The Geek just returned from a regular trip to the land of the occupationally paranoid. Well, to err on the side of accuracy, he didn't actually visit the place, simply read an industry travelogue. You can check it out yourself, http://hstoday.us/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=26.
Even this sort of exposure to the weird land of the vocationally fruitcake is enough to cause the Geek's knees to go weak, his stomach to churn and his flight/fight response go into overload. Then, he slaps his face and shouts to the canyon outside, "Get a grip!"
The reality is simple. In Year Seven of the Age of the Terrorist, we are not neck deep in anthrax. We are not dodging buildings brought down by bombs. We are not wearing Geiger counters as the latest fashion statement (and protection against the aftermath of a "dirty bomb.")
As Year Seven of the Age of the Terrorist comes near its end, shopping malls are not disappearing in clouds of debris. School buses are not being hijacked by Hamas. Aircraft are threatened only by bankruptcy courts.
What gives???
Is all this quiet the result of the fearless and effective efforts of Secretary Chertoff and the dedicated "warriors on the home front" of the Department of Homeland Security?
Or is it something simpler (and far cheaper)?
Such as reality. A reality that will not be found in the plethora of writing by counter terrorist "experts." The reality that the vast majority of wannabe terrorist, both foreign origin and "home grown" are inept even flat out stupid.
Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh. Yes, with the minimal assistance of Terry Nichols, the failed applicant for the Army Special Forces who lacked any specific training in improvised munitions was able to construct a large ammonium nitrate and diesel oil truck bomb and detonate it with a stolen fuse. The explosion did kill a large number of people in the Oklahoma City Federal Building.
But what happened next? The bomber got caught. Easily. Quickly. Why? Because, the ever-so-clever dude had taken the license plate off his pre-stashed get away car and had forgotten to replace it. That was like hanging a sign on the car saying, "Arrest me!" And, he was.
Or take a quick look back at the first attack on the World Trade Center. Yes, the VBIED went off in the garage. It killed a few. Injured a lot. Put a bloody big crater in the parking deck.
And then?
The master terrorists went back to the Ryder truck rental agency to reclaim their deposit. That was all it took to hook names with the VIN recovered from the truck's axle and other parts by the forensic technicians. The rest, as they say. is history.
Not enough proof?
The plotters and executors of the 7/07 attacks on the London transit system made bombs that went off. Bombs that maimed and killed. Then, two weeks later another attack was attempted. It had been in the planning and development stage since long before the 7/07 strike.
The boys (and, in an appropriately supporting roll, girls) went after the same target constellation, the London transit system. This time results were different. The bombs didn't explode. The detonating compound was too weak according to British experts.
Everyone went to jail. Most for a very long time.
Let's face it: it's easy to dream of being a world class terrorist. It's easy to make plans, to have ideas. It's darn tough to turn the ideas, the plans into reality.
Even the big league heavies of al-Qaeda have their problems. Just recall the little accident in a Manila apartment that ended the grand design of ten or more American airliners exploding over the Pacific.
The Geek could go on. He could look at the Liberty City Seven and all the others like that motley assembly including the Fort Dix gang but his fingers are getting tired.
The point of the exercise is simply that there are very few individuals who can, like Mohammad Atta, work effectively at the tactical level of terrorism. There are very few people with the right mix of skills, tradecraft and personality who can assemble a team, keep the team members focused on the mission and lead the mission personally.
Without the rare Mohammad Atta, Osama bin Ladin and his lieutenants are operational nullities. Without a Mohammad Atta, wannabe terrorists are far more likely to be a danger to themselves than to the rest of us.
A danger to themselves? You ask.
Yes. The record shows clearly that absent effective leadership such as that provided by Atta, groups planning an act of terror talk too much, too indiscriminately so that any half awake security or intelligence organisation will get the word fast and accurate. Experience over the past half century at the least show that terror oriented cells whether foreign origin or domestic lack necessary tradecraft--or even the mindset of good career criminals. It shows a consistent pattern of almost wilful exposure of that which should never be exposed to the outsider.
They are a danger to themselves because they set themselves up to be busted. Pure stupidity plus an overabundance of ego kills them figuratively, if not literally.
Of course they kill themselves literally. Making bombs is dangerous. Ask the bloody body parts strewn across the front yards of several Washington officials back in 1919. Or the fragments of the bomb making Weathermen in Greenwich Village in '69.
The Geek agrees that terror directed against the US is a real threat. But it is a threat that can be and has been managed effectively by the old standards of the American intelligence and law enforcement communities from CIA and NSA through the FBI to exemplar police forces such as the NYPD.
If Chertoff and his monstrous legion would focus on securing the border, protecting the gaps in our ports and provide some real as opposed to simply annoying and expensive aircraft security, our actual security at home would increase geometrically at least.
Better yet, Congress should simply redefine the DHS as the Department of border, airline and port security. It would also be a good idea for Congress to take away the porkish grants and awards that DHS has strewn across the landscape without consideration of real threats and genuine risks--to say nothing of actual terrorist capabilities.
It would also be a very good idea if the more monstrous brigade of terrorism "experts" took a good large dose of their favorite trank and went to sleep for a few months. The world would be much better off without their constant nattering.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
And We Keep Goin' Round And Round, Again And Again
Does anyone really, the Geek means really, rationally think that the Iranians are either: (a) not working on nuclear weapons, or (b) are willing to negotiate an end to the current impasse?
If anyone has so concluded after sober analysis of all the relevant factors, they are in desperate need of getting a grip on the unpleasant beast called reality.
The Iranian regime has been convinced that only the possession of a demonstrable nuclear capacity will both provide a high measure of security against a future existential threat equalling or surpassing that presented by Iraq during the war of the Eighties and give Tehran necessary diplomatic leverage in its desire to be a global player on behalf of militant Islam.
While the options of chemical and biological weapons have been pursued since at least the mid-Eighties, neither of these has the pure appeal of a nuclear capability. The mullahocracy would have been convinced of this by the example of Pakistan. Pakistan without nuclear weapons would have been a relatively negligible factor in global politics.
With nuclear weapons Pakistan has been taken seriously by the United States and other major powers. The proof of this contention is no further away than a glance at the military aid provided by the US to Pakistan under the rubric of mutual counter-terrorism interest. By any other name a bribe remains a bribe.
The Iranian rulership must have made the collective conclusion that if it had a demonstrated nuclear capacity including delivery systems as well as payloads, it could speak quite loudly in the councils of the Muslim states. Louder than Pakistan has because, unlike Pakistan, Iran possesses an ongoing religious revolutionary fervor.
Without nuclear weapons Iran might not be a negligible quantity given its capacity and will to support groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, but it would be covered with the metaphorical fleas from these canine bedmates. In short, by simply sponsoring groups with a known will and ability to use terror tactics, Iran would become a larger and more obnoxious form of Taliban dominated Afghanistan begging to be the object of regime change.
With nuclear systems Iran has a chance of effectively deterring any future Israeli action. The loud shouts from Tehran cover the sound of knees that quake and shake when contemplating the potential of an Israeli air strike either with or without US direct support.
At the very least a nuclear capacity makes Iran a regional power, safe from immediate Israeli (or any other country's) attack. Without the nuke at the hip, Iran could become one more has-been revolutionary power.
Beyond those considerations, take a dekko at the vast political capital the mullahocracy has staked on keeping their uranium enrichment program going. In a very real sense the enrichment activity along with its collaterals have become the bedrock of the government's claim to legitimacy as well as the primary source of national identity.
What government would be willing to toss aside both sets of considerations--future power and present existence-for a mess of diplomatic pottage?
The second guess doesn't count.
Now think about the essential nature of negotiations.
Negotiations work when both sides conclude that the probable results of such talks will be less-worse than the probable results of not talking. That necessary requirement is joined by some others including a willingness to compromise and the ability to bargain in good faith without reserving some demands as "non-negotiable."
To add some punch to these fundamentals, it is useful to recall that no substantial negotiations were possible between the European powers in the late summer of 1939 because one country's government--Germany--had no desire for them, no belief that the probable outcome of not negotiating--war--would be worse than the probable outcome of talking.
The only difference between Iran today and Germany sixty-nine years ago is that Iran sees a great virtue in talking. That's talking. Not negotiations. Tehran isn't at all interested in good faith bargaining leading to a compromise conclusion.
Tehran is interested in one thing and one thing only.
Tehran is interested, highly interested in buying time. Time is the most precious commodity imaginable in the collective minds of the mullahocracy.
Tehran believes, perhaps quite accurately, that time is on their side. The mullahs and their talking-heads in government don't even need much time. A few months, say nine or so, will be enough.
The Iranians have put their money on a bet which, from the perspective of recent history, seems a sure winner. The mullahocracy is wagering that We the American People are so totally sick of war after the long uphill slog in Iraq and the still ambiguous yomp in Afghanistan that there is zero political will for another armed adventure even one without a ground intervention.
The mullahs are also betting that the Democratic Party, the loudly anti-war party, will gain power in November not only winning the Presidency but overwhelming control of Congress. This victory would make Iran more secure in pursuit of its nuclear and other agendas.
The European Union is not a factor in the current Iranian thinking as the assorted countries of the EU have already shown themselves to be quite accommodating of Iranian needs regardless of words and sanctions. Germany, Italy and France have been important and on-going sources of assistance to the badly overstretched and sanction-weakened Iranian economy.
Tehran knows it has a pair of powerful albeit commitment limited supporters in Russia and the Peoples Republic of China. While the Russians can blow either for or against Iran depending on their own national interests, China needs oil. And, the PRC will take risks to assure a full flow of it since so much rides on the availability of plentiful, cheap energy in that country.
Given that the current US administration has gone above and beyond the bounds of rationality in treating Russia as a-less-than--great power, it will take the next administration serious effort to wean Moscow from its current less-than-fully-cooperative global stance.
It's not as if Tehran is hiding its strategy. Consider how the Iranian state-controlled press have praised the Russians for any (presumed) plan to base nuclear capable bombers in Latin America. Consider how mildly the same press criticised Senator Obama for his pledge of unqualified support for Israel. Consider how the Iranian noise machine responds to every presumed "threat" emanating from Washington.
Of course the Mighty Wurlitzer of Tehran plays primarily for the benefit of the Iranian people. It gives those folks, laboring under very high inflation, rolling blackouts, shortages and deferred paychecks a focus for their discontent. It gives a sizable percentage of the public, the young, the alienated, the zealous, an object to hate.
Tehran is playing the same tune and even the same lyrics as did Baghdad during the long years of sanctions following the Gulf War. With more success.
Talk, talk and more talk. The refrain for the outside world is tedious and mendacious. The Iranians blew off the last P5+1 offer. Even after the current administration unbent enough to send a high level representative to the talks last weekend.
The two page officially unofficial response to the P5+1 proposal filled with misspellings and very ambiguous wording calls for more talks with Javier Solana to be followed by a series of meetings at the ForMin level. As the Geek looks at the calender, the proposed conflabs would eat up the rest of this year.
Importantly, in quite unambiguous language, the Iranian side ruled out of consideration any subject upon which the parties disagreed as such might stall the conversations.
Let's see. We all can talk about whatever is so unimportant that we won't really, really disagree. That doesn't leave much room for negotiation, does it?
But as long as the talk goes on, the Iranians reckon, there is no possibility of attack. Their position is based upon the Western faith in talking solves problems and talking is better than shooting.
The Geek agrees. Talking is better than shooting. Talking between nations is better than bombing. But--and this is the big but--saving the present is not worth risking the future.
The Iranians are, in essence, of the view that the West, particularly the US, is so deeply, so desperately, so totally involved in the present that none give thought to the future.
Maybe that's true. The Geek remembers the dictum of the Foreign Minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years just before the outbreak of World War I. Alois Aehrenthal said, "My policy is for the present. Let the future take care of itself."
Words to remember. More words to die by.
If anyone has so concluded after sober analysis of all the relevant factors, they are in desperate need of getting a grip on the unpleasant beast called reality.
The Iranian regime has been convinced that only the possession of a demonstrable nuclear capacity will both provide a high measure of security against a future existential threat equalling or surpassing that presented by Iraq during the war of the Eighties and give Tehran necessary diplomatic leverage in its desire to be a global player on behalf of militant Islam.
While the options of chemical and biological weapons have been pursued since at least the mid-Eighties, neither of these has the pure appeal of a nuclear capability. The mullahocracy would have been convinced of this by the example of Pakistan. Pakistan without nuclear weapons would have been a relatively negligible factor in global politics.
With nuclear weapons Pakistan has been taken seriously by the United States and other major powers. The proof of this contention is no further away than a glance at the military aid provided by the US to Pakistan under the rubric of mutual counter-terrorism interest. By any other name a bribe remains a bribe.
The Iranian rulership must have made the collective conclusion that if it had a demonstrated nuclear capacity including delivery systems as well as payloads, it could speak quite loudly in the councils of the Muslim states. Louder than Pakistan has because, unlike Pakistan, Iran possesses an ongoing religious revolutionary fervor.
Without nuclear weapons Iran might not be a negligible quantity given its capacity and will to support groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, but it would be covered with the metaphorical fleas from these canine bedmates. In short, by simply sponsoring groups with a known will and ability to use terror tactics, Iran would become a larger and more obnoxious form of Taliban dominated Afghanistan begging to be the object of regime change.
With nuclear systems Iran has a chance of effectively deterring any future Israeli action. The loud shouts from Tehran cover the sound of knees that quake and shake when contemplating the potential of an Israeli air strike either with or without US direct support.
At the very least a nuclear capacity makes Iran a regional power, safe from immediate Israeli (or any other country's) attack. Without the nuke at the hip, Iran could become one more has-been revolutionary power.
Beyond those considerations, take a dekko at the vast political capital the mullahocracy has staked on keeping their uranium enrichment program going. In a very real sense the enrichment activity along with its collaterals have become the bedrock of the government's claim to legitimacy as well as the primary source of national identity.
What government would be willing to toss aside both sets of considerations--future power and present existence-for a mess of diplomatic pottage?
The second guess doesn't count.
Now think about the essential nature of negotiations.
Negotiations work when both sides conclude that the probable results of such talks will be less-worse than the probable results of not talking. That necessary requirement is joined by some others including a willingness to compromise and the ability to bargain in good faith without reserving some demands as "non-negotiable."
To add some punch to these fundamentals, it is useful to recall that no substantial negotiations were possible between the European powers in the late summer of 1939 because one country's government--Germany--had no desire for them, no belief that the probable outcome of not negotiating--war--would be worse than the probable outcome of talking.
The only difference between Iran today and Germany sixty-nine years ago is that Iran sees a great virtue in talking. That's talking. Not negotiations. Tehran isn't at all interested in good faith bargaining leading to a compromise conclusion.
Tehran is interested in one thing and one thing only.
Tehran is interested, highly interested in buying time. Time is the most precious commodity imaginable in the collective minds of the mullahocracy.
Tehran believes, perhaps quite accurately, that time is on their side. The mullahs and their talking-heads in government don't even need much time. A few months, say nine or so, will be enough.
The Iranians have put their money on a bet which, from the perspective of recent history, seems a sure winner. The mullahocracy is wagering that We the American People are so totally sick of war after the long uphill slog in Iraq and the still ambiguous yomp in Afghanistan that there is zero political will for another armed adventure even one without a ground intervention.
The mullahs are also betting that the Democratic Party, the loudly anti-war party, will gain power in November not only winning the Presidency but overwhelming control of Congress. This victory would make Iran more secure in pursuit of its nuclear and other agendas.
The European Union is not a factor in the current Iranian thinking as the assorted countries of the EU have already shown themselves to be quite accommodating of Iranian needs regardless of words and sanctions. Germany, Italy and France have been important and on-going sources of assistance to the badly overstretched and sanction-weakened Iranian economy.
Tehran knows it has a pair of powerful albeit commitment limited supporters in Russia and the Peoples Republic of China. While the Russians can blow either for or against Iran depending on their own national interests, China needs oil. And, the PRC will take risks to assure a full flow of it since so much rides on the availability of plentiful, cheap energy in that country.
Given that the current US administration has gone above and beyond the bounds of rationality in treating Russia as a-less-than--great power, it will take the next administration serious effort to wean Moscow from its current less-than-fully-cooperative global stance.
It's not as if Tehran is hiding its strategy. Consider how the Iranian state-controlled press have praised the Russians for any (presumed) plan to base nuclear capable bombers in Latin America. Consider how mildly the same press criticised Senator Obama for his pledge of unqualified support for Israel. Consider how the Iranian noise machine responds to every presumed "threat" emanating from Washington.
Of course the Mighty Wurlitzer of Tehran plays primarily for the benefit of the Iranian people. It gives those folks, laboring under very high inflation, rolling blackouts, shortages and deferred paychecks a focus for their discontent. It gives a sizable percentage of the public, the young, the alienated, the zealous, an object to hate.
Tehran is playing the same tune and even the same lyrics as did Baghdad during the long years of sanctions following the Gulf War. With more success.
Talk, talk and more talk. The refrain for the outside world is tedious and mendacious. The Iranians blew off the last P5+1 offer. Even after the current administration unbent enough to send a high level representative to the talks last weekend.
The two page officially unofficial response to the P5+1 proposal filled with misspellings and very ambiguous wording calls for more talks with Javier Solana to be followed by a series of meetings at the ForMin level. As the Geek looks at the calender, the proposed conflabs would eat up the rest of this year.
Importantly, in quite unambiguous language, the Iranian side ruled out of consideration any subject upon which the parties disagreed as such might stall the conversations.
Let's see. We all can talk about whatever is so unimportant that we won't really, really disagree. That doesn't leave much room for negotiation, does it?
