What A Difference A Word Makes

Ten years ago in an exercise of free association the challenge "terrorist" or "terrorism" would have brought an instant and automatic response from the lips of most Americans: "Arab." Nowadays the same challenge words would bring a different reaction.  Despite the best efforts of the Obama administration and other devotees of the high minded and lofty thinking school of politically correct multiculturalism, the words "terror" or "terrorist" would result in the reply of "Muslim."

Why this change considering that way back in the salad days of international terrorism the vast majority of the Arab perpetrators were at least nominally adherents of Islam?  A close examination of the curricula vitae of the assorted leaders of the numerous groups who bombed, shot, and garroted their way into the Mideast datelines of the Seventies, Eighties, and most of the Nineties shows that none were Christian let alone Jewish.  They were, without exception, Muslims.  Yet, the description "Arab" always prevailed.

There are several reasons for the change in both nomenclature and its underlying implications.

At the top of the list is the fact that the terrorists of the earlier, "Arab" age were pursuing a goal which was rational even if not realistic.  The master bombmakers, the hijackers of aircraft, the killers of Olympic athletes, the shooters of tourists and Jewish civilians were doing their dastardly deeds in the quest to roll back the verdict of conventional war.  More specifically, from the time that Yassir Arafat of late and unlamented memory created Fatah and dedicated it to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the goal of all the alphabet soup of terrorist groups was to reverse the outcome of the Six Day War of 1967 and the Wars of Independence from almost twenty years earlier.

The use of terror tactics might have been ethically reprehensible, but the goal was understandable, rational because it was political.  A pretender to statehood was employing the only tactical concept available to it as it sought to become a state at the expense of a far stronger, far better organized, and (at the time) far more widely supported state.  As the apologists for "Arab" terrorism stated repeatedly at the time, Arafat and his imitators (more correctly, competitors) were using the only means available to the dispossessed, the marginalized, the politically and militarily debilitated.

Even the use of "Arab" terrorist groups by states as proxies not only against Israel but against each other was rational.  In the inter-Arab disputes which constituted a hallmark of regional politics during the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and beyond, the use of terrorists as weapons served to decouple rivalry from the potential of regionally destructive escalation.  The Baathists of Syria and Iraq were not only willing but almost eager to use one sponsored group or another not only against the mutual enemy of Israel but as a means of settling the never ending quarrel between the two wings of the Baathist movement.  Syria was a master at using its sponsored terrorists as a wedge to destabilize Lebanon so as to provide the necessary excuse to intervene in Lebanese affairs--to provide stability and protect civilian life, don't you know?

The employment of state-sponsored and facilitated terrorist groups as a matter of state policy might have been abhorrent to the norms of conflict and diplomacy, but it was rational.  It did provide options seen as necessary by most in the region while maintaining the fiction of regional, ethnic, and religious harmony.  The technique also had the benefit of allowing sufficient plausible deniablity to prevent an effective coordinated response by the "international community" or even individual states--including the US.  In a sense "Arab" terror flew under the radar of global political mechanisms even while attracting global media attention.

It was the global media attention which gave "Arab" terrorism both its power and its utility as a rational tool of state.  The fear and loathing caused by "Arab" terrorist outrages was presumed by its creators and sponsors to result in the end effect of compelling Israel to relinquish the territory occupied in the wake of the Six Day War.  At the same time, the focus on high profile events and personalities in the "Arab" terrorist escapades served as a sort of squid's ink--a cloud behind which state sponsors could conceal their intentions and degree of involvement alike.

It should never be forgotten that the many different groups of the "Arab" terrorist days were avowedly secular.  The politics of most involved whether as leaders or low level operators were a combination of nationalism and socialism.  There was very little if any reference to Islam in either the programs or statements of the many different members of the movement.  Yassir Arafat, for example, made no reference to Islam in his very high profile appearance at the podium of the UN General Assembly.  From the documents he allegedly wrote or the speeches he made, one can get no impression that the Fatah chairman was a Muslim.  The same applied to all the other media stars of the "Arab" terrorist movement.

It was only after the nature and outcome of the Iranian Islamic Revolution percolated through the Arab population that there was any shift from the secular focus to one which admitted religion.  The long lag time between the toppling of the Shah and the emergence of Islam to the public consciousness of the nascent "Islamic" terrorist movement was in part the result of two simple facts. The Iranian Islamic Revolution was (1) non-Arab and (2) non-Sunni.

The barrier to the influence of the Iranian Islamic Revolution becoming a model for a new generation of Mideast terrorists was broken by events in one more non-Arab country.  That country was Afghanistan.

The anti-Soviet fighters of Afghanistan were avowedly and devoutly Muslim in the majority of cases.  Since the only core definer of the Afghan identity which transcended tribal affiliations and loyalties was religion, this is not surprising.  The power of Islam did come as a surprise to many of the Arab volunteers who entered the Afghan conflict at and after its midpoint.  The Arab influx was a byproduct of the strong relation which had developed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Pakistani dictator, Zia, had put a program emphasizing Islam in place with the goal of unifying the population in the forever war with India.  Zia had enlisted the support of Saudi Arabia in this "Islamization" campaign.  Saudi Arabia had provided the money and clerical manpower necessary to establish an extensive network of Wahhibist mosques and madrassas.  It was as inevitable as a displaced rock rolling downhill that this campaign would have ramifications.  Among these was an introduction of Arab Peninsula youth via Pakistan to the "holy war" against the Red Army.

The Afghans and their Arab emulators gave unalloyed thanks to the deity for success against the Soviets.  They also used the language of the Koran to describe the fighters, those killed in action, and the blessings of the deity as a means of increasing and maintaining morale during the long, bloody years of war.  More than a few of the Arabs involved saw the power resident in their religion to offset the material and technological advantages enjoyed by infidel and apostate enemies.  A new vow was soon to be heard from many of the Arabs having experience in Afghanistan.  No longer would the power of belief of the One True Faith sleep unused in the pages of the Koran and other sacred writings.  Now this power would be tapped to assure victory over the long triumphant infidels and their apostate local satraps.

Osama bin Laden was the best known, the most notorious of these Arab exponents of the new, far more militant view of the commands of the Koran, the orders of Allah.  There were many others.  What separated bin Laden from the rest was his willingness to announce where he stood and demand that others of faith stand with him.  His success in gaining recruits and developing an organization rapidly during the early and mid-Nineties was the result not so much of his charisma and communication skills but rather that so many were already of like mind.

The shift from "Arab" to "Muslim" terror predated the (in)famous bin Laden declaration of war on the US by more than a decade.  For those who like the idea of a specific defining event or date, the day of the truck bombing of the World Trade Center serves the purpose.  This event was a self-conscious act taken on behalf not only of an "Arab" goal--the ending of American support for Israel--but also as a shot in the global holy war which (if the deity wills) would end with the establishment of a worldwide caliphate.

It would have been appropriate for the Clinton administration to acknowledge that the US was facing a new threat--religiously based terror.  But, the administration in common with the majority of the media and academia, seized on the political portion of the motive while ignoring the fact that in the mind and words of the men who planned and executed the attack, politics was totally and inseparably connected with religion albeit in a subordinate role.

The administration made the same fundamental error when further attacks ensued.  These--the strike on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the simultaneous bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the boat borne IED which nearly sank the USS Cole--were all manifestations of the Osama bin Laden concept of "Muslim" terror.  Yes, there was a political goal involved, but that goal was both inherent with and subordinate to the dictates of Islamic belief.  By narrowly focusing on the political aspect of the goal, the Clinton administration missed the perfect chance to define the enemy properly and direct US responses more accurately and effectively.

A more accurate definition of the enemy, his overarching goals, the foundations of his motives, the strengths and weaknesses of the appeals for support which must be predicated on the underlying beliefs, would have allowed the US to mount a better counter challenge.  More importantly, by defining the enemy correctly, it would have been possible for Americans to know what they stood for as well as what they were standing against.

The initial error made by the Clinton administration has been continued by both the Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations.  This is to be regretted.  The nature of any war against "Arab" terrorism and that of the "Muslim" variety must be different as the two expressions of terror are substantially different in both goal and motive.

Get a grip on this.

