Someone points out that Osama is asking for money during his latest video-from-the-grave. And of course there are those who are more then willing to give him a bailout in the form of tripling foreign aid to Pakistan.
Short section from Jawa Report:
Howie notes in an e-mail that in his latest message Osama bin Laden begs for money. Laura Mansfield translates it this way:
I have the expertise of Jihad all thanks to God and I know the financial expenses so one businessman's donation is sufficient to help in any of these fronts.
So, while the vast majority of the message is a rant about how the U.S. economy is in dire straights -- caused, in his view, by our wars against Islamists like bin Laden -- its ironic that he ends his message with leave the fighting to us, just send in your cash.
Sounds to me that bin Laden is looking for a bailout himself. read the rest - its not very long
With his article in the Guardian today arguing that the ‘war on terror’ was a mistake, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband displays a deeply alarming level of shallowness and ignorance. While there is indeed a valid criticism to be made of the phrase ‘war on terror’ for the simple reason that terror is merely a mechanism and that therefore the phrase is absurd, Miliband’s error lies in the deeper point he is making that the military approach to dealing with global Islamist terrorism is wrong. He reveals in this a profound failure to understand the nature of this global threat. He thinks it’s all about local 'grievances’ and therefore can be dealt with by negotiation, compromise and arresting people and bringing them to justice rather than waging war upon them. Although his argument is a general one, he specifically mentions Mumbai and Gaza; indeed, I guess that it is Gaza that is really on his mind.
He says there is no unified enemy:
The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic. So it is today.
This is an astounding error for the British Foreign Secretary to make. There is indeed a unified transnational enemy and it is the Islamic global jihad. Yes, the specific causes which carry the jihad are many and various around the globe. But they are unified by one common goal which transcends all divisions, including those between Sunni and Shia, and that is to conquer all unbelievers and spread Islamic theocracy around the world. The roots of this modern phenomenon lie in post-colonial thinkers such as Syed Qutb, Abu ala Maududi and Ali Shariati, and before them in Ibn Tamiyya, and before him in a line of ideologues and clerics going back to early Islamic history and the Koran. Is goal is global domination and it is unalterable.
To say that Lashkar e Taiba’s cause is merely Kashmir or that Hezbollah stands only for the return of the Golan Heights is simply risible. As LeT has itself said, its goal is the restoration of Islamic rule over the whole of South Asia, Russia and China. It wants to destroy India and wipe out both Hinduism and Judaism. Backed in part by Saudi financing, it derives its ideology from the Wahhabi strain of Islam which gave birth to al Qaeda and accordingly has declared the United States, Israel and India as existential enemies of Islam. As for Hezbollah – the ‘Party of God’ – it is a proxy army of Iran which is currently heavily engaged in imposing Iranian domination over Lebanon. It has also conducted numerous terrorist attacks on the United States, and has terrorist cells planted all over Europe waiting to do Iran’s bidding in prosecuting the Islamic revolution against the west. To say that Hezbollah is merely concerned with the grievance of the Golan is astounding.
Similarly, although he doesn’t say it, Miliband presumably thinks that Hamas is concerned with the ‘grievance’ of ‘the occupation’. This is demonstrably not the case, since there is no occupation of Gaza. What Hamas is actually about, as it repeatedly informs us all, is the annihilation of Israel and of every Jew on the planet. It is as absurd therefore to say as Miliband does that
the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is co-operation
as it would have been to say that the best antidote to Nazism in the 1930s was co-operation. Does he really think that we should be sending out the police to arrest Osama bin Laden; or that the Israelis should sit on their hands while the Grads and Katyushas fly towards Beersheba Ashkelon and eventually Tel Aviv while they politely request from Syria the extradition for trial of the Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, and invite the Supreme Leader of Iran to discuss his ‘grievance’ about the continued existence of Israel, America and western civilisation? When Miliband writes:
We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it is the cornerstone of the democratic society. We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroad
he means this to be an argument against waging war. On the contrary: in certain circumstances, unfortunately, war is the only means of securing the human right to life and liberty and the ability of people to live under democracy and the rule of law. For BritainÂ’s Foreign Secretary not to understand any of this and get this to terribly wrong is not just a reflection on David Miliband. It shows that Britain is currently the weakest link in the war to defend civilisation. And that most certainly is a war.
As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office amid a media chorus of reproach and derision, there is at least one comparison with his predecessor that speaks greatly in his favor. Mr. Bush removed the most ruthless dictator of his day, Saddam Hussein, thereby offering Iraqi citizens the possibility of self-rule. Bill Clinton's analogous achievement in the Middle East was to help install Yasser Arafat, the greatest terrorist of his day, as head of a proto-Palestinian state.
This is not how these events are generally perceived. The image that still looms in the public mind is that of President Clinton, peacemaker, standing between Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in the Rose Garden on Sept. 13, 1993. With the best intentions, Mr. Clinton had worked hard for this peace agreement and would continue to strive for its success, hosting the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the White House more than any other foreign leader. But the "peace process" almost immediately reversed its stated expectations. Emboldened by his diplomatic victory, Arafat adopted Islamist terminology and openly preached jihad. The casualties suffered by Israel in the years following the Oslo Accords exceeded those of previous decades, and dangers to Israel and the world have increased exponentially ever since. This so-called peace agreement rewarded terrorist methods as fail-safe instruments of modern warfare, and accelerated terrorist attacks on other democratic countries. Though Mr. Clinton did not foresee these consequences, his speech at the signing ceremony betrayed the self-deception on which the agreement was based.