But as long as the talk goes on, the Iranians reckon, there is no possibility of attack. Their position is based upon the Western faith in talking solves problems and talking is better than shooting.
The Geek agrees. Talking is better than shooting. Talking between nations is better than bombing. But--and this is the big but--saving the present is not worth risking the future.
The Iranians are, in essence, of the view that the West, particularly the US, is so deeply, so desperately, so totally involved in the present that none give thought to the future.
Maybe that's true. The Geek remembers the dictum of the Foreign Minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years just before the outbreak of World War I. Alois Aehrenthal said, "My policy is for the present. Let the future take care of itself."
Words to remember. More words to die by.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Interventions Really Suck!
The Geek has spent nearly his entire post-pubescent life either practicing or studying interventionary war. He's lectured on it. He's written on it. He's taught it. He's read it. And, he's fought it.
His conclusion?
Interventionary operations are a bad idea. Outside of a few, well delineated situations, military interventions are as bad a concept as tossing down a botulism cocktail.
Our two current adventures in intervention prove the case for the limited applicability of this mode of war. Even though the battlefield situation has improved in Iraq to the extent that one can say with a high level of confidence that there is little chance of the US not achieving the minimum necessary goal of not losing, there can be no justification for the intervention in the first place.
In Afghanistan where the potential for the US to lose the war on the ground still exists, the same conclusion of non-necessity is easily justified.
The original goal of the Afghanistan invasion was two fold: Topple Taliban. Capture or kill Osama bin Ladin and others of the al-Qaeda leadership cell.
Had the original goal been kept firmly in mind during the short duration planning phase leading up to the invasion, the intervention might have been both justifiable and successful. But, as is so often the case in interventions the phenomenon of mission creep was at work even before the first American Special Forces and Marine boots were on the ground.
One good reason for intervention is the ruthless pursuit of a narrowly defined national interest. In Afghanistan that narrow national interest was not only to kill or capture the al-Qaeda leadership cell, but to show governments who harbored killers of Americans that there would be severe negative consequences involved.
One of the worst, if not the worst, reason for intervention is epitomised by the statement of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson making reference to the landing of Marines in the Mexican city of Vera Cruz. "I shall teach the Mexicans to elect good men."
The siren song of Wilsonian morality played loud and clear in the ears of the current administration as they looked at Afghanistan. It would not be enough to seek the heads of Osama et al, or to topple enough Taliban occupied mudhuts. It would not be enough to kill a sufficient number of Taliban and al-Qaeda personnel quickly and cleanly so as to inflict condign punishment upon the organisations.
No.
The neocon reincarnations of the every-so-progressive Wilson (Doesn't the irony tickle your innards? It does the Geek's.) concluded that the US must mount a crusade for democracy, pluralism and equal rights in a society which had no historical experience with any and no seeming desire to enjoy the benefits of American style democracy and free enterprise.
This conflation of a realpolitik approach and the fantasy of implanting US approved institutions by force made damn sure that the intervention in Afghanistan would not only be endless miles of bad road but would ultimately come a cropper.
The confusion between fantasy and the legitimate ends of showing that support of outfits like al-Qaeda doesn't pay in the long run assured that our planning and execution of the endeavor were both fatally flawed.
The planning was flawed because it was impossible to focus on an achievable goal--neutralising al-Qaeda's leadership cell and slapping Taliban hard enough so that no hostile government could fail to catch the message. The demands of the Wilsonian mission creep combined with the political need for rapid action and the limitations on forces which could be readily and quickly employed assured we would have an incomplete success at best,
A very incomplete success as the last several years generally and the past eight months in particular have shown.
True, Taliban fell as a government. But that was all that happened. Taliban lived on as an evil incubus waiting to grow again battening on the blood and devotion of human shaped empty shells wanting to filled with the ecstatic brew of True Belief. So it has happened. Safe in the mountains of Pakistan's FATA and aided by factions within the Pakistani ISI and military, Taliban has grown in numbers and military competence.
And, of course, the US did not capture or kill Osama bin Ladin even though other key personnel of the leadership cell have been removed from the board by either death or capture over the past several years. Al-Qaeda did not die. If anything it grew.
Perhaps it did not grow in direct institutional size. It did grow in mythic power. It may not be a global terror machine as some "experts" would have us believe in the sense of exercising direct command and control over tactical actions. Al-Qaeda did increase greatly in its ability to seize the imagination and the commitment of empty shells of men seeking fulfillment and completion through Belief. More accurately, completion through action emerging from Belief.
Now the US has only two viable options, (The Geek considers an indefinite occupation of Afghanistan to be a viable course of action.) One option is simply to leave. The other is to deploy enough forces on the ground along with taking necessary actions into the sanctuaries of FATA to assure that we do not lose the shooting war.
Neither option is good. The first is disastrous. The short and long term effects of withdrawing might not be predictable in detail, but the general outline is dismal at best and catastrophic at worst.
The second option would allow the US to achieve, at best, a stalemate in the armed conflict which would allow retraction from the theater without necessarily horrible consequences. (Yes, this implies that even under the best circumstances, the outcome will be far worse than if the Wilsonian mission creep had been strictly eschewed.)
There was no justification for the Iraq operation. The Geek isn't even willing to put that war into the category of interventionary operation. Sure, there were anti-Saddam elements in country as well as Kurds who were quite happy to see American tanks on the ground and fighter-bombers overhead. Even more there were any number of expat groups eagerly pawing the ground in hopes that the US would do something.
None of these make the invasion an intervention. They make the invasion an invasion, an act of aggressive war thinly covered by UN Resolutions.
Later operations on the ground in Iraq were counterinsurgent, and counterinsurgency is a primary form of interventionary warfare. It should be noted that insurgency is the expectable consequence of an exercise in regime change. The fact that the US was not prepared either in its military or civilian plans either to preclude or to mitigate the possibility of insurgency shows that there was little, if any, realistic understanding of the nature and character of interventionary warfare.
Or, if there was some appreciation somewhere within the massive bureaucracies of the national security community (as the Geek knows there was), these were overridden by the winds of Wilsonian hallucinations in the heads of the neocons.
Interventions can work effectively. Interventions can be justified by both results and motives. The landing of the Marines in Lebanon in 1957 shows that as do some of the operations in the wreckage of the Wilsonian policy artifact once called Yugoslavia.
To work, to be justifiable, interventions must meet two criteria. The goal must be limited. The goal must be kept firmly in mind at all times of planning and execution by all hands at all levels from the White House to the grunts.
Most of all the Ghost of Wilson must be left in the crypt of bad ideas.
His conclusion?
Interventionary operations are a bad idea. Outside of a few, well delineated situations, military interventions are as bad a concept as tossing down a botulism cocktail.
Our two current adventures in intervention prove the case for the limited applicability of this mode of war. Even though the battlefield situation has improved in Iraq to the extent that one can say with a high level of confidence that there is little chance of the US not achieving the minimum necessary goal of not losing, there can be no justification for the intervention in the first place.
In Afghanistan where the potential for the US to lose the war on the ground still exists, the same conclusion of non-necessity is easily justified.
The original goal of the Afghanistan invasion was two fold: Topple Taliban. Capture or kill Osama bin Ladin and others of the al-Qaeda leadership cell.
Had the original goal been kept firmly in mind during the short duration planning phase leading up to the invasion, the intervention might have been both justifiable and successful. But, as is so often the case in interventions the phenomenon of mission creep was at work even before the first American Special Forces and Marine boots were on the ground.
One good reason for intervention is the ruthless pursuit of a narrowly defined national interest. In Afghanistan that narrow national interest was not only to kill or capture the al-Qaeda leadership cell, but to show governments who harbored killers of Americans that there would be severe negative consequences involved.
One of the worst, if not the worst, reason for intervention is epitomised by the statement of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson making reference to the landing of Marines in the Mexican city of Vera Cruz. "I shall teach the Mexicans to elect good men."
The siren song of Wilsonian morality played loud and clear in the ears of the current administration as they looked at Afghanistan. It would not be enough to seek the heads of Osama et al, or to topple enough Taliban occupied mudhuts. It would not be enough to kill a sufficient number of Taliban and al-Qaeda personnel quickly and cleanly so as to inflict condign punishment upon the organisations.
No.
The neocon reincarnations of the every-so-progressive Wilson (Doesn't the irony tickle your innards? It does the Geek's.) concluded that the US must mount a crusade for democracy, pluralism and equal rights in a society which had no historical experience with any and no seeming desire to enjoy the benefits of American style democracy and free enterprise.
This conflation of a realpolitik approach and the fantasy of implanting US approved institutions by force made damn sure that the intervention in Afghanistan would not only be endless miles of bad road but would ultimately come a cropper.
The confusion between fantasy and the legitimate ends of showing that support of outfits like al-Qaeda doesn't pay in the long run assured that our planning and execution of the endeavor were both fatally flawed.
The planning was flawed because it was impossible to focus on an achievable goal--neutralising al-Qaeda's leadership cell and slapping Taliban hard enough so that no hostile government could fail to catch the message. The demands of the Wilsonian mission creep combined with the political need for rapid action and the limitations on forces which could be readily and quickly employed assured we would have an incomplete success at best,
A very incomplete success as the last several years generally and the past eight months in particular have shown.
True, Taliban fell as a government. But that was all that happened. Taliban lived on as an evil incubus waiting to grow again battening on the blood and devotion of human shaped empty shells wanting to filled with the ecstatic brew of True Belief. So it has happened. Safe in the mountains of Pakistan's FATA and aided by factions within the Pakistani ISI and military, Taliban has grown in numbers and military competence.
And, of course, the US did not capture or kill Osama bin Ladin even though other key personnel of the leadership cell have been removed from the board by either death or capture over the past several years. Al-Qaeda did not die. If anything it grew.
Perhaps it did not grow in direct institutional size. It did grow in mythic power. It may not be a global terror machine as some "experts" would have us believe in the sense of exercising direct command and control over tactical actions. Al-Qaeda did increase greatly in its ability to seize the imagination and the commitment of empty shells of men seeking fulfillment and completion through Belief. More accurately, completion through action emerging from Belief.
Now the US has only two viable options, (The Geek considers an indefinite occupation of Afghanistan to be a viable course of action.) One option is simply to leave. The other is to deploy enough forces on the ground along with taking necessary actions into the sanctuaries of FATA to assure that we do not lose the shooting war.
Neither option is good. The first is disastrous. The short and long term effects of withdrawing might not be predictable in detail, but the general outline is dismal at best and catastrophic at worst.
The second option would allow the US to achieve, at best, a stalemate in the armed conflict which would allow retraction from the theater without necessarily horrible consequences. (Yes, this implies that even under the best circumstances, the outcome will be far worse than if the Wilsonian mission creep had been strictly eschewed.)
There was no justification for the Iraq operation. The Geek isn't even willing to put that war into the category of interventionary operation. Sure, there were anti-Saddam elements in country as well as Kurds who were quite happy to see American tanks on the ground and fighter-bombers overhead. Even more there were any number of expat groups eagerly pawing the ground in hopes that the US would do something.
None of these make the invasion an intervention. They make the invasion an invasion, an act of aggressive war thinly covered by UN Resolutions.
Later operations on the ground in Iraq were counterinsurgent, and counterinsurgency is a primary form of interventionary warfare. It should be noted that insurgency is the expectable consequence of an exercise in regime change. The fact that the US was not prepared either in its military or civilian plans either to preclude or to mitigate the possibility of insurgency shows that there was little, if any, realistic understanding of the nature and character of interventionary warfare.
Or, if there was some appreciation somewhere within the massive bureaucracies of the national security community (as the Geek knows there was), these were overridden by the winds of Wilsonian hallucinations in the heads of the neocons.
Interventions can work effectively. Interventions can be justified by both results and motives. The landing of the Marines in Lebanon in 1957 shows that as do some of the operations in the wreckage of the Wilsonian policy artifact once called Yugoslavia.
To work, to be justifiable, interventions must meet two criteria. The goal must be limited. The goal must be kept firmly in mind at all times of planning and execution by all hands at all levels from the White House to the grunts.
Most of all the Ghost of Wilson must be left in the crypt of bad ideas.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Fellow Travellers In Illusion--Al Gore And The Pope
This is a highly personal sort of rant so anyone who expects the usual cooly reasoned, tightly argued piece of analysis won't find it here today. No. This time its personal.
Al Gore has long sojourned in the land of illusion. His travelogues based on his ventures in the horror filled territory of global warming replete with dead lands and brackish water, littered with the corpses of polar bears and assorted amphibians have brought him fame, fortune and the cachet of a Nobel Prize.
Apparently the global crusader for greener living feels overlooked of late as the US economy sputters, in part because of escalating food prices--prices driven to some unquantifiable extent by the Gore promoted fad for biofuels. But, you can't keep a good mouth down for long.
He's back with a headline grabbing call for the US to replace all fossil fuel electrical generation by earth-friendly technologies such as solar, wind and (unspecified) other forms of production within ten years. Notably, Gore did not mention nuclear power as an alternative.
Get a grip, Mr Gore!
The Geek knows a thing or two about alternative energy production. He has been living off the grid for ten years now. All his electricity comes from the sun--when there is sun.
Aye, that's one of the rubs. Solar power works when there is sun. Wind power works when there is wind. At night, those of us who use the sun must depend upon batteries. The few folks who live somewhere near the Geek who use the wind as their main energy prime mover must rely upon either a backup system or batteries.
The batteries are the weak point in the system. Until there is a new form of battery technology which insures longer life and greater storage capacity per pound of battery weight, there will be significant built-in limits to solar energy in particular.
Then there are the greens, particularly the deep greens who should be the loudest singers in the pro-Gore choir. Where are they?
After being significant players in the counter productive campaign for biofuels which not only hike the price of food, lower the energy potential of vehicle fuel and wreak environmental havoc in their own right, the Deep Greens, the True Believers of the environmental movement have been part of the problem. They should like solar-thermal electrical generation, right?
Wrong!
Even though the vast watelands which constitute large portions of southeastern California, southern Arizona and Nevada seem ideal for the construction of large solar powered generation facilities, the DGs are against them. The huge arrays of either mirrors or photovoltaic panels might somehow interfere with desert dwelling lizards and small mammals. Can't let that happen in the rampant human quest for energy, can we?
Wind power. The DGs ought to like that too. They don't. Spinning blades might interfere with the birdies. That's a Greeno No-No. (There's actually a practical objection to wind farms at sea as has been proposed by the New Jersey Governor among others--the radar systems used by ships can't see through the chaff-type interference caused by the blades as they revolve.)
Gore overlooked the first two sets of problems. He overlooked a third set as well. Planning, gaining approval for and constructing a large, base-load plant takes longer than ten years even with well-established, well-proven fossil fuel technology. How much longer will it take to design, gain all the legally required stamps of approval and build a base-load replacement plant using an emerging technology?
Then, what does the country do for electricity while the inevitable bugs are beaten out of the new systems?
Gore uses the analogy of the man-to-the-moon program of the Sixties. It is a totally specious analogy in both method and scope. The space program was a single thrust effort. Replacing coal and oil fired base load generation plants would be a multi-thrust effort requiring the development, integration and construction of diverse technologies welded into a single system.
In short, Gore is retailing another illusion hoping to hook his cause onto the myth of the Sixties. Get over it, Mr Gore. The Geek is also a product of the Sixties. He knows that myths and happy dreams don't buy a cup of coffee in the real world. Don't you, Al?
Now for Pope Benedict, the other person who has shown himself over the past twenty-four hours to have little or any connection to the real world.
The Pope is in Australia for World Youth Day or some such affair. Sidney is flat full of young and enthusiastic sorts. Just awaiting for the Pope to give them, not hell, but heaven.
Of course the road to heaven is paved with strict abjurations. His Popeness is willing to lay them out. It seems that Benedict thinks that the human race is ruining the globe by virtue of its collective "insatiable consumption."
It is fashionable to bash "consumption" and "consumerism." The Geek would like to join in on the fun, but his sense of intellectual integrity to say nothing of his keen appreciation of reality prevents him from so doing.
In any event the Pope has it wrong. The problem is not consumption, "insatiable" or otherwise.
No. The problem is simply that there are too many people alive and consuming. Too many people needing everything from the most basic of necessities to the most useless and frivolous of luxuries.
Consider the US. The population of the US has slightly more than doubled during the Geek's lifetime (or Al Gore's for that matter.) That's an increase from slightly less than one hundred fifty million people to some 305 million.
The US has been an also-ran in the Great Global Baby Race compared to dozens of other countries. From relatively prosperous "emerging" societies such as those in the PRC or India to countries at the bottom of the survival list, more than doubling the population in slightly more than fifty years has been the norm.
Now, Pope Benedict, that is the real problem. The questions for you and the global enterprise of which you are CEO are these: what have you done about it? What will you do about it?
The answers to both are simple. Nothing. And nothing. The response of your institution has been and, in greatest probability, will continue to be: level down the global standard of living. Take away from those who have and give to those who have not until everybody has nearly nothing.
This is the sort of human destroying logic that is expectable from a theoretically responsible adult occupying a leadership role in a very large, politically potent organisation that calls upon people to put "religion" first in their public and private lives.
That is the sort of logic that gave Europe the deepest gloom of the Dark Ages as the early Medieval Period has been correctly dubbed. That is the kind of logic that your institution showed centuries ago when it insisted on repressing thought, inquiry and expression--to say nothing of torturing and killing those who dared to question.
Your logic is the functional and ethical equivalent of the logic employed by the death oriented mullahs who issue fatwas calling for mass killing.