"Arab" terrorism was rational.  It sought defined and rather narrow political goals.  Terror was a tactic pure and simple.  If the tactic did not work, it could be altered or even abandoned without any loss of status or identity by so doing.

"Muslim" terror is irrational.  While it may incorporate narrow and definable political goals, these are subordinate to matters of faith.  The suicide bomber is not so much seeking a political goal as he is performing an act of faith.   Because the "martyrdom" operation is rooted in deeply held beliefs derived from the sacred writings of Islam, tactical reliance on terror cannot be abandoned without damage to the strength of the faith.

The "Arab" terrorist could be deterred or defeated.  He could be convinced by failure to abandon terrorism when the costs outweighed the benefits.  He was in most essential respects a rational actor subject to the same inducements and constraints as combatants using other forms of tactics.

The "Muslim" terrorist cannot be deterred and can be defeated only by being killed.  Mere opprobrium or failure in his operations will not necessarily cause him to seek a tactical alternative to terrorism.  As his act is one of faith and not politics as such, he will not change his ways simply because the aggregate of costs is greater than the benefits.  As a person committing an act of faith, a testament to personal strength of belief and willingness to obey the presumed demands of the deity, the "Muslim" terrorist is not a rational actor.  He is not subject to the same inducements and constraints as other combatants, including terrorists of the "Arab" sort.

In short, the "Muslim" terrorist is a far harder target than was his "Arab" cousin.  He is hard to kill and possessed of a mind impossible to change.  This implies that the US and other civilized states will have a much harder time dealing with the "Muslim" terrorist than was first thought (and still is) by those who mistake the political gloss for the religious center of the act of faith we call terrorism.

Terrorism is a tactic of war.  The "Arab" practitioner of the craft knew this.  He knew the rules which defined success and failure in the use of any tactic, terror included.  The "Muslim" may pay lip service to the notion that terror is a tactic, but he really believes it to be the strongest possible confession of faith that the individual believer might make.

When you think about it for a bit, it makes you recollect the years of shadowy groups known usually by their initials as having been the good old days.  And, so they were.

What A Difference A Decade Makes

Ten years ago a group of nineteen men primarily from Saudi Arabia were in the last stages of preparing for their dramatic exit from this world.  In the US the major political news revolved around the Social Security "lockbox" and dire warnings of dark conspiracy afoot with Vice-President Cheney's energy task force meeting behind locked doors.  The most recently completed Quadrennial Defense Review was silent on asymmetrical warfare and made little mention of unmanned combat systems (UCS.)  The "Gang of Five Hundred" had reached a quick consensus on George W. Bush being a one-term president.

And, the US was rolling in bucks.  The federal budget was running an embarrassingly large surplus.  There was so much loot in Uncle Sam's pockets that tax cuts were agreed by one and all to be a very good idea.  There was also a wide consensus on the desirability of increased spending on education and health care for senior citizens.  Americans were feeling almost guilty about all that money littering the floors and vaults of the Treasury Department.

The overall American mood was optimistic.  There was a degree of buoyancy within We the People that even the boom days of the early and mid-sixties seemed grey and dismal in comparison.  The "go-go" years of that famed decade paled into dimness compared with the confidence, even exuberance, seen on Wall Street and Main Street alike.  The Summer of '01 was very much a period of "let the good times roll!"

The US was the globe's only superpower.  The economy was booming in all sectors--even housing and real estate.  Jobs were plentiful.  There were no real enemies abroad in the world, only a handful of annoying Arab terrorists such as those who attacked the USS Cole and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.  Hardly enough to worry about, right?

We now know that the Summer of '01 was the last season of the ancien regime.  We know now that the past decade has been the opening period of several rather revolutionary dynamics in national security and foreign affairs.

The concept of asymmetrical warfare has come front and center.  The US and other civilized states now must prepare to deter or defeat opponents at any point on a conflict spectrum which runs from the use of terror to the employment of missile delivered nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

The introduction and very rapid evolution of unmanned combat systems (UCS) whether in the air, on land, or in and under the sea indicates that the new technology bodes well to be a game changer equivalent in impact to the introduction of gunpowder weapons.  There can be no doubt that even in this early stage of development, the UCS far surpasses in impact both current and near term potential of the submarine, the aircraft carrier, or aircraft themselves.

The nation-state which has served to define global politics for the past five hundred years is now threatened on two fronts.  One of these is the supra-national organization.  The other can be best seen as sub-national or, to use a longer term, national entities living uneasily within the confines of a state dominated by a different and larger nation.

Another feature which has come to the center of global politics is the latest restatement of a very long standing conflict.  It is a conflict which has emerged many times over the centuries.  The defining foundation of this very ancient and basic tension is between philosophies of life which center on the individual and views which put the priority upon the community and see the individual as important only insofar as he contributes to the common good of the community.

The tension between individualism and communitarianism dates back to the time when agriculture emerged as a rival to the far more ancient hunting and gathering way of life.  To be successful the agriculture based approach to life requires stable communities in which land and labor can be monitored, controlled, guaranteed.  The hunting and gathering economy depends upon the voluntary cooperation of individuals so that every person's strengths can be utilized and their weaknesses offset.  Agriculture requires both the subordination of the individual to the needs of the community and a hierarchy to assure this subordination.

The individualistically oriented view of life emphasizes the rights of the individual while properly linking these rights with concomitant duties.  The communitarian understanding puts a great weight on the duties of the individual--often to the point of ignoring the concept of "rights" completely.  The polities which tend to the individualistic end of the spectrum are open and democratic to a significant degree.  Polities which lean in the communitarian direction are authoritarian, even autocratic.

In the past, the conflict between the individualistic and communitarian has been seen in the wars between Western democracies and authoritarian ideologically driven states such as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.  It was the conflict of world views and understandings which hid under the term, "the Cold War."  Today it exists as the struggle between civilized states and the exponents of violent political Islam.

Running as a connecting thread between all of these several substantial and rapid changes in the practice of global politics is the equally fast and major transformation of the technologies of information transmission and communication.  As a means for facilitating the organization of ad hoc constituencies or as a tool for perception manipulation or as a political force multiplier, the Internet, the cellphone, and their dependencies such as social media have only begun to demonstrate their power and potential quite recently.

Then there is the change in the way in which We the People see ourselves, the world, and our future.  In a very important sense, the change in mood and perception during the past decade is also a revolution.  Perhaps it is the most important revolution of all.  This contention is predicated on a commonplace: The perceptions, attitudes, and, thus, actions of the American public place very real and powerful inducements and constraints on decision and policy makers.    In short, the mood of Americans generally is the context in which all national security and foreign policy actions are taken (or not taken.)

(It has gotten too bloody hot to go on for now--105 degrees F here at the computer. Please indulge the Geek and let him go and cool off secure in the knowledge that he will go on with this "thought piece" on the morrow when it might be a tad cooler.)

A Dilemma Always Has Two Horns

Once again the schizoid view of Islam is on display.  Over the past week two diametrically opposing understandings of the relation of Islam the religion and terrorist acts have been advanced by men skilled in the use of the written word for purposes of convincing.

One view, the benevolent one, is offered by Time, Online in the person of Romash Ratnesar.  Mr Ratnesar is an editor-at-large who contributes a weekly column on national security and foreign affairs.  In this piece he takes the view that homegrown terrorism of the violent political Islamic sort is a myth conveniently manufactured and exploited by assorted political and media figures in order to advance an agenda.

In the course of the essay Mr Ratnesar deprecates the assorted homegrown actors as insignificant people who generated plots doomed to fail even had the FBI not used undercover assets to gain control of the plotters and abort their efforts.  In Mr Ratnesar's view the wannabe martyrdom seekers were all pathetic members of the gang that couldn't shoot straight and barely deserved the attention they received.

In the course of marginalizing the homegrowns, Mr Ratnesar blithely discounted the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal, as having motivations which were "not strictly ideological" and by asserting that in any event his targets were not exclusively civilians.  This animadversion is breath taking in its scope and baseless nature to say the least.

