Let Somebody Else Do It

Secretary of Defense Gates' message was simple, blunt, and to the point.  The US will do only those few things which other countries lack the capacity to do.  We will provide midair refueling, surveillance, and reconnaissance, some forms of communication, and intelligence.  We will not provide weapons or training to the anti-government forces in Libya.  In his view there are numerous other states which can do these tasks just as there are others who can patrol the no-fly zone or provide strike sorties intended to protect civilians from harm.

Leaving aside the more than slightly evident tensions between protecting civilians from all harm and the needs of the anti-Gaddafi forces for close air support and the accompanying sour sounds of hypocrisy, the position staked out by Dr Gates in testimony today showed a coldly realistic understanding of what the US can and cannot, should and should not do in the turgid turbulence of Libya.  The most realistic part of the Gates' view is its protective stance.  The limits placed on the American contribution to the "international community's" effort to immunize civilians from the effects of living in a war zone were clearly intended to protect against both mission creep of the sort which destroyed the American effort in Afghanistan as well as to shield Washington from the inevitable charges coming from the Kremlin, the Forbidden City, and elsewhere to the effect that the strictures of the relevant UN Security Council resolution were being transgressed.

There may be mission creep; there will be violation of the spirit and letter of Resolution 1973, but the US will not be a party to either.  This may not be the most courageous policy.  It most assuredly is not in the damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead! tradition of American war fighting or diplomacy.  It is, however, what is needed right now in the context of both Libya and the wider Mideast political tumult.  The view espoused by Gates in such clear and unmistakable fashion serves to give the US needed distance, needed time.  Both are necessary if the US is to formulate a genuine policy for facing the new political landscape of the region.

The Gates' formulation carries with it a very large downside.  This was recognized quite specifically by both the Defense Secretary and Admiral Mullen.  The downside is simply that when night falls Gaddafi may well still be in power.  The prospect of a stalemate, a de facto division between Cyrenaica and the rest of Libya, is real.  So is an outcome in which there is but one Libya under the direction of Gaddafi.

Either of these two outcomes would expose both Libyans and the world to the prospect of Gadaffi 1.0, the Brother Leader who never met a terrorist group he didn't want to fund, the international mischief maker whose wake was marked by downed airliners, blown up buildings, corpses, and failed states.  Whether for a few months or a handful of years, the restoration of the old model Gaddafi would be the worst of bad news for the people of the world.  The continuation in power of Brother Leader would be the worst conceivable development for Libyans, upon whose bodies the full fury of the man's sense of betrayal would lash.

Yet, in the real world, what alternative does the US have right now?  One can construct alternatives, but the least-worst outcome sort would have had to have been put into place weeks before the passage of the UN Resolution and the imposition of the no-fly/civilian protection zones.  Having come to the Libyan game too late and in an inherently overly limited way, the problem of constructing alternative policies to the one outlined by Robert Gates becomes far more problematical.

The problematical nature of the alternatives arise from the unique schizophrenia which afflicts the Arab mind.  It is a schizoid world view which was seen quite clearly in Iraq.  And, it has leaked around the edges of the political debates in recent weeks.

One prong of the schizophrenic view comes from the evident fact that the Libyan insurgents cannot fight in an effective, coordinated fashion.  It is not that the government forces loyal to Gaddafi are all that much better trained or equipped than the rebels for they are not.

(In this context it is worthwhile to spend some time checking out the immense amount of imagery available.  There is no essential difference between the equipment deployed by either the Gaddafi or rebel forces.  Nor is there much apparent difference in competence in military basics from digging in on the defense to the combination of fire and movement on the attack.)

The only essential difference between rebels and government is that the latter but not the former possesses a command structure.  Without a command structure, a coherent table of organization, none of the other features of military organization, communications, logistics, tactics, operational doctrine, are relevant.  The presence or absence of a command structure makes it possible for a numerically inferior force to beat its superior.  It allows a force comprised of men who are not a race of natural warriors (it there is such a critter) to defeat one comprised of heroes.  Command is all in war.

Well, if not exactly all, command, the capacity to control violence from a central location with a fair certainty that orders will be obeyed, is the sine qua non of effective war fighting.  The rebels have none.  The Gaddafi forces have some.  Therein lies the difference--and what a difference is clear from the imagery of the rabble running from a few distant incoming rockets or artillery shells.

