White House Language Cops Deny Reality

One of the most important considerations at work in foreign relations today, arguably the most important, is that of self-identification. There are legions of ways in which an individual may identify himself and establish his relations with other humans. The most common ways in which a person so locates himself in both demographic and political space are tribe, ethnicity, region, nation, language, and religion.

Typically the identifiers merge in a reinforcing way. This is particularly true in the case of genuine, mature nation-states. Citizenship, language, geography, shared sense of history and values, all combine to provide a unitary identity by which the individual can feel a loyalty to a rather large, often remotely governed abstract--the nation--circumscribed by secure, defensible borders under the effective control of a consensually accepted polity--the state.

This can be seen quite clearly with the Americans. Not that many decades ago the emphasis was on the word, "States" in the name "United States of America." Now it is on the words "United" and "America." Our primary identity has shifted from city, state, or region to nation-state as we have become ever more mobile and ever more homogenized culturally, socially, economically, and politically. Even our once very distinguishable regional dialects have melted away in the heat of mass communications.

Americans may also have secondary identities such as ethnicity, religion, and generation, but these are most often purely secondary--unless brought forward in importance by the politics of victimization. It is only in the context of playing the game of victim-and-victimizer that any secondary identifier is given pride of place.

Unfortunately, playing the victim card has become so much a feature of our political landscape in the past forty or so years that the Law of Unintended Consequences can have great and terrible effects. This is particularly the case when the sensibilities so often invoked in the politics of victimization are invoked in the practice of foreign policy.

So, Geek, just what has this got to do with the real world, anyway?

Well, bucko, it's like this. The US and the rest of the civilized world is currently at war with--here comes the nitty-gritty--someone. Since 9/11 there has been no doubt that the US and other nation-states of similar foundational values and core institutions have been under armed attack. And, we have fought back.

But who attacked us? Against whom have we been fighting?

These key questions were not answered by the Bush/Cheney administration. The conceit held by the neocon ninnies of that time was that the US was engaged in a "war on terror." That was a logical and ontological monstrosity. It is impossible to wage war on a specific tactic of war which is what terrorism constitutes. It would have made as much sense to have declared war on air attacks without declaration of war on 8 December 1941 as to fight a war against terrorism.

The Bush/Cheney administration belatedly came to understand that it was unwise at the operational level to maintain we were waging war against Islamists or jihadists--even though we were. After the early period of boisterous enthusiasm and belief we could have a pair of quick and cheap victories in Afghanistan and Iraq in which the terms "Islamic," "Islamist," "Jihad," and similar were hurled with the rapidity of an M-4 on rock and roll, fear that overblown oratory might create ever more Muslims with a deep anti-American orientation overtook the White House and environs.

The same fear has gripped the Obama administration. Its latest excrescence is the presidential directive to eliminate "offensive" terms such as "Islamist" and "jihad" from strategic planning documents. This move is meant not only to bolster the famed Obama Outreach to the Arab and Muslim world which started in Cairo a year back but to reorient the way in which the US both approaches and is perceived in majority Muslim countries.

The goal is laudable. The means are not.

The Obama Prohibition still leaves us in the dark regarding the nature of the enemy we are fighting, the motives which propel that enemy, and the signposts marking our progress toward or regression from success in the war. The enemy needs a name. His motives and goals need to be understood. The definers of success need to be prescribed.

Admittedly, naming the enemy was much easier in the "old days." In most of our previous wars the enemy was either a nation-state or a pretender to that status. Other wars, those of an interventionary nature, the enemy could at least be identified by a specific ideology or his opposition to a polity supported by the US.

Naming names was quite easy. And, usually quite effective in mobilizing and maintaining political will here at home for the war "over there."

Outfits like the many franchises grouped together under the name al-Qaeda or even country specific entities such as the Talibans of Afghanistan and Pakistan are not so susceptible to easy and accurate identification unless one is willing to run the risk of offending someone's sensibilities somewhere. And, if those offended are Muslim in their primary identification, the consequence may be harmful to both national interest and personal health.

Whether reality imposes risks or not, whether the Obama administration likes it or not, not properly identifying the enemy, his motivations and goals makes the possibility of being successful in our efforts against him diminishingly small. The ironic elephant in the room is that by its very insistence upon extreme sensitivity to Muslim sensibilities, the Obama administration just like that of George W. Bush in its later years implicitly admits the nature and character--the identity, if you will--of the enemy.

The enemy is, of course, Islam. More accurately and specifically it is that segment of the Muslim population which accepts as a prime motivator and goal the universal, all encompassing identity of Islam. Make no mistake about it, Islam is a far more totalistic belief system than the other monotheistic religions. There is no daylight between faith and any other aspect of human life. Not only is there no daylight, there is no possibility that any will or can emerge.

Adherents of politically oriented, expansionist Islam, the Islamists, are not misunderstanders of Islam; they are good Muslims. True Believer Muslims. To think otherwise is to diminish both the power of the Belief and the sincerity of the Believer.

While some operatives of Islamism may be stooges, may be suffering from personality or character disorders, may be incomplete personalities, such is not the case with the movers, shakers, leaders, and commanders of Islamism and its armed, conjoined twin, Jihadism. The leadership cadre, even many of the trigger pullers and suicide vest wearers, are motivated by a sincere and pervasive belief that through their actions, the will of Allah to conquer the infidel and punish the apostate is being followed. They are convinced to their very marrow that their actions, including their deaths, will bring a better world, a more faithful and peaceful world into existence.

Other communities of faith have held similar, even identical views in the past, often the not too distant past. Even today there are Christians and Jews willing and able to commit murder and other crimes in the True Belief that by so doing they are following the will of the deity, and they are suffering in order to prevent sin, rectify past sins, or ushering in a better, more godly future.

The difference between the Islamists and jihadists on the one hand and True Believers in other faiths or secular ideologies is their greater number on the ground. Where the number of American "pro-life" advocates willing to commit murder on behalf of their faith is quite small or the number of ultra-orthodox Jews willing to kill archeologists who dig up inconvenient, long buried facts which contravene Biblical accounts is diminishingly small, this is not the case with respect to Islamists and jihadists.

This implies that the latest generation of language police in the White House are doing no good service to either the security and interests of the US or the best interests of Muslims by failing to properly and narrowly define the enemy. Ultimately it is up to Muslims throughout the world to decide: Is their religion is best represented by the totalistic interpretation of the Islamists or would it be better if observant Muslims rigorously rejected the blandishments and threats of those of their brethren who maintain that the way of Allah demands jihad, requires the suicide bombings, the wholesale killings, the waging of wars without end or conclusive result?

The vision of the world espoused by the Islamists is, at root, a recreation of the culture, the values, and the worldview of the Arabian Peninsula over a thousand years ago. The question for the one and a half billion Muslims today living in all countries of the world is simply what do they want for their future--life in Seventh Century Arabia or today?

This is the choice implicitly presented to the Muslims by the Obama administration's underlying strategy of engagement. It is impossible to discuss science, health care, investment opportunities, trade, education as the administration desires without challenging Muslims to choose between the Islamist worldview and agenda and one which allows for fully observant Islam lacking only the totalistic, expansionist, and death oriented features of Islamism.

This decision requires identity politics. It requires every Muslim to decide if the primary definer of faith demands acceptance of the Islamist understanding of what it takes to be a True Believer in the One True Faith. This is a decision which is not easy to make, particularly for people who have no tradition, no experience with the tortured process of evolving the sort of identity and consequent loyalty which typifies the nation-state.

Making this sort of difficult choice is not made any easier by our refusal to name our enemy in the wars today. You don't have to make a choice when you don't know there is a choice which must be made.

Mr Obama and others of the apprehensive, politically correct, multi-cultural persuasion have to understand that it is not only impossible to succeed in a war when the enemy cannot be properly, openly, and consistently named. It is also impossible to gain allies when they do not know with whom they are joining and against whom they are fighting.

Those are two very good reasons for naming names. Two good reasons for telling one and all, Muslims most of all, that our enemy, the enemy of both the present and the future, is the Islamist, the jihadist. By presenting a clear definition and thus a choice, the Muslims of the world can decide to reject the enemy in their midst.

What! Me Worry? Not About "Eurabia"

Once upon a time, long ago, Newsweek was a staid, stolid magazine. Way back then, back when Ike was in the White House and the collective knees of We the People knocked like castanets with gran mal epilepsy, it was the boring, fact-oriented rival of the froth spewing icon of the Luce Empire, Time. High school students groaned when they were forced to read the dull words of Newsweek rather than the more stimulating pap of Time. Boring or not, Newsweek had the advantage of being free of opinion, particularly the ill-informed and unsourced sort.

Times have changed. Now Newsweek is not only thin in size and coverage, it is very, very lacking in weight, particularly intellectual weight. It is, however, long, indeed, very, very long on politically correct opinions of dubious intellectual honesty or robust factual undergirding. As an example of this, one might consider the magazine's treatment of what it is pleased to call the "Myth of Eurabia." Written by William Underhill, a staff hack who has penned articles on such diverse subjects as mosquitoes, Prince Charles, the Labor Party's difficulties, and the race for the so called "god particle," the piece portrays any and all who have voiced alarm at developments in Europe, pointing to the Muslim minority gaining an undue influence on the region's political, social and cultural structures, as a crew of paranoic scaremongers.

Nothing in Mr Underhill's string book indicates that he has any special qualifications to write on the complex subject of the Muslim impact on European politics, society, and culture to say nothing of the longer term implications of their growing and increasingly strident numbers in the European states. This in no way deters him from pushing a multi-cultural agenda with the intent of both reassuring the reader and demonising all who have found cause for concern in the Muslim penetration of Europe from the UK to the depths of the former Warsaw Pact.