Pope Benedict, when you make a false parsing between "subjective" feelings and faith as you did in your speech today in Sidney, not only do you show a disastrous misunderstanding of faith which must be inherently subjective, but you substitute obedience to a specific religious dogma for faith. That, in the Geek's reading of the Message of Jesus, runs antipodal to the teachings of that wandering sage and healer.
Get a grip, Pope Benedict. It is not the secular thinkers who fail to appreciate either the nature of the problems that confront the world and its people today as well as the necessary and necessarily painful and unfair solutions to them.
It is you.
Al Gore has long sojourned in the land of illusion. His travelogues based on his ventures in the horror filled territory of global warming replete with dead lands and brackish water, littered with the corpses of polar bears and assorted amphibians have brought him fame, fortune and the cachet of a Nobel Prize.
Apparently the global crusader for greener living feels overlooked of late as the US economy sputters, in part because of escalating food prices--prices driven to some unquantifiable extent by the Gore promoted fad for biofuels. But, you can't keep a good mouth down for long.
He's back with a headline grabbing call for the US to replace all fossil fuel electrical generation by earth-friendly technologies such as solar, wind and (unspecified) other forms of production within ten years. Notably, Gore did not mention nuclear power as an alternative.
Get a grip, Mr Gore!
The Geek knows a thing or two about alternative energy production. He has been living off the grid for ten years now. All his electricity comes from the sun--when there is sun.
Aye, that's one of the rubs. Solar power works when there is sun. Wind power works when there is wind. At night, those of us who use the sun must depend upon batteries. The few folks who live somewhere near the Geek who use the wind as their main energy prime mover must rely upon either a backup system or batteries.
The batteries are the weak point in the system. Until there is a new form of battery technology which insures longer life and greater storage capacity per pound of battery weight, there will be significant built-in limits to solar energy in particular.
Then there are the greens, particularly the deep greens who should be the loudest singers in the pro-Gore choir. Where are they?
After being significant players in the counter productive campaign for biofuels which not only hike the price of food, lower the energy potential of vehicle fuel and wreak environmental havoc in their own right, the Deep Greens, the True Believers of the environmental movement have been part of the problem. They should like solar-thermal electrical generation, right?
Wrong!
Even though the vast watelands which constitute large portions of southeastern California, southern Arizona and Nevada seem ideal for the construction of large solar powered generation facilities, the DGs are against them. The huge arrays of either mirrors or photovoltaic panels might somehow interfere with desert dwelling lizards and small mammals. Can't let that happen in the rampant human quest for energy, can we?
Wind power. The DGs ought to like that too. They don't. Spinning blades might interfere with the birdies. That's a Greeno No-No. (There's actually a practical objection to wind farms at sea as has been proposed by the New Jersey Governor among others--the radar systems used by ships can't see through the chaff-type interference caused by the blades as they revolve.)
Gore overlooked the first two sets of problems. He overlooked a third set as well. Planning, gaining approval for and constructing a large, base-load plant takes longer than ten years even with well-established, well-proven fossil fuel technology. How much longer will it take to design, gain all the legally required stamps of approval and build a base-load replacement plant using an emerging technology?
Then, what does the country do for electricity while the inevitable bugs are beaten out of the new systems?
Gore uses the analogy of the man-to-the-moon program of the Sixties. It is a totally specious analogy in both method and scope. The space program was a single thrust effort. Replacing coal and oil fired base load generation plants would be a multi-thrust effort requiring the development, integration and construction of diverse technologies welded into a single system.
In short, Gore is retailing another illusion hoping to hook his cause onto the myth of the Sixties. Get over it, Mr Gore. The Geek is also a product of the Sixties. He knows that myths and happy dreams don't buy a cup of coffee in the real world. Don't you, Al?
Now for Pope Benedict, the other person who has shown himself over the past twenty-four hours to have little or any connection to the real world.
The Pope is in Australia for World Youth Day or some such affair. Sidney is flat full of young and enthusiastic sorts. Just awaiting for the Pope to give them, not hell, but heaven.
Of course the road to heaven is paved with strict abjurations. His Popeness is willing to lay them out. It seems that Benedict thinks that the human race is ruining the globe by virtue of its collective "insatiable consumption."
It is fashionable to bash "consumption" and "consumerism." The Geek would like to join in on the fun, but his sense of intellectual integrity to say nothing of his keen appreciation of reality prevents him from so doing.
In any event the Pope has it wrong. The problem is not consumption, "insatiable" or otherwise.
No. The problem is simply that there are too many people alive and consuming. Too many people needing everything from the most basic of necessities to the most useless and frivolous of luxuries.
Consider the US. The population of the US has slightly more than doubled during the Geek's lifetime (or Al Gore's for that matter.) That's an increase from slightly less than one hundred fifty million people to some 305 million.
The US has been an also-ran in the Great Global Baby Race compared to dozens of other countries. From relatively prosperous "emerging" societies such as those in the PRC or India to countries at the bottom of the survival list, more than doubling the population in slightly more than fifty years has been the norm.
Now, Pope Benedict, that is the real problem. The questions for you and the global enterprise of which you are CEO are these: what have you done about it? What will you do about it?
The answers to both are simple. Nothing. And nothing. The response of your institution has been and, in greatest probability, will continue to be: level down the global standard of living. Take away from those who have and give to those who have not until everybody has nearly nothing.
This is the sort of human destroying logic that is expectable from a theoretically responsible adult occupying a leadership role in a very large, politically potent organisation that calls upon people to put "religion" first in their public and private lives.
That is the sort of logic that gave Europe the deepest gloom of the Dark Ages as the early Medieval Period has been correctly dubbed. That is the kind of logic that your institution showed centuries ago when it insisted on repressing thought, inquiry and expression--to say nothing of torturing and killing those who dared to question.
Your logic is the functional and ethical equivalent of the logic employed by the death oriented mullahs who issue fatwas calling for mass killing.
Pope Benedict, when you make a false parsing between "subjective" feelings and faith as you did in your speech today in Sidney, not only do you show a disastrous misunderstanding of faith which must be inherently subjective, but you substitute obedience to a specific religious dogma for faith. That, in the Geek's reading of the Message of Jesus, runs antipodal to the teachings of that wandering sage and healer.
Get a grip, Pope Benedict. It is not the secular thinkers who fail to appreciate either the nature of the problems that confront the world and its people today as well as the necessary and necessarily painful and unfair solutions to them.
It is you.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Sanctions Feel Good--But Do They Work?
Americans and (at least some of the time) Europeans have a love affair with economic sanctions. There seems to be some sort of deep rooted genetic belief that somehow economic sanctions will prove to be the sovereign remedy for all sorts of international contretemps. It's as if we are all a passel of Marxists, certain that economic man will prevail.
The Geek would like to think that, regardless of reality and wilfully ignoring historical experience, this time sanctions will prove effective. When that happens he has to slap his face and shout, "Get a grip!"
Sanctions can inflict economic discomfort on a state. They can hurt people. They can make life for a government marginally more difficult.
At the same time sanctions serve as a propaganda focus assuring popular discontent is aimed at the Outsider instead of being directed at the government and its offensive conduct. Sanctions can increase the political will and drive of the government to continue the actions which have led to sanctions. Sanctions can make a government and society more creative in finding effective means of neutralising the sanctions and continuing the decried behavior.
To have even the slightest chance of success several realities have to exist. The target government must be effectively isolated globally. The target society must have a politically significant middle class. The target government must be ineffectively repressive. The target government must lack a significant internal propaganda capacity. Smuggling and other sanction evading mechanisms must be susceptible to total and prolonged interdiction.
Ask yourself, "How often are these criteria met?" (Met, that is, in the real world, not some fantasyland of policy makers or the High Minded.)
Yeah, that's right. Zero percent of the time.
Now, ask yourself, "When was the last time in US history that economic sanctions accomplished a positive policy outcome?"
That will take you awhile. And, you've got to remember that the operative word is "positive."
(Sound of the Geek drumming his fingers as he waits for an answer.)
Try the Stamp Act Crisis. The Colonies did gain a retraction of the Stamp Act after embargoing all trade with England. The embargo wasn't leak proof but it was complete enough to inflict real distress on the merchant interests of England which in turn put the right screws on Parliament. Of course the seeming victory was undercut by Parliament's simultaneous declaration that it could pass any law any time binding on the Colonies. It was a way station on the road to war.
If you're old enough you might remember Operation Just Cause conducted by George H.W. Bush. This operation turned the US military into the world's largest SWAT team kicking in the doors of Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega.
The invasion was quick, low cost and eventually saw the crater faced dictator hauled off in handcuffs, shackles, and disgrace to a US slammer. But, why was it necessary?
Because sanctions failed. Even though Panama had a large and vocal, pan-banging middle class and even used the Yankee dollar as its circulating mechanism, the sanctions were not leak proof enough to put sufficient pressure on the Panamanian National Guard to evict the jefe grande.
If you're a bit younger you no doubt recall the decade of sanctions imposed by the UN on Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War. These sanctions hurt the Iraqi population quite a bit, crippled the country's infrastructure and did other undesirable things to the people and nation alike.
They also introduced corruption on a massive scale. Made a great deal of money for smugglers, financial thaumaturges and relatives of the then UN Secretary General.
The sanctions did not cause the Iraqi army to rise up and cast out the demons of the Saddam Hussein regime. That took a war--and its years of aftermath. And, a lot of dead bodies both Iraqi and foreign.
More often than not sanctions have been what they were back in the days of the Stamp Act. A way station to war.
Sanctions are the means of choice right now with respect to Zimbabwe and Iran. In either case sanctions have not and will not bring about a positive policy outcome.
Zimbabwe's Thug-in-Chief For Life, Robert Mugabe knows all about sanctions. Sanctions applied in the wake of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence were widely supposed to have the power to bring the White minority regime to its knees--quickly and bloodlessly.
The global sanctions did have some effect over the next twenty years. They were a minor factor in the final collapse of political will on the part of Ian Smith and his government. But, the sanctions never undercut the Rhodesian economy. Never ruined the White middle class. Never drove the export oriented White farmers from their large and profitable holdings.
Never destroyed the Rhodesian economy.
No. Robert Mugabe did that all on his own little lonesome in a fit of political-economic stupidity that ranks high on the list of all time blunders.
Today, Zimbabwe has no export oriented agriculture, no middle class and no economy. (It does have an inflation rate that threatens to top that of Wiemar Germany at its worst.)
What's left to hurt? What's left to sanction? Putting pressure on Mugabe and his supporters by sanctions ranks with the egotism of a dog thinking he can raise sea level by lifting his leg.
Then there is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The sanctions have been in place for quite awhile now. They have been "toughened." They have failed in the intent of ending the presumed Iranian nuclear weapons program even though the effect of the economic squeeze has hurt the Iranian economy, hurt many Iranians and made life ever so slightly more difficult for the Iranian government.
Why?
Easy. The sanction regime has been leakier than the Titanic after kissing the iceberg. Not just the usual Global Bad Boy, China, but presumed allies in the cause led by Germany and Italy have busted the sanctions time and time again. All the soothing mood music from Berlin, Rome or, for that matter, Paris doesn't change the reality.
On top of that smuggling, remittances and financial legerdemain have abounded with great benefit for the mullahocracy and its visions of nuclear backed potency. Human ingenuity knows no limits when self-interest and state interest (to say nothing of religious interest) coincide.
"But wait," you object, "one of our guys is going to meet face-to-face with their chief nuclear negotiator."
"So bloody what?" replies the Geek.
There is always time for one more round of diplomacy before the bombs start falling. The Iranians have already--well before the scheduled meeting date--made their position clear. The centrifuges will keep spinning.
Given the vast quantity of political investment the mullahocracy has made so publicly regarding the nuclear project over the past months, backing down now would take the direct, open intervention of the Hidden Imam himself. This is unlikely. The mullahocracy has invested the totality of its Revolutionary Islamic legitimacy in keeping the centrifuges spinning.
We can always hope for a peaceful solution to the problem. We can even pray for one if we are of such an inclination. We can hope for some time buying exercise that will push the final decision into the haze of the future.
But, we have to remember that, more often than not, economic sanctions have been but a way station on the road to war.
The Geek would like to think that, regardless of reality and wilfully ignoring historical experience, this time sanctions will prove effective. When that happens he has to slap his face and shout, "Get a grip!"
Sanctions can inflict economic discomfort on a state. They can hurt people. They can make life for a government marginally more difficult.
At the same time sanctions serve as a propaganda focus assuring popular discontent is aimed at the Outsider instead of being directed at the government and its offensive conduct. Sanctions can increase the political will and drive of the government to continue the actions which have led to sanctions. Sanctions can make a government and society more creative in finding effective means of neutralising the sanctions and continuing the decried behavior.
To have even the slightest chance of success several realities have to exist. The target government must be effectively isolated globally. The target society must have a politically significant middle class. The target government must be ineffectively repressive. The target government must lack a significant internal propaganda capacity. Smuggling and other sanction evading mechanisms must be susceptible to total and prolonged interdiction.
Ask yourself, "How often are these criteria met?" (Met, that is, in the real world, not some fantasyland of policy makers or the High Minded.)
Yeah, that's right. Zero percent of the time.
Now, ask yourself, "When was the last time in US history that economic sanctions accomplished a positive policy outcome?"
That will take you awhile. And, you've got to remember that the operative word is "positive."
(Sound of the Geek drumming his fingers as he waits for an answer.)
Try the Stamp Act Crisis. The Colonies did gain a retraction of the Stamp Act after embargoing all trade with England. The embargo wasn't leak proof but it was complete enough to inflict real distress on the merchant interests of England which in turn put the right screws on Parliament. Of course the seeming victory was undercut by Parliament's simultaneous declaration that it could pass any law any time binding on the Colonies. It was a way station on the road to war.
If you're old enough you might remember Operation Just Cause conducted by George H.W. Bush. This operation turned the US military into the world's largest SWAT team kicking in the doors of Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega.
The invasion was quick, low cost and eventually saw the crater faced dictator hauled off in handcuffs, shackles, and disgrace to a US slammer. But, why was it necessary?
Because sanctions failed. Even though Panama had a large and vocal, pan-banging middle class and even used the Yankee dollar as its circulating mechanism, the sanctions were not leak proof enough to put sufficient pressure on the Panamanian National Guard to evict the jefe grande.
If you're a bit younger you no doubt recall the decade of sanctions imposed by the UN on Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War. These sanctions hurt the Iraqi population quite a bit, crippled the country's infrastructure and did other undesirable things to the people and nation alike.
They also introduced corruption on a massive scale. Made a great deal of money for smugglers, financial thaumaturges and relatives of the then UN Secretary General.
The sanctions did not cause the Iraqi army to rise up and cast out the demons of the Saddam Hussein regime. That took a war--and its years of aftermath. And, a lot of dead bodies both Iraqi and foreign.
More often than not sanctions have been what they were back in the days of the Stamp Act. A way station to war.
Sanctions are the means of choice right now with respect to Zimbabwe and Iran. In either case sanctions have not and will not bring about a positive policy outcome.
Zimbabwe's Thug-in-Chief For Life, Robert Mugabe knows all about sanctions. Sanctions applied in the wake of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence were widely supposed to have the power to bring the White minority regime to its knees--quickly and bloodlessly.
The global sanctions did have some effect over the next twenty years. They were a minor factor in the final collapse of political will on the part of Ian Smith and his government. But, the sanctions never undercut the Rhodesian economy. Never ruined the White middle class. Never drove the export oriented White farmers from their large and profitable holdings.
Never destroyed the Rhodesian economy.
No. Robert Mugabe did that all on his own little lonesome in a fit of political-economic stupidity that ranks high on the list of all time blunders.
Today, Zimbabwe has no export oriented agriculture, no middle class and no economy. (It does have an inflation rate that threatens to top that of Wiemar Germany at its worst.)
What's left to hurt? What's left to sanction? Putting pressure on Mugabe and his supporters by sanctions ranks with the egotism of a dog thinking he can raise sea level by lifting his leg.
Then there is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The sanctions have been in place for quite awhile now. They have been "toughened." They have failed in the intent of ending the presumed Iranian nuclear weapons program even though the effect of the economic squeeze has hurt the Iranian economy, hurt many Iranians and made life ever so slightly more difficult for the Iranian government.
Why?
Easy. The sanction regime has been leakier than the Titanic after kissing the iceberg. Not just the usual Global Bad Boy, China, but presumed allies in the cause led by Germany and Italy have busted the sanctions time and time again. All the soothing mood music from Berlin, Rome or, for that matter, Paris doesn't change the reality.
On top of that smuggling, remittances and financial legerdemain have abounded with great benefit for the mullahocracy and its visions of nuclear backed potency. Human ingenuity knows no limits when self-interest and state interest (to say nothing of religious interest) coincide.
"But wait," you object, "one of our guys is going to meet face-to-face with their chief nuclear negotiator."
"So bloody what?" replies the Geek.
There is always time for one more round of diplomacy before the bombs start falling. The Iranians have already--well before the scheduled meeting date--made their position clear. The centrifuges will keep spinning.
Given the vast quantity of political investment the mullahocracy has made so publicly regarding the nuclear project over the past months, backing down now would take the direct, open intervention of the Hidden Imam himself. This is unlikely. The mullahocracy has invested the totality of its Revolutionary Islamic legitimacy in keeping the centrifuges spinning.
We can always hope for a peaceful solution to the problem. We can even pray for one if we are of such an inclination. We can hope for some time buying exercise that will push the final decision into the haze of the future.
