor, women sneaking bombs or helping men hide by dressing as women should result in less gentle treatment. Let everyone know first about General Butler’s order regarding the women of New Orleans. I would have leveled Fallujah. I would plaster Baghdad and the Shia cities with posters calling Sadr “Fat Boy” or “Loser,” the more juvenile the better.
Robert,the social darwinist,speaks.
There is a certain movement (indirect, symbolic) in martial arts that if applied successfully, your opponent that is within the martial arts culture mindset, would interpret as disarming him. He stops fighting because he knows he already lost, you knocked out his life force pillar, as it were. He firmly believes that.
Destroy the relic (inflicting a deicide thusly), I say, and see if it all folds. I’d bet it would.
Greetings:
Somewhere in some book, I read an anecdote of the meeting between a nomad and a peasant. The nomad said to the peasant, ” You have your farm and your house. I have my horse and my whip. I will kill you and go.” This is the essence of the military problem.
It may sound cruel to some, but I would somewhat follow the example of how the American Indians were dealt with. When Mr. Taliban calls home next time, no one will answer because they will be dead or imprisoned. If Mr. Taliban decides to protect his family, he will be logistically and geographically emcumbered.
No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more Mr. Taliban.
@RWE: Regarding your prior post about bombing in WWII:
“Precision Bombing” in those days meant having 10% of bombs land within 500 feet of target. That is why it did not yield miraculous results.
However, saturation bombing did far less damage to enemy capabilities.
The reaction of P38 pilots to Japanese atrocities was typical of those who served in the Pacific. And had zilch to do with how and why Curtis LeMay was conducting the air war against the Japanese mainland. Making bombing runs at 8000 feet or less was not for the purpose of killing more people but for getting more bombs at least close to manufacturing plants and cached equipment.
Remember the three most important things about your enemy:
1) His capabilities
2) His capabilities
3) His capabilities
Reducing those capabilites and rendering them harmless is the ONLY thing that counts.
ER, Programmer: What did Woodrow Wilson Smith have to say about your enemy never considering himself a bad guy? I do not have a copy of the book handy but that quote
is probably one of the most valuable from the notebooks.
@Dave,
The Strategic Bombing Survey was one of history’s great eye openers. It is possible for the best minds, using the best information and acting with the best of intentions on a matter of life and death importance, to get it wrong. The Eighth Air Force suffered casualty rates and consumed resources beyond anything in our experience and the grim fact is that conventional airpower did not work. Everyone believed like the General in 12 O’Clock High, that airpower would shorten the war. It was hoped that either through terror bombing of the population, as done by the British at night or by industrial bombing, as done by the Americans during daylight, the German’s would be brought to the point of collapse. Boots on the ground are what did it.
If we could change the nature of our enemies will to resist with special forces then I’d be thrilled. They help, they can lead to an initial gain as they did in Afghanistan but they do not shift large communities from hostile to compliant. Neither do Civil Affairs or Psyops or Economic blockades or many other specialties, worthy and helpful as they are. The two nuclear bombs did have a dramatic effect on the Japanese will to resist. That happened after Japan had endured over 12 years of continuous and savage conventional war including almost four with America.
What is needed in war is what was always needed, little has changed. Boots on the ground and a willingness to convince the enemy, and any potential enemy, that while you could be a good friend you are their worst enemy. Convince them that you can and will use violence to such an extent that it is better not to press the issue and then you will have peace.
Dave,
I think you are referring to:
Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate–and quickly.
In the same book, it says:
When the need arises—and it does—you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don’t farm it out—that doesn’t make it nicer, it makes it worse.
As I understand it, the Taliban is the visible manifestation of the Pashtun Wallah, the way of the Pashtun tribes that live in Afghanistan and the FATA of North-east Pakistan.
One way of suppressing the Taliban would be to kill all of the Taliban. But, that is excessive and probably controversial. Another tactic that the US used in the 19th century in North America was to resettle the tribes on reservations, and teach them the ways of civilization.
Gumshoe said:
Only a few million years ago, the human ape shared a common ancestor with the chimp ape.
86. Fat Man:
One way of suppressing the Taliban would be to kill all of the Taliban. But, that is excessive and probably controversial. Another tactic that the US used in the 19th century in North America was to resettle the tribes on reservations, and teach them the ways of civilization.