Mr Underhill starts off by branding those who warn of the emerging Islamist threat to ancient European cultural values, social norms, political institutions, and world view as being "far right." The use of the term "far right" as the broad tar brush is as common, intellectually bankrupt, and ethically objectionable as was the use of the phrase "red-baiter" against anyone who spoke against Soviet espionage and subversion efforts a half-century ago.

(Let the record show that during the long, dark days of the most frigid Cold War, Newsweek did not stoop to the loathsome practice of name calling. The editors in those days let such reprehensible practices reside with the minions of Luce-world.)

Let us grant that Mr Underhill is correct when he avers Muslims will not be a majority of the Western European population in the next half-century even though that is a debatable proposition. Let us further grant Mr Underhill's undocumented and undocumentable contention that most Muslims are quite happy with the extant European social norms, cultural values, and political processes and institutions.

Even with these concessions, Mr Underhill's main point--Muslims are dear, sweet, harmless and ever-so-likable, and somewhat exotic friends and neighbors--is subject to the Scots verdict, at the very best. His second major conclusion, that any who do not share his view of Muslims are members of a pointy-headed, bigoted, knuckle-dragging assemblages of racists, Islamophobes, and fascists is totally unproven.

Those who warned of the threat to Europe posed by Adolph Hitler and similar national socialists long before German re-armament and renunciation of the Verseilles Treaty made it patent were right. Those who saw a threat to Europe and the Western World in Stalin's ambitions were right no matter how often they were dismissed as "red baiting right wingers." Twice within living memory the accurate Cassandra's have been dismissed as the loonie fringe only to be proven right.

Mr Underhill has made a choice. On the basis of little evidence and much wishful thinking and politically correct celebration of multi-culturalism, he has concluded that the Islamic population of Europe is a pure blessing to that old, tired continent. He has determined on the same basis that there is nothing happening in Europe today or in the near future which should concern, let alone worry Americans. With a sweeping certainty he dismisses all who have seen a potential threat contained in the Muslims of Europe, not only to those states but the US as well, as being a bunch of myth-making scaremongers of the worst, most racist sort.

Mr Underhill has taken a dangerous position. He has taken one which is difficult, if not impossible to maintain in the face of the realities of Islam and Islamism.

While there are peaceful Muslims in numbers which defy counting, Islam qua Islam is not peaceful. It is a warrior's religion. It is a religion without limits either as to its territorial sway or the means employed to gain the fullest possible expansion of its domination.

Islam is a religion in which there is no firebreak between the sacred and the profane, between mosque and state, between public and the private. One of the major appeals of Islam to converts as well as those born to the faith is the emphasis on community, a global community which has only in the past thirty years become aware of its strength, numbers, and global reach. As a result, the ever more extensive demands of the Islamist has grown in stridency--and influence.

Mr Underhill fails to note that there have been no organised, large scale protests by Muslims in Europe (or anywhere) against the bloody excesses of the Islamist jihadists. This lack of public opposition to the most revolting tactics of the "martyrdom seekers" speaks volumes to the willingness of Muslims generally to accept and tacitly approve of any and all efforts by their more militant coreligionists to seize and hold power. As an alternative explanation of Muslim silence, it might be posited that the observant Muslim has been terrorised into submission by the threats and acts of his Islamist jihadist brethren.

In either case, Mr Underhill's argument that Muslims are so fractured and fragmented that they can not serve as an effective political force is vitiated. If Muslims resident in France, Germany, or the UK cannot and do not publicly express total, absolute disapprobation of Islamist actions, then there exists a de facto community coherence which protects and potentiates the activities of the most extreme within the Muslim community.

Even in the immediate aftermath of 7/7 and the Madrid bombings, the denunciations coming from what might best be termed "public Muslims" were strangely redolent of the pro forma, the formulaic. They were mere genuflections before the alter of outraged majority opinion of a purely and obviously self-protective nature. This is not to gainsay the contention that there were individual Muslims who were shocked by the attacks and reprobated their having occurred as well as those who carried them out, but rather to indicate the community as a community never disavowed the acts and the actors, the sin and the sinners, if you like.

Mr Underhill, as is the case with so many of the American and European intelligensia, the "useful idiots" as Lenin termed them, fails to parse properly between the attitudes of the European (and American) elite and the hoi polloi of both continents. Mr Underhill partakes fully of the typical elite disdain for the great unwashed of the general population, the people who do not write for major media outlets or pontificate at conferences of learned academics or rub elbows comfortably with the elect in the halls of power.

As elections including the recent one for members of the European Parliament indicate, there is a great and growing gulf between the world views of the elite and the hoi polloi. Increasingly, the hoi polloi are not content to keep their mouths shut in the presence of their "betters," to keep their place, keep their mouths shut, and follow the leaders.

In the minds of the elite (and Mr Underhill), nationalism is dead and should be buried. The age of multi-culturalism is upon the world and should be welcomed by all proper minded people. The hoi polloi obviously do not agree.

The voices from the bottom are being heard to the discomfort of Mr Underhill and the elite generally. There is an irony here. Back in the years right after World War II the French broke their arms patting themselves on the back for having suddenly discovered the voices of the heaving masses of the people previously unheard by historians.

The French and later the historians and intellectuals of all Europe and the US engaged in orgies of self-congratulations for giving long overdue credit to the perspicacity and sagacity of the working classes; the women of field, factory and kitchen; the privates huddling in the trenches. The true voice of the people these intellectuals assured each other and the rest of us were the valid source of history, of the collective wisdom of the folk.

Now, the voices are in the present, in the political and not the safe reaches of the past. Because the wisdom, the perspacacity, the sagacity of the hoi polloi does not meet the desires, expectations, or exhortations of the elite, the people are no longer fountainheads of understanding. Now they are the tools of the "far right." Now they are the misguided fools of nationalism and cultural stolditity.

The elite, Mr Underhill in specific, may sputter and pour soothing syrup but they may be the fools. Perhaps it would be best if the elite listened instead of tut-tutting. Heed instead of assuming it has both the capacity and right to lead.

What Happened To The "Global War On Terror?"

The Geek rarely agrees with any statement by an official of the Feudal Government of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, this may be a first. The first time the Geek has unreservedly agreed with a perspective offered by a Saudi official.

Following the seizure of the Saudi VLCC Sirius Star, the Feudal Monarchy's ForMin characterised the action as one of "terrorism" and demanded urgent action against the Jolly Pirates of Puntland.

For once the duplicity laden ruling family of the Kingdom of Mosques, Oil, and Sand has spoken truly. The favorite aquatic sport of the Somalis is no longer a mere nuisance. It no longer can be argued that the upsurge of maritime banditry is the result of either the absence of an effective government in the geographic expression known as Somalia or the lack of suitable employment and market opportunities for the simple fisherfolk of that region.

The linkage between the seaborne thugs and the land-based terrorists of the al-Qaeda variety is well established. The flow of money from the ransoms extorted by the pirates to the Islamist and jihadist groups both in Somalia and elsewhere including Yemen, Sudan, and points both east and west is likewise well known to the relevant western governments--including our own.

The newly but convincingly demonstrated capacity of the Allah and money driven raiders to operate at great distances from their homeports and employ weapons of greater lethality than previously points to an increase in the support (and thereby implicit command and control) from longer established, more experienced terror groups such as al-Qaeda.

Why this development "stunned" the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as has been reported astonishes the Geek. Even a cursory examination of the trajectory of improvement followed by the pirates of Puntland over the past eighteen months shows the increasingly tight coupling between their activities and the agenda of the al-Qaeda type Islamist/jihadist entities. Since Islamism and jihadism do not live on faith alone, the cash generating capacity of piracy must have been noticed quickly.

Given that the so-far quite successful insurgents in Somalia are Islamist to the max, it should not shock anyone to see the speedy development of mutually beneficial relations between the Islamist movement generally and the pirates. While some money obviously sticks in Puntland and environs, much goes to the Islamist/jihadist groups. In return, the outside entities can provide weapons, instruction, intelligence, and other necessary support functions.

Now that the pirates have shown a direct and material capacity to impair the economic interests of the US and other oil importing countries, the use of piratical terror becomes all the more attractive to the Islamists and their ilk. The goal as with other categories of attack remains the same--to directly, substantially, and materially affect the policy of the US and allied nations.

That is the purpose of terror. Cow the opponent into abandoning or altering policies that the terrorist finds obnoxious. That was the goal on 9/11. That was the goal of the 7/7 attacks in London. It was the goal of the Madrid subway bombers.

It is the goal of the entities that have jacked up the pirates of Puntland from the status of mere nuisance affecting only coastal shipping to that of global threat, putting the price and availability of oil in hazard.

Get a grip on that reality.

There is no excuse for the navies of the US and its NATO/EU more-or-less allies not to take robust action against the pirates. There is no excuse not to take action which will risk the loss of Somali lives or even the lives of crew members of hijacked ships.

The US and other navies have the requisite assets (typified by the Navy SEALS and the British Royal Marine Commandos) to board seized ships and subdue the criminals. True some--or even all--the pirates may head off to Allah in the operation. Such is the risk of piracy.

The US and other navies have the resources necessary to monitor small craft--particularly small vessels operating far from the normal fishing waters--and execute "stop and frisk" operations. In the event pirates fight back as they did last week against a combined UK-Russian force, fine. They will end up dead, as at least two or three pirates did that day. This will make trial unnecessary.