But, we have to remember that, more often than not, economic sanctions have been but a way station on the road to war.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The US, China and the OIC--Strange Bed Buddies
The decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has made for a surprising and awkward joining of interests between the US, the PRC and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
OK, perhaps not so much a juncture of interests as an intersection of anxiety. The crossing is marked by the ICC. The Chinese don't like it at all. The US is uncomfortable with it. Many member states of the OIC are afraid of it.
The Geek has to admit he is not thrilled by this monument to international High Mindedness either. It strikes him as another example of an emotion driven, feel-good reaction to the atrocious behavior of a small number of zealots and True Believers in leadership positions.
The 1998 Rome Statute which created the ICC conferred an ambiguously broad jurisdiction on the court charging it with authority to try and convict individuals regardless of status for a portmanteau of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. As a result of the breadth of jurisdiction and the grave potential for abuse of a politically or ideologically based nature, the current administration withdrew the assent granted to the Rome Statute by President Clinton in 2000. As a result the Statute has never been presented to the Senate for ratification.
Despite the fact that the US is not a party to the court, the current administration is loath to take any action which might be seen as granting any legitimacy to the ICC. As a result the W. Bush Administration has been, at best, ambivalent in its response to the widely applauded decision of prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to seek the arrest warrant. To get the skinny, go to the AP http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jPO0qnku-2vJhJuBSUT5B8Qc61AAD91U5QC80.
The PRC, not unlike fellow Security Council member, Russia, opposes the ICC as it does all attempts by international entities to involve themselves in matters which are arguably of a purely internal nature. While Beijing officials aren't about to go on TV making so blunt a statement (particularly with the Olympic Games days away), there is not a shred of doubt regarding the government's position. The last thing China wants given its own record on suppressing internal political dissent is the potential for outside judgement.
(For the full Chinese position on the ICC arrest effort see the official news dispatch
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2394265&title=China_Expresses_Serious.html)
The same is true with respect to Russia. (Can we say, "Chechnya?")
Thus there is a good to excellent chance that the UN Security Council will interdict the prosecutor's efforts to see Omar in the slam. Any Security Council blockage will be suitably camouflaged and concealed, lest the High Minded of the world take umbrage.
And, umbrage will be taken. If not by governments, then by high profile non-governmental organisations. One has already given notice in an interview with Voice of America. The Save Darfur Coalition Policy Director Amjad Atallah, gave notice that his vocal group expects the Security Council to meet the same high standards as the ICC prosecutor. VOA has the interview http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-07-15-voa43.cfm.
Finally the OIC has rung in with a statement by its General Secretary to the effect that the attempt to seek the arrest of Bashir represents a "double standard." The OIC jefe clearly means that if Omar the Butcher ends up in the hoosegow in the Hague, OIC demands that he be joined in durance vile by any number of Israeli political and military figures. You can check the Geek's interpretation at http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_detail.asp?t_id=1226.
Omar and his regime are not nice. The Sudanese government both under Omar and his predecessors has shown a remarkable appetite for bloodshed and an amazing willingness to see large numbers of Sudanese (particularly those who are Black and non-Muslim) die as a result of starvation caused by government action as well as more active measures. In principle, bringing the entire thuggish crew of mass killers to trial is a fine idea.
But we must remember the yawning gap between principle and practice. That gap serves to define the universe of unintended consequences which may well ensue. In Sudan these consequences might well entail further suffering and death.
Beyond the Sudan the consequences which may very well result from the precedent established by an arrest warrant bearing the name Omar al-Bashir could spread very wide. Politics and ideology permeate the air of High Minded international entities such as the ICC. Much as the Geek is uncomfortable with having a position which coincides with that of the current administration (let alone the PRC), he has to agree that the ICC is a field of landmines and one must walk very, very softly and slowly in such an area.
OK, perhaps not so much a juncture of interests as an intersection of anxiety. The crossing is marked by the ICC. The Chinese don't like it at all. The US is uncomfortable with it. Many member states of the OIC are afraid of it.
The Geek has to admit he is not thrilled by this monument to international High Mindedness either. It strikes him as another example of an emotion driven, feel-good reaction to the atrocious behavior of a small number of zealots and True Believers in leadership positions.
The 1998 Rome Statute which created the ICC conferred an ambiguously broad jurisdiction on the court charging it with authority to try and convict individuals regardless of status for a portmanteau of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. As a result of the breadth of jurisdiction and the grave potential for abuse of a politically or ideologically based nature, the current administration withdrew the assent granted to the Rome Statute by President Clinton in 2000. As a result the Statute has never been presented to the Senate for ratification.
Despite the fact that the US is not a party to the court, the current administration is loath to take any action which might be seen as granting any legitimacy to the ICC. As a result the W. Bush Administration has been, at best, ambivalent in its response to the widely applauded decision of prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to seek the arrest warrant. To get the skinny, go to the AP http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jPO0qnku-2vJhJuBSUT5B8Qc61AAD91U5QC80.
The PRC, not unlike fellow Security Council member, Russia, opposes the ICC as it does all attempts by international entities to involve themselves in matters which are arguably of a purely internal nature. While Beijing officials aren't about to go on TV making so blunt a statement (particularly with the Olympic Games days away), there is not a shred of doubt regarding the government's position. The last thing China wants given its own record on suppressing internal political dissent is the potential for outside judgement.
(For the full Chinese position on the ICC arrest effort see the official news dispatch
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2394265&title=China_Expresses_Serious.html)
The same is true with respect to Russia. (Can we say, "Chechnya?")
Thus there is a good to excellent chance that the UN Security Council will interdict the prosecutor's efforts to see Omar in the slam. Any Security Council blockage will be suitably camouflaged and concealed, lest the High Minded of the world take umbrage.
And, umbrage will be taken. If not by governments, then by high profile non-governmental organisations. One has already given notice in an interview with Voice of America. The Save Darfur Coalition Policy Director Amjad Atallah, gave notice that his vocal group expects the Security Council to meet the same high standards as the ICC prosecutor. VOA has the interview http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-07-15-voa43.cfm.
Finally the OIC has rung in with a statement by its General Secretary to the effect that the attempt to seek the arrest of Bashir represents a "double standard." The OIC jefe clearly means that if Omar the Butcher ends up in the hoosegow in the Hague, OIC demands that he be joined in durance vile by any number of Israeli political and military figures. You can check the Geek's interpretation at http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_detail.asp?t_id=1226.
Omar and his regime are not nice. The Sudanese government both under Omar and his predecessors has shown a remarkable appetite for bloodshed and an amazing willingness to see large numbers of Sudanese (particularly those who are Black and non-Muslim) die as a result of starvation caused by government action as well as more active measures. In principle, bringing the entire thuggish crew of mass killers to trial is a fine idea.
But we must remember the yawning gap between principle and practice. That gap serves to define the universe of unintended consequences which may well ensue. In Sudan these consequences might well entail further suffering and death.
Beyond the Sudan the consequences which may very well result from the precedent established by an arrest warrant bearing the name Omar al-Bashir could spread very wide. Politics and ideology permeate the air of High Minded international entities such as the ICC. Much as the Geek is uncomfortable with having a position which coincides with that of the current administration (let alone the PRC), he has to agree that the ICC is a field of landmines and one must walk very, very softly and slowly in such an area.
The Sky Is Falling! Nine US Troops Killed!
The usual crowd of situationally unenlightened, chronically concerned alarmists are in full throat again, bloviating this time on how the US is losing in Afghanistan. They are right.
But, and get a grip on this, for the wrong reasons.
The focus this time is on the penetration of a joint US-Afghan National Forces (ANF) combat outpost which was hit by an estimated two hundred Taliban type fighters. The incomplete defenses were penetrated and after a four hour close combat firefight, the attackers were repelled with a loss of nine Americans killed and a further fifteen wounded. Four (or more) AFN personnel were also wounded.
Hostile losses are undetermined but presumed high, particularly since the retreating personnel received the attention of air delivered fire.
This type of incident litters the landscape of all interventionary and counterinsurgent campaigns. It deserves on its merits a brief reference buried deep inside any real world newspaper. During the Vietnam War an affray of this magnitude would have been ignored by the NYT, the WaPo and the networks.
The trouble is this. We ain't living in the real world. Consider this not atypical lede from the Los Angeles Times--"Some wonder whether the insurgency is gaining, rather than losing, momentum nearly seven years after the U.S. helped oust the Taliban regime." Quote from: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/mideastemail/la-fg-afghan15-2008jul15,0,19594.story?track=newslettertext.
The article never identifies just who the "some" might be, but the Geek is waiting for the Get-Out-Now! bunch in Congress and elsewhere to start shrieking the usual cry of "We've lost the war!" Although the Times accurately describes the penetration of the combat outpost as a "raid," the framing of the attack and its aftermath connotes doom of the greatest sort.
Crap!
Before the surge in Iraq had taken hold, the Geek posted that the best the US could hope for when the full weight of the extra American boots on the ground was felt by the assorted black turbans in that country was not losing. Now, in Iraq after the surge bought time and breathing space for the Iraqi government (such as it is), the Geek can say with a straight face that the US has accomplished the minimum necessary goal. We are not losing and, in highest probability, will not lose the war in Iraq.
Any winning of that war must be left up to the Iraqis and the government they install.
The same pre-surge contention is applicable to Afghanistan. Right now, as has been the case for several years, the US can lose. Our minimum necessary goal is the same today in that country that it was a year ago in Iraq--not losing.
To achieve that goal the US must put more boots on the ground. As the Geek has harped on repeatedly, the most labor intensive form of war in counterinsurgency. There is no way around that.
Even with the greatest possible technological assistance such as UAVs and the most deadly firepower conceivable, counterinsurgency remains what it always has been, a matter of men on the ground.
The key to successful counterinsurgency is contained in three words. Presence. Persistence. Patience.
Presence means quite simply that there must be sufficient troops on the ground to effectively carry the war to the enemy. Enough troops on the ground to deter the enemy from seeking soft targets--which is not easy when the hostiles use suicide bombers directing their efforts against the softest civilian targets. Enough troops on the ground to limit the need for stand off weapons including airpower which are likely (as we have seen time after bloody time) to inflict unacceptable numbers of civilian casualties. Enough troops on the ground to provide the appearance as well as the reality of security to the uncommitted majority of the population, which constitutes the most important battlefield in this type of war.
Presence means that the troops have to be there long enough. Long enough to undercut the political will of those who support the enemy combatants. Long enough to kill the hardest of the hard core hostile fighters and long enough to demoralise those who are less willing to bare the hardships and risks of active combat. These requirements indicate that the effort in Afghanistan may last for years yet.
Patience is required because there are no tidy phase lines in counterinsurgency as there are in conventional war between parity opponents. There are few indicators of winning and losing that are nearly as harsh, stark and easy to grasp as the sweeping arrows or lines of contact on a map such as typified World War II or even the conventional opening days of the American invasion of Iraq.
The commanders on the ground in Afghanistan are well aware of the crippling lack of troops in theater. That is why the demand for an additional three combat brigades over and above the Marine Expeditionary Brigade deployed a few weeks ago. (The presence of the Gyrenes in Helmand Province has made its self felt to the discomfiture of the black turbans.)
Three brigades should be seen as an optimistic minimum. Certainly the two brigades proposed by the Nice Young Man From Chicago, Senator Obama, is too little. This offer shows that the NYMFC is situationally naive even as he attempts to capitalise on the fear and trembling produced by the Shootout at the Combat Outpost by declaring that Iraq is a dangerous "distraction" from the Afghan Front. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign16- 2008jul16,0,703814.story or take a look at the somewhat more neutrally framed http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i93McMPYxNe5I5luHeUstklGV2RgD91TSB880.
If the current administration had not been so blind as to the nature of counterinsurgency as well as the reality that the genuine war in Afghanistan would start the day after Taliban was toppled in Kabul, and al-Qaeda as well as Taliban beat feet across the border to Pakistan along with their Pakistani advisers and hand-holders, the US wouldn't be in the fix it is today.
The idea of "shocking and aweing" our way to victory in Afghanistan is and was every bit as wrong as a cat barking. Along with the civilians topside in the Pentagon and over at the White House and Executive Office Building, the senior uniform leadership of our military must be held to have been responsible for the current near disaster.
The flag should have been obviously and publicly dropped on the play way back in late 2001. Oh, the Geek realises that We the People and our "representatives" as well as the administration were pawing the ground and eager to go after the killers of 9/11. But, going a few months later in sufficient force to do the job correctly would not have required either the political courage or the expenditure of blood and money that playing fix-up does.
Fix-up is the game we must play. And, get a grip on this, it will be a very tough game to play and win. Not only will it require a lot more grunts in-country, it will mean a lot more bodies coming home in boxes or in pieces needing a hell of a lot of rehabilitation and support.
Beyond that, the game of fix-up--if we are to meet the minimum goal of not losing--requires finally recognising the actual importance of Pakistan and its FATA. We will have to do something about the sanctuary, the land of R&R, the place of recruiting and training. It won't be as easy as Iraq.
That's the real irony of things. Afghanistan--the "good war" is also the one that is hardest. Compared to what is in the future, the past in Iraq has been just a little walk in the sun.
But, and get a grip on this, for the wrong reasons.
The focus this time is on the penetration of a joint US-Afghan National Forces (ANF) combat outpost which was hit by an estimated two hundred Taliban type fighters. The incomplete defenses were penetrated and after a four hour close combat firefight, the attackers were repelled with a loss of nine Americans killed and a further fifteen wounded. Four (or more) AFN personnel were also wounded.
Hostile losses are undetermined but presumed high, particularly since the retreating personnel received the attention of air delivered fire.
This type of incident litters the landscape of all interventionary and counterinsurgent campaigns. It deserves on its merits a brief reference buried deep inside any real world newspaper. During the Vietnam War an affray of this magnitude would have been ignored by the NYT, the WaPo and the networks.
The trouble is this. We ain't living in the real world. Consider this not atypical lede from the Los Angeles Times--"Some wonder whether the insurgency is gaining, rather than losing, momentum nearly seven years after the U.S. helped oust the Taliban regime." Quote from: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/mideastemail/la-fg-afghan15-2008jul15,0,19594.story?track=newslettertext.
The article never identifies just who the "some" might be, but the Geek is waiting for the Get-Out-Now! bunch in Congress and elsewhere to start shrieking the usual cry of "We've lost the war!" Although the Times accurately describes the penetration of the combat outpost as a "raid," the framing of the attack and its aftermath connotes doom of the greatest sort.
Crap!
Before the surge in Iraq had taken hold, the Geek posted that the best the US could hope for when the full weight of the extra American boots on the ground was felt by the assorted black turbans in that country was not losing. Now, in Iraq after the surge bought time and breathing space for the Iraqi government (such as it is), the Geek can say with a straight face that the US has accomplished the minimum necessary goal. We are not losing and, in highest probability, will not lose the war in Iraq.
Any winning of that war must be left up to the Iraqis and the government they install.
The same pre-surge contention is applicable to Afghanistan. Right now, as has been the case for several years, the US can lose. Our minimum necessary goal is the same today in that country that it was a year ago in Iraq--not losing.
To achieve that goal the US must put more boots on the ground. As the Geek has harped on repeatedly, the most labor intensive form of war in counterinsurgency. There is no way around that.
Even with the greatest possible technological assistance such as UAVs and the most deadly firepower conceivable, counterinsurgency remains what it always has been, a matter of men on the ground.
The key to successful counterinsurgency is contained in three words. Presence. Persistence. Patience.
Presence means quite simply that there must be sufficient troops on the ground to effectively carry the war to the enemy. Enough troops on the ground to deter the enemy from seeking soft targets--which is not easy when the hostiles use suicide bombers directing their efforts against the softest civilian targets. Enough troops on the ground to limit the need for stand off weapons including airpower which are likely (as we have seen time after bloody time) to inflict unacceptable numbers of civilian casualties. Enough troops on the ground to provide the appearance as well as the reality of security to the uncommitted majority of the population, which constitutes the most important battlefield in this type of war.
Presence means that the troops have to be there long enough. Long enough to undercut the political will of those who support the enemy combatants. Long enough to kill the hardest of the hard core hostile fighters and long enough to demoralise those who are less willing to bare the hardships and risks of active combat. These requirements indicate that the effort in Afghanistan may last for years yet.
Patience is required because there are no tidy phase lines in counterinsurgency as there are in conventional war between parity opponents. There are few indicators of winning and losing that are nearly as harsh, stark and easy to grasp as the sweeping arrows or lines of contact on a map such as typified World War II or even the conventional opening days of the American invasion of Iraq.
The commanders on the ground in Afghanistan are well aware of the crippling lack of troops in theater. That is why the demand for an additional three combat brigades over and above the Marine Expeditionary Brigade deployed a few weeks ago. (The presence of the Gyrenes in Helmand Province has made its self felt to the discomfiture of the black turbans.)
Three brigades should be seen as an optimistic minimum. Certainly the two brigades proposed by the Nice Young Man From Chicago, Senator Obama, is too little. This offer shows that the NYMFC is situationally naive even as he attempts to capitalise on the fear and trembling produced by the Shootout at the Combat Outpost by declaring that Iraq is a dangerous "distraction" from the Afghan Front. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign16- 2008jul16,0,703814.story or take a look at the somewhat more neutrally framed http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i93McMPYxNe5I5luHeUstklGV2RgD91TSB880.
If the current administration had not been so blind as to the nature of counterinsurgency as well as the reality that the genuine war in Afghanistan would start the day after Taliban was toppled in Kabul, and al-Qaeda as well as Taliban beat feet across the border to Pakistan along with their Pakistani advisers and hand-holders, the US wouldn't be in the fix it is today.