Throughout the speech, Mr. Clinton invoked the significance of the "sliver of land between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea" to "Jews, Christians, and Muslims throughout the world." He repeatedly linked the "descendants of Isaac and Ishmael," and the "shared future shaped by the values of the Torah, the Koran, and the Bible," as though their "memories and dreams" were all equivalent. But Judaism is quite unlike Islam. The Jews claim solely that "sliver of land" and accept their minority status among the nations. By contrast, Islam seeks religious and territorial hegemony, most especially in the Middle East. Hence 21 countries descendant from Ishmael have denied the descendants of Isaac their ancestral home. This difference of political visions is precisely what propels the Arab war against Israel.
To be sure, the signing ceremony at the White House may not have been the best time to recall Arafat's complete record as the "father of modern terrorism," a title accorded him by the press for masterminding such acts as the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, the murder of a schoolroom of children in northern Israel, and the establishment of a PLO missile base in Lebanon. But some mention of his profession was surely in order. The PLO was founded, and funded, by Arab leaders as a terrorist proxy before 1967 -- that is, before Israel gained the disputed territory of the West Bank that retroactively served as a Palestinian casus belli. Arafat had never been anything other than a terrorist. He had threatened Arab rulers in Jordan and Lebanon no less than the Jews of Israel. Mr. Clinton's speech contained no hint of these facts, concealing the realities it purported to be changing.
To be fair, Israel's role in this self-deception was, if anything, even greater. The Oslo Accords made Israel the first country in history ever to arm its enemy with the expectation of gaining security. The burden of soldiering in a defensive war for the "right to exist" -- which ought to have been theirs from the outset -- understandably saps the morale of Israelis. In this case, it also undermined their common sense.
The Oslo "peace accord" made the world more dangerous and subjected Palestinian Arabs to a rule of violence, corruption and intimidation. Arafat's dictatorship has since been outmatched by an even more brutal Hamas regime that serves as the terrorist outpost of Iran. President Bush's military intervention, by contrast, destroyed a terrorist state and made the world safer for its citizens.
Originally posted 1/14, carried over a day for more commentary. AoS.
Assessing the academic state of affairs at the War College, Mark Perry informed Tom Ricks:
It's worse than you think. They have curtailed the curriculum so that their students are not exposed to radical Islam. Akin to denying students access to Marx during the Cold War.
This intellectual and strategic groundwork for the "long war" against Islamic terrorism will never be accomplished as long as our senior service schools and military academies continue to neglect this vital area of strategic study. Regardless of what one might think about the relation between Islamic theology and jihadist justifications for terror, it is a fact that they believe they are operating in accordance with Islamic tradition. Islamic war doctrine ought to be studied on that basis alone.
But returning to Sun Tzu's maxim, perhaps the root of our military's strategic schizophrenia is not so much about our refusal to understand our enemies as much as it is a failure to understand ourselves. As a nation, we no longer have a sense of who we are, what we believe, or even why we fight. At the height of World War II, would a faculty member at the Army War College have even considered attempting to defend Nazi fascism or Japanese imperialism, as War College professor Sherifa Zuhur has now done with Hamas? That is a fitting testimony of how far we are from both aspects of Sun Tzu's counsel.
#1
Fighting the war against Islamic terrorism is not something you do, it's something you "get". Until you "get it" you might get lucky and win some battles, but eventually you will lose the war.
Maybe you have to be an outsider to "get it" Hirsi Ali certainly does: Reason: The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the [Wojciech] Jaruzelski puppet regime [1990]. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?
Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Don't you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the world's 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, "defeat Islam"?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars.
Nonetheless Hirsi Ali has no clear idea how a war with Islam might proceed. Again, from the Reason interview:
Hirsi Ali: Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they're the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, "This is a warning. We won't accept this anymore." There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don't do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
#2
Quick. Let's have an inter-faith dialouge with the local mosque (sans the Hindus, Buddhists, animists etc. so as not to offend the muzzies). Afterward we can make arrangements with then fund all the muzz civil rights organizations and muslim "scholars" in the USA to teach sensititvity classes and outreach programs to the military, FBI, CIA, TSA, etc...We can rely on them to tell us all we need to know about islam's long term goals.
It worked before. Remember all the German-American Nazi Party outreach programs foisted upon the sheep dogs at the behest of the wolves?
Spit.
Our "elites" are leading us to our doom. We stand and watch. Helpless to stop it for lack of will.
#3
Yada Yada Yada. Folks the guys at the war college don't need a curriculum on radical Islam. They need to focus on the types of war America is fighting or will be fighting. Be it radical Islam, communist insurgents, drug cartel, etc... They need to be studying proven tactics for fighting insurgent wars on a global scale. They need to stay up on the air land battle, They need to learn how to better implement the elements of power. Understanding you enemy is critical, but its homework better suited out of school. Understanding yourself and your capabilities is more of what the war college is about, a point just as important and understanding the enemy.
At the onset of this war our leaders did not completely understand all of the elements of power and how to use the vast capabilities at their disposal. The war college must not slip into a tactical discussion of our specific enemies and their ideologies or we will have useless leaders when we have to fight the next war, where our leaders will be three and four star generals.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/14/2009 15:21 Comments ||
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#4
49 Pan: Did you read the whole article? Do you grasp it's implications? You're okay with a pious and practicing muslim teaching our men and women at the war college how to defeat an enemy whose core ideology is found in the koran, hadith, and sira? Is that how you think? If so, you're part of the problem. I won't take my education on islam from a practicing muslim any more than I want to take my education on communisim from the historical articles of the NYT. I say that because I see very little evidence that the people that lead us understand the threat. If they appreciate the threat they don't say because to speak the truth would be uncomfortable.