An objection that has been raised to robust action beyond a measure of convoy activity in the Gulf of Aden and along the Somali coast has been the absence of courts able to try suspected pirates. This objection is one which strikes the Geek as being particularly ill-founded, not to say flatly out-to-lunch. The US Code already provides statutory authority for the trial of pirates no matter where apprehended or under what specific circumstances. Other countries have similar laws.

If all else fails, the UN can create another one of its much loved special tribunals. If apprehending war criminals and bringing them to trial in the Netherlands is important, so also is the ending of a clear and present danger to open maritime commerce. The UN apparently abhors piracy and has called upon countries with navies to do something. It can add on to this inspirational message by creating a Piracy Tribunal so none can cavil at the lack of due process in the protection of pirates' human rights.

The Geek would love to know what brings about the silence in Washington? Where is the belligerent rhetoric of Dick Cheney? Where are the loudmouthed, testicle grabbing neocons? What's wrong, boys? There's no regime to change? No democracy to plant in hostile soil?

Is that why you all are so quiet? Is that why the opening of a new front in your Great Global War on Terror gives you so little cause for alarm? So little desire to "shock and awe?"

Or are you neocons simply sitting by with calmly folded hands hoping that your ideological counterparts in the next administration will screw the pooch as well and truly as you have the past seven plus years?

Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna

There. The Geek has joined the seemingly obbligato post-election paeans of praise to the Agent of Change and General Purpose Deliverer.

The sounds of joy coming from Europe, Kenya and assorted (small) portions of the Mideast in no way obscures a really, really basic fact. The world goes on. Just as it did yesterday. Just as it will tomorrow.

Even if no one else made this reality clear the Russians did. The Geek gives the lads in the Kremlin a big thumbs up for showing that they still have a firm grip on reality even if a goodly chunk of We the People seem to have lost ours.

With a glum grimness which would have done Molotov proud back in the Bad Old Days of the Cold War, the Kremlin muttered that it was ready, willing and able to deploy a new generation of shortish range missiles aimed at Europe unless the (new) US administration backed off from the installation of ABMs in Poland. This hardline stance was underscored in the past few days by the Russians having tested a new ICBM and executing an operational readiness shoot of one of their aging heavy throw-weight boosters.

Time for the man with the Audacity to Hope to get a grip on the fact that the Russians are not going to go away. Neither are they going to be dissuaded from fully regaining not only the reality of Great Power status but the American recognition that they possess that status.

The world goes on in its established trajectories. Slogans and promises of change, rhetorical flourishes delivered in a victory speech don't alter that dynamic in the slightest.

Need more proof?

Perhaps the President-elect can take some comfort from the offer of improved (fraternal?) relations from the Left Socialist strongman of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. OK. Then how about the offer being accompanied by some real action on the one-time paratrooper's part. Say, perhaps ending the ties between his far left government and the Iranian backed jihadists? If that's too much, then how about cancelling his gigabuck arms purchase from Russia? Heck, the Venezuelan economy can't afford it with oil prices going further south than Terra del Fuego.

(Or perhaps, ole Hugo expects that with the Pelosi-Reid-Obama global warming freaks running the US show, the cost of energy will go exoatmospheric real fast.)

The Geek noticed that Kim Jong Il didn't send a congratulatory message. The Hermit Kingdom of the North didn't suddenly wake up and join the world in celebration of a "new dawn." An American election didn't change a single North Korean ambition or calculation.

Throughout the Mideast and the Persian Gulf, the reaction was not much more unrestrained than that coming from North Korea. Carefully calculating and cynical men with many years experience dealing with and observing American politicians both before and after elections has muted any urge to celebrate "change." History weighs heavily in these areas. People know that real alteration in the trajectories of human institutions come slowly--if at all.

The gerontocracy in the Forbidden City is even less likely to be excited by the outcome of the election. No one knows better than the Chinese how little reality changes despite the application of cosmetics. No nation has a better understanding of the power of history. No national leadership understands more profoundly than the Chinese the reality that interests, genuine interests of state and rulers trump all matters of transience such as personality, political agenda or even ideology.

Even in Western Europe where the accolades have been flying with wild abandon, the underlying reality is different. The Europeans have watched US presidents come and go. At the same time they have been forced to recognise that American definitions of American interests remain unchanged. More, these interests remain unchangeable. Unless and until the US declines to second rate status, its self-defined interests will remain paramount whether arrogantly or humbly expressed. The interests of Washington come first.

Would President Obama have it any other way? Would he have the US attempt to resign its status as a Great Power? Would he and his supporters and cheerleaders alike argue that the world would become a far better place if the US retreated to its own borders and stopped polluting the Earth with its presence?

No. Of course not. No Great Power in history has ever successfully resigned its status. No Great Power has ever been allowed to resign. The world wouldn't let the US step down from Great Power status when we desperately wanted to back in the Twenties and Thirties. The world wouldn't let us crawl back into our hemispheric hole in the Seventies when, following our defeat in Vietnam and the scandals of Watergate, We the People demanded that we do so.

No. Subjectively defined American interests don't change. No responsible government anywhere wants them to. Sure, many would like us to act as George W. Bush promised we would so many lies ago, "humbly." And, perhaps we should.

But, not so humbly as to seem to be losing our political will and nerve. Governments around the world, those who wish us well and those who wish us ill want to know where the US stands, what it will tolerate, what it will seek, what it will ignore. Without the US providing a firm place, a solid stance for and against which other states can react, the order of the world crumbles, slightly perhaps but noticeably.

Whether We the People and those we elect like the idea or even have wit enough to recognise the existence of the idea, a fundamental reality exists today as it did yesterday and will tomorrow. It's a simple idea.

Get a grip on it.

The US is a Great Power. Beyond that, it is first among the several Great Powers of the world. Not France. Not Great Britain. Not Russia. Not China. Nor Japan. Nor Germany. Nor India.

The US alone is first among Great Powers.

As the old cliche has it, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Some Muslims Live In the Land of Newspeak

The most chilling feature of George Orwell's classic 1984 (at least to the Geek) was the intentional impoverishment and distortion of language embodied in the new form of English called "Newspeak." The purpose of the new language was to enable people to engage in "doublethink," the holding of two mutually contradictory ideas simultaneously--and believe each was true.

A second goal of Newspeak was to make holding certain ideas literally impossible as there would be no words, no symbols to represent them.

Some Muslims at least accept both goals. They not only practice doublethink but want all of us to join them in the process. Beyond that they desire the eradication of some words in order that people not be able to formulate certain ideas which these Muslims find odious.

The statement, "Islam is the religion of peace" is on a par with the Orwellian phrases, "War is Peace," or "Freedom is Slavery."

Or, if you don't find "Islam is the religion of peace" sufficiently redolent of Newspeak, how about calling on a "Most Merciful and Compassionate" deity in a fatwa authorizing the death of an author or even an anonymous group of women and children?

Newspeaking Muslims include not just the usual deniers of Islamic rooted terrorism such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or other offshoots of the Islamic Brotherhood, but purportedly responsible leaders of governments formally aligned with the US in the fight against jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and Taliban. Neither are Muslim Newspeakers confined to the Wahabist clerics or Iranian ayatollahs.

They include the Speaker of the National Assembly in Pakistan. As reported yesterday by the Associated Press of Pakistan, http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38881&Itemid=2, the Speaker, Dr. Fehmida Mirza, proclaimed to a visiting delegation of Iranians, "Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance that abhors terrorism and extremism in all it forms and manifestations and it was the responsibility of religious scholars to play their role to remove the misperceptions of the West about Islam."

Right.

Unfortunately the Speaker didn't explain how this position squared with a report coming from the very same country she allegedly helps govern. The story (but not the video) ran on CBS. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/20/cbsnews_investigates/main4110408.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4110408)

The star is a young boy, estimated to be about twelve years old. The featured supporting player was a man of unknown age accused of spying on the jihadists who is prone on the ground, trussed and bound.

The action is simple. The kid wields a machete. Cuts off the head of the man on the ground. Holds it up to the camera.

The dialogue is even simpler. The kid crys, "Allah o Akbar." The Geek presumes that the head chopping kid is praising the Most Merciful and Compassionate One.

This video and many like it were and are being made in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, The two Waziristans (North and South, for those of you who like details) are also the center of al-Qaeda and Taliban training, logistics and base camps offering support to those fighting the Americans, NATO and, lest we forget, Afghans across the border.

It is also worth noting that the preferred tactic of the "Holy Warriors of Islam" is the bombing of civilians.

"Religion of peace and tolerance that abhors terrorism and extremism in all forms and manifestations..." So said the Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan. And, she must be an honest and honorable woman.

"Doublethink!" The Geek thinks.

No response was quoted for the delegation of the Guardian Council from the Islamic Republic of Iran. But, it's probably fair to think they agreed with the Speaker.

After all, the Iranian mullahocracy has often stated that Iran abhors terrorism and would never, never, never have anything to do with sponsoring or supporting it. And the assorted mullahs and ayatollahs who comprise the Iranian government must all be honest and honorable men.

Another example of Muslim style Newspeak that particularly rankles is the term "honor killing."
How is killing one's own daughters because they dressed and acted like the American teenagers they were a matter of "honor?"

How is killing one's sister (whom one has abused before) for no particular reason a matter of "honor?" The Geek would list more but it makes him sick.

Killing, particularly the killing of unarmed, defenseless women is not and can never be "honorable." It is true that women, children and other people without means of defending themselves are killed. With few exceptions the goal of military operations has not been the killing of civilians--even adult civilian men.