The opposite viewpoint was adopted by Barry Rubin in the Jerusalem Post.  Rubin is well known as an advocate of Israel and a well-informed attacker of all things relating to political Islam both violent and peaceful.  In this commentary he considers the nature, scope, and probable impact of a fatwa issued recently by Dr Imad Mustafa of Cairo's very prestigious al-Azar university, the leading theological institution of Sunni Islam in the world.

Dr Mustafa, in his fatwa, not only rehearses the traditional understanding of defensive jihad, but defines defensive with such breadth that nearly any act can be construed as an attack upon Islam which invokes defensive jihad as an absolute obligation upon every believer.  But Dr Mustafa goes far beyond defense.

In his fatwa this al-Azar professor invokes a basis for offensive jihad.  One of the acceptable causes of offensive jihad against a non-Muslim majority state is any action by that state which in any way restricts the absolute freedom of Muslims to use and observe every stricture or requirement of the religion--including such cultural additions as the burqa, polygamy, or child brides.  Other causes of offensive jihad include the purging of all religions other than Islam from all the states of the Arabian Peninsula and--most sweeping of all--"to extend God's religion."

Guacamole!  The good professor in this fatwa has made a mighty step back to the future--bringing back the imperatives of the Seventh and Eighth centuries for use in the Twenty-first!

While the Mustafa Fatwa may be utterly irrelevant to the majority of Muslims abroad and here in the US as they pursue the challenges and opportunities of daily life, the fact remains that the most extreme of the advocates of violent political Islam have received the blessings as it were of the most important school of Islamic religious studies in the world.  The Mustafa Fatwa empowers every cleric, every loud mouthed exponent of the Triumph of the Will of Allah (as I see it) to exhort violence against any and all non-Muslims wherever they might live.  It is all that an Osama bin Ladin could have hoped and prayed for--and more.

Stripped to its essentials, the Mustafa Fatwa is a universal declaration of religious war against any and all infidels everywhere.  Compared to this fatwa the call for the First Crusade preached by Pope Urban over a thousand years ago was an invitation to an interfaith love feast.

Professor Mustafa's fatwa must come as an embarrassment to President Obama, the WaPo, and the legions of Islamophiles littering the American and Western European elites.  The Mustafa Fatwa puts the lie to all the assertions these past years that terror acts are the product of an insignificant number of individuals who have hijacked Islam for their own narrow and perverse purposes.  At least in the mind of Professor Mustafa and others of al-Azar university, the concepts of defensive (construed broadly) jihad and, now, offensive jihad reside in the mainstream of Islamic jurisprudence.  Rather than being a perversion of the religion, jihad is an obligation upon each and every believer.  In short, it is the religion.

Still one must be cautious in responding to the broadened challenge represented in the Mustafa Fatwa.  It is not the final word.  It is subject to debate within the community of religious scholars.  It can be repudiated by others even in the al-Azar faculty.  And, it most assuredly can be ignored by believers generally as are most fatwas.

The best basis for policy still remains a careful distinction between Islam qua Islam and political Islam which is an ideology predicated on Islam as a religion.  It is even more critical to distinguish between violent and non-violent political Islam as each requires a different approach to combat successfully.  It is better policy to accept even the conceit advanced by Mr Ratnesar to the effect that homegrown terrorists are few, far between, and relatively inconsequential in their acts.

Policy must focus upon the most pressing threats while never totally ignoring the context which now includes the expansive but well historically rooted Mustafa Fatwa.  The most critical threats are those emanating from overseas, from the FATA or from Yemen.  This implies that a posture of close and careful monitoring of those within the US most susceptible to the messages from abroad must be maintained and even enhanced as new intelligence and new methods allow.

Longer term policy should focus upon ways in which the appeals of jihad might be lessened.  These include the usual suspects of moving to enhance democracy and responsible, responsive government in majority Muslim states and actions oriented toward economic development, particularly the empowerment of women.  But longer term policy must also consider ways in which the splits endemic to Islam can be used to benefit peace, tolerance, and a reduction of the appeal of violent political Islam.  High on this list of it-takes-a-Muslim approaches is that of reinvigorating the unfortunately moribund Sufi school of Islam.

It is also important that policy be based on a more accurate understanding of the ways in which fear, insecurity, and a sense of marginalization have factored into the rise of violent political Islam.  Many of the psychological preconditions for violent political Islam are inherent to certain but not all of the different schools of Islam.  Others are the inevitable consequences of living in authoritarian and repressive environments.  Still others are the results of effective propaganda delivered by clerics with an agenda.

None of these factors exist outside the competence of the relevant agencies of government to comprehend, and act upon.  The problem has come from an unwillingness of these agencies and their superiors to think outside of narrow, ideologically determined lines.  One use for the Mustafa Fatwa and its slap in the face of all Islamophiles is that of thinking the previously unthinkable.  By doing that, and only by doing that can the US move beyond purely military responses or the reflexive view that economic improvement and education cures all of the jihadist syndrome.

The US has been facing the challenge of violent political Islam for thirty plus years now.  It is about time that someone look beyond the horizons of the conventional wisdom.  Professor Mustafa has given a very good motive to do just that.

Nine Years, Two Wars, Billions Of Bucks--Why Aren't We Safer?

About a week ago Foreign Policy published the results of a survey of acknowledged experts on countering terrorism, particularly terror practiced by advocates of violent political Islam, the greatest threat currently abroad in the world.  The consensus was the US and the West generally were only marginally safer today than on 9/11.  If anything, in the Geek's estimate, the consensus errs on the optimistic side.

While there is little doubt that the original Big Black Turban of violent political Islam, al-Qaeda, is weaker today than on 9/11, this in no way ensures enhanced security against the threats of the bigger beast, political Islam.  The proliferation of both Baby al-Qaedas and lone wolf actors underscores this dreary contention.

The FP collection of experts fingered Pakistan as the fountainhead of risk.  With this the Geek is in complete agreement.  Pakistan is well on the road to failed state status.  Unless the elite of government, army, and intelligence service take very swift and exceptionally determined action to suppress the growing wave of violent political Islam, it is quite probable that the country will achieve collapse within five years and possibly as few as two.  No amount of US bribe money will alter that trajectory absent an unprecedented upsurge of political will by government, army, ISI, and supporting elites.

The most dangerous short-term adversaries of the US and the West live and work in Pakistan.  Not simply in the FATA under the stare and menace of the CIA operated Predators but in much of the country.  These men, the planners, organizers and commanders of operations such as the Mumbai attack or the failed Times Square bombing are existing right under the eyes of Pakistani authorities without any perceptible hindrance.  This melancholy reality is indicative of the schizophrenic stasis of the Pakistani government.

Most of the FP expert panel pointed at the Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iran as the single greatest mistake in the so-called global war on terror.  Regardless of any abstract merits, the overthrow of Saddam and the ensuing long and bloody war were a major diversion from the goal of suppressing violent political Islam in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The Iraqi detour assured the US did not finish the task in Afghanistan or effectively lean on the Pakistanis back then to work with us in the FATA for joint benefit.

In addition to the direct military effects of the Iraqi detour, the Great Adventure in Regime Change served to cause splits in the ranks of NATO and the West generally.  In the US it gave rise to an alienated anti-war movement on the Left with consequences which have progressively sapped the political will of the American public to continue the present war of national survival.

The invasion of Iraq, the consequent war there, along with the necessary military emphasis in Afghanistan have not only provided both impetus and breathing room for the practitioners of violent political Islam to proliferate, recruit, co-opt, and escalate horizontally, they have caused a paucity of imagination in the counterterror elements of the Agency, the State Department, and Pentagon.  While some of the armed actions such as the UAV attacks in the FATA and the nocturnal raids in Afghanistan have been effective, they are effective but not sufficient as a French expert noted in the FP piece.

The ultimate defeat of violent political Islam will not come from military means--no matter how critical these may be in the short to mid-term.  Nor will it come from economic development and aid projects.  It will not come from futile exercises in nation-building as has been undertaken in Afghanistan.

The ultimate defeat of violent political Islam can only come from the ranks of Muslims.  It can come only when a school of Islam rises to counter effectively the Wahhibist inspired and rooted jihadis.  The wellspring of violent political Islam is in the Wahhibist or Salifist understandings of Islam even if that was not the intent of those who sponsored the exportation of these schools of belief to places far from their locales of birth.