There is nothing that can be done in a short span of time to address the critical lack of command in the rebel forces.  The lack is not simply one of training or inexperience.  Rather, the absence of command structure is organic to the society which produced the insurgents.

As a consequence the ability of outside "donors" be they NATO or Arab League to make up the deficiency is zero.  Supplying weapons will not address the absence of command.  Ditto training.  The only way command and its concomitants, control and communication, could be provided in a timely fashion would be for some outside combat force to take over the ground operations.  Sure, some Libyans could be attached to the "foreign" combat units, but they would be simply there for the optics.

In the alternative, the US and other outsiders can hope that the charade of the no-fly/civilian protection zones can be continued long enough for the insurgents to realize they must develop and put into effective practice their own command, control, and communication system--that they must gain a genuine command structure which is generally conceded to be legitimate in the eyes of the fighters it commands and controls.

The US and other countries may well introduce black and special operations forces both civilian and military, but this alone will not provide sufficient command capacity to offset the advantage enjoyed by the Gaddafi units in a timely enough fashion.  Rather, the employment of these genera of capacities will provide some aid to the insurgents by allowing better coordination of air strikes and ground movement.  This will enhance the staying power of the insurgents so as to provide time for these people to discover they need a command structure.

Of course, this brings yet another risk for the US and the other Western powers.  The individuals most likely to realize that they need a command structure are those with prior experience fighting against the US and its allies in Iraq.

(After all,  if these Fearless and Mighty Men of Islam are at all honest and possessed of a capacity for self-examination, they have come to understand that the single greatest reason the Bearded Warriors of the Prophet (PBUH) had their collective posteriors kicked by the infidels and apostates was the greater effectiveness of the infidel and apostate command, control, and communication systems.)

This means the advocates of violent political Islam will come to greater prominence in the effort to topple Gaddafi with results in the post-conflict environment not likely to promote Western norms, values, or interests. The Gates' approach coupled with the indigenous failings of the Libyan insurgents will prove harmful to our longer term interests in the country and the region.

However, we have no real alternative.  Remember the Arab schizophrenia?  The other prong of this world view arises from the antipathy Arab Muslims have for the notion of infidels killing Arab Muslims.  As the pretended(?) horror expressed by the Arab League at the idea that Arab Muslims were dying downrange as the US and others imposed the no-fly/civilian protection zone showed dramatically, there is a genuine loathing aroused in the Arab mind at the killing of good Arab Muslims (even soldiers) by the infidels.

If the Americans or the British or the French put troops on the ground and these troops actually kill Gaddafi's fighters, the hatred will be both real and explosive.  There would be a replay of the dynamics of Iraq and Afghanistan.  There is no way around that.  It is an emotional reality which cannot be denied.  It can only be exploited.  And, exploited it would be.  Not simply by AQIM but by every advocate of violent political Islam in the world.  The wave of fear, loathing, and hatred would be ridden by others as well, by Muslim "moderates" eager to keep their heads above the political tide, by non-Muslims who are rivals, even enemies of the US and its Western allies.

That is why we cannot simply go in and square matters away.  Matters would refuse to be squared away.  The emotional sensitivities of Arab Muslims and their capacity to deny realities other than those conditioned by a narrative of religion would assure what should have been a simple, direct, and straight forward ending of a very nasty regime and its death squads would transmogrify into one more protracted war of religion and identity.

The Libyan Question admits of no good answer.  The approach espoused by Secretary Gates is no more and no less than the least-worst way of dealing with the Question while honestly admitting that we have no capacity to answer it.

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.

Still Looking For A (Mythical) Moderate Muslim?

If you are looking for the elusive Muslim moderate, bubba, you're in for a long, long search. It's kind of like watching for flying whales or stalking unicorns.

As there are cultural Christians, cultural Jews there are also cultural Muslims. Like Christians or Jews, Muslims may be non-observant, or merely nominal. There may be Muslims who, like many professed Christians, are pro forma in their religious practice. Muslims who do the equivalent of Christians whose butts are in the pews for Christmas and Easter and who otherwise honor their religion far more in the breech than in the observance.

The Geek's nearest neighbor is a Christian. (Truth in blogging requires the Geek to state that the neighbor lives a half mile away over a steep ridge, but out here that's downright next door.)