The Muslim "honor" killing is not an act of war. It is not even the act of the suicide bomber hitting the clicker in a crowded marketplace. It is an act of cold, ruthless murder. The act of murdering, not a stranger, but a person's own daughter, sister, wife.

Only a person well versed in the practice of doublethink could make any effort to justify it as a matter of family "honor." Only a person well versed in the practice of doublethink could see despicable up close and personal homicide of this sort as fitting with the demands of a Most Merciful and Compassionate deity.

It is not "Islamophobic" to point out the doublethinking nature of some Muslims. It is not "Islamophobic" to reject the Newspeak demands of some Muslims. It is neither insensitive nor phobic to insist that language be used correctly, even bluntly.

Remember in 1984 Newspeak was not only the prime tool of government control of all aspects of life. Newspeak aided mightily in assuring that perpetual war was the fate of the human race.

The war with Islamists and jihadists need not--can not--last forever. If we are going to end it with our victory, the calls to adopt Newspeak and doublethink, Muslim style must be rejected fast and hard.

Words, Words and More Words--About Words

Question 1. A jihadist is not a jihadist if--
A.) he is dead
B.) the fatwa authorizing his jihad is cancelled by clerical authority
C.) the clicker on his vest/vehicle/roadside bomb fails
D.) the National Counterterrorism Center and Department of Homeland Security
pronounce that the word must never be used except in a peaceful way
E.) none of the above.

Question 2. An Islamist is--
A.) an adherent of Islam
B.) a student of the foundations and tenets of Islam
C.) a political radical seeking the imposition of Islamic law on a people
D.) a believer in the necessity, desirability and inevitability of the global caliphate
E.) a figment of the fevered minds of Islamophobes

Question 3. A moderate Muslim is--
A.) a member of the silent Islamic majority who may or may not support terror
B.) a Muslim who rises in indignant opposition to those who pilfer Islam in the
cause of killing women, children and other civilians
C.) the target audience for US public diplomacy
D.) a Muslim the US must not risk offending lest he join the black hats
E,) nonexistent given the radical political nature of Islam from a Western
perspective

Question 4. Which statements are true
A.) Muslim terrorist is an oxymoron
B.) Jihad refers to peaceful internal struggle
C.) Jihad refers to peaceful struggle against human enemies such as poverty and
racism
D.) Calling suicide bombers "jihadists" or "mujahideen" confers legitimacy on
them
E.) According to the US Government, all of the above.

(If you answered 1-E, 2-E, 3-C and 4-E you are a US Government approved Sensitive Person. You have also had your visa to the Republic of Reality cancelled.)

The United States is not engaged in a Great Global War on Terror. We are haphazardly skirmishing with a specific and easily defined transnational group including both non-governmental actors and States which espouse the supremacy of Islam and pursue a political agenda which is hoped will lead to the establishment of a global caliphate and the universal application of Islamic law and principles.

What's hard to understand in that?

Islamism and jihadism have been around a long while. Since the purported receipt of the Word From On High by the Prophet Mohammad. Nothing hard to grasp there.

Nothing inherently wrong with the idea either. Islamists are welcome to have their beliefs. They are welcome to hope, pray and even argue that their desired end goal will come to fruition.

Islamists and their more action oriented kin, the jihadist, must not be permitted to use force, the threat of force or subversion to impose their vision upon individuals and nations that do not wish to live in an Islamic Paradise. (Or go there post-mortem.)

Drawing and defending that line is or should be the focus of the United States and kindred spirit countries. It is no more and certainly no less than what we did with respect to expansionist oriented, Soviet Union powered Communism during the Cold War.

Yes, the Geek readily acknowledges that the US government engaged in infuriating excesses of thought policing during the Cold War. As a historian he can cite chapter, verse and line about those excesses both foreign and domestic.

The Geek is quite well aware that the US often committed the fatal blunder of confusing short-term order under a repressive dictator with long term stability within a foreign nation. He knows the US often, all-too-often tried to put the brakes on change within another society and culture with long-term disastrous results for both them and us.

Recognising all of this it is still necessary to state unequivocally that during the Cold War the US understood the nature and character of the threat--the enemy, if you'll permit the Geek to use a harsh, blunt word.

More, the US understood the nature, character and appeal of its values, beliefs and institutions--warts, scars and all. We knew ourselves as we were and showed it to the world even if many were unwilling or unable to accept us as we presented ourselves.

The knowledge of ourselves and our adversaries served us well. It was a (perhaps the) key to understanding the final outcome of the Cold War.

Now it appears that we have thrown all that aside. Our government is unwilling or unable to define who the enemy is and where the threat originates.

Worse, our government--at least the current administration--seems to be gripless regarding just who or what we are and how best to present that to the world. Particularly that portion of the world covered by the word, Muslim.

The effort by the National Counterterrorism Center and the Department of Homeland Security joined by the State Department to become the Word Police has been given wide currency over the Internet. There is no need for the Geek to summarize the NCTC-DHS dictat.

Wrong headed attempts to assuage the ever-so-sensitive feelings of some American resident Muslims might be warm and fuzzy, but they are ultimately counterproductive in a world filled with cold sharpies.

The last time the US government tried such an exercise in the softening of terms was in 1948 and 1949 when members of the Truman Administration referred to the Chinese Communists of Mao as being "agrarian reformers."

Islamists and jihadists wear the label with pride. They know what they want. They know who they are. There is no reason for the government not to use the same terms.

If some non-Islamist, non-jihadist Muslims take unwarranted offense, that is their problem and the government need take no responsibility for it. There are more than enough multi-cultural oriented academics to wring their hands and view with dismay. The government and the rest of us don't have to join in the circle of tears.

More importantly, the US would be best served not by tender ministration to easily bruised sensitivity but by a robust declaration of what we stand for and why we stand for it.

Unlike the death worshiping Islamists/jihadists, the people of the United States are life oriented, life-affirming. We see both the risks and, more, the opportunities of life. We pursue life and all it has to offer with very few of us casting glances at some presumed pit of hell waiting to swallow our souls.

Unlike fear ridden, eager-to-submit to Higher Authority Islamists and jihadists, We the People are willing, even eager, to stand tall and proud, meeting authority on our terms--not its. We can admit our collective mistakes, the "sins" of our ancestors, rectify the wrongs and seek a better collective future.

Yes, we may take our individualism too far. Yes, we may be a messy people given to too much consumption (at least in the eyes of some). But, in our boisterous and often too exploitative way, we have been living up to that long ago vision of John Winthrop of establishing a "shining city."

Instead of playing the role of the politically correct English Department, the US government should speak of our adversaries bluntly and directly, calling them what they are. More, We the People best demand of the next administration that it get on with the task of letting all those "moderate" Muslims of the Islamic Silent Majority know just what we are and why we are that way.

Perhaps, just maybe, then the Silent Muslim Majority will find its collective voice and drown the demands of the Islamist for more martyrdom in a chorus of "No!"

Muhammad: The Lenin of Religion

Both Christianity and Islam are political institutions.

The Geek wants to make that clear. Both Christianity (irrespective of denomination) and Islam (regardless of sect) have sought and continue to seek the ability to directly, materially and substantially manipulate the perceptions, beliefs, and, therefore, the actions of people.

That's what politics is all about. Power.

Both Christianity and Islam use the same tool to gain, retain and expand power over people.

It's a great tool. A sovereign tool. An almost never fail tool. It's used by all who pant after power. All who in one way or another slaver over the thought of controlling others.

The tool?

Fear.

That's right. Fear. The increase of fear. The reduction of fear. Fear.

Fear, chum, yeah, it's wonderful. We all have it as the ready lever for others to yank.

There is one very big, very fundamental and very important difference between Christianity and Islam.

Jesus, the Itinerant Sage and Healer of Galilee whose kerygma was the foundation stone for the towering edifice called Christianity, did not exploit fear to gain either an audience or followers. Indeed, Jesus seemed to be of the view that fear was irrelevant to a full human life.

(Trouble accepting this? The Geek suggests the publications of the Jesus Seminar as a good starting point. On the web, http://jesusseminar.org/Jesus_Seminar/jesus_seminar.html.)

In the message of Jesus there is no mention of hell. No words of God's Wrath. No intimations of judgement. He does not embrace suffering. Neither does he argue that humans must tremble before the deity or kneel in submission to either God or messenger.

Later, even much, much later, as the words of the Wandering Sage and Healer were transmogrified into an institution, a Church seeking authority. Power was the lever of fear pulled. Pulled long and hard.

Jesus didn't seek power. He sought only to deliver a message. A simple, profound message that was easy to hear, easy to understand but hard to live.

Churches, Catholic and protestant alike were and are institutions. They exist to exercise power. Whether the power is used for good or ill is less relevant than the fact that churches are political institutions trafficking in the power business. They must have dogma and creed, liturgy and rituals, rules and standards of membership. They must define themselves by exclusion even as they seek to convert. In all that they do the basic tool is fear. Raise fear. Lower fear.

In this respect churches are just like governments. The difference resides in the ability of governments to use coercion in the here-and-now while churches must rely upon an eschatological system of rewards and punishment.

In short: follow the rules, follow the creed, follow the liturgy, follow Authority and you will be rewarded postmortem. Otherwise--that's right, the eternal cooker for you, pal.

Muhammad was to Jesus as Lenin was to Robert Owen, the gentle Nineteenth Century Utopian socialist.

Muhammad sought to create a political movement, a movement which would successfully unite under a single banner the fractionated society of the Arabian Peninsula. Without commenting on its theological attributes, suffice it to say that the Koran is a political document exploiting fear.