An excellent candidate for an Islamic response to an Islamic threat is found in the Sufi interpretation of the common religion.  As noted in previous posts Sufism was predominant in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Punjab Pakistan until quite recently.  It is a view of Islam which is introspective, ecstatic, mystical, and totally disengaged from politics.  It focuses on the development of inner peace and harmony which in turn brings about community harmony in an atmosphere of respect and tolerance.  Beyond that Sufism is emotionally engaging and satisfying in its liturgies and rituals--at least as much so as shouting "Death to ..." in the streets or stoning women.

It is surprising that none of the behemoths of our national instruments of power have discovered Sufism as it exists today in the challenging theaters of current operations.  The seed exists everywhere the threat does currently.  It is only necessary to water and fertilize the Sufi seed so that a new, more peaceful Islamic majority can grow over time.

No special magic is needed to do this job.  The clandestine cultivation of indigenous Sufis can be conducted by the normal tradecraft means, the standard protocols which existed to the Geek's knowledge decades ago and presumably still exist.  All that is needed is the wit and will to look beyond the usual means of force and foreign aid, the wit and will to go outside of the box of conventional wisdom.

It may take a generation or more to see final success in this purely Muslim approach to a purely Muslim threat but it is a low risk, low cost, and high payoff strategy that merits serious consideration and rigorous undertaking.  We may be lucky and find a few really charismatic Sufi clerics who will survive the assassination attempts and prevail.  But, the alternative is stark.

The stark alternative is simply that within twenty years we in the West will have lost to the bomb wielding Thugs of the Koran.  The consensus of the FP experts is that the US or Europe will suffer a major terror attack before the year is out.  Their pessimistic view also foresees a Mumbai II operation in the not too distant future.  The Geek is equally dismal in his view.

Beyond the next year the correlation of forces favors the advocates of violent political Islam.  The Western and American elites have lost faith in themselves and their cultures.  The people of both the US and Western Europe are sick of the Long War.  The economic collapse lingers with no defining end in sight, which reduces morale and political will all the more.

Time is on the side of the Bad Guys.  The only alternative to defeat is to try something very new--set a Muslim to defeat a Muslim.  It is worth a try.  Better by far than defeat.

Calling It Like It Is

It is hard to tell very unpopular truths.  In the West to do so is to run the risk of falling afoul the myrmidons of political correctness, the minions of multi-cultural affection, or simply those who cow down to the fear of maybe, perhaps, offending someone's sensitivities somewhere, somehow.  In other countries, Pakistan is on the list near the top, to tell it like it is means to run the very real and present hazard of being killed by a person so warped by the perverse messages of faith as to lose his mental and moral moorings.

In the recent weeks a pair of blunt spoken advocates of human rights, particularly the right to one's personal conscience, have made it plain what is at stake in the struggle between the advocates of violent political Islam and their opponents.  The pair are French president Nicholas Sarkozy and Pakistani member of parliament Sherry Rehman.

In a speech a week ago to an interfaith conference in Paris, M. Sarkozy set his sights on the Mideast.  In specific he drew a steady bead on the violence perpetrated by Muslims on Christians.  He stated the campaign of bombings, shootings, beatings, and general intimidation was an effort at "religious cleansing."  The phrase is redolent of the damning "ethnic cleansing" against which the US and other countries employed armed force a bit more than a decade ago.

M. Sarkozy linked the two forms of "cleansing" as conjoined twins of evil.  As the French president sees life and the world, "religious cleansing" deserves the same sort of active opposition as did ethnic cleansing in the ruins of Yugoslavia.  The Muslim attacks on Christians as well as the lame efforts of Muslim majority governments to protect Christians are, in M. Sarkozy's view, assaults on the liberty of conscience, which is a bedrock principle on which French society and polity have existed for a mort of years.

Sherry Rehman is a pillar of courage in a swamp of cowardly violence.  She is a principled person whose goal is simply human rights for all Pakistanis--including Christians.  In this she is following the course set by Pakistan's founding father.  Her specific goal at the moment is the ending of the Zia era blasphemy laws.  To this end the former government minister and PPP heavyweight has introduced a Private Member's Bill to end the death threat of the blasphemy law.

As a consequence the lady has been marked for death by assorted clerics of the political Islam end of the Muslim spectrum.  She has been declared officially by these men as an "infidel," and branded "worthy of death" in fatwa after bloody fatwa.  No doubt all these death messages were presented in the name of "Allah the Merciful and Compassionate."

Thus the probability of Ms Rehman being done to death by a True Believer in the same manner as Salmaan Taseer is high, very high.  President Zardiiri with the courage of a startled rabbit has urged Ms Rehman to leave the country until the "situation is stabilized."  With a physical courage which matches her moral and intellectual bravery, Ms Rahmen has spurned the request.  Pakistan is her country and there she will live and die, triumph or fail.

Surrounded by tens of thousands of fear driven, insecure men who seek an identity in True Belief, the stance taken by Ms Rahmen can only excite the greatest respect.  She transcends borders with her stance and her courage.  Even should she die under the assassin's knife or gun, the coward's bomb, Ms Rehman must serve as a beacon for any and all Pakistanis who seek to see their country among the ranks of the Civilized States rather than within the narrow and reactionary tribe represented by such as Taliban in all its incarnations or al-Shabaab or the assorted Baby al-Qaedas--or the Iran of today.

The reformers of Pakistan are at the point of decision.  They can leave for the West which will welcome them.  They can lay low, hide out, talk only to one another, and hope the clerics and their mobs miss them.  Or, like the late Punjabi governor Salmaan Taseer and Ms Rehman, take a stand and fight it out against the forces of the Eighth Century.  They may die, but in that case their deaths will mean something.  If they do nothing, they will live with the knowledge that they failed in their obligation to themselves and their fellow countrymen.

M. Sarkozy for his part has tossed down the gauntlet to his fellow Western leaders.  They can either take up his challenge and repudiate the "religious cleansing" underway throughout the Muslim majority states with all the instruments of national power at their disposal or they can remain silent.  They can either stand on the side of the most basic human right of freedom of conscience or they can in their denial surrender to the forces of reactionary fear driven prejudice and hate.

The US and UK no less than France have long stood for freedom of belief.  It would be shameful as well as self defeating for either Prime Minister Cameron or President Obama to fail to measure up to the French President.  It is to be hoped that M. Sarkozy will bring the matter of Christian killing, Christian intimidation, Christian terror to the attention of Mr Obama when they meet in Washington a few days hence.  It is to be devoutly hoped that Obama will shed his pose of multi-culturalism and tell it like it is with respect to events in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Nigeria, and other Muslim majority states.

Quite simply the "religious cleansing" deserves the same measure of response as did the ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia.  Any less is to say the assorted conventions on human rights espoused by the UN and subscribed to by the US as well as all the Muslim majority states are, as Bismark once was reputed to have said, "mere scraps of paper."  It is also to cast aside a foundational principle of the US.

For the American president as for the reformers of Pakistan the choice is simple: Fight or surrender.  For the US, the second choice is to admit to self-inflicted defeat.

Are They Really That Smart?

Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) has released a special issue of its Inspire online magazine.  This "Extra-Extra!-Read-All-About-It! release is dedicated to a single topic.  The only matter considered is the "failed" parcel bomb plot.

To AQAP's chief propagandist, the one time North Carolina resident turned full time "traitor to America," Samir Khan, the operation was not a failure.  In his typically breezy not to say cocky way, this self-proclaimed "traitor" points out that the job cost AQAP a bit over four thousand dollars but will result in "billions" of bucks in enhanced security costs to the American air cargo industry.  In terms of cost accounting, ole "Sammy" is bang on.

The jihadist publication promised a continuation of low cost, high economic damage attacks.  AQAP avers that it has hit on a new formula for successfully bringing about the collapse of the US and the West, a sort of death by a thousand paper cuts way of waging war.

The special issue also repeated the AQAP claim of responsibility for the crash of a UPS flight in Dubai which killed the two man crew.  This claim has been rejected by the officials in Dubai, but the results of a review of the crash investigation has not yet substantiated the local view that the incident resulted from causes other than a terrorist attack.  However, there has been no evidence of an on-board explosion, so the cause remains an open question.