The idea of "shocking and aweing" our way to victory in Afghanistan is and was every bit as wrong as a cat barking. Along with the civilians topside in the Pentagon and over at the White House and Executive Office Building, the senior uniform leadership of our military must be held to have been responsible for the current near disaster.
The flag should have been obviously and publicly dropped on the play way back in late 2001. Oh, the Geek realises that We the People and our "representatives" as well as the administration were pawing the ground and eager to go after the killers of 9/11. But, going a few months later in sufficient force to do the job correctly would not have required either the political courage or the expenditure of blood and money that playing fix-up does.
Fix-up is the game we must play. And, get a grip on this, it will be a very tough game to play and win. Not only will it require a lot more grunts in-country, it will mean a lot more bodies coming home in boxes or in pieces needing a hell of a lot of rehabilitation and support.
Beyond that, the game of fix-up--if we are to meet the minimum goal of not losing--requires finally recognising the actual importance of Pakistan and its FATA. We will have to do something about the sanctuary, the land of R&R, the place of recruiting and training. It won't be as easy as Iraq.
That's the real irony of things. Afghanistan--the "good war" is also the one that is hardest. Compared to what is in the future, the past in Iraq has been just a little walk in the sun.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The Towers Of Switzerland
The Geek has to admit he has never been comfortable when visiting Switzerland. The place is just too darn neat and orderly. He always had the sneaking suspicion that should he drop a gold bar on the street in Geneva he would return to find it not only guarded by a cop, but the cop would be ready to give a ticket for littering.
Now the Swiss government has given the Geek another reason not to spend his (nearly valueless) dollars in this land of peace, prosperity and utterly rapacious bankers. The Federal Government has shown itself to be comprised of spineless yokels bereft of both reason and a trust in the Swiss population.
Uh, kind of harsh, aren't you, Geek?
No. Not at all.
The Swiss Federals have come out against the right wing SVP sponsored referendum to ban minarets in the country. There are roughly 350,000 Muslims in a population of over seven and a half million. Most of these come from Turkey and former Yugoslavia.
Of the ninety mosques in Switzerland only two have minarets with a third planning to build one. None are used for the five times a day call to prayers.
The Swiss foreign minister threw an immediate hissy fit declaring that the referendum, if passed, would lead to a security risk by provoking Muslim anger. See this the following site: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4304838.ece.
The spokesman for the curiously named Swiss Association of Muslims for Secularism called the proposed referendum an attack on Islam and a violation of the Swiss Constitution. Well! I'll be, exclaims the Geek.
The minaret is not a requirement in Islam. There are plenty of mosques without this adornment. Eighty-seven in Switzerland alone. The first minarets didn't appear until nearly a hundred years after the death of Mohammad.
They came about because in the days before electronic amplification there was a need for height if the call to prayer was to be heard throughout the village. No problem with that. Form follows function as in so many architectural innovations.
Later as the Muslim overlordship was extended and the concept of dhimmi status was put into practice, the minaret changed its function. Rather, to err on the side of accuracy, it added an additional function--the physical demonstration to Christians and Jews of Muslim supremacy.
The SVP was historically accurate when it described the minaret as being a symbol of political status and authority. That's what it started as. And that is what it still is, particularly in multi-religious societies such as Switzerland.
The minaret controversy is not limited to Switzerland. In Germany both right wing parties and the Catholic church are exercised over the proposal to build a set of 160 foot tall minarets at the new Cologne mosque. The minarets would be taller by some feet than the spires of the famed Koln Dom.
Sweden, France, Italy, Austria and Slovania have also seen citizen protests against the building of minarets. The political elites in each of these countries have done the same as the Swiss government--run for the hills of multi-cultural celebration and hidden in the tall timbers of don't-provoke-the-Muslims-they-have-bombs.
It is in the nature of political elites to distrust the hoi polloi of their countries. (Think of the recent Irish rejection of the new EU constitution.) It is in the nature of today's political elites whether in Europe or the US to embrace the totems of globalism and the fetishes of multi-culuralism. It is also in their nature to deprecate as being in the great unwashed and unenlightened those citizens who do not slavishly agree.
Minarets are fine in the Mideast. Fine in Turkey. The Geek has seen them in their natural habitat as being one with the rest of the physical society. Likewise he has seen the onion domes of Russia and Eastern Europe. They look fit and proper there.
But, a towering phallic symbol in a Swiss village? Give me a break! Sez the Geek.
And, he adds, show me how to join up with the SVP
Now the Swiss government has given the Geek another reason not to spend his (nearly valueless) dollars in this land of peace, prosperity and utterly rapacious bankers. The Federal Government has shown itself to be comprised of spineless yokels bereft of both reason and a trust in the Swiss population.
Uh, kind of harsh, aren't you, Geek?
No. Not at all.
The Swiss Federals have come out against the right wing SVP sponsored referendum to ban minarets in the country. There are roughly 350,000 Muslims in a population of over seven and a half million. Most of these come from Turkey and former Yugoslavia.
Of the ninety mosques in Switzerland only two have minarets with a third planning to build one. None are used for the five times a day call to prayers.
The Swiss foreign minister threw an immediate hissy fit declaring that the referendum, if passed, would lead to a security risk by provoking Muslim anger. See this the following site: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4304838.ece.
The spokesman for the curiously named Swiss Association of Muslims for Secularism called the proposed referendum an attack on Islam and a violation of the Swiss Constitution. Well! I'll be, exclaims the Geek.
The minaret is not a requirement in Islam. There are plenty of mosques without this adornment. Eighty-seven in Switzerland alone. The first minarets didn't appear until nearly a hundred years after the death of Mohammad.
They came about because in the days before electronic amplification there was a need for height if the call to prayer was to be heard throughout the village. No problem with that. Form follows function as in so many architectural innovations.
Later as the Muslim overlordship was extended and the concept of dhimmi status was put into practice, the minaret changed its function. Rather, to err on the side of accuracy, it added an additional function--the physical demonstration to Christians and Jews of Muslim supremacy.
The SVP was historically accurate when it described the minaret as being a symbol of political status and authority. That's what it started as. And that is what it still is, particularly in multi-religious societies such as Switzerland.
The minaret controversy is not limited to Switzerland. In Germany both right wing parties and the Catholic church are exercised over the proposal to build a set of 160 foot tall minarets at the new Cologne mosque. The minarets would be taller by some feet than the spires of the famed Koln Dom.
Sweden, France, Italy, Austria and Slovania have also seen citizen protests against the building of minarets. The political elites in each of these countries have done the same as the Swiss government--run for the hills of multi-cultural celebration and hidden in the tall timbers of don't-provoke-the-Muslims-they-have-bombs.
It is in the nature of political elites to distrust the hoi polloi of their countries. (Think of the recent Irish rejection of the new EU constitution.) It is in the nature of today's political elites whether in Europe or the US to embrace the totems of globalism and the fetishes of multi-culuralism. It is also in their nature to deprecate as being in the great unwashed and unenlightened those citizens who do not slavishly agree.
Minarets are fine in the Mideast. Fine in Turkey. The Geek has seen them in their natural habitat as being one with the rest of the physical society. Likewise he has seen the onion domes of Russia and Eastern Europe. They look fit and proper there.
But, a towering phallic symbol in a Swiss village? Give me a break! Sez the Geek.
And, he adds, show me how to join up with the SVP
Forever Enemies--Islam and Democracy
It's a harsh statement. And an even harsher reality. It's one we all have to get a grip on.
Islam requires an absolute unity between faith and state. There is and cannot be any meaningful separation between Power Temporal and Power Spiritual. Without this feature there is no meaning for the Islamic concept of community. Islam may allow some sort of subordinate role for some features of temporal government but puts severe limits upon its scope and authority.
Western history shows that Europe went through a long, painful and very bloody process of enervating the claim to temporal authority claimed by the Bishop of Rome. Secular rulers and the people under and behind them wrested both national sovereignty and political power from a religious institution most reluctant to give them up.
It took the Reformation, the exsanguinations of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the forces let loose by the American and French Revolutions, and the Unification of Italy to pry the palsied hands of religion from the levers of power.
It also took untold numbers of people burned at the stake, cast into dungeons, tongues pierced and ears cropped in the pillory to put paid to the idea of religious domination of the political processes.
Not until the Twentieth Century was half over did the golem of religion finally leave the Western political arena.
Five hundred years and more to settle for once (and, hopefully for all) the question of separation of faith and state. A long time. A very long time.
Only one state with a Muslim majority population has even tried to trace the route taken by Europe and the United States--Turkey. In that country there are heart breaking signs that the brilliance of Ataturk is being discarded under the new blandishments of resurgent Islam.
Without a complete separation of the institutions of faith and state in the operation of the affairs of state there can be no true, meaningful democracy. Unless, of course, each and every person within that democracy is an equally fervent adherent of one religion.
That is more unlikely than whales flying over mountain tops.
Democracy requires more than simply the separation of the institutions of faith and state.
It requires the acceptance of compromise solutions. The kind of solutions that make few, if any, happy with the solution. Democracy requires settling for second best, accepting a half loaf. It requires trading interests. It requires, in short, a cultural tradition of negotiation for the least-worst outcome.
Islam does not allow for negotiation. It rejects compromise. It demands a whole loaf. The pragmatic compromiser is wide open to the charge of apostasy.
Democracy insists upon the majority fully respecting the rights and immunities of the minority. This is a very difficult task as American history down to today shows unmistakeably. The American people and their government have shown remarkable unwillingness to grant a minority--any minority--full respect and full rights.
The history of Islam demonstrates a total disregard for the rights, even the most basic human sort, of any and all non-Muslim minorities. Even the protection racket sanctioned by sharia, the treaty of protected people of the book, is honored more in the breech than the full observance. The "protection" was not only hemmed in with restrictions and humiliations but was dependent upon a cash payment. (Hmm, maybe the Mafia should declare itself a religion. No more pesky Federal prosecutions for running a racket.)
To be fully effective in protecting the rights and privileges of all citizens, a democracy needs a legal system which is insulated sufficiently from the winds of public opinion, fad and fancy to operate above the fray. Further, the court system must command the respect of not only the other branches of government but the minds of the citizenry to assure that its rulings will be heeded.
It took the US a mort of years and an infinitude of horrible Supreme Court decisions to find a balance that assured the least among us would not be deprived of rights and that the decisions would be abided, even if grudgingly, by the citizen and state alike.
Islam requires that the courts apply only the sharia to any and all cases. This semi-fossilized body of sacred literature is not designed to protect, let alone advance, the rights and privileges of the least among us.
Dissent, disagreement and passionate argument are inherent to democracy. American politics used to be a full-contact sport, and, even today, has its rough and cutting edges.
Not just electoral politics either. The politics of all important issues can be measured in dissent, disagreement and passionate demonstration of views. Whether war or abortion, capital punishment or state aid to religious schools, people express their positions with a vigor even an incivility that citizens of other countries find extreme.
(The Geek can't help but point out to interlocutors from France, Germany and Japan that dissent in those countries, democracies all, has been and is robust to the max.)
Islam does not allow any dissent and provides for disagreement among religious scholars only regarding the fine points of interpretation of various sacred or semi-sacred documents. That is hardly the sort that does a genuine democracy any service.
Democracy demands much of its practitioners. It is not easy to accept diverse views vigorously argued. It is not easy to see the law require an apparent injustice such as releasing a criminal because the police didn't dot every Constitutional "i." It is not at all emotionally pleasing to see the "wrong" side win an election and the "right" side hand over power.
Islam is a lot easier. All that is necessary beyond observing the Five Pillars of Faith is to keep one's mouth shut if one disagrees, restrict one's opinions to those which are clerically approved, kick a dhimmi every now and then if he doesn't get off the sidewalk quickly enough and, before prayers, stone a woman to death.
Democracy of a true sort and Islam of the genuine Quran based variety have never and can never coexist in the same state for long. As Turkey, a tragedy in the making, demonstrates.
Islam requires an absolute unity between faith and state. There is and cannot be any meaningful separation between Power Temporal and Power Spiritual. Without this feature there is no meaning for the Islamic concept of community. Islam may allow some sort of subordinate role for some features of temporal government but puts severe limits upon its scope and authority.
Western history shows that Europe went through a long, painful and very bloody process of enervating the claim to temporal authority claimed by the Bishop of Rome. Secular rulers and the people under and behind them wrested both national sovereignty and political power from a religious institution most reluctant to give them up.
It took the Reformation, the exsanguinations of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the forces let loose by the American and French Revolutions, and the Unification of Italy to pry the palsied hands of religion from the levers of power.
It also took untold numbers of people burned at the stake, cast into dungeons, tongues pierced and ears cropped in the pillory to put paid to the idea of religious domination of the political processes.
Not until the Twentieth Century was half over did the golem of religion finally leave the Western political arena.
Five hundred years and more to settle for once (and, hopefully for all) the question of separation of faith and state. A long time. A very long time.
Only one state with a Muslim majority population has even tried to trace the route taken by Europe and the United States--Turkey. In that country there are heart breaking signs that the brilliance of Ataturk is being discarded under the new blandishments of resurgent Islam.
Without a complete separation of the institutions of faith and state in the operation of the affairs of state there can be no true, meaningful democracy. Unless, of course, each and every person within that democracy is an equally fervent adherent of one religion.
That is more unlikely than whales flying over mountain tops.
Democracy requires more than simply the separation of the institutions of faith and state.
It requires the acceptance of compromise solutions. The kind of solutions that make few, if any, happy with the solution. Democracy requires settling for second best, accepting a half loaf. It requires trading interests. It requires, in short, a cultural tradition of negotiation for the least-worst outcome.
Islam does not allow for negotiation. It rejects compromise. It demands a whole loaf. The pragmatic compromiser is wide open to the charge of apostasy.
Democracy insists upon the majority fully respecting the rights and immunities of the minority. This is a very difficult task as American history down to today shows unmistakeably. The American people and their government have shown remarkable unwillingness to grant a minority--any minority--full respect and full rights.
The history of Islam demonstrates a total disregard for the rights, even the most basic human sort, of any and all non-Muslim minorities. Even the protection racket sanctioned by sharia, the treaty of protected people of the book, is honored more in the breech than the full observance. The "protection" was not only hemmed in with restrictions and humiliations but was dependent upon a cash payment. (Hmm, maybe the Mafia should declare itself a religion. No more pesky Federal prosecutions for running a racket.)
To be fully effective in protecting the rights and privileges of all citizens, a democracy needs a legal system which is insulated sufficiently from the winds of public opinion, fad and fancy to operate above the fray. Further, the court system must command the respect of not only the other branches of government but the minds of the citizenry to assure that its rulings will be heeded.
It took the US a mort of years and an infinitude of horrible Supreme Court decisions to find a balance that assured the least among us would not be deprived of rights and that the decisions would be abided, even if grudgingly, by the citizen and state alike.
Islam requires that the courts apply only the sharia to any and all cases. This semi-fossilized body of sacred literature is not designed to protect, let alone advance, the rights and privileges of the least among us.
Dissent, disagreement and passionate argument are inherent to democracy. American politics used to be a full-contact sport, and, even today, has its rough and cutting edges.
Not just electoral politics either. The politics of all important issues can be measured in dissent, disagreement and passionate demonstration of views. Whether war or abortion, capital punishment or state aid to religious schools, people express their positions with a vigor even an incivility that citizens of other countries find extreme.
(The Geek can't help but point out to interlocutors from France, Germany and Japan that dissent in those countries, democracies all, has been and is robust to the max.)
Islam does not allow any dissent and provides for disagreement among religious scholars only regarding the fine points of interpretation of various sacred or semi-sacred documents. That is hardly the sort that does a genuine democracy any service.
Democracy demands much of its practitioners. It is not easy to accept diverse views vigorously argued. It is not easy to see the law require an apparent injustice such as releasing a criminal because the police didn't dot every Constitutional "i." It is not at all emotionally pleasing to see the "wrong" side win an election and the "right" side hand over power.
Islam is a lot easier. All that is necessary beyond observing the Five Pillars of Faith is to keep one's mouth shut if one disagrees, restrict one's opinions to those which are clerically approved, kick a dhimmi every now and then if he doesn't get off the sidewalk quickly enough and, before prayers, stone a woman to death.
Democracy of a true sort and Islam of the genuine Quran based variety have never and can never coexist in the same state for long. As Turkey, a tragedy in the making, demonstrates.
Identity Politics With A Gun And A Bomb
Over the past few months there has been an incredibly sterile debate within the small circle of counterterrorism specialists. The focus of the debate has been on the importance or even the existence of an overarching command and control cell for Islamist terrorism.
One side, exemplified by former RAND corporation counterinsurgency expert, Bruce Hoffman, has taken the position that global Islamist terrorism has a pyramidal structure. At the top is a command and control authority. (OK, the Geek is a bit too reductionist, but the gist is accurate.)
The other side argues persuasively that the villain is now decentralised, often homegrown terror in which entities such as al-Qaeda serve as inspirations or ideological role models but no more. They deprecate the need to go after a supposed capo. (Again the Geek oversimplifies to save words.)
Reality is in the middle, like a thick post around which both camps trade shots. Terrorism, Islam rooted terrorism, while having some slight semblance of central command as shown in Afghanistan, is primarily diffuse, primarily local, primarily a matter of political identity on the part of participants.
The attack on the US Consulate in Istanbul the other day is a fine example of the decentralised sort. The dead amateur attackers came from economically, socially and politically marginal segments of the Turkish population. The same may be said of presumed associates of the dead men arrested by local authorities. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-attackers12-2008jul12,0,882041.story)
The image drawn of impoverished, poorly educated, low income, no future also rans in life's race seems perfectly calculated to reinforce the view of those who argue that all Islam-rooted terror would cease if the US and other western countries would only alleviate global poverty, increase educational opportunities, etc, etc, etc.