……………………
Dec 17,2008
Obama today made special mention of the relationship he intends to create with Native Americans, saying, “Among the many responsibilities Ken will bear as our next secretary of the interior is helping ensure that we finally live up to the treaty obligations that are owed to the First Americans. We need more than just a government-to-government relationship; we need a nation-to-nation relationship. And Ken and I will work together to make sure that tribal nations have a voice in this administration.”
Obama’s election was received with approval by National Congress of American Indians President Joe A. Garcia. On November 5, he said, “I believe Indian Country should be encouraged by Mr. Obama’s staunch support of Indian self-determination and his pledge that the federal government must honor its treaty obligations and fully enable tribal self-governance.”
……………..
How this fits into Hawaiian Politics
I am an anti disestablishmentarians.
However, the disestablishmentarians are in charge.
Robert doesn’t know what he is talking about.
We are born into this life like fish in the sea, but since we are not fish, we should try to swim to land as fast as our little arms and legs can propel us.
paraphrased from William Blake
11B40, Nice to meet you, 11B20.
Pilgrims! Put on your dancing shoes!
I think that this experience has been of great help to me in teaching me where our true home is and in showing me that on earth we are but pilgrims; it is a great thing to see what is waiting for us there and to know where we are going to live. For if a person has to go and settle in another country, it is a great help to him in bearing the trials of the journey if he has found out that it is a country where he will be able to live in complete comfort.
St. Teresa
Bob said:
Such as? I see, no data to counter my argument, consider yourself defeated.
So “Bob”, which one of my points is false?
Humans aren’t animals, eh bob? No common ancestor with the extremely dangerous chimpanzee, eh bob? Powerful predatory human empires don’t subjugate weaker human tribes, eh bob(don’t give me the Hitler example bob, Stalin and the U.S. were much more powerful opponents in WWII)?
Thank you Programmer. Dora and Minerva send you their regards.
Lifeof the mind: If you have read that survey in depth, you are way ahead of me. I sorta skimmed its highlights many moons ago.
But wasn’t John Kenneth Gailbraith involved in that? Proving how wage and price controls, along with rationing, won the war?
It impressed me as saying that since hoped-for results were not achieved, little or no good was done.
My dissent is based on the following: (1) Damage assessment reports tended to be properly pessimistic in order not to give the command a too-rosy picture. (2) As to the shortcomings of the effort, there was not only the problem of accuracy, but picking the right targets to start with. Turns out that bombing airfields would have kept more Luftwaffe on the ground that bombing the airplane factories. This couples with failure to sustain pressure on targets day after day until attrition set in. (3) The strategic bombing did not take place in a vacuum. Having the bombers going over Germany proper helped those P47s get Patton across the Rhine without his having to do an artillery preparation.
Boots on the ground has a lot in common with bombs from air. They are both tactics. The Strategery is as it always has been, “Steel on Target”. In accomplishing that end, it really is the ability of those boots to hike wherever they want to that is the measure of success. The air arm is properly regarded as a force multiplier but the multiplication is not an elective.
Far as I can see, the 8th AAF along with the rest of the AAC did their job adequately or better.
Lifeofthemind: One other thing. I do not consider the nightime efforts of the RAF to have been terror bombing. The theory behind things was the same as the H & I
(Harassment and Interdiction) fire of artillerymen.
I never heard things described as terror bombing until just a few years ago. Leading up to the war and in early stages thereof, some people on our side discussed terror bombing and a few actually advocated same.
When those discussions and advocacies got publicized, various and sundry accusations of actually having comitted terror acts started to proliferate.
To my way of thinking, killing the “collaterals” in spite of their being non-combatants is not terror. Killing them BECAUSE they are non-combatants is the essence of terrorism.
Robert, I am not sure what your argument is, that is what your assertion that we are a part of the animal kingdom means?
We are, yet we are not. Our bodies are built from the same building blocks. But the information encoded in these blocks differs. I am not talking about the DNA that encodes for production of proteins… of course that would be rather close not only to simians, but to fish too. BTW, riddle me this… when you measure divergence of cytochrome between all sorts of different fyla, you’d realize they are equidistant. You can use hemoglobin and will get the same result. Weird, huh?