Leaving aside the matter of the Dubai incident, the Inspire narrative does pose an interesting question for analysts.  There is no arguing against the contention that the parcel bombs have resulted in greater attention being paid to air cargo.  This attention will both cost extra money and introduce additional frictions into a critical component of the international logistics system.  Over the longer term the delays occasioned by enhanced security will bring substantial indirect costs, but not such as to cripple the industry let alone bring the US to its financial knees.

It has been known since the Pliocene epoch of terrorism that every increment in increased security brings both additional direct costs and a slew of frictions both economic and political in its wake.  By responding to terrorist incidents, the target automatically hands the terrorist a small victory.  The inevitable combination of increased costs, increased frictions, increased apprehensions, and decreased belief in the capacity of the target government to provide a satisfactory level of security exacts political and social as well as economic costs.  The current contretemps over "strip or grope" is excellent evidence of the overall consequence of security driven frictions.

Those adherents of violent political Islam who have lived in the US or elsewhere in the West such as Samir Khan and Anwar al-Awlaki would be well aware of the dynamic of terror-enhanced security-increased frictions.  Thus the question for analysts is this: Did AQAP intend and plan the parcel bomb attack in order to inflict economic damage or is the Inspire explanation one of an after-the-fact nature?

To put it more simply: Are the operatives of AQAP as smart as Khan alleges or did the talented propagandist invent his theory to meet the facts, including the irrefutable one of failure?  In support of the second interpretation is a critical fact absent in the glowing tribute to the brilliance of the Deep Thinkers and Master Strategists of AQAP.

The missing fact?

Well, bucko, how about the cause of the operation's failure?  The attack was betrayed to Saudi intelligence by a defector from AQAP.  Actually, the man was a multiple defector.  He had bounced from terror to Saudi "rehabilitation" and then back to AQAP and finally back to the waiting arms of the Saudis.  The unlikely series of bounces hints strongly that the informant had been targeted on AQAQ by the Saudis and he then performed his task with precision.  Since penetration of hostile entities is the first line of defense and the Saudis have more than one dog in the fight with AQAP, the use of an intentional penetration asset seems quite likely.

The fact that the operation, admittedly a very clever and cheap one, was compromised fatally by a Saudi penetration asset must be more than a tad galling to the heavyweights of AQAP.  The fertile imagination of Samir Khan provided a way of retrieving a measure of success from what is otherwise a failure tinted with the humiliation of betrayal from within.

Ole Sammy makes much of the insight and intelligence of his running buddies of AQAP.  That is the reason for the article detailing not only the infernal devices but also the security systems successfully evaded.  Of course, by giving these operational details the article would seem to be undercutting the value of its promises that the campaign would continue as it provides useful grist for the intelligence and security mills of the US and other countries.

Whether AQAP continues with a focus on parcel bombs or uses another approach one thing is sure--AQAP is not going to fade away, organizational bones bleaching in some sunwashed wadi deep in the mountains of Yemen.  A second unpleasant reality will remain as well: AQAP is aware of the greatest vulnerability in the US and most of the West.  That vulnerability is the demands for more security and the inevitable costs of providing such.

We the People--and the government--must carefully consider just how much security is enough.  We must keep in mind that every time the security wrench ratchets tighter, the costs and the frictions go up as well.  There is a crossover point where the negatives of security are such as to accomplish the goals of the terrorists without a single additional terrorist act.

How close are we right now to the crossover point?  That is the question the Inspire braggadocio demands we, all of us, answer.

When Will Obama Admit, "It Is The Religion, Stupid!"

With the savagely lethal attack on the Chaldean Catholic church in Baghdad, the war being waged against Christians in Muslim majority states from Nigeria to Indonesia has exploded out of the media shadows where it has been concealed for several years now.  The statement issued by the Muslim entity behind the attack specifically called the worshipers and their church a "foul den of idolaters."  A pathetic lie was proffered in justification of the slaughter when the Mighty Warriors Of Allah alleged the Christians used the church as a place from which to wage war against Muslims.

The accusation was not only pathetic in its poverty, it was a lie of a magnitude which would have made even Joe Stalin or Dr Goebbels blush.

The totally expectable and quite pro forma denunciation issued by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani in no way mitigates the ground truth that the attack was simply the latest in a long series of outrages committed against the once vibrant Christian community in Iraq.  The extent of the butchery and resultant fear suffered by Christians merely because of their faith is shown in one cold number: There are only 500,000 left from a total of nearly 1,500,000 when the Americans invaded seven years ago.  The rest, at least those who were not killed, left for distant and hopefully safer places.

Nor is the situation in Iraq unique.  In Egypt, the Coptic Christians, a faith community which dates back to the very beginnings of Christianity, has been under daily attack.  Copts have been killed.  They have been kidnapped.  Assaulted.  Raped.  Their churches have been vandalized.  Burned.  Blown up.  As in Iraq, there have been numerous reports of police and other security forces standing by, hands in their pockets, quite indifferent to the brutalization of their fellow citizens.

The brutality of Muslims against Christians has continued these past few years throughout the Muslim majority world.  Palestinian Christians have become an endangered species.  So have those in Syria.  Life is not better for people of the Cross in Jordan or across North Africa, just a tad less lethal.

In Pakistan violence against Christians--again often with security forces inactively present--is rampant.  The assaults, even the killings, barely merit notice in the public press.  Those who attack are rarely arrested, let alone prosecuted.

At the antipodes of the Muslim world, Nigeria and Indonesia, pogroms directed at Christians are commonplace.  In both countries as well as many in between these two pillars, churches are pillaged, burned, destroyed.  The authorities always seem baffled, at least to the extent that arrests are as infrequent as hot weather at the South Pole.

Throughout the lands dominated by Muslims, the ancient choice of convert or die echoes on the lips of the mob and the clerics behind them.  In a twist on this old theme, one of the gunmen in the Baghdad church told one of his priestly victims that he could convert but he was going to die nonetheless.

While it is self-evident that not each and every Muslim among the reputed one and a half billion is directly involved.  Still, those who do not personally hold the gun, wield the knife, hurl the bomb, or pound Christian flesh do not rally publicly and loudly against those of their brethren who do the dirty work.  In this case of Muslim excess as in so many others, silence equals agreement, equals support, equals empowerment.

Where is the presumed Muslim majority?  Why is this purported enormous percentage of Muslims not demanding that their governments take swift and decisive action against those who slaughter and terrorize in the name of the Prophet?

Is the deafening silence of the Muslim majority due to basic sympathy with the objectives of the perpetrators of violence?  This is not out of the realm of probability.  The history of Muslim dominated Spain is replete with examples of persecution onto death directed against both Christians and Jews.  Nor is the history of the Ottoman Empire devoid of similar examples.

Pogroms, persecutions, mass murders, all on the basis of faith.  And, it must be pointed out, regardless of the fact that the victims were protected peoples of the Book, members of Abrahamic faiths who paid their protection taxes, wore distinguishing clothing, and were otherwise living according to the humiliating requirements of Muslim law as provided in the Koran and Shariah.

History has powerful inertia.  As a result, the examination of the past, the real past and not the artifacts of apologists and other makers of myth, gives an excellent indication of present and future behavior by members of the same culture, society, or religion.  In the case of the contemporary persecution of Christians as in the DNA predicated hatred of Jews, the past is prologue.  That is the ground truth.

Then there is the problem of those in the US and the larger West who steadfastly and quite without a basis in reality refuse to connect the dot marked "Islam" with those unpleasant blotches of blood red marking acts of terror and murder.  The event at the Baghdad church due to the blunt honesty of the killers demands that we in the West without exception recognize the identity of those who seek to prevail, those who seek to cleanse not just Iraq but the world generally of people who do not share their unique dedication to the strictures and imperatives of Islam.

The bloody gauntlet has once more been slapped in our collective face.  Turning the other cheek may be an admirable goal expressed by those of the Christian faith but there is no requirement in that faith or any other to submit to terrorists and murderers.  There is no requirement that we refuse to both know and name the truth.