I'm not saying everybody at the war college has to "major" in the ideology of the enemy. But to "minor" in same is not necessarily a bad idea. And for those who think that is too damn burdensome, I say to you with all respect your transcript better have alot of "electives" in the history of islamic conquest and tactics.
This co*ksucker - muslim Prof. Zuhur - is teaching at the war college telling the young folk Hamas is just misunderstood. What fu*king part of "israel shall not exist" (hamas charter) do you you think our future warriors shouldn't know about in forming a battle plan and tactics? By the way, in case you have not been paying attention, Christians are next and summed up nicely in this phrase put out by muslims: "First Saturday. Then Sunday". How sweet...google it if you think I make this stuff up as I go along. Isay get your education not from a muslim but from someone who has left islam long ago. Such people are available for hire.
America is fighting an enemy unlike any faced before. Strike that. We first faced them in the late 18th century. We're fighting an enemy already behind our gates. Want a peak into the feature? Look to Europe today.
The author of the article above is trying to sound an alarm. We fail to hear it at our peril.
You say the future leaders of the military (3/4 star generals) will not be able to fight a war down the road if they get too bogged down now in the ideology of the current enemy? Who is the future enemy? Mexico? Canada? Who do you have in mind? The Ruskies? The Chicoms? I'd prefer to give greater credit to the innate intelligence of the guys on the battlefield that they can multi-task.
Do you understand the early history of the creation of what we know as the US Marines: muslim pirates. Jefferson and Adams took the time to learn about islam, they consulted with muslims. Studied islam to understand it and decided: we have to kill these muslim fu*kers. Hence: Marines. Did the leaders of the marines in 1800 know the koran backwards and forwards. Nope. But they knew enough to be "effective".
Which is what our war college is not gonna be if the people at the war college are taught by practicing muslims: "Effecetive".
#5
Pan, lets look at Iraq, shall we? Do they teach that you have to pay jizya to Sunnis i.e $300 dollars per month to every layabout of military age, so they will stop fighting?
Do they teach that you run dead on Iran's nuclear ambitions, to keep the Shiites quiet. Why do you think we pulled the plug on Israel, when they wanted to bomb Iranian nuclear installations? The US and allies are basically hostages in Iraq, unable to do anything other than save face. I'd say some like Petraeus have finally got "it", unfortunately not soon enough to "win"
And are you so sweet with this statement, that we appear clueless: would a faculty member at the Army War College have even considered attempting to defend Nazi fascism or Japanese imperialism, as War College professor Sherifa Zuhur has now done with Hamas?
#6
Mark, No I cant get into the article here at work. Good point in that I should have gotten it all before commenting. My comment was based on the summery. I get off work here in a couple hours and will read it all. My point was that they have so much to learn about strategic operations that the war college is not the right venue to study Islam. There are other courses and venues for leaders to study this. Commanders can adapt to the enemy and most are students of history.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/14/2009 16:51 Comments ||
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#7
Mark, I'm sure the IDF and the US mil could both use your vast knowledge on the matter far more than we can. You should help us all out and direct you spittle in their direction instead of toward 49 Pan. A man who understand the topic more than you by several orders of magnitude.
And if you for one second don't think the people at the war college are blindly listening and unquestionably beleiving, I would kindly ask you to shut the fuck up altogether. At least on this subject.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/14/2009 17:00 Comments ||
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#8
Ack! Not don't, DO!
Either way, lets just ARCLIGHT the war college.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/14/2009 17:04 Comments ||
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#9
We have an old saying in Kentucky:
Don't piss down my back and tell me its raining.
Just because they feed them that shit doesn't mean they're going to buy it. Some muslim dude giving you his spiel on Hamas, in one ear and out the other.
Wanna make it personal? I'm okay with that . Fuck you dumbass. We happen to be on the same side but you're too stupid and parochical too realize it. I don't expect an apology but by God you owe me one.
Mr. 49 Pan stated that the folk at the war college should concentrate on learning HOW BEST to "kill the enemy". I am very much in agreement with those sentiments expressed by Mr. 49 Pan.
There is more to learning "how to kill" than just killing. You want to know something about WHY you kill the enemy or WHY they want to kill you (and yours). Is that notion too complicated? A guy named Patton was big on this notion, unlike yourself. See...Patton learned how to kill and why to kill and who to kill...and he understood the ideologie of the people he killed. That's why he could have taught at the war college.
Alow me to make an assumption: at the war college you get field experience and exercises (how to kill the enemy) AND you get classroom work...call it "background" and learning the ideology of the enemy. If you don't you should. Mikey got a problem with that? If you do you're not officer material.
The point of the article above is that at the war college OUR people are being taught to give Hamas a pass by some cocksucking muslim professor.
I'm gonna give you a pass just like I did 49 Pan and assume YOU fucking didn't read the article above because if you did AND you take issue with my comments that makes you a very fucking stupid and part of the problem. A problem we have had since 9-11 and will continue for the foreseeable future.
If you are trying to jhump down my throat becaue you think I insulted one of your brothers in arms and because I havn't "seen real combat" I say FUCK YOU. And I will say it to your face.
My post was pointed: I say the war college NEEDS to educate their officers to the THEORY of the enemy which obviously you have little or no knowlewgde of and worse yet, you don't think the students at the college are in need of. And I say it (the theory of the enemy) NEEDS to be taught by someone to our officers who can be trusted as opposed to a pious and practicing muslim professors who are really apologists for Hamas.