The content of the Koran is well rooted in the Arabian Peninsula's cultural context and is largely derivative in its theology. These aspects are not to be held against either the Koran or the collected sayings of Muhammad. Quite the contrary they are part of the core strength of Islam as a religio-political movement.

The consistency of the creedal statement with a recurrent emphasis upon the unity of religion with social and political life, the need for submission to the deity and the visions of rewards and, more importantly, punishments postmortem have given Islam its ideological power. In this department Islam trumps Christianity.

The pornography of hellfire and brimstone winds through Christianity like a river in the desert, occasionally disappearing for a stretch only to reemerge in full flow.

But, in Islam, hell is right there. In your face. Up close and personal. It even outranks paradise as a subject of lovingly detailed description. Even the Geek feels little shakes and shudders run up his back as he reads the travelogue of perdition.

Like the old theatrical saying has it: The villain gets the best lines.

Lenin said the purpose of terror is to terrorise.

Muhammad must have believed that the purpose of hell is to terrorise.

Of course he was right. Fear of death is a biggie on the chart of human apprehensions. Fear of what happens after death is right up there too--particularly if gruesome visions of hell have come along with mother's milk.

(Perhaps that is why Muslims so often address Allah as the Merciful and Compassionate, even in a declaration of intent to kill infidel women and children. They are hoping against hope that they will receive a little of that mercy, that compassion.)

From a practical perspective it is impossible to argue with Muhammad's approach. It gave him the organizing methodology for a highly successful political movement. The same approach is still at work today.

It is just as effective today. Fear of death and dread of hell are the tools of choice for assorted mullahs and ayatollahs today. It gives the ambitious a clear avenue to power. It gives individuals a reason to die in the hopes of paradise rather than to live under the threat of damnation.

The power of hell to stimulate political action including violent jihad is alive and well as we all know all too well. Quite possibly the suicide bombers and their ilk seek death not because they are enchanted by the possibilities of paradise with cool water and waiting soulless virgins but because living with the nagging image of the fire-filled pit becomes impossible.

Lenin terrorised his way to power. Stalin terrorised his way to expanded power. But terror has its limits. Humans become inured to it. It loses its black magic. It fades away into the background noise of life and the risks of life.

At some point fear reaches its limits as well. This is the ultimate weakness of a religion which relies too much upon it. Life is for living--not obsessing on eternity either with or without burning sulfur.

For awhile relief from fear may be found in hatred or joining with others to chant, "Death to (fill in the blank.)" For a while fear can be defeated by jihad, either violent or not. For a bit the fear might be limited by tossing acid in the face of an unveiled woman.

But not for ever.

The Soviets ultimately found that Lenin's dictum had very real limits. The Islamists who exploit the hellfire of the Koran to their political advantage will find limits as well.

Life is for living and as Jesus reputedly said, "Let the dead bury their dead."

Did Musharraf Have Another Choice? Do We?

The Geek has been waiting for General Musharraf to take the big step of imposing martial law ever since the contretemps between his regime and the Pakistani Supreme Court a few months back. The Geek can't say that he has been anticipating the inevitable with any degree of glee, 'cause that ain't the case.

Pakistan reminds the Geek of an incident he experienced some years back at an Air Force Base. The then brand new F-111 was being displayed on Armed Forces Day. It did a slow, dirty pass over the runway in front of the crowded bleachers. Suddenly the plane's nose pitched up. Diamond shaped shock waves hit the concrete below as the pilot hit throttle up.

In the stands every man who was a pilot stood up, fists clenched, mouths forming the words, "Oh, shit," as he willed the airplane to keep flying. All the non-pilots remained sitting, many applauding what they believed to be a fine piece of exhibition flying.

It was fine flying for sure as the pilot kept the bird balanced on its afterburners until it was past the stands. Then it pancaked in.

Pakistan has been like that F-111, nose up in a full stall but powered on by a combination of international will and the flying ability of General Musharraf. Experienced observers, like the flyers in that long ago crowd, knew that something was dreadfully wrong with the country, knew it would crash, but hoped the crash would be delayed--and survivable.

With the imposition of martial law under whatsoever term is like putting full emergency military power to the afterburners. It is a short-term, desperate attempt to avoid catastrophe. If it fails, the crash will be fast, hard and deadly.

Musharraf's action may be his only viable option. His indictment of the Supreme Court has merit. It should not be cast aside as political posturing by a power-hungry despot.

The Court has acted as if it were far more concerned in settling political scores with the military junta than in being an effective collaborator in the task of developing democratic stability in Pakistan. The position taken by the Court at the behest of opponents of Musharraf that the validity of the presidential election would be decided weeks after the election of Musharraf had taken place must rank as an act of judicial stupidity or sabotage far surpassing the akin act taken by the US Supreme Court in December 2000.

The General's references to the growth of terrorist and insurgent activity in recent months are the truth. If anything, they are an understated version of the reality within Pakistan,

Much of the dramatic upswing in Islamist/Jihadist activity must be laid directly at the feet of Musharraf and his military partners. Would you like an example?

OK, here it is, The Frontier Corps formed initially by the British generations ago to patrol the border between what are now Pakistan and Afghanistan is a paramilitary force. It lacks equipment, modern weapons, training, doctrine and good command and control. It's morale is shaky as exhibited by mass surrenders upon occasion. The loyalty to the government of many of its members is questionable.

Sounds good, right?

Now the best part. The Frontier Corps does the heavy lifting in the Tribal Agency territory where Taliban and al-Qaeda relocated following the invasion of Afghanistan. The Frontier Corps is the primary opponent of the rested, regrouped, refitted, resupplied and reinforced Islamist presence in North Waziristan and elsewhere in the Tribal Agencies.

And, now for the kicker.

The US has provided over ten billion dollars in aid to Pakistan since 9/11. Most of that money was for the purpose of military assistance so that Pakistan could be a more effective ally in the "global war on terrorism."

This must mean that the cash went to the Frontier Corps and other counterinsurgency oriented forces. Right?

Wrong!

In a fit of incredible stupidity on the part of Musharraf and the current American administration which allowed it to happen, most of the bucks went to better equip the conventional Pakistani military forces. To better prepare the Paks for another rematch with India, perhaps? Or maybe the deep thinking neocon ninnies of the current administration hopes that Pakistan might invade Iran and force a little regime change?

Phooey!

Musharraf and his coterie of appropriately bemedaled associates want a conventional army, want the prospect of yet another go-around in the Kashmir. Want to win (or at least not lose badly) the next time. If any American had shown the temerity to inquire as to the utility of high performance aircraft or heavy artillery to the hard but low tech realities of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency, the Musharraf regime would have played the "necessity to keep the army happy card."

There is some truth to that. The army is the most stability oriented institution in Pakistan. It is the only truly "national" structure in an otherwise basically feudal, tribal country which might become a nation someday.

The army and police forces are the afterburners on Musharraf's jet now. He has no choice but to rely on them to keep him and Pakistan around him from a free fall to disaster.

That's bad. Even worse--we have little choice except to hope the afterburners keep flaming. That means we have to keep the fuel--the Geek means money--flowing.

The Geek feels frustration out the ying-yang over the current state of play in Pakistan! It's not like it couldn't be seen coming. We've been through it before.

We went through it in Vietnam. One damn stupid bunch of tunnel visioned bumblers after another whipsawed South Vietnam until it was ready to fall apart. Each time the Washington deep thinkers and pragmatic strategists decided we had no choice except keep on supporting the bunglers du jour in Saigon and hope for the best. (The one time we didn't. The time we decided on a little exercise in guided regime change, matters went from disastrous to catastrophic. The Geek refers to the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem.)

Heck! We've even been through it before in Pakistan. Twenty or so years ago, we turned responsibility for the endgame in Afghanistan over to the Paks. The result? Chaos followed by Taliban for Afghanistan. For us and the rest of the world the result was A.Q. Khan--and the increased power of the Islamists in the Pakistani armed forces and intelligence service.

Pakistan may hold a geographically critical position. The Pakistani government is not an ally. It cannot be given the fissures running through its society and polity alike. It can be a partner in an endeavor where Pakistani and American national interests are closely coinciding. That is if and only if the Pakistani regime and its use of our assistance is very closely and very coldly monitored and directed.

The current administration blew the requirement for close scrutiny and direction. In that way it became the equivalent of the hydraulic valve that failed and caused the F-111 to crash in front of the Geek and hundreds of others.

Back then the superb competence of a General Dynamics test pilot assured that no one died or was even seriously hurt when the plane smacked the ground. The Geek doubts that General Musharraf is so skilled.

The Purpose of Terrorism--Colin Powell Gets It Right

A few days ago the Geek dissected the nature of terrorism. The main point is simply that history has shown that terrorism is a successful tactic only when people allow themselves to be terrorised. To put it another way, terror works only with the willing cooperation of members of the target population.

People face lethal risks all the time. We know that. We accept that reality everytime we get behind the wheel. If we keep an eye on the news we are quite aware that people are murdered every day.

What the hey? Golfers can be seen on the course even with the thunderstorm almost overhead, electricity attracting clubs held on high.

None of these threats any more than the slippery bottom of bathtub or shower terrorise us. They are all accepted as part of life. They are even accepted with the casual denial shown by a combat infantryman.

The next guy will get wasted. Not me.

Perhaps it is his experience with war forty years ago that propelled former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell to make just this point not only in his interview published in GQ magazine but in recent speeches. He insists, correctly, that while terrorists may destroy buildings and kill people, they are powerless to destroy a nation or force a change in that nation's policies.