Quite the opposite.  There is a positive obligation that we not give in to the fear of offending those who tacitly wish us harm.  We have no choice on this world, in this life, other than calling out the killers for what and who they are--Muslims who take their faith too seriously, who invest too much of their human identity in it, who cover and conceal a base quest for power in the garb of belief.

Truth in blogging statement.  The Geek is not a member of any denomination of any faith tradition.

We must make no mistake about the dynamic expressed by the Prophet's Butchers.  They will not stop and we will know no peace until those who desire to shed innocent blood in the greater glory of Allah are themselves stopped.  Period.

One More War We Don't Want To Fight--And Won't

Over ten years ago, around the time of the embassy bombings, the Geek identified Yemen as a primary venue of threats directed against the US and the West by the purveyors of violent political Islam.  He went so far as to predict to his audience that Yemen would rival or surpass Pakistan as the Mother of all Islamist Threats.  He was, not surprisingly, pooh-poohed by the field grades and their civilian counterparts in attendance.

Then, and, even more now, Yemen is the perfect petri dish for breeding the bacillus of armed political Islam.  The reason is not simply that the fractured, desolate countryside is the homeland of Osama bin Laden, although that is a signal of the evil potential resident in the wadis, barren mountains, and scorching desert which constitutes the physical geography of Yemen.

Far more important than the physical makeup of Yemen is its human terrain.  In that area, the single most important consideration when assessing or countering threats from jihadist inclined Muslims, Yemen equals or surpasses Afghanistan, the FATA of Pakistan, and most other Muslim majority locations in exhibiting the features central to the flourishing growth of violent political Islam.

The context is the commonalities found when examining the heartlands of the assorted advocates of violent political Islam.  First, the fundamental social organizing locus above the family is the tribe.  Afghanistan, the FATA, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan are all tribal societies in which the concept of central government is elusive, has no claim on primary loyalties, and is held with the same fondness as a Tea Party member would see a tax hike.

In all the heartland areas, the hold of a central government is light at best and absent in the majority of cases.  Any central government presence is not only fragile and transient, it is viewed with great suspicion by the locals.  The most universal explanation for the lack of confidence in the central government given by residents in the several heartland areas is corruption.  This reason has much to recommend it as the several governments involved are corrupt.  Period.

In addition to pervasive corruption, the several governments are brothers in another critical way.  All are inefficient.  The universal inefficiency assures the central government will not have the slightest shred of functional legitimacy in the estimate of the locals.

The combination of corruption and gross inefficiency assures that whatever existential legitimacy the central government might have possessed has long since been eroded by the corrosive impact of repeated and highly frustrating experiences on the part of locals when dealing with representatives of the central regime.  There is no tradition, no history of viewing the central government as worthy of respect, loyalty, or obedience.

In none of the cited countries is there any set of even slightly compelling reasons for individuals to forsake tribal affiliations for one with the central regime.  Other than coercion, the government has no means by which to engage the locals.  Having no carrots, the regimes are left with only the stick.

Since pressure consolidates long before it fractures and the assorted governments have a record of being just as inefficient in repression as in all other aspects of governmental life, the result is a strengthening of anti-governmental attitudes and loyalties.  Insofar as the government attempts to coerce its way to authority, the result is a solidifying of resistance to it and an increase in the perceptions of illegitimacy.

Finally, there is the political incorrect need to underscore the role of religion.  In all of the several states mentioned, Islam of the most severe, austere form is prevalent.  Local clerics emphasize those aspects of the Muslim portmanteau of beliefs which authorize and even demand violent action be taken by believers against apostate rulers and infidels who support the apostates.  Some, but not necessarily all, of the local clerics also preach the need of ongoing, offensive violent operations against the infidels wherever and whenever they are found.

These factors, all of which are present in Yemen, are enhanced significantly when wealth is maldistributed.  This has been the case in-country with respect to the (now diminishing) oil revenues.  The money has gone in the main to those who are well connected, those who haul heavy freight with the government.  Very little has gone to any use visible to the general public--particularly that part which lives in the most remote, most desolate, most hard scrabble of the country's hinterlands.

Way back when the Geek issued his prediction on Yemen as well as today there are several features unique to the place.  All of these exacerbate greatly the impossibility of the central government suppressing the emerging advocates of violent political Islam.

Yemen is a artificial country.  It is not the end product of a long, organic process of social and political evolution.  More important than the period of British "colonial" presence was the overthrow of the ancient Houthi emirate a half century ago.  The instability of this action was in no way lessened by the division of Yemen into two sovereign states.  Nor were matters improved by the war which ensued, a war which was prolonged and made more bloody by the efforts of outside actors, most importantly Egypt.

The formalities of peace treaties and national consolidation were relatively easily accomplished during the Nineties.  But formalities do not reality make.  The reality remained what it had been during the years of division and war.  The North and South did not make an amicable family.  The supporters and descendants of the old Houthi regime were alive, well, and itching for a comeback.

The "international community" (whatever that might mean in this context) apparently decided that its involvement was no longer needed once the photo-op treaty signing and political reunification had come to an end.  The matter of making peace and reconciliation genuine was dropped onto the laps of the locals with the assumed benevolent(?) assistance of the House of Saud.

For a short while the pretense could be continued.  Even after al-Qaeda issued its declaration of war against the US, even (briefly) after the bombing of the USS Cole, the US and other Western states could afford to take a detached, somewhat bemused attitude regarding Yemen.  Later the focus on Afghanistan and Iraq assured Yemen was cast into the outer darkness of policy making concern.

For a long while even Saudi Arabia could afford the luxury of overlooking Yemen even though it was the largest, most inviting target of the armed political Islamists lurking in the bleak mountains on the border.  The government of Yemen was uncooperative in the common task of defeating the jihadists.  Moments of collaboration--the famed Predator strike stands out--were exceeded by years of obstructionism.

The relocation of the New Mexico born, US educated, English speaking cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, to Yemen made an already grave situation downright deadly as demonstrated by the failed "Underwear Bomber" and the tragically successful Fort Hood Shooter.  Al-Awlaki taken in conjunction with the announced formation of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) changed the game radically.

Now Yemen equals or, perhaps, surpasses the FATA as the most important locus of anti-American, anti-Western violent political Islam.  Given that the government of Yemen has no effective control over the majority of the country and lacks the political base of support to expand its sway, the situation will only get worse.

The worsening of the Yemen Dilemma has been made crystalline with the air cargo bomb effort.  The Saudis proved their worth by giving the warning which allowed the attack to be prevented.  The precision of the heads-up assured that British and UAE security personnel were able to identify and neutralize the very carefully made and concealed bombs before they exploded probably far over the desolate wastes of the North Atlantic.  With this one action the Saudis have earned much of the aid and assistance provided them by the US.

The ground truth remains.  The prevention of one attack does not equal the abating of the threat behind the attack.  AQAP remains alive and well.  So does Anwar al-Awlaki.

The government of Yemen is no stronger, no more possessed of legitimacy in the eyes of most Yemeni now than it was the day before yesterday.  It is no more able or willing to take serious action against AQAP now than it was the day before yesterday.  And, get a grip on it, the US is no more in a position today than it was the day before yesterday to provide the degree and kind of aid which would assure the government of Yemen can and will destroy AQAP.

The long war in Iraq with its less than convincing success as well as the even longer and so far even less successful war in Afghanistan would have sapped American political will to engage in yet another war with a resolute, resilient, and elusive enemy even in the absence of the Great Recession and the economic constraints it has imposed.  The same applies to a greater degree with respect to the West generally.

This implies that even in the highly unlikely event the government of Yemen requested direct on the ground American presence that Washington would provide it.  The unnecessary war in Iraq combined with the unnecessarily protracted one in Afghanistan has left the US without either the will or the means to fight one more war.

Nor is it likely that Saudi Arabia will step into the breech.  The House of Saud has more pressing problems ranging from its own homegrown jihadists to the looming nuclear threat of Iran.  The shrewd calculators of the Land of the Two Mosques will do very little in Yemen unless they are directly and very seriously attacked by AQAP.  Even then it is debatable that the Saudis can act decisively enough and over a long enough period of time to deal a mortal blow to AQAP.