Our genome is only a part of the story, beside being an encryption that runs on several levels–meaning that a segment of the DNA that encodes for proteins may be used in another layer that encodes for something else, up to at least 4 levels as it currently seems… but who knows. We are not defined by the DNA, but also by RNA chains that are inserted in vast amount through the double helix of the DNA, as free chains or the ties that wrap around the DNA 2-helix to form ropes from strands.
Find one species that has not been modified by us recently through gene manipulation that has a spliced chromosomes like we do: 2,3 in contrast to our “nearest simian relatives”. One, that is all I ask.
Does not make it you curious? It should. And it should tell you that not all is what it seems on the surface. You bought the reductionist explanation. Sure, it is your choice, but that does not make it true.
The laws of nature are going much deeper, wider and higher than we are at this moment able to comprehend. We just started on the trail of discovery, and it is extremely arrogant to think that we are somewhere near the end of the tunnel. We are nowhere near the entrance of it, yet.
Yet, a vast abyss divides us from the rest of the animal kingdom. The mere fact that we are on that discovery trail attest to it, and it represents the boundary between us and the rest, almost as wide as the breadth of universe.
Sure, some dudes from near Deneb may not see much distinction between us and ants. It may seem to them like minute detail. But it is nothing of that sort–their mental microscope may simply not be calibrated for what they may perceive as meaningless nit picking.
Your reduction is attesting more about the paucity of your inner world than about the reality of the world around you… I’m just trying to be magnanimous and polite here.
E Nigma — Machiavelli would advise that violent ambitions among our enemies be encouraged at every turn. Take Islam’s strength — the culture of personal violence and killing, up close and personal, and amplify it.
As Tolkein illustrated when the forces of Mordor quarreled and killed over the little looted from Frodo.
@ 99. whiskey
Machiavelli surely did. But that does not mean that he applied that principle to personages or nations trashing about on legs molded from dried mud. Wussified culture is unable to gain anything from that idea, because the idea’s predicates simply do not register, they are beyond the horizon, while the WC seeks imagined root causes that exist only in its own mental construct.
There are some really good ideas in this thread.
First, our esteemed host, perceptive to genious level, as always.
gumshoe: Engineer further oil price drops.
E.Nigma: Certain aspects of Islam seem to encourage the sort of pathological psychotic behavior, to be a true killer, not just a soldier doing his job. Nothing better to sort out the plague than to describe it in postmodern terms – for the first time I welcome the positioning – the secular.
Lifeofthemind Laughter kills. How right. Our mega weapon, not even unleashed. Where is Monty Python when you need them most? Life of of Mo, anybody?
ADE
gumshoe: Engineer further oil price drops.
Actually, gumshoe, this bears further analysis.
I was in Washington on 9/11. My wife and I were inside the the cordon sanitaire that was drawn up by the police, ie we were so close to the White House that we could not get out. If the White House was up, so were we. You will appreciate my thanks to “let’s roll” over Illinois.
Anyway, in the blur that followed, GWB stated that we will go after (paraphrase) logistics (yawn), hearts and minds (yawn), religion of peace (yawn), the money (instant alert). I turned to my wife and said “this is the end of the IRA”.
And it was. And the end of ETA.
So we are now left only with the oil money.
If I could suggest a name for your strategy, how about “The Ozymandias Strategy” Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair
Trade Mark given away, of course.
ADE
ADE, The problem with going after the money is like treating the headache rather than removing the brain tumor. The “psychotic pathological” aspect of Islam will go dormant for a while and the sheeple will go back to football, shopping and gossip (as if they haven’t already). The Islamic Invasion of the West will continue and they will gain money sources here (witness the “charitiable societies” that they are putting in place in almost every US city). Then the problem will spring forth again. But this time they will not be “over there” they will be everywhere.
Islam has an internal structural flaw that cannot be plastered over; the demand that all other people either join or be forced into servitude. No other religion finds converts at the edge of a sword, Islam advocates it. Until this is resolved we can try to be at peace with Islam, but it will never be at peace with us.