The problem lies in the fact that so many jihadists and wannabe jihadists come from materially superior backgrounds, have enjoyed good educations and hold good jobs with both decent pay and status. Just think of the heavyweights of 9/11 or the medical types involved in last year's abortive London vehicle bombings and the incendiary drive-in at the Glasgow airport.
What gives?
Simple. There is one factor that links the wretched of Istanbul's slums, the physicians of Glasgow and the new legions rushing to Pakistan's FATA.
Get a grip on it: identity politics.
(The Geek bets you were expecting "Islam.")
And, right you are. Islam is part of it. But, only part. The real deal is Islam as identity.
Roll the word "identity" around your mouth a few times. Stop and think about a question you (along with damn near everyone who possesses a belly button) asked back in high school or the first couple of years in college.
The Question?
"Who am I?" or its close relative, "What am I going to do with life?"
Both of these along with an army of variants focus on the word "identity." The question, the problem of identity, is among the most basic of human dilemmas.
Some of us define identity on organic, internal bases including a judicious use of the dictates and expectations of parents, society as a whole, culture, and peer group. Most of us use a mixture of internal understandings and incorporated, received wisdom of the culture around us and people who are important to us.
Then there are those who derive their personal identity strictly from external sources. The source may be close like parents. It may be more distant and artificial such as an athletic team or a celebrity. It may be totally removed and artificial such as an ideology or a religion, a cause or a belief.
It is this final group of identity seekers which is so well described by philosopher Eric Hoffer's term "True Believer." For the True Believer, the Belief becomes the personal identity. The Believer is to the very core, the Belief. Without the Belief, the Believer ceases to exist.
The potential True Believer is an empty shell in human form. An empty shell waiting, eager to be filled by a Belief. The Belief may take any form. National Socialism, Marxist-Leninism, Environmentalism, Christianity, Islam.
All that is necessary is that the Belief provide meaning. That it provide an inclusive home. That it appear both universalist and sublime. That it provide a purpose for living--and a purpose worth dying for.
The potential True Believer may be one of Franz Fannon's "Wretched of the Earth." But that isn't necessary. True Believers are just as likely to come from mansions as hovels, possess university degrees as be grade school dropouts. They are just as likely to have incomes and status of note as to be shuffling from the unemployment line to the corner.
They simply have to be empty inside.
And, meet a Belief that promises to fill the void within.
Islam promises its Believers a community. It promises rewards both here and hereafter for those who Believe and live according to the rules and strictures of the Belief.
True Believers eschew compromise, tolerance, acceptance, negotiation, as Dracula does garlic and mirrors. True Believers (and the Belief that fills them) find their identity in forcing others to accept the Belief or in killing those who reject it.
To the True Believer any rejection of the Belief, any perceived insult to the Belief, any falling away from the Belief is tantamount to rejecting the personhood of the Believer. Anyone who mocks me, kills me can (and often is) the motto of the True Believer.
Islam is a perfect Belief for any potential True Believer. It promises the most fulfillment to the Believer. It demands fighting for and dying for the expansion of the Belief. It brooks no compromise with the non-Believer. It accepts no peace with the non-Believer. It demands revenge be taken for any rejection.
For a young man who feels adrift (as almost all young men do), Islam promises, even more than Christianity or Communism, a way and a life. It promises a Community, an all-inclusive home.
For the young man feeling empty inside (as so many young men do so often) it promises a feeling of fullness beyond that of any other competing Belief extant today.
It is a Belief worth fighting for.
It is a Belief worth dying for.
It is a Belief in which dying can be the highest form of living.
(The Geek has no problem with that as a concept. In his life and work, the Geek has seen time and time again that death is no big deal. He has seen that the big deal is in the manner of a man's death. Does the death have a purpose or not.)
When a person takes his total identity from a Belief, when he becomes a True Believer, he becomes truly dangerous. He is quite willing to kill with a clear conscious. He is quite willing to die as he is certain of his rightness and reward. He is convinced that his death will provide meaning through its purposefulness.
Since the True Believer is unwilling and unable to accept compromise, to give assent to anything less than total victory, the usual diplomatic and political approaches are bootless.
Compromise or the acceptance of less than total victory for the Belief strips the True Believer of his personal identity. He ceases to exist with greater finality and totality than would be the case with mere physical death.
The Islam rooted terrorist is practicing identity politics in its purest form. That is what makes it easy for Islam to garner more jihadists. It is what makes Islam rooted terror so difficult to defeat.
Make no mistake about it. Islam is a better Belief for the empty than the alternatives today. It promises the most and demands the least.
Remember killing is no big deal for him of clear conscious. Death is no big deal for him of certain mind and spirit.
The True Believer has both.
One side, exemplified by former RAND corporation counterinsurgency expert, Bruce Hoffman, has taken the position that global Islamist terrorism has a pyramidal structure. At the top is a command and control authority. (OK, the Geek is a bit too reductionist, but the gist is accurate.)
The other side argues persuasively that the villain is now decentralised, often homegrown terror in which entities such as al-Qaeda serve as inspirations or ideological role models but no more. They deprecate the need to go after a supposed capo. (Again the Geek oversimplifies to save words.)
Reality is in the middle, like a thick post around which both camps trade shots. Terrorism, Islam rooted terrorism, while having some slight semblance of central command as shown in Afghanistan, is primarily diffuse, primarily local, primarily a matter of political identity on the part of participants.
The attack on the US Consulate in Istanbul the other day is a fine example of the decentralised sort. The dead amateur attackers came from economically, socially and politically marginal segments of the Turkish population. The same may be said of presumed associates of the dead men arrested by local authorities. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-attackers12-2008jul12,0,882041.story)
The image drawn of impoverished, poorly educated, low income, no future also rans in life's race seems perfectly calculated to reinforce the view of those who argue that all Islam-rooted terror would cease if the US and other western countries would only alleviate global poverty, increase educational opportunities, etc, etc, etc.
The problem lies in the fact that so many jihadists and wannabe jihadists come from materially superior backgrounds, have enjoyed good educations and hold good jobs with both decent pay and status. Just think of the heavyweights of 9/11 or the medical types involved in last year's abortive London vehicle bombings and the incendiary drive-in at the Glasgow airport.
What gives?
Simple. There is one factor that links the wretched of Istanbul's slums, the physicians of Glasgow and the new legions rushing to Pakistan's FATA.
Get a grip on it: identity politics.
(The Geek bets you were expecting "Islam.")
And, right you are. Islam is part of it. But, only part. The real deal is Islam as identity.
Roll the word "identity" around your mouth a few times. Stop and think about a question you (along with damn near everyone who possesses a belly button) asked back in high school or the first couple of years in college.
The Question?
"Who am I?" or its close relative, "What am I going to do with life?"
Both of these along with an army of variants focus on the word "identity." The question, the problem of identity, is among the most basic of human dilemmas.
Some of us define identity on organic, internal bases including a judicious use of the dictates and expectations of parents, society as a whole, culture, and peer group. Most of us use a mixture of internal understandings and incorporated, received wisdom of the culture around us and people who are important to us.
Then there are those who derive their personal identity strictly from external sources. The source may be close like parents. It may be more distant and artificial such as an athletic team or a celebrity. It may be totally removed and artificial such as an ideology or a religion, a cause or a belief.
It is this final group of identity seekers which is so well described by philosopher Eric Hoffer's term "True Believer." For the True Believer, the Belief becomes the personal identity. The Believer is to the very core, the Belief. Without the Belief, the Believer ceases to exist.
The potential True Believer is an empty shell in human form. An empty shell waiting, eager to be filled by a Belief. The Belief may take any form. National Socialism, Marxist-Leninism, Environmentalism, Christianity, Islam.
All that is necessary is that the Belief provide meaning. That it provide an inclusive home. That it appear both universalist and sublime. That it provide a purpose for living--and a purpose worth dying for.
The potential True Believer may be one of Franz Fannon's "Wretched of the Earth." But that isn't necessary. True Believers are just as likely to come from mansions as hovels, possess university degrees as be grade school dropouts. They are just as likely to have incomes and status of note as to be shuffling from the unemployment line to the corner.
They simply have to be empty inside.
And, meet a Belief that promises to fill the void within.
Islam promises its Believers a community. It promises rewards both here and hereafter for those who Believe and live according to the rules and strictures of the Belief.
True Believers eschew compromise, tolerance, acceptance, negotiation, as Dracula does garlic and mirrors. True Believers (and the Belief that fills them) find their identity in forcing others to accept the Belief or in killing those who reject it.
To the True Believer any rejection of the Belief, any perceived insult to the Belief, any falling away from the Belief is tantamount to rejecting the personhood of the Believer. Anyone who mocks me, kills me can (and often is) the motto of the True Believer.
Islam is a perfect Belief for any potential True Believer. It promises the most fulfillment to the Believer. It demands fighting for and dying for the expansion of the Belief. It brooks no compromise with the non-Believer. It accepts no peace with the non-Believer. It demands revenge be taken for any rejection.
For a young man who feels adrift (as almost all young men do), Islam promises, even more than Christianity or Communism, a way and a life. It promises a Community, an all-inclusive home.
For the young man feeling empty inside (as so many young men do so often) it promises a feeling of fullness beyond that of any other competing Belief extant today.
It is a Belief worth fighting for.
It is a Belief worth dying for.
It is a Belief in which dying can be the highest form of living.
(The Geek has no problem with that as a concept. In his life and work, the Geek has seen time and time again that death is no big deal. He has seen that the big deal is in the manner of a man's death. Does the death have a purpose or not.)
When a person takes his total identity from a Belief, when he becomes a True Believer, he becomes truly dangerous. He is quite willing to kill with a clear conscious. He is quite willing to die as he is certain of his rightness and reward. He is convinced that his death will provide meaning through its purposefulness.
Since the True Believer is unwilling and unable to accept compromise, to give assent to anything less than total victory, the usual diplomatic and political approaches are bootless.
Compromise or the acceptance of less than total victory for the Belief strips the True Believer of his personal identity. He ceases to exist with greater finality and totality than would be the case with mere physical death.
The Islam rooted terrorist is practicing identity politics in its purest form. That is what makes it easy for Islam to garner more jihadists. It is what makes Islam rooted terror so difficult to defeat.
Make no mistake about it. Islam is a better Belief for the empty than the alternatives today. It promises the most and demands the least.
Remember killing is no big deal for him of clear conscious. Death is no big deal for him of certain mind and spirit.
The True Believer has both.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Yemen And The Overlooked Chokepoint
Yemen is another one of those pesky artificial states. Created by accident as part of the ongoing British "fits of absentmindedness" during the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Yemen is a country which has always been wanting to fall apart. It takes only the slightest excuse to do so.
It is in the process of collapse one more time.
So why should we care?
Good question.
Basically there are a couple of reasons. One is quite good--at least for the moment. The other is also adequate, but will take a longer time to properly appreciate.
The good short-term reason is the Bab al Mandab. The "Bab" is the narrow stretch of water at the southern mouth of the Red Sea. Currently four percent of the world's daily production of oil flows through the narrow opening between the coasts of Yemen and Djibouti. Not much, but enough so that any threat to the flow will cause yet another spike in oil futures.
A bit of context wouldn't hurt before looking at today's state of play. The northern portion of today's Yemen, formerly called North Yemen became more or less independent in 1918 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and its dismantlement by the British and French. Great Britain kept a "benevolent" eye on the Shiite majority stretch of semi-barren mountains and desert.
The southern portion of Yemen, formerly the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (aka South Yemen) and before that the British Protectorate of Aden, was cut loose by the UK in 1967. Three years later at the ambiguous conclusion of a form of civil war between it and North Yemen in which Egypt played an open role, Aden changed names to the Peoples Republic.
As the name make clear the PDRY was Communist. Well, sort of hemi-demi-semi Communist.
North and South unified in 1990. Four years later a secessionist movement started in the south. It was officially "subdued" in 2000.
Subdued? Perhaps. Ended? No.
The southern portion of Yemen is relatively richer, better educated (if that term is relevant where only roughly half the population is literate) and possessed of modest oil reserves. It is also Sunni. Sunni of the Wahibist/Salifist persuasion. (No wonder that Osama bin Ladin's ancestry is from the south of Yemen as are the roots of many others in the al-Qaeda organisation.)
The north is Shiite. Strongly so. Let's step back forty-six years. In 1962, North Yemen, under the avuncular eye of Whitehall, became a "republic" after overthrowing the Immamate. This theocratic rule had limped along well enough as long as no one cared who or what was running the show. Regional considerations finally prompted someone to care and, since the sun had not yet set completely on the "lands east of Suez," bidda-bing, bidda-bang, the Immamate was gone and the good republicans in.
The Immamate was gone. But, not forgotten. In recent years it seems that the Shia majority in the north has been pining after the good old days of pure Shia sharia. Helped along by Iranian agents, the pining has taken a more definite shape.
The shape of guns. The shape of suicide bombers. The most recent example of Shia unrest in the north came just the other day as a suicide bomber reported to be fourteen years old blew himself and four others to protoplasm splashes in Sa'ada. There's lots of coverage, this is good and short. (http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=22007)
The northern threat is posed to a government which is already overstretched by the presence of the southern separatist movement and (drum roll, please) the never absent al-Qaeda. As if the government did not face enough problems, it is not widely considered to be legitimate due to its policy proximity to both the US and Saudi Arabia.
It has been al-Qaeda in the past which has made most Americans even dimly aware of Yemen's existence. It was in Aden that the USS Cole allowed one small boat too many to come too close.
Since that time the US government and Yemen have had a tenuous relationship. Yemen is an important geographical point in the Great Global War on Terrorism. Not because it was the ancestral home of bin Ladin, or even the place at which the bombing of the Cole announced clearly that the US was in the crosshairs.
Yemen became important because of an event taking place two years after the Cole was holed. A Yemen based al-Qaeda cell attacked the French flagged oil tanker, Limburg. The resultant small and short lived spike in oil prices brought home to those who care just how important the Bab al Mandab is.
Since then al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been quiet. In part this is because the government of president Salih has made important concessions to the jihadists. Prisoners have been allowed to escape, detainees transferred from US custody have been "reeducated" and released. From the US perspective this has made Yemen as less than reliable "ally" in the Great Global War on Terrorism. A good summary of the state of play in this area can be found at the following: http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/07/02/is_yemen_an_ally_in_the_war_on_terror/5613/
Salih has not been so successful in the north even though he was born in that region and was president of North Yemen before federation. There are currently a minimum of three thousand fighters in the mountains and caves of the north. They are all members of one particular sect of Shia, the Zaidi.
The Geek does not agree with those who argue the northern insurgency is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While Iran has undoubtedly provided some moral and training support, it is unlikely that it has gone beyond this level.
Adding to the potentially quite destabilizing mixture in Yemen is the presence of an estimated twenty thousand Somali refugees who have arrived in the country this year alone. (See the Doctors Without Borders Estimate at: http://www.alsahwanet.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=403_2008_07_05_64460)
Salih has been successful so far in playing region against region, tribe against tribe, sect against sect and the US against bin Ladin. How much longer he can keep his balance and keep Yemen from going the way of Somalia is difficult to judge.
Easy to judge is the impact of a failing Yemen on both the adjacent Bab al Mandab and the global oil markets. Bad at best. Catastrophic if combined with other shocks to the market.
Easy to judge is the impact of a Yemen failure on the Arab Peninsula. The Somaliazation of Yemen would have large, negative effects upon all the Arab oil states. Quite possibly it would be the start of a very unpleasant avalanche.
Incipient crises are always easiest to nip off at their first sign. (Think about what would have been the effect if the French Army had resisted the German reoccupation of the Rhineland.) We have missed that particular opportunity.
Among the many, many foreign policy challenges facing the next administration is how to (note, not "when to," or "if to") intervene effectively in Yemen before it hits the tank along with Somalia.
It is in the process of collapse one more time.
So why should we care?
Good question.
Basically there are a couple of reasons. One is quite good--at least for the moment. The other is also adequate, but will take a longer time to properly appreciate.
The good short-term reason is the Bab al Mandab. The "Bab" is the narrow stretch of water at the southern mouth of the Red Sea. Currently four percent of the world's daily production of oil flows through the narrow opening between the coasts of Yemen and Djibouti. Not much, but enough so that any threat to the flow will cause yet another spike in oil futures.
A bit of context wouldn't hurt before looking at today's state of play. The northern portion of today's Yemen, formerly called North Yemen became more or less independent in 1918 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and its dismantlement by the British and French. Great Britain kept a "benevolent" eye on the Shiite majority stretch of semi-barren mountains and desert.
The southern portion of Yemen, formerly the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (aka South Yemen) and before that the British Protectorate of Aden, was cut loose by the UK in 1967. Three years later at the ambiguous conclusion of a form of civil war between it and North Yemen in which Egypt played an open role, Aden changed names to the Peoples Republic.
As the name make clear the PDRY was Communist. Well, sort of hemi-demi-semi Communist.
North and South unified in 1990. Four years later a secessionist movement started in the south. It was officially "subdued" in 2000.
Subdued? Perhaps. Ended? No.
The southern portion of Yemen is relatively richer, better educated (if that term is relevant where only roughly half the population is literate) and possessed of modest oil reserves. It is also Sunni. Sunni of the Wahibist/Salifist persuasion. (No wonder that Osama bin Ladin's ancestry is from the south of Yemen as are the roots of many others in the al-Qaeda organisation.)