Only the citizens with their reactions to terror attacks can do that. If enough members of We the People willingly identify with the immediate victims of an attack and say to themselves, "I'm terrorized," then policies will change. Only then will the nation be truly threatened.

"Wait one!" The Geek hears you say.

"Have at it," the Geekmo replies.

You do. "In all the threats of everyday life, I'm in control. I drive my car. I step into the shower. I'm in charge. And, I'm too good at what I do to allow an accident to happen."

The Geek nods agreement.

You go on. "Terrorism is something different. I'm not in charge. There's nothing I can do. I'm just a target."

The Geek is quite willing to acknowledge that feeling. He's had the experience of trying to hide behind a small rock as distant mortar tubes went, "Chunk," and quivering as the incoming rounds hit nearer and nearer.

Feeling helpless sucks. Big time.

However, the historical record shows clearly and convincingly that terror tactics usually do not work. Londoners during the famed "Blitz" as well as Germans during the years of round the clock bombing by US and British aircraft prove that. In North Ireland and England the long years of the Provisional IRA terror attacks were ineffective because people refused to react with feelings of helplessness and fear.

If all that history isn't enough, then add the experience of the Israelis. No people have been the target of terror tactics for so long and in such lethal quantity. While the public has demanded and the government provided military responses of doubtful utility, there has been no pervasive sense of helplessness and fear among the Israelis.

"Wait one, Geek!" You interrupt. "What the hell choice do they have? Their existence is at stake. They gotta suck it up and press on."

True enough. For the Israelis the situation is existential. It is the same for any other people under the threat of terror attacks.

That includes us, bucko.

Get a grip on this. The goal of Islamist terrorists is, at the least, to achieve an American withdrawal not simply from Iraq and Afghanistan, but from the Mideast. At the most, the goal is to force a collapse of the US.

While the second, more expansive goal, is unlikely in the extreme, the first is always no more than an election away.

A terror attack at the wrong time can either alter--or seem to alter--the course of an election. The perceived impact of the Islamist bombing in Madrid upon the Spanish election no doubt has given Islamists the feeling that terror is a potent political weapon.

A weapon that might be useable against the United States with more positive effects from their point of view than the events of 9/11.

In so far as Osama bin Laden and others like him have any strategic perspective it is derived from their reading of American history and cultural values. The Islamists are convinced that the American public lacks the moral fortitude to withstand the combination of failure and dead bodies.

The Islamists got this idea from the US failure in the Vietnam War. They built it from the quick US departure from Somalia in the wake of the failed Ranger attack in Mogadishu. They reinforced their belief from the less than impressive American reactions to their bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the later attack on the USS Cole.

The current debate over the war in Iraq must bolster the Islamist belief that the American people cannot withstand prolonged failure. This may well give rise to the conclusion that the time is ripe or nearly so for another round of attacks upon us.

The Geek has a high degree of confidence in the US intelligence community. In his view it is better today than it was six years ago. He is willing to say the same about portions of the internal security system.

No matter how good our off-shore detection and interdiction might be, no matter how effective our internal security agencies might have become, no system is unbeatable. After all, Israel has an enormously effective intelligence, defense, and internal security system. But, even so, the blackhats can and do penetrate with lethal consequences.

Only We the People, each and every one of us, can make the decision when the next attack occurs. Will we be terrorised? Or will we acknowledge along with General Powell that terror might destroy, maim, and kill, but only we can give it power over us.

Columbia University Does It Right

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Iran's Orator-in-Chief, will be spewing forth at Columbia University during his upcoming trip to the UN. Not surprisingly, his appearance at both institutions has provoked much spilling of venom, ink, and electrons.

The Geek is not prepared to comment on the calls for President Ahmedinejad's arrest on charges of his having violated anti-terrorism laws. The most the Geek will do regarding this issue is to say that it would set a very poor precedent particularly as more than a few academics, jurists, and journalists in Egypt and elsewhere in the Mideast have alleged that President Bush should face trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes alike.

On the matter of the invitation extended by Columbia University to Ahmedinejad, the Geek is prepared to take a principled, historically sanctioned position. The University is doing the right thing this year by not knuckling under to outside pressure and retracting the invitation.

Those who would prevent Ahmedinejad from speaking are committing the same wrong as the Islamists who seek to censor through intimidation. Those who might seek to stop the speech and ensuing question and answer session either before or during the event would be doing this country and the West generally a great disservice in our Cold War with the Islamists.

Freedom of expression, as the Geek has written before, is the Western value upon which so many others rest. It is one of our greatest strengths in the new Cold War. To the contrary, the willingness, no, the eagerness of Islamists and their supporters to squash expression is a sign of intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

Ahmedinejad has shown himself repeatedly to be a warper of historical reality almost without equal. His loose lipped, no-brain style has been alternately infuriating and (unintentionally) amusing. Ahmedinejad's denial of the slaughter of the Jews during World War II, like his call for the eradication of Israel from the map are infuriating. His sputtering threats against the US are amusing.

Combining humor and annoyance in equal measure are President Ahmedinejad's denial of Iranian involvement in Iraq, his protestations of friendship with the Iraqi people, and his rejection of any Iranian involvement with Hezbollah. It's OK for presidents to lie--it's one of the lesser publicised components of their job description--but Ahmedinejad carries it over the edge.

Actually, unlike New York mayor Bloomberg, the Geek would like to be in the audience when the Iranian Orator-in-Chief stands and delivers. The Geek would like to take an up-close and personal measure of Ahmedinejad's capacity to answer tough questions such as those promised by Columbia University's chancellor.

Ahmedinejad may never sit in the defendant's chair at a criminal trial. But, if Columbia University takes proper advantage of the opportunity, the Iranian will be coming close. The Geek would love to be there, front and center, to watch the man squirm, to smell the cloying odor of lies under production, to hear the answers--

And, to judge.

That is the real point of freedom of expression. It is the point the Islamists in their blind fear miss. By watching and listening to the flow of question and answer, each of us can judge. Each of us can decide where the truth exists and where it doesn't.

Get a grip on this--

Ahmedinejad must speak. He must answer questions. He must lie. We must give him the fullest possible opportunity to convict himself and his regime. To do anything less is to hurt ourselves and our values. More--it lets the Iranian head of government walk clear of the court of public opinion.

Rosh Hashana And Ramadan

Two warrior religions commence High Holidays at sunset next Friday. Two warrior religions whose adherents stand with rockets drawn, glaring across borders and security fences, locked in the symmetry of the lunar calendar.

Both religions are monotheistic. Both proclaim peace as a high--even the highest--value. Both formed in the desert, a place of soul emptying space and awe inspiring solitude. Both came into existence in the historical context of nomadic pastoralists who saw shining cities in all their artificial splendor only rarely and then always from a distance.

Both corporate faiths had moments of imperial greatness. Both fell from the highest peaks to low valleys. One fell to a place more desolate and forsaken than the other.

Judaism and Islam, warriors' faiths, tidally locked by history from the time of the younger's birth to the present. Locked in a relation of mutual exclusion. Locked in struggle, struggle for dominance.

Dominance and submission. Under the periodic calls for "tolerance" or "mutual respect" or some other term from the soft, fuzzy language of fantasy is the cold, hard bedrock of reality.

Get a grip on this: Judaism and Islam are exclusionist religions. They define themselves by excluding all who are not adherents to the faith and its creed.

Judaism is honest about this. Circumcision was a clear and unmistakable, quite irremediable physical confession of adherence. It is still that today despite the mid-Twentieth Century use of the practice on a wide scale for "hygienic" reasons. Further demonstration of the existential honesty of Jewish exclusionary practice is seen in the simple facts that converts are not sought and the process of conversion is both lengthy and difficult.

Islam is bluntly honest about its exclusionary nature--to a point. Islam divides humanity into two "houses." The Islamic community is the "House of Peace." Everyone else lives in the "House of War." Fogging the matter is the simplicity of the conversion process. And, the willingness of Muslims to seek converts.

Without getting into the murky waters of the Higher Criticism within Christian historical and theological circles, the message of Jesus, the Wandering Sage and Healer of Nazareth, was inherently inclusive. It made no distinction between Jew and gentile.

That came later. Later Christianity, the religion founded after the death of Jesus, became exclusionary. Only later were creeds developed. Only later were membership requirements established. Only later did Christianity become a warrior religion. Only much later did blood flow in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

War is the ultimate form of exclusion. By its very nature and requirements, war defines the enemy as the Other, the fiend in human guise. Wars based on either religion or an ideology defined as arising from the faith are particularly nasty.

Killing the enemy of one's faith is tantamount to killing Evil. Killing the enemy of one's faith is reaffirming the truth of one's creed, one's own beliefs, even one's own validity as a person.

Jewish warriors facing the Romans twenty centuries ago fought with the preternatural courage that only individuals possessed by true belief exhibit. Sixty years ago the fighters of Israel showed the same bloom and blood of faith. Two thousand years ago or six decades past, people fought not simply for personal existence but for the truth of the belief that defined them as a community.

Belief is powerful. It is a force multiplier of almost incalculable strength.

The same power of belief can be seen in the swath of conquest cut by Muslim swords across the Mideast, through Spain and into France in the first century after Mohammad's troops took Mecca. It can be seen as the Turkish tide swept to the walls of Vienna.

Judaism is exclusionist but not expansionist. The power of belief is enlisted for defense not for conquest.

Can the same be said about Islam?

The short answer is: Yes and no.