The reason the IRA and ETA are dying is that they were small portions of a population with a very limited ideology “get the invader to leave”. They desired to be left alone in what they felt was their homeland and suffered from no imperial fantasies. Islam at it’s core feels that the Earth is it’s homeland and all on it must join or submit.
Wretchard,
Once there is no cash-flow, there is no peace. What comes of a people that sift sand to find food?
The only reason to support the Al-Gore’s (piss be upon him) efforts to “reduce” carbon emissions is that it, on the surface, impoverishes the oil ticks. Use the gore-ical and toss him aside on the trash bin of histories wannabe’s. Then we, and our children, can get on with our lives.
Ensure that the diversification of OPEC’s money is funneled down the drain, now that is the trick…
I don’t see how attacking the money can possibly solve this. They have oil money, but they also have heroin money. They have smuggling money. They have the apparent low cost of production – even of ammunition – in the Pakistani hinterlands. Moreover the Taliban are presumably supported by at least ISI, or an ISI faction, over whose money no government could have sufficient influence. And considering this is Pakistan/Afghanistan we’re talking about, the Taliban, or perhaps “the Taliban,” are the ISI’s main strategic asset, which they are not about to abandon.
The question is the present nature of the Taliban, of whom we apparently know too little: are they simply grafted onto the population, a sort of fascist excrescence, or are they an efflorescence of the population, of the Pashtunwallah as someone mentioned above? Is this a true insurgency in the classic Mao model, or – in the classic Mao reality – do they hold the population hostage and spout slogans with which the population are sufficiently sympathetic to make them want to believe that that gun pointed to their heads is really a policeman’s rather than a bandit’s?
And how are they armed and directed? Is it really just that their commanders are former anti-Soviet fighters? Or were the Afghan campaigns in the early-mid 90s sufficient to teach them good guerrilla tactics? Or are there outsiders – Egyptians, Saudis, Uzbeks, Chechens – who provide the strategic perspective? Are other states – Russia, China, Iran – behind the cohesion? Recall that the translator for Britain’s highest command in Afghanistan was just convicted of being an Iranian asset.
How cohesive are the Taliban? Remember the clashes with Uzbek forces along the tribal belt a few years ago? What was the significance of that?
And so on. I’d say that most Americans want mass casualties about as little as they want to be involved in that part of the world at all, so it is important to know more about exactly how these groups operate and who they are. Present knowledge seems woefully insufficient.
Robert –
monkeys and chimps don’t leave stories like this behind:
http://remember.org/witness/herder.html
OTOH, to attriubte it to
social darwinist doctrine would not be drastically in error.
Dan,
Agree that the Taliban would only be secondarily effected. But, bringing the support down is the basis for dropping any infrastructure. Taking Wretchard’s premise, without direct intervention on the Colonel Kurtz level (either by us or indigenous forces), the oblique approach is the only arrow we have in our quiver. Unless there are other methods deemed palatable by our Post-WWII culture (such that it is)…….
LOTM: The Strategic Bombing Survey has its own political slant, I would not take it as gospel. Famously, Galbraith and Dyson work on that study and they were really little more than fellow travelers. There were people at the time already militating against the cold war posture and along with that people like LeMay. It is certain that it had more effect than stated in that report.
Even if we cede good faith to the authors, their brief and focus was extremely narrow. It is not wise to take this study as a final word on this topic.
heyhey – looks like we have 13,600 student demostrators in Paris and more in other parts of France, on the same day we have Greek “insurrection” attacks against French educational and diplomatic institutions in Athens.
for one accidentally shot kid?
you fools.
@Mongoose,
If you have a reference regarding the competence of Galbraith’s work on the survey I’d like to read it. My argument was that unsupported airpower does not effect the moral change in a target population needed to end resistance.
@Dave.
Not disagreeing much with you or Galbraith here, agreeable aren’t I? Tactical air has been consistently neglected by the Air Force. We are still paying for the roles and missions fight of 1947. The Marine Corp model just seems to work better.
Wage controls are a Bad Idea financially but like rationing coupons they did help build the solidarity between voters and the war effort. We would be doing better in this war, and not looking at an Obama administration, if in 2001 we had people in Iowa start putting up blackout curtains.
Somebody up there in charge of this war needs to lower the moral threshold and use what ever it takes to destroy the Taliban.