The picture is as dismal as the landscape of Yemen itself.  Eventually AQAP will succeed.  We will get creamed one of these days unless the US and its partners have a run of intelligence good fortune never seen before in the real world.  Then we will respond even if the government of Yemen doesn't like the idea.

It would be far, far better if the US bites down on the cliched bullet and introduces itself into the conflict sooner rather than later.  It is still possible to do so in a reasonably low signature way and still have some good effect.  It will be necessary to program more UAVs and more Special Operations forces both civilian and military.

However, the situation is still such that organizational disruption is possible.  Any significant perturbation of AQAP's leadership--to say nothing of removing al-Awlaki from the board--would cripple AQAP severely.  At the least this would buy time for the Saana government to establish some shred of legitimacy among more of the population.  It would allow creative arm twisting on the Saudis to play a larger role in stabilizing the Peninsula.

If any action in the direction of preempting AQAP is to be made it will be up to the new Congress.  President Obama has shown himself far longer on words than effective deeds when facing "credible threats" to the US and its interests.

This implies the ball will come to rest in the Republican court--if current predictions prove out come Wednesday morning.  Then We the People will discover if today's Republican Party is more like Ronald Reagan--or Jimmy Carter.

Hey! "Experts," It's Called Democracy In Action

The Geek has taken the position that any legal or narrowly defined political effort to stop the Cordoba House community center, swimming pool, and mosque would only benefit the advocates of political Islam, which group includes the imam behind the "Ground Zero" project.

Simultaneously, the Geek has argued that politics in the largest sense, the coherent expression of a mass view that the proposed bit of triumphalism is unacceptable so near a place of American grief, American humiliation, and recovery would be a most excellent way to derail a horribly ill-advised project.

Not surprisingly, a portion of the monstrous regiment of "terrorism experts" have come out four square in favor of the proposition that opposition to the Great Community Center and Mosque will offer advantages beyond count to the proponents of political Islam, particularly those such as Anwar al-Awlaki, who favor violence in the name of Allah. These academic type analysts demonstrate the common occupational disease of the professorate and others of that ilk--a congenital lack of backbone. They are unwilling or constitutionally unable to see that there are limits to the old don't-offend-them-or-they-will-get-more-extreme.

Only academics and others like them--including members of the current administration--can really, really believe that appeasement works, that tossing t-bone steak to a wolf will make it a vegetarian. Such cringing hand-wringing, such giving in to the worst advice of naked fear may be appropriate in a faculty commons or around the smoothly polished table of a conference room, but it has no applicability in the real world.

Construction workers, the "hard hats" who had such a negative press during the Vietnam War given their habit of beating up on anti-war protesters and "hippies" in general, are contradicting the "experts" in an expression of coherent opinion, a form of democracy in action. The emergence of a grass roots effort based in large measure on the internet has been reported recently. The movement, if it grows, will prove the most effective way of abating the looming nuisance of the Cordoba House community/athletic/inter-faith center and mosque.

The movement is quite simply a boycott. The idea is that no construction workers will engage in building the Cordoba House project. Further, no supplier of necessary materials from steel and concrete to all the specialized widgets needed to make a building a reality will sell to the project.

Given the extraordinary hard times which currently afflict the construction industry with the concomitant high unemployment among construction workers, the very idea that the boycott would be proposed, let alone agreed to by an ever larger number of individuals and firms boggles the imagination. The concept taken together with the positive acceptance to date demonstrates that, despite the best efforts of the American hoi olligoi including the Smiley Guy In The Oval, patriotism is alive and well among the elite despised hoi polloi.

Refusing work in advance during a recession of the magnitude and duration of the current meltdown is not particularly rational. It is not an action taken in self-interest. Patriotism, the belief that the US and We the People are united not only in common values but a sense of common decency, demands that rational self-interest take a back seat compared to acting upon the outraged sense of decency and insulted values.

Patriotism like nationalism may be seen as reactionary hangovers from a past, more primitive time by academics, pundits, and many politicians. However, that view is quite obviously not shared by many within the faceless, nameless bunch collectively referred to as "We the People."

Some hard hats in the Big Apple have pointed in the right direction. It is not enough to oppose the insulting project with words. Effective action must be taken to convince imam Rauf and the others behind the project that they must relocate.

It is critical that the pundits, the academics, the politicians both understand and support the reality of the hard hat movement. It is not anti-Muslim. It is not "Islamophobic." It is not directed against the freedom that all who live in the US have to worship in the manner and place of their individual choice. It is not an artificial movement created for partisan political purpose.

The long and the short of the opposition to Cordoba House is simply one of location. The solution to the problem is very simple, quite easy to understand, and not at all difficult to achieve. If a hick historian in the backwoods of New Mexico can get it so also can the ever-so-sophisticated members of the American elite, so also can the imam, the imam's wife and all the others in the shadows of the Cordoba House Initiative.

Move the bloody thing a few blocks. Move it from the loom of 9/11.

Muslims Killing Muslims

If there is a component of the congeries called Islam which merits the oft-voiced description of "the religion of peace and tolerance," it is that branch called Sufism. The Sufi understanding of Islam arose in the Arabian Peninsula and was carried widely by wandering mystics.

The Sufi emphasis on equality was made to order for societies in which caste systems prevailed. As a consequence it is not surprising that Sufism took firm root in the Indian subcontinent. Following the Partition, the majority of Sufis like the majority of Muslims, removed themselves to Pakistan where Sufis had long been present. Lahore became a major Sufi Muslim center nearly a thousand years ago. To this day it has been the site of Pakistan's most important Sufi shrine.

The Data Ganj Baksh, to use the correct name for the shrine, became the target of Taliban in the latest of a long line of attacks not only on Sufi shrines but the mosques and members of other, "minority" groups within Islam. In its ideology, Taliban of Pakistan, like its assorted spiritual ancestors, has drunk long and deep at the twin wells of Salifism and Wahhibism.

The world view of these austere versions of Sunni Islam hold that the "minority" groups including Shias and Sufis are either apostates or something indistinguishable from such traducers and backsliders. Sufis had constituted a large, perhaps even a majority, of the Muslims of Pakistan prior to the campaign mounted by the dictator Zia ul-Haq, who promoted the Wahhibist form of Islam above all others as a means of regime consolidation and maintenance. The US government during the years of Zia were, of course, clueless as to the existence of different and to some extent competing forms of Islam. The folks of the Reagan administration in particular were totally uninterested in just what implications for the future of Pakistan resided in the push to Wahhibism conducted by Zia.

Pushed by Zia and fueled by Saudi petrodollars, the puritanical, austere, not to say, extremist view of Islam took firm root in the hundreds of madrassas strewn by the generous Saudis across Pakistan. These religious schools produced not only the Taliban of Afghanistan but also the groups which have become the Taliban of Pakistan.

The Koran-waving killers of Taliban in its Pakistani incarnation have established an unquestioned dominance in Punjab state, which is the heart of Pakistan as well as in the FATA and Northwest Frontier. Punjab has been the scene of numerous, previous attacks on the Sufis, most notably the March 2009 bombing of the Rahman Baba shrine. Now they have done the same with the burial place of the Sufi poet, whose name translates as "Giver of Treasures."

The two suicide bombers, whose heads have been found, killed nearly fifty Sufi worshipers and wounded more than a 175 others. The interior of the shrine was turned into an abattoir. Television reportedly carried the bloody imagery across Pakistan.

Perhaps it was the sheer butchery of the attack. Perhaps the power of the imagery. Perhaps the people of Pakistan, Sufi and otherwise, are finally getting their full of violence perpetrated by Muslims against Muslims.

There is ample precedent in recent history for the development of a backlash directed at the Killers In the Name Of Allah. In Iraq, the deadly excesses of all sectarian purveyors of terror, but the al-Qaeda in particular, ultimately triggered a severe push back from the people caught in the whirlwind. Among the results were the Awakening Councils and the Sons of Iraq, both key elements in the establishment of an approximation of order in Iraq.

In Afghanistan, following the initiation of the McChrystal doctrine of "courageous restraint," the bloody work of the Taliban Slaughterers In the Name of the Prophet, ultimately has resulted in local villagers turning out with "their personal assault weapons" (to quote the Armed Services Press Service term) to aid ISAF/US/Afghan National Forces winkle out and kill the Thugs of the One True Faith. Even Afghan Sunnis, who have exhibited a very low tolerance to the notion of foreign "infidels" killing Afghan Muslims, showed their limits with being murdered by co-religionists.