I say this and here I stand for I can do no other: The only gov't institution that might ever understand the enemy are those who fight the war. Do NOT allow the theory of the enemy to be taught by muslims. But it must be taught. And yes...those warriors need to be taught the theory of the enemy. Prof, Z (muzz) is not my choice. And that is not the choice of the author of the article.
You got a problem with that, Mike N. ??? Let me know. I'll give you a location, date and time and we'll meet. I'll be there. You're wrong. Any your defense of 49 Pan was not needed or warranted. He's a big boy. If 49 Pan tells me I'm wrong and explains why I'm wrong I'll listen. Otherwise. Fuck you. Best you could do was to tell me I was wrong without explaining WHY I was wrong.
Pan, lets look at Iraq, shall we? Do they teach that you have to pay jizya to Sunnis i.e $300 dollars per month to every layabout of military age, so they will stop fighting?
This is standard COIN stuff. There's nothin Muslim-specific about it.
That is what Petraeus got when he got 'it'. 'It' was first and foremost an insurgency requiring a counter-insurgency strategy that uses counter-insurgency tactics, such as greasing pockets.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/14/2009 20:42 Comments ||
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#12
umm, knowing the motivations & ideologies of one's enemy is essential not only at the tactical & operational level war but obviously critical at the strategic level not to mention as well as molding grand national strategy or the political level.
If by War College the assumption is that light birds are sitting in on this then yes, future or post Bn & Sqdrn Commanders ought to know up to the strategic level as well as what the JCS do and how they formulate policy. Even though Battalions are still considered a tactical level maneuver element, having to know what your boss two levels up is thinking and his commander's intent is pretty much officership 101.
Sure, tactics that have evolved out of say taking down fallujah house to house, guardian angels, how to really use the MRAP, EOD, etc is important, a light bird will also probably be dealing w/local strongmen - knowing the politics is important - an w/most islam from my experiences in iraq - religion is their politics. If we candy coat the facts for the sake of PC then I think we all agree that's unsat.
My $.02 anyhow. But then again, what do I know, I'm just a dumb field grade w/too big of a mouth to ever make O6.
#13
Alow me to make an assumption: at the war college you get field experience and exercises (how to kill the enemy) AND you get classroom work...call it "background" and learning the ideology of the enemy. If you don't you should. Mikey got a problem with that? If you do you're not officer material.
Yes, Army officers should know about Islam insofar as it effects the culture they'll be operating in. Which is pretty dramatic.
The main points here are 1) that the War College has a core competency, the same as everything else and 2)it's not the only place for officers to learn it. Nor is it necessarily the best place for them to learn it. A lot of those officers will be going to parts of the world where it can't be applied and there's plenty to teach without teaching the history and current state of religions. Many of these officers will spend their entire lives learning how to better fight wars, they can't possibly cover it all in a school. Again, there's plenty of ways for these officers to study Islam and any of them that want to be succesful in the ME will do exactly that. Also worth noting is that it's not just AWC grads that need to learn this stuff.
I'm gonna give you a pass just like I did 49 Pan and assume YOU fucking didn't read the article above because if you did AND you take issue with my comments that makes you a very fucking stupid and part of the problem. A problem we have had since 9-11 and will continue for the foreseeable future.
I read the article. I found it's conclusions to be overreaching, tenuous and circumstantial.
I say this and here I stand for I can do no other: The only gov't institution that might ever understand the enemy are those who fight the war. Do NOT allow the theory of the enemy to be taught by muslims. But it must be taught. And yes...those warriors need to be taught the theory of the enemy. Prof, Z (muzz) is not my choice. And that is not the choice of the author of the article.
Again, The main points here are 1) that the War College has a core competency, the same as everything else and 2)it's not the only place for officers to learn it.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/14/2009 21:35 Comments ||
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#14
MarkZ dear, come sit down next to me and have a nice cup of chamomile tea while we admire Broadhead6 doing whatever it is that Marines do when they aren't being better friends and worst enemies. I, too, look forward to 49 Pan's thoughts after he's had a chance to read the article and the comment thread at the link. After all, he has some small experience in that kind of thing, and it will be interesting to see which of those posters he agrees with. Come, I made enough chocolate chip cookies for everybody reading the thread, which should keep us busy for some time. :-)
I'll take your tea. Thank you, but will pass on the cookies.
I will not suffer fools lightly. Stakes are too high. I watch the news each day and see Israel getting hammered by the world unjustly. I am not amused. When our leaders learn to express the threat in no uncertain terms I will feel better. I will not be told by anybody that our military is too fucking busy with other matters to learn the depth of depravity of the enemy or the strategy and ideology of the enemy. I have children and many more nieces and nephews, none of whom I could advise in good conscience to move from these shores to a place where they cannot arm themselves. I understand the nature of the threat. When A LOT more people do, as well, then maybe I will garner a sense of contentment. Until then....I guess ...well...I'd like one lump of sugar.
#17
Ok, so I read the article. My bad for not reading it but by going off the summery, a junior analyst mistake, my apologies. However, with that my comments still stand. The war college is a place where we need to focus our leaders on their strategic capabilities. We MUST teach them doctrine; expose them to the rest of the Army’s Doctrine, and to the other services. COIN is a doctrinal term that Rumsfeld did not get and in my opinion why we are where we are in this war. We stopped teaching COIN and FID in our colleges. Lip service to an old Viet-Nam day. Hell the FID manual was dated 1969 and out of print in 2000. Both disciplines were long lost in our conventional schools and in our conventional branches. Petraeus did not “just get it.” He has a SOF background and understands COIN in depth. The key leaders before him did not. They studied Marx and communism in the colleges and fought air land battles in college, all waiting to fight the big one against the red army. At CGSC, they would fight the air land doctrine in third world countries templating tank brigades in the jungles. Jungles I later performed advisor work in, and chuckled every time I thought about M1 Abrams in rice paddies.