Someone who is willing to sacrifice his own soul and set themselves up to take the war crimes charge of unloading the whole shebang of real war on our enemies.
—————————————————–
Life of mind You are correct that using our current conventional weapons won’t effect a moral change in the population. Stepping up to the nuclear and chemical option will have that effect of moral change if it does not then the population dies and that’s all she wrote.
To fight with one hand tied behind our backs and on one leg ain’t gonna win this war.
Lifeofthemind, it is now my turn to be agreeable.
I consider all that rationing and wage/price controlling to have been counterproductive in materially winning the war. Salmon P chae’s tecniques on behalf of Lincoln were and remain far superior. (And Dubya seems to have stumbled on to Chase financing.)
And I consider faith in economic interventionism as the worst leagacy of WWII.
Nixon catered to that to get himself re-elected and the defecation encountered the oscillation for a decade.
But then there is the essential need for the general public to do their part. That sense of participation is what enables civilian patriots to blithely ignore, or forcibly eliminate moonbattery. This was sadly lacking in VN and appears absent today.
Some creative thinking should be applied to the problem.
Well here is one take on the UUSBS, though it does not focus particularly on Galbraith:
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2008/February%202008/0208bombing.aspx
It seems pretty clear to me that strategic bombing had a decisive effect in the Pacific theater, even if one does not count the nuclear bombs that were dropped.
Counting those, the conclusion is pretty obvious.
It is also a bit specious to claim that the bombings were merely “strategic” for as the war progresses the bombing became more tactical than strategic, that is to say, the bombing grew to be more in support of ground objectives as the war went on.
Certainly SAC was instrumental in the cold war.
The USSBS is controversial. It is more the intent and control of information of New Deal leftists like Galbraith rather than a particular example of competence. People like Galbraith had a clear pro-socialist and pro-USSR bias.
That academics have not revised it says more about their agenda than it does about the validity of the study.
But Galbraith has been pretty much wrong about anything he has addressed as both an econimit ad as an intellectual.
If we live in a Bombay world, and we do, we certainly WILL start escalating. Enough people slaughtered in Times Square, the DC Mall, and various other iconic locations, barriers to ruthlessness will fall.
That’s the tragedy of the advances in technology. It quickly creates a race to utter brutality.
@ Robert
Very true. People tend to forget that we are animals, we are part of and arising from the animal world. That’s why our survival instinct is still felt among those of us not completely seduced by the thin veneer of civilization.
Heinlein and Orson Scott Card have said it better than me, but ultimately our genetic nature compels many of us to fight, and if necessary to sacrifice for the greater good of our family or our “human family.” The religious and moral among us recognize we are from the animal kingdom but strive to be greater. Whether it is a belief that Man was made in the image of God, or simply a desire to treat others as we would wish ourselves treated, many of us believe in something more than the tooth and claw of a Hobbesian world.
I admit that if really pressed, I would abandon my sense of morality and ideas about right and wrong in order to protect those close to me. However, the U.S. keeping the moral high ground right now serves not only our innate sense of justice and fair play, but also appeals to those around world who see freedom crumbling.
The U.S. is the shining City on the Hill, as dumb as that sounds. And only from that atop that high ground can we set an example for the world to follow. I’m not talking about the bullshit Obama “make the world like us again” example; I’m talking about the beacon of liberty, hope of the free world, support-any-friend-oppose-any-foe kind of example.
Crankonomics
The Salvation Market
The Roman Catholic church held Europe’s ancestors hostage in purgatory in lieu of rent or indulgences.
According to Luther this lead to witchcraft.
Luther was right.
Same deal holds today.
The Roman Catholic church held Europe’s ancestors hostage in purgatory in lieu of rent or indulgences.
…
I’m referring to the late middle ages. The Roman Catholic church stopped this practice later.
However, the US political system creates a similar system. Half the electorate believed that they could atone for the sins of the ancestors by voting in Obama. The problem is it will not be enough. It will never be enough. Its a business.
@Barry 0351,
There is no conceivable scenario that I can imagine in which the use of chemical weapons would be to our benefit. They are tactically inferior to other weapon systems and degrade the efficiency of the troops using them. War is done for a purpose. Engaging in genocide would not be untying our arms and legs it would be kicking ourselves in the ass.