The neighbor was born and raised a hardshell Baptist and is given to quoting impressively long segments of the King James Bible at the slightest provocation. While he didn't let his daughter go out on dates until after she was married, he smokes, drinks, and cusses like a Marine on steroids. His rear end has not shined a pew for decades. Last Easter Sunday found him out grubbing a new line to his septic tank.

Someday, however, the faith of his childhood may again bloom forth in full flourish of belief. He may become a genuine, authentic full-bore Christian.

That possibility does not worry the Geek at all. What's the worst that can happen if the neighbor lives by the precepts of the New Testament?

Well, he'll turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Give his wealth to the poor. Seek social justice. Strive (or at least pray) for peace. Walk meekly and humbly with his Lord.

OK. Absolute worst case, the Geek's neighbor might try to bring the Geek to Jesus. That might be tedious, but it won't be life threatening.

Now what if the Geek's neighbor were to be a Muslim? And what if the neighbor were to return to the faith of his childhood?

The Geek would be damn glad that there was a half mile of bad terrain and no road connecting his land with that of the neighbor. He would also be glad that he had clear fields of fire in the event of the neighbor walking up wearing a bulky overcoat in August.

A genuine Muslim, an authentic Muslim following the Quran, following the life of Mohammad as his guide, must, of absolute necessity and pervasive deep rooted fear of hell, be a jihadist. He must seek to confront the infidel--to pose the infidel with the stark choice of conversion or death.

Death. The ever present theme of Islam, true Islam, the creed of Mohammad. The creed of conquest, of "killing and being killed" to advance the banner of Islam over the world.

Death. The constant, repetitive message of Islamic dominated societies and groups today. The Iranian parliament seeks death as the penalty for "harming mental security in society" on the Internet or any other form of communication. (Whatever that wording might mean. The Geek admists mystification.) See, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticlen.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/July/middleeast_July44.xml&section=middleeast&col=

Death. The icon of so many sociopaths. The definition of a sociopathic entity.

Death. The anodyne for fear. The fear that permeates so much of Islam. The fear of the hell so graphically, sensuously, even lovingly described in Quran, hadith and so many Islamic sermons over so many centuries.

Death. The ultimate act of submission to divine will. Islam means and is all about submission. Submission to the deity. Submission to the will and example of Mohammad. Submission to the call of the cleric. Submission, finally to the fears implanted in childhood--the fears of judgement and punishment.

The genuine Muslim must go on jihad or, at the very, very least, support it actively and enthusiastically. His fears give him no choice. They allow him no moderation. They provide no means of compromise. No forestalling.

The genuine Muslim sees in martyrdom the end to fear. By following the injunction to "kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" (Sura 9:5), the genuine Muslim knows he will avoid punishment and gain reward. He will end his fears by dying in order to live forever without torment.

Death. This word separates the genuine Muslim from all those others who are nominal, cultural or non-observant fringe elements of Islam. The true Islam, the back-to-basics Islam is the Islam of those who call for death. Those who seek to inflict death. Those who seek self-death.

There is simply no room for "moderates."

Genuine Islam does not, cannot, seek accommodation, compromise or even peaceful coexistence with the infidel. The sociopath is blind to those options as he is to the act of creativity. Sociopaths can only destroy. They cannot create.

Looking back over the sweep of Islam's thirteen hundred years, one is struck by the paucity of creativity. And the plethora of death, destruction.

The so-called "golden age" of Islamic medicine and science was, upon close scrutiny, often based either on an idea from elsewhere such as the concept of zero as a placeholder taken from Hindu India or actually the product of a non-Muslim. The "golden age" saw little science, less literature and a complete distortion of the craft of history.

In the last thousand years or the last hundred or even the last ten, ask yourself how much science, art, literature, new creative ideas has the aggregate Muslim society brought to the human storehouse. And, of that pitifully small amount, how much was done by nominal Muslims living in totally non-Muslim countries or societies?

Fear driven sociopaths cannot, do not create. They can only destroy. They can only wreak death.

Freedom brings creativity in its wake. Freedom of inquiry and freedom of dissent bring new ideas. Freedom from the fear of hell brings a love of life. Loving life results in new ideas, new discoveries, new technologies, new systems, new every thing.

Look not for the moderate Muslim. He does not exist. Rather look for the ways in which we who have enjoyed and profited so much from freedom can liberate those in the chains of a long dead sociopath, Mohammad, the artificer of a political dogma called Islam.