This whole crap about the muzzie instructor is silly and it must be a great class to attend. All the officers there have combat experience. Most have killed or lost soldiers in combat. Do not think for a minute that any of the Army officers are buying into the propaganda as doctrine. They probably study him in an effort to help counter the arguments in the field, at least thatÂ’s what I would do. The best instructor is not some US officer, but get a fire breathing enemy in the class and listen to what he says and how he says it. That is where true learning will take place.
Yes, we as a nation have been at war with the Arab world since time began, as a Christian culture since the time of Christ. The comment about our next enemy seems to me a bit short sighted. The South American countries are falling like dominos. Some to Drug cartels others to drug supported dictators. It used to be a couple countries, now most are infected and falling. Mexico is placing troop near the US border to help fight the drug war. It is here on our border and the Peru and El Salvador drug gangs are here in the US. They are soldiers for a cause and are better organized, funded and armed than the countries they operate in, Mexico and the US included. Point is, their soldiers are operating in our countries at numbers that make AQ look small. FID and COIN is how we can defeat this, it is the tactic and process that will win here, and in my dumbass opinion, this is one major battlefield we need to engage in right now! So, Ya, damn straight we need to be looking to the next war. We are allowing South America to fester like we allowed Afghanistan to fester in the late eighties. When it happens we need commanders taught in principles that can affect countries without having to send in the B52s.
Our war colleges are not perfect institutions. They do produce the finest senior officers that have ever walked a battlefield on the face of this earth. I would think they have a clue as to what they are doing there and Mr. Mark Perry needs to stand back and look at the intent before running off believing we are folding to hug the radical muzzies.
Again, Mea Culpa for reading the source document first.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/14/2009 22:53 Comments ||
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#18
I'm going to back Mike N. here. I didn't go to a War College, so what I know is based on my experience.
The outrage that Sherifa Zuhur's paper is "endorsed by the Army War College" when it published her defense of Hamas is farcial, wrong, and misplaced.
One, it reinforces the notion that military officers are incapable of reading something and independently deciding its merits and deficiencies. We ain't toy soldiers.
Two, the idea that one can get an understanding of one's enemies strictly by absorbing only a viewpoint that takes a 'normal' adversarial stance, is dangerous and historically proven to be fatal.
Three, part of the objective of what any advanced leadership training is to get the leader to think, in addition to educating them them on the levels of tactics, weaponry, logistics, etc that they will use at their future commands.
I'll cite an example and leave it at that.
Part of my "Middle East familiarization" involved just having normal conversations with everyone from Egyptian engineering students, to taxi-drivers, to Saudi naval officers and sailors, to Israeli and Iranian businessmen, to Kuwaiti refugees, to Iraqi EPWs. They knew I was American; some knew I was a naval officer.
Many of the conversations were unpleasant, I got the full Arab-version of how Israel was founded, to all the usual Elders-of-Zion rote, to how they were misunderstood, to how Islam was superior. Maybe 80-90% was dross, but I also got a pretty good idea of what would work and not work in 'selling' something, whether a concept or proposal, or getting the individual to 'grant a favor'.
I'm not saying I got a clear insight. I did, however, realize that if one was to deal with a current or potential enemy, one had to approach them from all angles, even the unpalatable ones.
#19
OPN WORLD MIL FORUM > AUSTRALIAN MEDIAS: US CONGRESSIONAL RESEWARCH OFFICE REPORT - CHINA WILL HAVE 3000-KM ANTI-CARRIER LR BALLISTIC MISSLES. ASIA-PACIFIC REGION IS NOW THE US MOST IMPORTANT STRATEGIC REGION [China = PLA desire to strike USN CBG's long before can get close to Taiwan].
versus
WMF > RUSSIAN MEDIAS: US, WORLD WILL BE HARD-PRESSED TO STOP CHINA'S NAVY [world-class = all-capable] IN 2050.
BY YEAR 2020, CHINA = PLAN/PLA will be able to support NAV-/MILOPS as per SECOND ISLAND CHAIN OF CHIN BASES = BASE/VISITATION RIGHT + CHINA's GEOPOL INTERESTS. CHINA's ASIA-PACIFIC
"ACTIVE DEFENSE" ANTI-US NAVAL, OTHER STRATEGY.
* FYI, ARTICLE > SECOND-ISLAND CHAIN = KURILES, HOKKAIDO, NANPO, NORTHERN MARIANAS [read, MICRONESIA-CENTPAC], NEW GUINEA [PNG?], PHLIPPINES + INDONESIAN + JAPANESE WATERS.
Can also add HAINAN, possibly CAM RANH BAY = VIETNAM, Spratleys + other disputed CHINA SEA islets [versus SOKOR-JAPAN], STRAITS OF MALACCAS.
* ALso on WORLD MILITARY FORUM > CHINESE ANTI-PIRACY FLEET PASSAGE INTO THE INDIAN OCEAN SHOWS THE INDIAN OCEAN DOES NOT BELONG SOLELY TO INDIA, + CHINA'S PLA, PLAN MUST PROTECT THE INDIAN OCEAN AS OVER HALF OF CHINA'S INTERNATIONAL TRADE TRAVELS/COMES THRU THE REGION.