The north is Shiite. Strongly so. Let's step back forty-six years. In 1962, North Yemen, under the avuncular eye of Whitehall, became a "republic" after overthrowing the Immamate. This theocratic rule had limped along well enough as long as no one cared who or what was running the show. Regional considerations finally prompted someone to care and, since the sun had not yet set completely on the "lands east of Suez," bidda-bing, bidda-bang, the Immamate was gone and the good republicans in.
The Immamate was gone. But, not forgotten. In recent years it seems that the Shia majority in the north has been pining after the good old days of pure Shia sharia. Helped along by Iranian agents, the pining has taken a more definite shape.
The shape of guns. The shape of suicide bombers. The most recent example of Shia unrest in the north came just the other day as a suicide bomber reported to be fourteen years old blew himself and four others to protoplasm splashes in Sa'ada. There's lots of coverage, this is good and short. (http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=22007)
The northern threat is posed to a government which is already overstretched by the presence of the southern separatist movement and (drum roll, please) the never absent al-Qaeda. As if the government did not face enough problems, it is not widely considered to be legitimate due to its policy proximity to both the US and Saudi Arabia.
It has been al-Qaeda in the past which has made most Americans even dimly aware of Yemen's existence. It was in Aden that the USS Cole allowed one small boat too many to come too close.
Since that time the US government and Yemen have had a tenuous relationship. Yemen is an important geographical point in the Great Global War on Terrorism. Not because it was the ancestral home of bin Ladin, or even the place at which the bombing of the Cole announced clearly that the US was in the crosshairs.
Yemen became important because of an event taking place two years after the Cole was holed. A Yemen based al-Qaeda cell attacked the French flagged oil tanker, Limburg. The resultant small and short lived spike in oil prices brought home to those who care just how important the Bab al Mandab is.
Since then al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been quiet. In part this is because the government of president Salih has made important concessions to the jihadists. Prisoners have been allowed to escape, detainees transferred from US custody have been "reeducated" and released. From the US perspective this has made Yemen as less than reliable "ally" in the Great Global War on Terrorism. A good summary of the state of play in this area can be found at the following: http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/07/02/is_yemen_an_ally_in_the_war_on_terror/5613/
Salih has not been so successful in the north even though he was born in that region and was president of North Yemen before federation. There are currently a minimum of three thousand fighters in the mountains and caves of the north. They are all members of one particular sect of Shia, the Zaidi.
The Geek does not agree with those who argue the northern insurgency is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While Iran has undoubtedly provided some moral and training support, it is unlikely that it has gone beyond this level.
Adding to the potentially quite destabilizing mixture in Yemen is the presence of an estimated twenty thousand Somali refugees who have arrived in the country this year alone. (See the Doctors Without Borders Estimate at: http://www.alsahwanet.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=403_2008_07_05_64460)
Salih has been successful so far in playing region against region, tribe against tribe, sect against sect and the US against bin Ladin. How much longer he can keep his balance and keep Yemen from going the way of Somalia is difficult to judge.
Easy to judge is the impact of a failing Yemen on both the adjacent Bab al Mandab and the global oil markets. Bad at best. Catastrophic if combined with other shocks to the market.
Easy to judge is the impact of a Yemen failure on the Arab Peninsula. The Somaliazation of Yemen would have large, negative effects upon all the Arab oil states. Quite possibly it would be the start of a very unpleasant avalanche.
Incipient crises are always easiest to nip off at their first sign. (Think about what would have been the effect if the French Army had resisted the German reoccupation of the Rhineland.) We have missed that particular opportunity.
Among the many, many foreign policy challenges facing the next administration is how to (note, not "when to," or "if to") intervene effectively in Yemen before it hits the tank along with Somalia.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Still Looking For A (Mythical) Moderate Muslim?
If you are looking for the elusive Muslim moderate, bubba, you're in for a long, long search. It's kind of like watching for flying whales or stalking unicorns.
As there are cultural Christians, cultural Jews there are also cultural Muslims. Like Christians or Jews, Muslims may be non-observant, or merely nominal. There may be Muslims who, like many professed Christians, are pro forma in their religious practice. Muslims who do the equivalent of Christians whose butts are in the pews for Christmas and Easter and who otherwise honor their religion far more in the breech than in the observance.
The Geek's nearest neighbor is a Christian. (Truth in blogging requires the Geek to state that the neighbor lives a half mile away over a steep ridge, but out here that's downright next door.)
The neighbor was born and raised a hardshell Baptist and is given to quoting impressively long segments of the King James Bible at the slightest provocation. While he didn't let his daughter go out on dates until after she was married, he smokes, drinks, and cusses like a Marine on steroids. His rear end has not shined a pew for decades. Last Easter Sunday found him out grubbing a new line to his septic tank.
Someday, however, the faith of his childhood may again bloom forth in full flourish of belief. He may become a genuine, authentic full-bore Christian.
That possibility does not worry the Geek at all. What's the worst that can happen if the neighbor lives by the precepts of the New Testament?
Well, he'll turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Give his wealth to the poor. Seek social justice. Strive (or at least pray) for peace. Walk meekly and humbly with his Lord.
OK. Absolute worst case, the Geek's neighbor might try to bring the Geek to Jesus. That might be tedious, but it won't be life threatening.
Now what if the Geek's neighbor were to be a Muslim? And what if the neighbor were to return to the faith of his childhood?
The Geek would be damn glad that there was a half mile of bad terrain and no road connecting his land with that of the neighbor. He would also be glad that he had clear fields of fire in the event of the neighbor walking up wearing a bulky overcoat in August.
A genuine Muslim, an authentic Muslim following the Quran, following the life of Mohammad as his guide, must, of absolute necessity and pervasive deep rooted fear of hell, be a jihadist. He must seek to confront the infidel--to pose the infidel with the stark choice of conversion or death.
Death. The ever present theme of Islam, true Islam, the creed of Mohammad. The creed of conquest, of "killing and being killed" to advance the banner of Islam over the world.
Death. The constant, repetitive message of Islamic dominated societies and groups today. The Iranian parliament seeks death as the penalty for "harming mental security in society" on the Internet or any other form of communication. (Whatever that wording might mean. The Geek admists mystification.) See, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticlen.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/July/middleeast_July44.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
Death. The icon of so many sociopaths. The definition of a sociopathic entity.
Death. The anodyne for fear. The fear that permeates so much of Islam. The fear of the hell so graphically, sensuously, even lovingly described in Quran, hadith and so many Islamic sermons over so many centuries.
Death. The ultimate act of submission to divine will. Islam means and is all about submission. Submission to the deity. Submission to the will and example of Mohammad. Submission to the call of the cleric. Submission, finally to the fears implanted in childhood--the fears of judgement and punishment.
The genuine Muslim must go on jihad or, at the very, very least, support it actively and enthusiastically. His fears give him no choice. They allow him no moderation. They provide no means of compromise. No forestalling.
The genuine Muslim sees in martyrdom the end to fear. By following the injunction to "kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" (Sura 9:5), the genuine Muslim knows he will avoid punishment and gain reward. He will end his fears by dying in order to live forever without torment.
Death. This word separates the genuine Muslim from all those others who are nominal, cultural or non-observant fringe elements of Islam. The true Islam, the back-to-basics Islam is the Islam of those who call for death. Those who seek to inflict death. Those who seek self-death.
There is simply no room for "moderates."
Genuine Islam does not, cannot, seek accommodation, compromise or even peaceful coexistence with the infidel. The sociopath is blind to those options as he is to the act of creativity. Sociopaths can only destroy. They cannot create.
Looking back over the sweep of Islam's thirteen hundred years, one is struck by the paucity of creativity. And the plethora of death, destruction.
The so-called "golden age" of Islamic medicine and science was, upon close scrutiny, often based either on an idea from elsewhere such as the concept of zero as a placeholder taken from Hindu India or actually the product of a non-Muslim. The "golden age" saw little science, less literature and a complete distortion of the craft of history.
In the last thousand years or the last hundred or even the last ten, ask yourself how much science, art, literature, new creative ideas has the aggregate Muslim society brought to the human storehouse. And, of that pitifully small amount, how much was done by nominal Muslims living in totally non-Muslim countries or societies?
Fear driven sociopaths cannot, do not create. They can only destroy. They can only wreak death.
Freedom brings creativity in its wake. Freedom of inquiry and freedom of dissent bring new ideas. Freedom from the fear of hell brings a love of life. Loving life results in new ideas, new discoveries, new technologies, new systems, new every thing.
Look not for the moderate Muslim. He does not exist. Rather look for the ways in which we who have enjoyed and profited so much from freedom can liberate those in the chains of a long dead sociopath, Mohammad, the artificer of a political dogma called Islam.
As there are cultural Christians, cultural Jews there are also cultural Muslims. Like Christians or Jews, Muslims may be non-observant, or merely nominal. There may be Muslims who, like many professed Christians, are pro forma in their religious practice. Muslims who do the equivalent of Christians whose butts are in the pews for Christmas and Easter and who otherwise honor their religion far more in the breech than in the observance.
The Geek's nearest neighbor is a Christian. (Truth in blogging requires the Geek to state that the neighbor lives a half mile away over a steep ridge, but out here that's downright next door.)
The neighbor was born and raised a hardshell Baptist and is given to quoting impressively long segments of the King James Bible at the slightest provocation. While he didn't let his daughter go out on dates until after she was married, he smokes, drinks, and cusses like a Marine on steroids. His rear end has not shined a pew for decades. Last Easter Sunday found him out grubbing a new line to his septic tank.
Someday, however, the faith of his childhood may again bloom forth in full flourish of belief. He may become a genuine, authentic full-bore Christian.
That possibility does not worry the Geek at all. What's the worst that can happen if the neighbor lives by the precepts of the New Testament?
Well, he'll turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Give his wealth to the poor. Seek social justice. Strive (or at least pray) for peace. Walk meekly and humbly with his Lord.
OK. Absolute worst case, the Geek's neighbor might try to bring the Geek to Jesus. That might be tedious, but it won't be life threatening.
Now what if the Geek's neighbor were to be a Muslim? And what if the neighbor were to return to the faith of his childhood?
The Geek would be damn glad that there was a half mile of bad terrain and no road connecting his land with that of the neighbor. He would also be glad that he had clear fields of fire in the event of the neighbor walking up wearing a bulky overcoat in August.
A genuine Muslim, an authentic Muslim following the Quran, following the life of Mohammad as his guide, must, of absolute necessity and pervasive deep rooted fear of hell, be a jihadist. He must seek to confront the infidel--to pose the infidel with the stark choice of conversion or death.
Death. The ever present theme of Islam, true Islam, the creed of Mohammad. The creed of conquest, of "killing and being killed" to advance the banner of Islam over the world.
Death. The constant, repetitive message of Islamic dominated societies and groups today. The Iranian parliament seeks death as the penalty for "harming mental security in society" on the Internet or any other form of communication. (Whatever that wording might mean. The Geek admists mystification.) See, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticlen.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/July/middleeast_July44.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
Death. The icon of so many sociopaths. The definition of a sociopathic entity.
Death. The anodyne for fear. The fear that permeates so much of Islam. The fear of the hell so graphically, sensuously, even lovingly described in Quran, hadith and so many Islamic sermons over so many centuries.
Death. The ultimate act of submission to divine will. Islam means and is all about submission. Submission to the deity. Submission to the will and example of Mohammad. Submission to the call of the cleric. Submission, finally to the fears implanted in childhood--the fears of judgement and punishment.
The genuine Muslim must go on jihad or, at the very, very least, support it actively and enthusiastically. His fears give him no choice. They allow him no moderation. They provide no means of compromise. No forestalling.
The genuine Muslim sees in martyrdom the end to fear. By following the injunction to "kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" (Sura 9:5), the genuine Muslim knows he will avoid punishment and gain reward. He will end his fears by dying in order to live forever without torment.
Death. This word separates the genuine Muslim from all those others who are nominal, cultural or non-observant fringe elements of Islam. The true Islam, the back-to-basics Islam is the Islam of those who call for death. Those who seek to inflict death. Those who seek self-death.
There is simply no room for "moderates."
Genuine Islam does not, cannot, seek accommodation, compromise or even peaceful coexistence with the infidel. The sociopath is blind to those options as he is to the act of creativity. Sociopaths can only destroy. They cannot create.
Looking back over the sweep of Islam's thirteen hundred years, one is struck by the paucity of creativity. And the plethora of death, destruction.
The so-called "golden age" of Islamic medicine and science was, upon close scrutiny, often based either on an idea from elsewhere such as the concept of zero as a placeholder taken from Hindu India or actually the product of a non-Muslim. The "golden age" saw little science, less literature and a complete distortion of the craft of history.
In the last thousand years or the last hundred or even the last ten, ask yourself how much science, art, literature, new creative ideas has the aggregate Muslim society brought to the human storehouse. And, of that pitifully small amount, how much was done by nominal Muslims living in totally non-Muslim countries or societies?
Fear driven sociopaths cannot, do not create. They can only destroy. They can only wreak death.
Freedom brings creativity in its wake. Freedom of inquiry and freedom of dissent bring new ideas. Freedom from the fear of hell brings a love of life. Loving life results in new ideas, new discoveries, new technologies, new systems, new every thing.
Look not for the moderate Muslim. He does not exist. Rather look for the ways in which we who have enjoyed and profited so much from freedom can liberate those in the chains of a long dead sociopath, Mohammad, the artificer of a political dogma called Islam.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Islam--Sociopathy As Religion
Before he became a historian of note, George Kennan was a diplomat of skill and repute. He is best known for having designed the foundation for the policy of containment which guided the US for nearly a half century before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Kennan's point of departure was his understanding of the "sources of Soviet conduct," of necessity a historically based view of the cultural, intellectual, social and political nature of Russia and its people. He saw history as far more than prologue to the present. Kennan's view of history was that it propelled peoples and the institutions they either created or allowed to exist within certain, narrow channels. Only the introduction of massive and sustained resistance to the historical flow within these channels would allow or cause the canal banks to fail and new directions to emerge.
Not all historians by a long shot share Kennan's rather narrow understanding of the past with the present and the future. Still, his basic approach has much to recommend it. The simple reality is human ideas, culture, society and the structures or institutions which emerge from them have inertia.
Inertia. That's the magic word for understanding much of what is going on in the present day. Inertia. A concept that is commonplace in physics. Defined by Newton's famed laws.
You should remember it from high school physics.
OK. If you don't, here it is. A body at rest or in uniform motion remains at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
Humans as well as their ideas and institutions from the smallest to the largest show the same tendency to unchangingness. Each and every one of us as well as the human context in which we live tends to chug along seemingly without change. Unless acted upon. By a force.
Get a grip on that. Acted upon by a force. With human beings the force need not be physical. It does not even need to come from outside the society. Unlike physical objects we can generate the forces that change us and our context.
"Wait one, Geek! What the hell has this got to do with anything?"
Hang on with the Geek for a few minutes, bucko, and you'll see it has everything to do with the conflict underway between Islam and the West (OK, to be fully ecumenical, the East as well.)
(First, a personal confession of sorts. The Geek has tried hard to follow the politically correct procedure of distinguishing between "Islamists/jihadists" and Islam. That effort springs, no doubt, from the Geek's years in the professorate where sensitivity is all. The Geek can no longer keep up the pretense of making a distinction when there is no difference. That decision is no doubt a reflection of his years dealing with intelligence where the obligation is to call it as you see it to the best of your knowledge and belief regardless of personal or career consequences.)
The necessity for dropping the distinction between "Islamist" and Islam is inertia. The inertia of Islam. The persistence of the founding nature and character of Islam as well as the deathless roll of its founder, Mohammad, in the inertia of Islam.
The ongoing fountainhead of Islam is threefold: the Quran, the hadith (stories about or sayings of Mohammad collected and verified roughly a century after his death as either "strong" or "weak" according to the probable degree of authenticity) and the Sunnah--the biography of Mohammad. This biography is based in large measure on the hadith. It is particularly crucial to understanding Islam because Mohammad is al insan al kamil, the "ideal man."
In short, a Muslim cannot go wrong if he acts in the same way as Mohammad did back in the Seventh Century.
None of the tripartite basis of Islam is secret or hard to find. Go to http://www.dar-us-salam.com/. The Quran, the multi-volume hadith, the sunnah are all there, easy to buy if not so easy to read.
Time to dig a bit.
The Quran is short, about the same length as the Christian New Testament. It is arranged according the length of the chapters which makes it a bit tough to parse between the earlier and later writings. That in turn makes it harder to properly apply the uniquely Islamic tool of "abrogation" which states that in cases of internal contradiction, the later takes priority over the former. In short, the Islamic deity can change his mind and the earlier version is rendered, in the words of Nixon's press secretary, "inoperative."
Nifty, heh?
Perfect for a political movement based on violence as it wins. Start with all sorts of warm, fuzzy, win the hearts-and-minds mood music. End with lopping off the heads of defeated opponents in wholesale amounts.
As you read the Quran get ready to wade through more blood and gore than that which spatters sections of the Jewish Bible. Along with the slasher movie segments there is a fine short course in conducting successful insurgency. (The Geek recommends it over the maundering of Mao.)
In the Quran you will also get to meet Mohammad. He is a singular personality. And, quite unpleasant to boot. This "ideal man" is possessed of a thirst for vengence against those who "mocked" him. This "ideal man" has a love of booty--which, presumably to his political credit, he shares with those who support him.
The "ideal man" also has an unlimited drive for power. Compared to him modern aggrandizers such as Hitler and Stalin were small time operators.