@Dave,
The popular base of the war could have been fostered by several means:
1) Halting the BRAC process, it was largely a giveaway for corrupt realtors and local governments that reduced mobilization assets.
2) Instituting a 6 month universal active militia service after the 17th birthday or for new immigrants before citizenship. Training at bases and armories in local communities. This would focus on basic combat skills, citizenship/civics and Homeland Security topics. Opportunities for further service and benefits to be reviewed. Eligibility for voting and jury duty to depend on completion.
3) All federal loans, grants and scholarships to depend on affiliation with either the active military or a Reserve/Guard unit subsequent to the above basic militia training.
None of this is economically rational but it does help to bind the populace to the armed forces. While I believe this will create more support for the war we are fighting it will also reduce the temptation politicians might have to use the forces frivolously. There is a shocking lack of military experience in Congress and among much of the public under the present system.
“My argument was that unsupported airpower does not effect the moral change in a target population needed to end resistance.”
Why is it then that WW2 ended in less than 4 years after Pearl Harbor with the abject cringing surrender of Japan and Germany, and yet we are still fightng the same bunch of primitive cavemen 7 plus years after 911?
People, we have been fighting this insane war TWICE as long as World War 2!
twobyfour said:
Curiosity is a common trait among animals with complex central nervous systems (ex. octopuses, squid, apes, dolphins, cats etc.).
I see, your trying to bring up the fused chromosome in the human. Point already covered here. My suggestion, don’t bring up creationist P.R.A.T.T.’s (Point Refuted A Thousand Times before), it’s a sign of dishonesty.
I believe human ego drives the desire to believe that “humans are a little lower than Angels”.
Buckets: Christianity is not a suicide pact. Moreover, one has the obligation to protect oneself. Defending Christian civilization (or what is left of it) is a duty — and an honor, I might add. Christianity does not proscribe self protection; the 5th commandment prohibits murder, not self defense.
“Turn the other cheek” refers to honor killings, vengeance, violence caused by anger over assaults on wounded pride and the anger caused wounded pride itself; it does not mean that one must allow violence on one’s person, family, community, nation or civilization. THis commandment does not proscribe justice either.
Nor does Christianity prohibit National States nor the defense of them. It in fact asserts that different nations and races are part of the designs of God.
This nation in particular has ample recourse for the conscientious objector to act in accordance with his beliefs both in terms of alternate service and avenues to change any national policy that might be felt to be against conscience or confession. So there is nothing at all to Christianity that prohibits us from appropriate force.
The Bible is really rather commonsensical; the Left and the Multicult gang misread and misuse religion for their own ends.
Greece, France – and now Sweden, Malmo, the very Muslim/immigrant second city of Sweden, up in riots for the second straight day.
“once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is the work of the enemy.”
buckets said:
That only works if the entire world subscribes to a single moral code, it doesn’t. According to the morality of the Islamic World, the Islamists are atop the moral high ground by slaughtering and subjugating infidels.
You should check out Wong’s humorous take on this: The Monkey Sphere.
gumshoe said:
Chimp clans are known to attack and destroy rival chimp clans.
Gumshoe, your point on starving the Islamist Oil-Money Tree is spot on.
There’s another aspect of “are we fighting hard enough?” that occurred to me. For some reason the question just popped into my head: have we, during the entire course of the “war on terror,” executed a single terrorist?
Of course I don’t mean killed in battle. There have been plenty of vermin sent to meet their maker, Allah be Praised. But I mean out of what must be thousands and thousands of captured jihadis, has ONE single person been put up against the wall or otherwise sent into the arms of promised 72 Vegans? (That’s “vegans,” from the CodePink translation of the Koran.)
It seems to me our will to win can in one sense be measured by our willingness — or lack of same — to off these jokers.
Heavens, Malmo.
I used to pop up there often. You could not ask for a more pleasant, quiet town.
They actaully have a section of town where medieval buldings are still in use, just off of the town center, nad the downtown itself has some wonderful Baroque, Rococo and Renaissance buildings, all still in use. It would be real tragedy if they trash downtown Malmo.
This really amazing to me — it is hard to imagine. Bet it took the town by surprise. I wonder if some of these people are coming up from the low countries via Copenhagen.