* SAME > NEW YEAR 2009 AND BEYOND: CHINA AND EURASIA LIKELY TO FACE MORE SERIOUS MILITARY STRUGGLES WITH MILITANCIES/ISLAMISTS ALONG IRAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND PAKISTAN NEXUS.
#20
Pappy, Mike and 49Pan, thanks for your thoughts on this. I'm marking this as a classic and am carrying the article over another day in the Burg.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/14/2009 23:53 Comments ||
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#21
Thank you, gentlemen. Cookies all around, and Mike N. is buying drinks in the O Club for anyone who would care to join us.
MarkZ, I quite agree with your passion and your concern. There is too much at stake to allow getting this one wrong, and so much of what what can be seen in the sources we civilians have access to gives me nightmares as I watch the trailing daughters, formerly temporary daughter and their friends and relations reach out to take the baton from us.
First: although I understand the sentiment, 49Pan, the job is not to kill the enemy, it is to achieve Victory - defeating the enemy in the process, achieving dominance over the enemy, and destroying his will to resist. Most of the time it involves killing him in large numbers and/or demolishing his infrastructure and in the process destroying the credibility of his philosophy (c.f. Nazi Aryanism, Divine Emperor of Japan, "inevitability" of Communism, etc).
But, increasingly, there are other times where you use other methods to eliminate the enemy by destruction of the will or conversion or a mixture of those and directed violence. For example, look at the change in tactics in Iraq that came along with the surge -- by staying engaged with the locals, we defeated the enemy by turning the population against him which helped win the intelligence battle. Winning that intel battle led to killing the enemy in larger numbers (instead of the other way around).
THAT is why we have these sorts of things in places like the War College, or the Naval Post Graduate School.
That is the basis for Victory. In Iraq we are developing a sustained peace and the exclusion of the area to the enemy and its inclusion as an ally. THAT is what we hope for in a best case: defeating an enemy so completely that they become an ally.
Furthermore, this is an important subject for flag rank -- they must have a grasp of it to have a proper context for command decisions. They need the full matrix, and leaving parts of it blank is detrimental. So exposure to a wide variety of academic approaches, in addition to the best military learning mode (combat experience), is needed.
Additionally as noted, intelligence preparation of the battlefield is very important, and the Islamist nature of the opponent needs to be known and factored into possible and probable enemy actions. This is even more important for the more radical forms that we are seeing as opponents in the fields. In general, we are not fighting Sufis, we are fighting Wahabbists, Salafists and other Islamacists radicals. Their thought processes are generally alien to Westerners. As said elsewhere, many of the actions taken by the worst of their lot would be viewed as signs of severe mental illness here in the west if we had no other context.
Now my personal experience dating as far back as DLI and NPG in Monterey and duty in various AOs:
First off, having a paper like this published and defending the person publishing it is fine by me. We need an unfettered presentation from the side of the enemy, be it real or an assumed pose. Its helpful seeing what "flavor of BS" the enemy actually believes. I found that to be handy back in the day.
As Pappy cites above, Arabs in general, and especially those that are in the middle east near Israel, "know" a ton of things that simply are not so -- yet that's a fundamental part of their culture and thus colors their decision process. So this provides a great example of that particular "flavor of crazy", and helps the students learn to deal with it, and analysts learn how to anticipate decisions made from that viewpoint.
Also, speaking as a former enlisted (and later, civilian ) member of the Intelligence Community, we usually know when we are being zoomed, even in school. Its part of the (healthy skeptic) mindset you need in the IC. It is part of the job description to peek behind the scenes, to assume you are being lied to (sometimes by people who believe their own lies), and that omissions are happening -- and so you dig, learn more, and get the full picture. To use a movie quote: Improvise, adapt, overcome.
Finally, give these officers some credit. These are a select bunch and headed for flag rank; command positions. They are not generally credulous "blanket folders" when you get up to that level; they tend to be combat arms professionals (and the occaisional intel weenie or logistics/medic) who have commanded troops under fire and seen combat. Give them some credit for knowing horse-pucky when they see it.
And most of all, do not assume that because this instructor does not allow certain dicsussions in the classroom, that such discussions do not go ahead anyway outside the classroom. We are Americans, after all. We go outside the box.
Based on what I have seen on field trips, I am not so concerned with things in the middle east and SW Asia as I once was. Yes that's stil lthe largest direct threat. But like others, I am now becoming concernce with those things in Central America and Mexico. Unlike the other AO, we have these guys at the border, and any serious mess there will cause huge repercussions from refugees to violence here in the US.
As noted above, we are already seeing things of that sort with tinpot dictators liek Chavez and narco-gangs in border areas in Mexico, and in the inner cities with gangs like MS-13.
So not only do we need to train to fight the Arab/Islamist enemy, but we also need to tend to the enemy at the gates on our southern border and already within our cities. Add to that the Chinese as well, who seem to be very active in oil producing areas, but about whom nobody seems willing to talk.
The key in any situation, as always, is to go early, with the right fulcrum, and the longest lever we can get. That lever length is mainly time. The fulcrums is technology, talent and training -- spending our treasure. The force is applied by our military; spending it means spending their blood.
The more time we have and use well, and the more treasure and talent we apply, the less blood (theirs and ours) we will need to spend to achieve victory.
The problem now is that the dominant thoughts in DC are those of Foggy Bottom and Turtle Bay: international jaw-jaw can solve the problems without a credible force to back them up. They are wasting the one thing we cannot manufacture: time. So the bill will come due and be paid in treasure and blood.