The theology of the Quran is derivative. While the Geek has but a lowly masters in comparative religion, even he could see that there is nothing new in the Quran. There is a total absence of any theological concept that cannot be traced directly to roots in the earlier polytheistic religions of the Arabian desert or to Judaism and Christianity. Not surprising, both monotheistic faiths had a long standing presence in the area when Mohammad arrived on the scene and polytheism was in the air he breathed and the sand on which he stood.
The final feature of the Quran is its emphasis on death. And, its focus on hell. No other piece of religious literature begins to have the love affair with hell found in the Quran. The descriptions of the torments of the damned (primarily women it might be noted) are laid out with a sensuous regard for detail. It's a sort of pornography. The pornography of pain and hopelessness. A pornography that should appeal only to the kind of man who would volunteer for the cadre at Dachau or Belsen-Bergen.
We really get to meet the "ideal man," upclose, personal and unpleasant in the hadith and sunnah. Here we see him at work. Hard work such as personally chopping off the heads of defeated Jewish adversaries, the Bani Quaraiza. (Sira, pp 463-4)
According to the hadith and sunnah, Mohammad not only was given to the notion of victory at any price, treachery, counseling genocide, and personally killing unarmed captives. He also deflowered yet one more new wife, a nine year old.
The picture of Mohammad that comes out of the Quran, hadith and sunnah has a name. Actually it has several names depending upon the user's degree of medical knowledge and political correctness. See, http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=39219.
Mohammad, the "ideal man" of Islam, the man who sets the standard for all Muslims (or at least those of the male persuasion) was a sociopath. The political movement he started under the banner of religion is a sociopathy. A sociopathy that calls itself a religion.
You want some features?
OK. Consider the following. Islam, whether Arab or later adherents, has cut the most bloody swath across the world in recorded history. One need not look any further than the Muslim conquest of Hindu India to see the greatest acts of pure genocide ever committed.
The spilling of blood in oceanic quantities is a necessary feature of a belief system utterly without empathy. The lack of empathy is a key diagnostic feature of sociopathy.
Consider the inability of Islam to compromise--on anything. The basic stance of Islam over the past thirteen hundred years is: what's mine is mine--what's yours will be mine.
Uncompromising pure self-interest unalloyed by other considerations is another key diagnostic feature of Islam. Back then and today.
Consider the extraordinary sensitivity of Muslims to presumed slights, insults, mockings and so on. From Mohammad to the OIC, Muslims are eager to claim that they are being insulted and demand vengeance. (Preferably the same vengeance that Mohammad, the "ideal man" demanded: death! Off with their heads!)
Egocentrism of this cosmic sort is another key diagnostic feature of sociopathy.
Are you getting the picture?
Underneath all the diagnostic features, under all the "anti-social" attitudes and behaviors, the sociopath is filled with fear. He is propelled with fear. He lives in fear.
Islam is predicated upon fear. The fear of death. More, the fear of hell which is drummed so deeply into the back brain of each and every believer.
Islam is and always has been fearful. Only the most fearful seek to eliminate all competition, all dissent, all deviant views. Only the most fearful seek global conquest by whatsoever means. Only the fearful seek to provoke, induce, manufacture fear in the minds of all who disagree, dissent, oppose or are merely different somehow.
Only the fearful seek as a sort of paradise the unchanging world of the Seventh Century Arabian desert with its stark silence and barren soil.
Only Islam has these goals explicit in its basic writings. Only Islam has these features written in the life of the "ideal man."
Only Islam is sociopathy. And Mohammad was its founder and still guiding light.
None of this will change--unless acted upon by an outside force.
Kennan's point of departure was his understanding of the "sources of Soviet conduct," of necessity a historically based view of the cultural, intellectual, social and political nature of Russia and its people. He saw history as far more than prologue to the present. Kennan's view of history was that it propelled peoples and the institutions they either created or allowed to exist within certain, narrow channels. Only the introduction of massive and sustained resistance to the historical flow within these channels would allow or cause the canal banks to fail and new directions to emerge.
Not all historians by a long shot share Kennan's rather narrow understanding of the past with the present and the future. Still, his basic approach has much to recommend it. The simple reality is human ideas, culture, society and the structures or institutions which emerge from them have inertia.
Inertia. That's the magic word for understanding much of what is going on in the present day. Inertia. A concept that is commonplace in physics. Defined by Newton's famed laws.
You should remember it from high school physics.
OK. If you don't, here it is. A body at rest or in uniform motion remains at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
Humans as well as their ideas and institutions from the smallest to the largest show the same tendency to unchangingness. Each and every one of us as well as the human context in which we live tends to chug along seemingly without change. Unless acted upon. By a force.
Get a grip on that. Acted upon by a force. With human beings the force need not be physical. It does not even need to come from outside the society. Unlike physical objects we can generate the forces that change us and our context.
"Wait one, Geek! What the hell has this got to do with anything?"
Hang on with the Geek for a few minutes, bucko, and you'll see it has everything to do with the conflict underway between Islam and the West (OK, to be fully ecumenical, the East as well.)
(First, a personal confession of sorts. The Geek has tried hard to follow the politically correct procedure of distinguishing between "Islamists/jihadists" and Islam. That effort springs, no doubt, from the Geek's years in the professorate where sensitivity is all. The Geek can no longer keep up the pretense of making a distinction when there is no difference. That decision is no doubt a reflection of his years dealing with intelligence where the obligation is to call it as you see it to the best of your knowledge and belief regardless of personal or career consequences.)
The necessity for dropping the distinction between "Islamist" and Islam is inertia. The inertia of Islam. The persistence of the founding nature and character of Islam as well as the deathless roll of its founder, Mohammad, in the inertia of Islam.
The ongoing fountainhead of Islam is threefold: the Quran, the hadith (stories about or sayings of Mohammad collected and verified roughly a century after his death as either "strong" or "weak" according to the probable degree of authenticity) and the Sunnah--the biography of Mohammad. This biography is based in large measure on the hadith. It is particularly crucial to understanding Islam because Mohammad is al insan al kamil, the "ideal man."
In short, a Muslim cannot go wrong if he acts in the same way as Mohammad did back in the Seventh Century.
None of the tripartite basis of Islam is secret or hard to find. Go to http://www.dar-us-salam.com/. The Quran, the multi-volume hadith, the sunnah are all there, easy to buy if not so easy to read.
Time to dig a bit.
The Quran is short, about the same length as the Christian New Testament. It is arranged according the length of the chapters which makes it a bit tough to parse between the earlier and later writings. That in turn makes it harder to properly apply the uniquely Islamic tool of "abrogation" which states that in cases of internal contradiction, the later takes priority over the former. In short, the Islamic deity can change his mind and the earlier version is rendered, in the words of Nixon's press secretary, "inoperative."
Nifty, heh?
Perfect for a political movement based on violence as it wins. Start with all sorts of warm, fuzzy, win the hearts-and-minds mood music. End with lopping off the heads of defeated opponents in wholesale amounts.
As you read the Quran get ready to wade through more blood and gore than that which spatters sections of the Jewish Bible. Along with the slasher movie segments there is a fine short course in conducting successful insurgency. (The Geek recommends it over the maundering of Mao.)
In the Quran you will also get to meet Mohammad. He is a singular personality. And, quite unpleasant to boot. This "ideal man" is possessed of a thirst for vengence against those who "mocked" him. This "ideal man" has a love of booty--which, presumably to his political credit, he shares with those who support him.
The "ideal man" also has an unlimited drive for power. Compared to him modern aggrandizers such as Hitler and Stalin were small time operators.
The theology of the Quran is derivative. While the Geek has but a lowly masters in comparative religion, even he could see that there is nothing new in the Quran. There is a total absence of any theological concept that cannot be traced directly to roots in the earlier polytheistic religions of the Arabian desert or to Judaism and Christianity. Not surprising, both monotheistic faiths had a long standing presence in the area when Mohammad arrived on the scene and polytheism was in the air he breathed and the sand on which he stood.
The final feature of the Quran is its emphasis on death. And, its focus on hell. No other piece of religious literature begins to have the love affair with hell found in the Quran. The descriptions of the torments of the damned (primarily women it might be noted) are laid out with a sensuous regard for detail. It's a sort of pornography. The pornography of pain and hopelessness. A pornography that should appeal only to the kind of man who would volunteer for the cadre at Dachau or Belsen-Bergen.
We really get to meet the "ideal man," upclose, personal and unpleasant in the hadith and sunnah. Here we see him at work. Hard work such as personally chopping off the heads of defeated Jewish adversaries, the Bani Quaraiza. (Sira, pp 463-4)
According to the hadith and sunnah, Mohammad not only was given to the notion of victory at any price, treachery, counseling genocide, and personally killing unarmed captives. He also deflowered yet one more new wife, a nine year old.
The picture of Mohammad that comes out of the Quran, hadith and sunnah has a name. Actually it has several names depending upon the user's degree of medical knowledge and political correctness. See, http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=39219.
Mohammad, the "ideal man" of Islam, the man who sets the standard for all Muslims (or at least those of the male persuasion) was a sociopath. The political movement he started under the banner of religion is a sociopathy. A sociopathy that calls itself a religion.
You want some features?
OK. Consider the following. Islam, whether Arab or later adherents, has cut the most bloody swath across the world in recorded history. One need not look any further than the Muslim conquest of Hindu India to see the greatest acts of pure genocide ever committed.
The spilling of blood in oceanic quantities is a necessary feature of a belief system utterly without empathy. The lack of empathy is a key diagnostic feature of sociopathy.
Consider the inability of Islam to compromise--on anything. The basic stance of Islam over the past thirteen hundred years is: what's mine is mine--what's yours will be mine.
Uncompromising pure self-interest unalloyed by other considerations is another key diagnostic feature of Islam. Back then and today.
Consider the extraordinary sensitivity of Muslims to presumed slights, insults, mockings and so on. From Mohammad to the OIC, Muslims are eager to claim that they are being insulted and demand vengeance. (Preferably the same vengeance that Mohammad, the "ideal man" demanded: death! Off with their heads!)
Egocentrism of this cosmic sort is another key diagnostic feature of sociopathy.
Are you getting the picture?
Underneath all the diagnostic features, under all the "anti-social" attitudes and behaviors, the sociopath is filled with fear. He is propelled with fear. He lives in fear.
Islam is predicated upon fear. The fear of death. More, the fear of hell which is drummed so deeply into the back brain of each and every believer.
Islam is and always has been fearful. Only the most fearful seek to eliminate all competition, all dissent, all deviant views. Only the most fearful seek global conquest by whatsoever means. Only the fearful seek to provoke, induce, manufacture fear in the minds of all who disagree, dissent, oppose or are merely different somehow.
Only the fearful seek as a sort of paradise the unchanging world of the Seventh Century Arabian desert with its stark silence and barren soil.
Only Islam has these goals explicit in its basic writings. Only Islam has these features written in the life of the "ideal man."
Only Islam is sociopathy. And Mohammad was its founder and still guiding light.
None of this will change--unless acted upon by an outside force.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
John Bolton And North Korea
John Bolton is a man with whom the Geek rarely agrees. At the moment regarding US policy toward North Korea, we are in tandem. The provocation for this rare moment of congruence is found in the WSJ, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121478274355214441.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.
Getting rid of the Yongbyon plutonium production reactor is a good idea. But, in and of itself the decommissioning of the reactor does not solve the major questions regarding the isolated autocracy's nuclear weapons program. Nor does it turn the overly aggressive Soviet era enclave into an outpost of peaceloving good nature.
Be that as it may, the US is rewarding the petulant paranoids of the North Korean regime for its current semi-bad behavior as well as its previous record as an international rogue.
The current administration may be doing the end zone victory high-five, but behind the smoke and mirrors of victory being celebrated without having been achieved lurk the big unknowns.
Unknown number one. Neither the fourteen month late Declaration nor earlier accounts under the 1994 Agreed Framework provide hard data on precisely how much plutonium was produced, extracted, made into weapons or remains somewhere on a shelf deep underground waiting fabrication.
Unknown number two. A similar state of ignorance exists regarding the availability in North Korea of warhead designs such as those found on the A.Q Khan network computer in Switzerland. The existence of designs based on tested and refined weapons both simplifies the fabrication process and nullifies the need for tests. Of course, better designs stretch a limited Pu-239 budget further.
Unknown number three. With the exception of the Yongbyon clone under construction in Syria, the full extent of North Korea's proliferation related activities is lost in the diplomatic fog.
Now for some knowns.
Known number one. North Korea is and always has been a secretive militaristic state given to selling weapons technology to states hostile to US interests.
Known number two. The North Korean clandestine service has engaged directly in acts of terror (albeit not recently) and the regime has given no credible evidence of having renounced this means of warfare,
Known number three. North Korea is an economic disaster area. Starvation looms for many North Koreans.
The US is sending food. Overall a half million tons of US grown food will be sent. The first thirty six thousand tons have arrived already.
The current administration stated that no linkage exists between the humanitarian relief effort and the issuance of the nuclear declaration. As an old spookworld saying has it, "Thank God for coincidence."
(It is passingly interesting to note that the North Korean regime rejected the South Korean offer of corn. Not the kind of response one would expect from a government dealing with massive food shortages.)
There was a clear, direct and open linkage between the North Korean (partial) fulfillment of its obligations and the US removing the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. In that North Korea remains under a series of other sanctions both unilateral and multi-lateral, the practical implications of this reward are limited.
The symbolic significance should not be overlooked. Removing this onus from Pyongyang will make it easier for the regime to receive aid, international institutional assistance and financing and other necessities of survival. Even the provision of food alone helps remove unpleasant burdens from the regime. If others are feeding its population; if others provide material and financial assistance, the regime will be free to focus its energies and resources upon the military and akin structures.
North Korea will be able to continue its sixty year old role as a regional thug as well as its more recent one of global troublemaker. The legitimacy provided Pyongyang by de-listing will free its hands for more mischief.
Regardless of what diplomats, past and present, might aver, this is no policy success. The diplomats along with the current administration might wish it to be such--they have so much political and personal ego invested in the process, but wishing does not make it so.
Smooth words and mood music regarding "verification" and continued sanctions as well as "engagement" do not cover the corpse of failure.
Neither do plaints regarding the "starving millions" of the North Korean peasants. For all the fond hopes and warm feelings of High Minded Humanitarians, the feeding of the multitudes is counterproductive. Full bellies will not bring smiles of peace.
The US did not win. John Bolton is right. The North Korean regime did.
Getting rid of the Yongbyon plutonium production reactor is a good idea. But, in and of itself the decommissioning of the reactor does not solve the major questions regarding the isolated autocracy's nuclear weapons program. Nor does it turn the overly aggressive Soviet era enclave into an outpost of peaceloving good nature.
Be that as it may, the US is rewarding the petulant paranoids of the North Korean regime for its current semi-bad behavior as well as its previous record as an international rogue.
The current administration may be doing the end zone victory high-five, but behind the smoke and mirrors of victory being celebrated without having been achieved lurk the big unknowns.
Unknown number one. Neither the fourteen month late Declaration nor earlier accounts under the 1994 Agreed Framework provide hard data on precisely how much plutonium was produced, extracted, made into weapons or remains somewhere on a shelf deep underground waiting fabrication.
Unknown number two. A similar state of ignorance exists regarding the availability in North Korea of warhead designs such as those found on the A.Q Khan network computer in Switzerland. The existence of designs based on tested and refined weapons both simplifies the fabrication process and nullifies the need for tests. Of course, better designs stretch a limited Pu-239 budget further.
Unknown number three. With the exception of the Yongbyon clone under construction in Syria, the full extent of North Korea's proliferation related activities is lost in the diplomatic fog.
Now for some knowns.
Known number one. North Korea is and always has been a secretive militaristic state given to selling weapons technology to states hostile to US interests.
Known number two. The North Korean clandestine service has engaged directly in acts of terror (albeit not recently) and the regime has given no credible evidence of having renounced this means of warfare,
Known number three. North Korea is an economic disaster area. Starvation looms for many North Koreans.
The US is sending food. Overall a half million tons of US grown food will be sent. The first thirty six thousand tons have arrived already.
The current administration stated that no linkage exists between the humanitarian relief effort and the issuance of the nuclear declaration. As an old spookworld saying has it, "Thank God for coincidence."
(It is passingly interesting to note that the North Korean regime rejected the South Korean offer of corn. Not the kind of response one would expect from a government dealing with massive food shortages.)
There was a clear, direct and open linkage between the North Korean (partial) fulfillment of its obligations and the US removing the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. In that North Korea remains under a series of other sanctions both unilateral and multi-lateral, the practical implications of this reward are limited.
The symbolic significance should not be overlooked. Removing this onus from Pyongyang will make it easier for the regime to receive aid, international institutional assistance and financing and other necessities of survival. Even the provision of food alone helps remove unpleasant burdens from the regime. If others are feeding its population; if others provide material and financial assistance, the regime will be free to focus its energies and resources upon the military and akin structures.
North Korea will be able to continue its sixty year old role as a regional thug as well as its more recent one of global troublemaker. The legitimacy provided Pyongyang by de-listing will free its hands for more mischief.
Regardless of what diplomats, past and present, might aver, this is no policy success. The diplomats along with the current administration might wish it to be such--they have so much political and personal ego invested in the process, but wishing does not make it so.
Smooth words and mood music regarding "verification" and continued sanctions as well as "engagement" do not cover the corpse of failure.
Neither do plaints regarding the "starving millions" of the North Korean peasants. For all the fond hopes and warm feelings of High Minded Humanitarians, the feeding of the multitudes is counterproductive. Full bellies will not bring smiles of peace.
The US did not win. John Bolton is right. The North Korean regime did.
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