By a careful selection of Quranic text focusing on the verses of the Medina period, a strong case can be made to support the contention that Islam is a religion, even the religion of peace. While the intellectual excercise of textual selection is possible, it is historically dishonest. Taken as a totality, the Quran and the Sayings of the Prophet reflect the imperatives of a warrior, exclusionist religion.

Taken as a whole, the Quran, the Sayings, and most of the later commentaries, demand that the House of Peace, that is, Islam, dominate the House of War, the rest of the world. Inherently Islam is both exclusionist and expansionist.

Sit back, bucko. Think about that. Get a grip on it.

Islam is both exclusionist and expansionist. It demands not only defensive war against the threat of the Satanic Other. It demands the Satanic Other be conquered. Made to submit.

Islam is a warrior religion. That's its history.

The Geek hastens to point out that not all Muslims are fired up, eager volunteers for the new wars. Many--even most--Muslims are like the Good Soldier Schwienk, willing to pay lip service, willing to go through a few pro forma motions of noncommittal seeming support, but not at all willing to strap on a bomb, grab a box cutter, or take an AK in hand to further the cause. It's a feel good exercise to chant a few "Death to America" phrases and wave a fist for the camera or cheer another martyr. That's as far as most Muslims are ready to go.

We shouldn't go out of way to infuriate this vast mass. But, neither should we get a panic attack if we find that the guy next to us, the one with a beard, speaks Arabic or reads the Quran.

Islamism--the ideology represented by Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and others including the mullahocracy in Tehran--is another matter. Islamism and Islamists are the enemy today. By careful selection from the Quran, the Sayings of the Prophet, and the later commentaries, the Islamists from Qtub through to bin Ladin and assorted Saudi "clerics" have constructed an ideology justifying, no, demanding holy war against Israel, the West generally, and the US in particular.

Islamism and Islamists are the enemy of the unreluctant warriors of Israel. Islamism and Islamists are the enemy of We the People--the reluctant warriors of the United States. Islamism and Islamists are the enemy in the new Cold War in which the West generally has been forced.

Get a grip on it.

Regardless of our personal religious beliefs (or absence of such) we are in a Cold War which has turned hot. The Islamists with their ideology have given us no choice except surrender. Submission to the will of Allah as they interpret it is the only alternative.

Not much of a selection, is it?

Withdrawing from the messes our poorly thought out policies have created in Afghanistan and Iraq will not improve our condition. It will only make matters worse.

Whether we like the idea or not (and, personally, the Geek does not) we are in it for the long haul. Just as we could not afford to lose the First Cold War, we cannot lose the Second.

The warriors of Islamism are waiting. Bomb in hand.

The Geek Says, "It's Time For A Cold War Mentality

When the Chinese are caught selling defective or unhealthy products to the US, their spokespeople invariably allege that the Americans, "Have a Cold War mentality."

The same charge is made when their military or intelligence agencies are caught with spying hands in our electronic cookie jars.

At the same time, American academics and others of a similar ilk churn out gobs of verbiage alleging that the blame for the Cold War rests squarely and solely on Uncle Sam's shoulders. The same Blame America First bunch stridently maintains that all the unpleasant features of the Cold War including the arms race and the hot wars of Korea and Vietnam were made in America along with the undeniably domestic product known as McCarthyism.

The Geek wants to know, "What's wrong with the Cold War mentality?"

The simple truth remains that we, the US and its allies, won the Cold War. We're still here. The Soviet Union is one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Leaving aside the resurgence of Russia which has been facilitated by the inept and relentlessly non-realpolitik policies of the neo-con ninnies in the current administration (as detailed in a previous post), the Geek would like to get to his main point.

Six years ago today, the Geek and Geekess were still in bed as the first reports of the events of 9/11 came over the radio. (We live too far out in the mountains for television and were spared the flood of images to which most Americans were immediately exposed.)

The Geek's gut clenched. He felt an instant, bottomless void in the pit of his stomach. The stunning words on the radio meant much more than a deadly event, an act of war--they meant the world had been changed in a few split seconds in a new and unpredictable direction.

He turned to the Geekess and said, "Our world will never be the same again."

As the words of tragedy and heroism flowed by his ears almost unheard, the Geek reached to the archives of his mind searching for analogies. Two came almost at once.

The first was the most obvious. Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. Peace shattered over the radio. Shockwaves running through the American public. War declared. War waged. Long, bloody battles. Savage combat in remote hells. Victory.

9/11 like 12/7 would be a "day that shall live in infamy." Of that the Geek had no doubt. But what about the rest of the sequel? What of war declared, war waged, battle long and bloody? What of victory?

The Geek was certain that the US would make a military response. He even compiled a target list. Two actually. One of show targets and the other of substance targets. Only one country headed both lists: Afghanistan. (For the sake of historical completeness, Iraq didn't show up on either of the lists. The Geek confesses that the neo-con nuts know-nothings got him there.)

Expecting a several month lead time as regional "allies" were recruited (read "bribed" or "coerced" or "cozened") and ground forces deployed, the Geek was shocked by the speed of the operation but not awed by the low number of troops committed to the invasion of Afghanistan and the search for bin Laden and the rest of the al-Qaeda crew.

The Geek will skip his reaction to the follow-on invasion of Iraq. Instead he will look at the second message from history that came to him a few hours after the Twin Towers fell.

The Berlin Airlift.

The what?

You read it right, bucko, the Berlin Airlift.

In microcosm, the Berlin Airlift represents the Cold War. In roughly eighteen months the US in conjunction with the UK and France demonstrated political will, civic resolve, military competence, and strategic imagination. Without a single bomb falling, without a single tank rolling, and at low cost in lives, the Americans and their partners drew a line in the sand and with a combination of presence, persistence, and patience gave the Kremlin no choice except backing down.

As the brilliant diplomat and historian, George Kennan, advised in his famed "Long Telegram," all the US and its allies needed to do was draw a line with firmness and resolve and contain the Soviet Union until the in-built inefficiencies, injustices, and inconsistencies of Marxism-Leninism drained the faith and political will of the Communists. That is precisely what we did with the Berlin Airlift.

It's what we did in Korea. We drew the line and held it at Pusan. We drew the line and held it at Pork Chop Hill. We did not win in Korea. More importantly--we did not lose.

Did you get that Senator Clinton? How about you, Senator Obama? And you, ex-senator Edwards? If not, here it is again. We did not lose.

By not losing in Korea the US kept open the chance of ultimately winning if enough patience and persistence could be employed. We the People found the necessary strength, resolve, and dedication to keep on keeping on, year after frustrating year. Decade after indecisive decade. We kept on keeping on even through our blunders and losses such as in Vietnam.

Just as the men flying in the Berlin Airlift kept the planes coming despite fog, through rain, over the burning wrecks of the aircraft that didn't make it, we kept on keeping on.

That's why we're here. And the Soviet Union isn't.

That's the Cold War mentality in action.

The current administration made a critical mistake right off the mark nearly six years ago. The neo-con wolf pack opted for the wrong lesson of history. They remembered the "day of infamy" and forgot the Cold War.

Ironic isn't it?

The neo-con crew should have had the right mindset to remember who won the Cold War. They should have been equipped to put the lessons of that victory at work against the new enemy. They didn't. Instead they seemed to feel the decks of battleships quiver with bomb bursts under their feet.

They ached to strike back. They wanted to destroy the enemy. They seemed to feel Osama bin Laden's throat between their teeth.

The current administration did not contain statesmen. It did not contain strategists. No. It contained a bunch of comic book junkies who had read too many "Sergeant Rock of Easy Company" and not enough history.

Get a grip on this. Not only did the current administration not remember how the Cold War was won. They didn't even know who the real enemy was.

The real enemy is not terrorism qua terrorism. Not at all. The real enemy is and was the Islamist ideology and those who practice it.

The Cold War demonstrates that hostility prevails across a wide spectrum. It ranges from shooting and bombing to espionage and subversion to the recruitment of apologists and others of the sort Lenin bluntly termed, "Useful fools." Terrorism is just one tactic to be used by an enemy.

To wage war against a tactic is foolish. Foolishness is a great way to lose.

The Islamist ideology like that of Marxism-Leninism is directed at the accomplishment of a range of political, economic, social, and cultural goals. The Islamist ideology springs from a specific reading of a single religious creed. Marxism-Leninism might have been rigorously secular with only disparaging references to the presumed deity, but it also was based on a specific reading of history.

The Islamist might believe he has Allah on his side. The Marxist-Leninist believed he had history on his. Islamism and Marxism are rigidly teleological. They are both goal oriented. Believers in either are convinced that the ends justify any means.

The Cold War mentality combines resolve, patience, persistence, and firmness. It is oriented to the defensive. At the same time, it acknowledges that a successful defense can be as good as an offense. By keeping on keeping on, the opposition is forever challenged wherever he turns.

The enemy is countered regardless of the tactic he uses. He is hemmed in. He is allowed, no, encouraged to stew away in his own juices of hatred and frustration.

A good defense over time assures that the inefficiencies, injustices, inequities of the enemy's ideology, his system of government, his economic structures, his need for unending repression of his own people will breed dry rot and decay. Ultimately, he will fall without invasion, without bombing, without even the slightest pressure.

The current administration forgot our history. Congress might do so as well. It's up to We the People.

Can we find it in us to keep on keeping on? Regardless of failure, regardless of folly, can we draw a line in the sand and maintain it for decades?

Perhaps.

If we get a Cold War mentality.

Bin Laden Bombs History

TV star and Islamist talking head, Osama bin Laden, has turned from political theology to history. He should have stuck with bombs.