We will again pay a grievous price for deluding ourselves into thinking that talking about things makes them so.
Remember Churchill:
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. -- Winston Churchill
#24
Alow me to make an assumption: at the war college you get field experience and exercises (how to kill the enemy) AND you get classroom work...call it "background" and learning the ideology of the enemy.
Your assumption is wrong, and displays a deep misunderstanding of the purpose of the War College as opposed to other training venues.
49Pan is correct on this, Mark Z, and has the professional background to speak knowledgeably on the subject.
Your concern that we not sell out by default is absolutely spot on. But your assumptions suggest you don't understand where the War College(s) fit into the overall process of officer training and development.
#25
Silly Pan, wearing your BDUs to a peace rally?
OS, the point of war, hot or cold, is to introduce economic instability as Regan did well with the USSR which is now a bunch of pauper states. That is accomplished by draining resources required to sustain cultural growth. The US has not yet recovered.
When there is a level playing field, i.e. battles across common cultural boundaries, a balance is struck. When cultures conflict there can be no balance. One player must destroy the other for an end to the conflict, and pour salt on the ground to prevent it's reoccurance. It is about killing, AND destroying the supportive infrastructure that allowed it to happen. Postwar Japan vs. SE Asia vs. Indonesia for examples of a success and failures.
Strategy at the War College is about the study of founding, guiding principles of 'government'/regional power so one might craft more clever strategies for their destruction. A component of the training is rolling this into patterns of KILLING. The most economically efficient (resources, bodies, effort) methods of decimation at hand. We don't care why, that gives too much credit to their cause. We do care that the outcome of any conflict has a high them:us ratio.
Up against a SW Asia culture where death is a reward this strategy is challenged and may not succeed. There is not an economy/enemy to crush.
Gaza will be an interesting study. Turn off their power, water, egress, then roll in and crush them.
It didn't work for Napoleon at Moscow, it did work at Massada, for a couple of centuries.
The COIN strategy creates a freestanding, allied, mercenary army of elitist capitalists, dependent on agency outside of the native economy and culture to flower. It introduces cash flow and an alternative commerce (standing governments get no taxes from blackmarket sales) subsidized by external forces, us. At some point of critical mass the external reinforcement is withdrawn and new fledgling economic clusters are thrown out of the nest to survive on their own, or be crushed individually, by their neighbors.
The Apaches didn't have much of an economy to crush either. Took us a while, but unlike the Spanish and Mexicans who dealt with them before, we were able to impose our will. Part of which was to make their behaviors both extremely difficult to continue, expensive in their manpower resources to execute and to coop other Apaches to work with us.
It didn't work for Napoleon at Moscow..
Maybe because Moscow was not the administrative capital of Russia, which was St. Petersburg at the time. Certainly, not the center of gravity of the opponent.
it did work at Massada
Massada was a side show mop up operation that was done for show after the destruction of Jerusalem which fundamentally crushed the revolt against the power of Rome.
#28
Skid! How you doin?? Hope Texas is treating you well. Not to rub salt into your wounds, but I rode to work today, and yesterday. Sure miss those drunken discussions, be safe.
This thread is a classic. Most don't understand COIN or FID. There is plenty of room in there for overwealming force, and when used properly will have much greater effect than rolling in with the big guns. I completely agree the only way to contain or control the Wahabi's is extreem and decisive violence. It's all they understand or all they will respect. The rest can be managed by helping to build infrastructure and surgical, violent strikes against the insurgent forces. Reward peace, bring violence at the personal level to those that disrupt it.
LOTP posted a summery of the cartels in Mexico a few months back. Absolutely the most frightening thing I have read. We can control the Islam world, with will and firepower. What is growing south of our border and in our hispanic communities is a far greater threat, as I see it. Islam is like a fist fight, ya get hit, ya beat them down and they go away for a while. The cartel issue is more like cancer and right now it is going unchecked. Now that the sums of money have gotten as large as they have, organization and order will take over. The cartels will continue to get better organized, efficient, and spread and control newer areas. We have a huge insurgency here in the US, a wall won't fix it. It might help, but wont cure it. We need to coordinate our elements of power, to include military and do for Mexico what they can not seem to do for themselves.
As far as BDU's to a peace rally, sounds fun!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/15/2009 10:05 Comments ||
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#29
As far as BDU's to a peace rally, sounds fun!
Might as well put them to some good use after shelling out for the ACUs that replaced them. LOL
#34
I've tried to stay out of this food fight but my only comment is to remind all that the Army War College is the equivalent of an Executive Leadership curriculum program "after" you have earned your MBA and have significant middle-management experience. It is strategic thinking at the senior officer level. I cannot remember anything regarding tactics or as someone posted "killing the enemy". [I taught there didn't go there]. It basically teaches Military Management and Leadership to LC's and above - there are lesser grades but under extraordinary conditions. There is a lot of abstract work and thinking - I only wish it was more Petraeus like but it isn't. It is also contrarian and the brass want the rising officer's to challenge conventional wisdom (as long as it doesn't blame the brass above them and continues to philosophize on increased funding). A lot of controversial papers, publications, lectures and such have come out of Carlisle and this is just par for the course but enough to get some dander up that normally passes for instructional thinking. Its bad but not as bad as you think. Does everyone here believe the student body at Carlisle is as naive and stupid as say the one at Berkeley?
Posted by: Jack is Back ||
01/15/2009 13:29 Comments ||
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#35
Good reinforcing background Pee2k.
I don't remember the drunken ones Pan.
#39
Does everyone here believe the student body at Carlisle is as naive and stupid as say the one at Berkeley?