Is there any correlation between the acidity and prevalance of anti-Americanism in these riotous countries and the behavior of their “youth”?
Norway, for example, immediately had a “whack Bush with a shoe” video available on the internet for stranger all over the world to thow viral shoes at the President of the United States. I’m wondering how uppity NOrway’s “youth” might currently be.
@ 125. Robert:
Curiosity is a common trait among animals with complex central nervous systems (ex. octopuses, squid, apes, dolphins, cats etc.).
Curiosity? Of course. You can locate flicks with Alex (parrot) where he can count, conceptualize colors and shapes and match them together. Some animals display a surprising level of intelligence. But try as you may, they would never come up with something like e=mc[squared]. They have an intuitive analog computer built in that handles most of the physics around that was finetuned by minute increments and retrogressions through eons. But they would never be able to produce a new reality (be it complex tools or a structures of logical abstract concepts built upon each other), as we do. If you can’t see that, then you probably have less curiosity than my cat.
I see, your trying to bring up the fused chromosome in the human. Point already covered here. My suggestion, don’t bring up creationist P.R.A.T.T.’s (Point Refuted A Thousand Times before), it’s a sign of dishonesty.
Though I may be a theist (in the sense of a primary impetus), I am not an adherent of creationism, as is represented in current modern religious traditions. In fact, I am evolutionist, but not exactly fitting in the boundaries that are defined by present darwinian conceptual framework. I maintain that evolution is a much slower process than we currently assume it to be and that we are an oddity beyond extreme. The time span is too short, by two orders of magnitude.
In my opinion, the 2,3 fused represent an attempt of recoding the DNA, so the reading on superstratum (level 3,4 of encoding) is changed to switch on some characteristic and on the other hand, turn other characteristics off. It isb really ingenious scheme, because all the vital code is preserved, yet the reading on the next levels is changed in very precise regions.
IOW, we’ve been “helped”. By whom, I haven’t a faintest (well I could speculate, but it would be just that–a speculation), but once we get into decoding 2,3,4 encryption strata, it would be apparent that the spliced 2,3 chromosomes is not a freak of nature and of a very recent appearance <15kya, too. There is some circumstantial evidence, but that is a long story and entirely beyond the scope of this discussion.
I believe human ego drives the desire to believe that “humans are a little lower than Angels”.
Actually no. It was just a plain observation. We are able now to create elaborate constructs to model realities that can be far remote from our own, but that is rather a recent phenomenon–the potential was present, but not utilized–in more remote times, human psyche was more down-to-earth by necessity and survival considerations to frivolously engage in elaborate concepts that would distract from harsh realities of life. That is why this activity is so recent and fresh, because the harsh realities of life are not as pressing.
Eventually, the jihadists will smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States. My guess is that it will come by small boat into Washington DC. It will be detonated suicide style, and there will be tens of thousands of casualties. Then, we will get down to business and destroy them with a clear conscience, not before. Our people have been isolated from real violence for so long that live in a virtual world. Fortunately for them, hard men stand ready to visit violence upon their enemies. This will change when real violence is visited upon them.
Robert and Mongoose seem to ascribe to a variant of St. Dominic’s credo. When informed that some of the townspeople in the village he was about destroy were Christians, the good saint quipped “Kill them all. God will know his own.”
Not all of us warmongering neo-cons are ready to countenance whole scale slaughter of millions of civilians. If the world falls apart, and the end of days is upon us, and that is the road we are forced down, so be it. But I don’t think we should flippantly seek it out. Compassion isn’t always a weakness, kids.
Mongoose,
Apologies. I re-read your post. Can’t disagree with anything you said. But I worry sometimes about the apocalyptic tone that occasionally pops up on the BC. Let’s all try and hang on to Judeo-Christian morality as long as we can.
@ 136. buckets
That’s why I prefer deicide. Slaughtering people in large numbers, even if heavily damaged, is the last resort option. The cause of the damage is the tribal society bootstrapped by political-religious system. Knock the scaffolding out and although the result may be merry for a while, the demon would be vanquished and the people under the spell may seek something more life oriented.
The cold warriors in Washington continue their great game in the Hindu Kush
We went to Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden, but that’s not why we stayed.