In his new hit video, the stony faced sheik compares the US experience to date in Iraq with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. He continues to impute the same fate to the US as that experienced by the Soviet Union. He not only expects us to be fully and finally defeated in Iraq (and elsewhere) but to collapse as did the Soviets.

The Geek doesn't mind this noted humanitarian imploring the United States (and the West generally) to abjure capitalism, thus making a clever linkage between Islamist ideology and communism. He doesn't even mind the sheik's invitation for all Americans to convert to Islam. (Although to err on the side of accuracy, the Geek prefers to see the Geekess in something other than a burka.)

However, the Geek has to draw the line at Osama's rewriting of history. Arab fighters such as bin Laden did not, repeat, not defeat the Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

(True Osama was there. He did live in a cave part of the time. But, his combat record, like that of most of the outsiders in Afghanistan, was short on success, shorter on glory, and seems to have been excessive only in rhetoric and incompetence in battle.)

It is not completely accurate to attribute victory to the Afghan fighters. There is no doubt but that they were tough, hardy, and dedicated just as their forebearers had been fighting Russians and the British for over a century.

Unfortunately it takes more, much more, than mere toughness, hardiness, and dedication to win a long war against an opponent superior in resources and military technology. As the American experiences in our own War of Independence and the Vietnam War show, it takes the opponent making blunders and finally losing the political will to continue.

The Soviets were defeated in small part by the Afghan resistance. They were in even smaller part defeated by the profligate military assistance provided by the US to the resistance.

The major reason for the Soviet defeat was the Soviets themselves. Their military doctrine was wrong. Their tactics were wrong. Their training was wrong. Their equipment was not quite right.

There was something even more wrong.

The nature and character of the Soviet system itself. The senilocrats running the Kremlin and the Red Army had run out of ideas. They had run out of credibility. The communist ideology they represented had lost its mythic appeal to the Russian public and Communist Party apparatus alike.

There was no steam in the boiler. And, no coal in the fire.

For nearly three quarters of a century, the Marxist-Lenininst ideology had been the driving faith of the Communist Party, the Red Army, and the instruments of state power generally. The old men standing on top of Lenin's Tomb were actually emblematic of a system which had lost its faith. Lost its drive. Lost its will.

All the Afghans had to do was keep on fighting and dying long enough for the last vestiges of Russian will to evaporate like fading steam in the cold. That's what happened.

The Muslims didn't win. The Arabs didn't win. The Afghans didn't win.

Get a grip on reality, Osama! The Soviets lost. That's all.

The Soviet Union didn't collapse as a direct result of the loss in Afghanistan. That loss was, at best, a minor contributor. With the internal loss of faith in the Marxist-Leninist ideology, which was magnified by the reforms of Gorbachev, the Communist Party lost its reason for existence.

You have to believe you are really, really the Vanguard of the Proletariat to be it. Without that, there wasn't the will necessary to use the Red Army as it had been used twenty years earlier when the Warsaw Pact satellites filed for divorce.

When the Outer Empire fled, it was only expectable that the Inner Empire would as well. The collapse of an authoritarian assemblage of states can only be stopped with force. Even then, the force must be employed early and vigorously.

Nothing hard to understand about that, is there, Osama?

Of course, an accurate rendition of historical trajectories wouldn't be in your propaganda game plan, would it, O Sheik?

Now, let's get a grip on the other part of Osama's (un)historical equation.

First of all, despite bin Laden's expertise (to say nothing of that demonstrated by the editor of London base Al Quds news), the US has not lost in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In point of fact, it cannot be defeated in either country by the opposition. It can only defeat itself.

If Congress and We the People lose our political will, then and only then will we lose in either country. That is bin Laden's hope. It is the hope--the only hope--of those who think like bin Laden.

While Osama obviously doesn't see the difference, there is no comparison between the old Soviet system and that of the US. Without belaboring the self-evident, the US has not yet lost faith in its basic mythos. Nor is it likely to--at least not during our lifetimes, bin Laden.

Anytime Osama would like some historical education, the Geek is willing to provide it. For free even. This isn't altruism on the Geek's part.

Not at all. More than a few enemies of the United States have underestimated the American political will. They have done this because they are gripless about our history.

Perhaps if the sheik knows more about our past, he'll realise that our future doesn't include submitting to the Islamist ideology. Maybe then, he'll retire to Mecca and open a madrass.

There Are Times the Geek Really Likes the Brits!

Over the years, the Geek has had numerous opportunities to work with, live with, get drunk with, members of the British military and intelligence services. On occasion, they have been annoying, emitting a delicate fragrance of assumed superiority. Most of the time, these chaps have been quite delightful. They are well educated, thoughtful, dedicated, and thoroughly professional.

We have disagreed, debated, and even argued, but, win, lose or draw, these encounters of difference have been enjoyable (at least for the winner). When the Brits have been wrong, as they often are on just who developed what successful counterinsurgency approach first, they have been very, very wrong. When the men from the UK have been right, they have been extraordinarily bang-on.

Recently a British General, Gen Sir Mike Jackson, has again demonstrated how right they can be and how wrong it is not to listen to their views with the greatest of respect. The Geek strongly recommends a dekko at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/03/wjackson103.xml.

A cynic might aver that the Geek gives a strong thumbs-up to General Jackson because the good knight's position on the invasion of Iraq and the failure of the Rumsfield-Cheney--Bush bunch is to give proper consideration to the day after victory. The cynic would be wrong.

The views of General Jackson deserve careful consideration because the man is a very experienced and professionally competent military commander and planner. There is little doubt in the Geek's semi-military mind that senior American commanders saw the situation in Iraq in terms not dissimilar from Jackson's.

The French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, famously quipped during the Great War that "war is too important to be left to the generals."

Given the quality of thinking among senior commanders of the French Army during World War I, the quip had much merit. However, the Geek looks at the converse as demonstrated by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

War is too important to be left to politicians. This is particularly true when the politicians in question have a strong ideological bent.

It is commonplace to note, as General Jackson does, that the politicos of the current administration generally and those within the top civilian structure of the Defense Department in particular were (and to some extent, still are) the hardest of hard shell neo-cons.

It may be that true believers in the neo-con ideology have something to recommend them. Whatever that may be, it does not include competence in the planning and preparing for, or the waging of, war. In several previous posts, the Geek has noted many of the abundant failings of the Pentagon wonders in mufti in both planning and waging our two invasions. He does not intend to rehearse them now.

General Jackson zeros in with an aim better than a laser guided smart bomb on the greatest single failing of all. The deep thinkers in Rumsfield's Pentagon and Bush's White House did not properly differentiate between means and ends.

The politicians surrounding the Commander Guy and the Commander Guy himself confused the means of al-Qaeda and similar Islamist groups with their ends, their political goals. Al-Qaeda and its relatives have the goal of promoting Islamist ideology to a position of global power. One of the means by which they hope to accomplish the goal is terrorism.

Terrorism is not the only means available to Islamists in pursuit of their goal. There are others including subversion, propaganda, insurgency both defensive and offensive, the use of litigation, resort to the political arena, and recruitment of those who Lenin once called, "useful fools."

Get a grip on this. Waging war on terrorism makes as much sense as fighting only the German U-boats and Japanese kamikaze aircraft during World War II while ignoring all the other means of war employed by these two countries.

Yet, as General Jackson trenchantly notes, this is what the current administration did when it announced its "global war on terrorism."

The correct goal for the US and its supporters and allies is the defeat of the political ideology of the Islamists. This means that all the means available to the Islamists to pursue their goal of an Islamist global paramountcy must be effectively countered. Defeated.

The US made many mistakes during the half century of the Cold War. It never made the basic error committed by the current administration of confusing the enemy's goal with its means. At no time did any administration from Truman through H.W. Bush lose sight of the defining reality of the Cold War from our perspective: Moscow sought, if not global hegemony, at least global preeminence.

No administration ever confused any of the many different means available to the Kremlin with the goal. Whenever we could, however we could, the US countered each of the means employed. Granted, our success rates varied widely, even wildly. Granted, we sometimes saw threats that either were smaller than we perceived them or did not even exist.

Running through all the American mistakes, paranoia flashes, and strokes of brilliance from the famed Long Telegram of George Kennan all the way to the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union like a twisting but bright thread was an ability to see the goal and not get lost in the maze of means.

The challenge for the current administration and those in the future, the challenge for the wallahs in congress, the challenge for We the People is simple. We must show the same ability as those who navigated the rocks and shoals of the Cold War. Keep our eyes on the enemy's goal. Counter his methods whether terrorism or seeking the perversion of democracy. Never quit. No matter how long it takes, never quit.

These lessons of the Cold War are applicable today. They were not time nor context dependent. They are as universal as any principles derived from the history of human conflict can be.

A note to the current administration: You have the information, the analysis, to know that the prize in the current wars is not simply the stabilizing of Afghanistan or Iraq. It is not the defeat of terrorism per se. The prize is reclaiming a small measure of success from the failure your blunders to date so richly deserve.

If the small measure of success is achieved, then time will have been purchased at great and unnecessary expense in both blood and dollars. Time, which must now be used to properly focus on the goal of the enemy, the true believers in the Islamist ideology, and be used to develop effective means to counter each and every one of the means they are using to achieve it.

The Geek is not suggesting that we are in a Huntington type "clash of cultures," nor is he insinuating that Islam qua Islam is the enemy. Not at all. There is an enemy who uses as one means the blood seeking terrorist. The enemy is the Islamist true believer.

The Geek also maintains with the powerful support of General Jackson that the confusion of the enemy's goals with his means does not simply imply failure in the offing.

No.

Confusing the goals of the enemy with his means will assure failure.

Get a grip on that.