Not at all. But I wonder exactly what lessons they are learning from this episode. Lessons about where their political leaders heads are, how they talk to them and what they talk about. Bottom line, the civilians seem to be living in a PC Fantasyland.
No one is allowed to tell the truth about the enemy in public. It's some dirty little secret only those who can figure out have to discuss surreptitiously. That is not good for a democracy when it finally has to reconcile to some tough decisions, about the ME or Mex.
#40
My 2 cents worth. We, in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, did not need to hear personally what Mugabe had to say, it was very clear that we could predict the future if he won. Maybe the emphasis of COIN these days should be looking at the damage that the 5th column inflicts, negating and losing the objective, ie, winning against third world barbarians and asstards, in a vote winning PC multi-culti swamp-fest for personal gain.
Sorry, but, if Bob stood in a room and told me his rhetoric for acting the way he does, my blood would boil. Same goes for the shoe-throwers, I know exactly why, and there's only a couple of words I need to to know that I don't want anything to do with the f*ks, "caliphate" and "sharia".
However, I do agree that one should do as Pappy has and go cloak and dagger to learn the traits of their deceit, we had guys called the Selous Scouts. Didn't help much when the West sold us out for PC values, though. And, speaking of gangs, who would infiltrate, only to be let down as per the above?
Our officers certainly did not need indoctrination by the enemy, they were only let down by politicians.
#41
rhodesiafever, you are right to point to the political leaders rather than the military. It is the national leadership that determine strategic priorities. It is the military's duty to implement those, and to give input into their creation.
Officers attend the Army's war college when they show promise towards being promoted from O-5 (Lt. Col.) to O-6 (full colonel) and beyond. Jack is Back can describe the curriculum there first hand. I'll just add that it is intended to provide senior field grade officers a venue for learning how to lead strategically, i.e. at the national security or theater level.
The point is not to give intimate knowledge of one current enemy. It is to give officers the tools to utilize our capabilities effectively against ANY threat that develops.
It is not a place to train on equipment or practice tactics and maneuvers. A good portion of the time there is spent in seminar style discussions, often lead by the attendees themselves. I like the Executive MBA analogy: the incoming officers are used to operating a business but need broadening to think analytically about business issues and to be able to discern when/how to change business strategy and focus.
Militant Islam is a serious threat to a West that has by and large lost its convictions and identity. It is not, unfortunately, the only threat we face. Agreed that the PC "Islam = peace" mantra is hypnotically self-deluding. But it's equally a mistake to concentrate only on that threat to the exclusion of others that are corrosive from within our country itself.
Keep in mind too that Carlisle Barracks is the *Army's* war college but not the *only* war college for US officers. The National War College and the National Defense University have a broader mission than Carlisle and tend to be a bit more focused on large strategic issues.
[Analysis/Opinion From Haaretz Correspondants]
The war in Gaza isn't over yet. The final days of the Second Lebanon War show that it's best to be wary of agreements that come too early. But the way things looked on Wednesday, Hamas seems to be willing to accept the Egyptian initiative, which is almost a kind of surrender agreement for it.
The Egyptian proposal is mostly bad for Hamas. It doesn't let the organization bring the Palestinian public any political achievement that would justify the blood that has been spilled, and even forces on it the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, in the form of its renewed presence at the Rafah crossing (as a condition for its reopening).
Once the cease-fire is reached, the IDF will withdraw from the positions it captured in Gaza, and only then will the two sides begin to discuss the opening of border crossings and removal of the blockade, which was the reason Hamas gave for waging war. The most that Cairo is offering is a timetable for the opening of the crossing points, and even that depends on negotiations due to begin after the cease-fire is reached, and it's tough to know how or when they will end.
#2
The problem is they accepted it "with modifications." Modifications that completely rewrite the Egyptian initiative.
Hamas may need an extra bombing offensive to get a clearer understanding of their situation.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
01/15/2009 11:33 Comments ||
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#3
There hasn't been enough Hamas gunmen killed for the Palestinian Authority to take over in Gaza. Control over the Rafah crossing will be window dressing.
#3
I got curious about this unlikely juxaposition of Nowegians and communist child molesters and did an on-line search. The only reference was on Wikipedia and it said"
"This wiki is currently inactive. Please help to revive or relaunch it!
If you need help with starting or improving this wiki, you are welcome to post questions on the Wikia forums or contact a member of the Community Team."
Any thoughts for how it could be improved... not involving flammables and/or explosives?
Posted by: T-Rex, etc. ||
01/15/2009 14:20 Comments ||
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#4
Here is what Mads Gilbert said, in the wake of the 9/11 atrocities, to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet :
"The attack on New York did not come as a surprise with the politics the West has followed the last decades. I am upset by the terrorist attack, but I am at least as upset over the suffering that the US has caused. It is in this context that 5000 dead has to be seen. If the U.S. government has a legitimate right to bomb and kill civilians in Iraq, the oppressed has a moral right to attack the U.S. with the weapons they may create as well. Dead civilians are the same whether they are Americans, Palestinians or Iraqis".
When asked if he supported a terrorist attack against the US he answered:
"Terror is a poor weapon, but my answer is yes, within the context I have mentioned."
#1
I will never forget my first class in Econometrics in grad school when the professor introduced himself as a highly educated, trained and experienced economist "whose guess is as good as yours"!
Posted by: Jack is Back ||
01/15/2009 13:13 Comments ||
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#2
Obviously, it doesn't qualify as a predictable science outside of SWAG, no matter how much math they throw at it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