The same dynamic has been seen more than a few times in recent months in the FATA. Not only have the locals applauded (pace, the US MSM) the use of Predators and Reapers, they have joined with Pakistani security forces in abating permanently the Taliban nuisance.

Taliban's barbaric excess at the Data Ganj Bakshi shrine may have marked a tipping point in Lahore, perhaps even Punjab generally. A several thousand person demonstration demanded that the government take effective action against the Malefactors of Great Faith. It is, admittedly, a very small straw in the mass of conflicting winds which is Pakistani politics today, but it is a straw nonetheless.

Zia ul-Huq was terribly ill-advised in his fervent welcoming of Saudi money and the Wahhibism it supported, fostered, and grew. The US was equally out-to-lunch with its willful ignorance of the implications for Pakistan and the region.

The time may be upon us to press the Pakistani government to return to the nation's Islamic roots and work to reinvigorate the Sufis in their midst. This would promote the interests of Pakistan in stability. It would also promote the interests of the civilized world as Sufis are inclined toward mysticism and equality (including gender) rather than seeking to kill their way to the myth of a global caliphate.

Don't Worry--They're Just "Radical Extremists"

Or, maybe the suicide bombers and other brands of wannabe martyrs are "extremist radicals." Or, perhaps they are simply radically extreme or extremely radical. Whatever they might be, all those who desire to enter Paradise through the killing of "infidel" or "apostate" civilians are most definitely not "jihadists." Nor are they "Islamists."

And, they are not and never have been "terrorists."

So pontificated John Brennan, the senior guy in the White House in the field of "counterterrorism" and "homeland security" in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. One can only wonder why this example of vocabulary warped, twisted, and perverted by the requirements of presidentially imposed political correctness was not met by gales of derisive laughter.

It was one more demonstration of the current administrations pathological inability to look reality in the face for fear that someone, somewhere, somehow might take offense and decide to claim his Virginal Reward at the cost of a bunch of American lives. Or, some hyper-sensitive Muslim somewhere might take it into his challenged cerebellum that the US was "waging war on Islam" with consequences too dire to contemplate.

The one time CIA lower, upper level factotum was right in rejecting the notion that the US was fighting a war against "terrorism" per se. Everybody with enough intellectual horsepower to differentiate between the moon and the sun has long commented on the inapposite nature of the George W. Bush formulation. No one would dissent from the proposition that one does not wage war on a specific tactic of war but rather against the practitioners of the tactic.

Mr Brennan was less correct when he averred we were not fighting against "terror" as terror constitutes a state of mind and we Americans refuse to live in fear. That sounds great even if the aftermath of every terrorist episode--even those which failed--shows a residue of fear of greater or lesser extent and magnitude. So it does the American people no disservice to admit that we can have the flaming piss scared right out of us--at least every now and then and at least for a short while.

However the always-on-the-reservation Mr Brennan is totally out-to-lunch when he got around to declaring that the US was not engaged in a war with either "Islamists" or "jihadists." You see, in the view of this newly minted Scholar of Islamic Theology and Jurisprudence, the real deal is simply that "jihad" is a legitimate tenet of Islam denoting the inner struggle of the believer to purify his belief and that of his community.

Duh!

Leaving aside such inconsequential factors as the Koran, the Sunnah, and the long standing and readily available conclusions of all the major schools of Sunni and Shia Islam which underscore time and time again the affirmative duty laid upon the believer to use armed force in order to protect and advance the Islamic faith, there is no doubt but Mr Brennan's interpretation is accurate. Of course, ignoring this much of the heart and soul of Islam cheapens and demeans the religion. (It is interesting that in this effort to be ever-so-sensitive-and-tolerant, Mr Brennan and others have the effect of deprecating the nature and character of the faith as well as the dedication of many of the adherents of the faith.)

Once the sensitivity based deprecation of a faith and its power to move believers is commenced, the speaker is on a very steep, exceptionally slippery slope. This reality came in Mr Brennan's remarks when he thundered that the US would "disrupt, destroy, and defeat" al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. He named the names but could not bring himself to acknowledge that the leaders of al-Qaeda and, to an even greater extent, Taliban, relied upon the authority of their religion--Islam--as total justification for all they did and will do.

Continuing on his slippery slope to the destruction both of language and the necessary ability to know and understand the enemy so he might be successfully defeated, Mr Brennan invoked the usual suspects as to motivation. He trotted out the list of long discredited social, economic, and political factors such as poverty and marginalization which have been the favored icons of those of a "progressive" bent.

To replace the reality of religion with the fantasy of social and economic factors required that Mr Brennan put aside completely the well documented information regarding the background of many, even most, of those who lead the "martyrdom seekers" as well as those who personally seek the solace of the next life. As those boring facts show time after (literally) bloody time, the background of leaders and followers alike is disquietingly privileged. From KSM to the failed "Underwear Bomber to the guy in the Times Square SUV, education and money lurk in their personal pasts.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton's campaign slogan from 1992, "It's the religion, stupid!"

Finally there is Mr Brennan's confusing formulation describing just who we are fighting, "radical extremists." Is this Deep Thinker of the view that there exists a creature called the "moderate extremist? Or, perhaps, a "reactionary extremist?"

Maybe he even believes that out there somewhere in the mountains of the FATA and Afghanistan or in the deserts of Yemen or Somalia there lurks the dreaded, "uncommitted extremist."

Ah, yes, bucko, that must be it! That must be the reason for his and the administration's mushy wording and pudding thinking, a justification for abusing both language and logic, a need for the soft speaking of political correctness.

Should the US be so bold as to call an Islamist an Islamist, the uncommitted extremist just might turn radical.

The "Black Widows" Make It Personal For Vladimir

Vladimir Putin owes his rise to power to Chechnya. He became the Mr Big of the Kremlin by appearing to have suppressed the Islamist guerrillas and terrorists of that North Caucasus region both effectively and permanently.

The appearances have proven deceptive at the very least.

The Islamists of Chechnya--and the rest of the North Caucasus--have proven to have more lives than a brigade of cats. Despite boasts to the contrary ("Chechnya is now the safest place on Earth") the efforts of the Kremlin's (read "Putin's") handpicked local strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, have failed to suppress or limit the will to fight on the part of the Islamists and, even more, their lady's auxiliary, the "Black Widows."

Not even the dispatch of yet one more retired KGB general last fall with orders "to clarify the situation and put it to order" has done other than bolster both the capacities and political will of the Islamist jihadi under the leadership of Doku Umarov. Umarov famously warned, "Blood will no longer be limited to our towns and cities. The war is coming to their cities."

And, so it has. Dramatically.

Even more, the war has been brought not simply to Moscow but straight to Vladimir (Just Think Of Me As The Good Czar) Putin.

Doku Umarov has personally slapped the glove of challenge in the face of Vlad The Bare Chested. While the "glove" was a pair of female suicide bombers reprising earlier attacks on the Metro subway and Russian domestic airliners, the fist inside the glove was Doku's.

The goal of the attack was not simply that of killing Moscow strap hangers. Nor was it limited to instilling terror in the city.

Doku is not the sort of Islamist who thinks that small. He is, after all, the self-styled "Emir" of the equally self-proclaimed Emirate of the Caucasus. Today's attack was intended to fry far larger fish.

Even if not followed by more spectaculars, this hit on the Metro puts the lie to the overly optimistic declaration a year ago by President Medvedev that Chechnya and environs were peaceful. Eager to agree, Ramzov proposed a fifteen billion dollar investment by the Kremlin with a view to turning Chechnya into a tourist magnet.

Well, that hallucination which should have been firmly put to rest by events later in 2009 most assuredly has been shredded by the shrapnel filled explosive belts detonated by the latest Black Widow team. Putin quite obviously both acknowledges this reality--and has accepted the personal nature of the challenge.

He cut short his trip to Siberia and, on his way to Moscow, promised to "destroy" the terrorists responsible. One should take Putin at his word. The record shows that Vladimir shares with past, successful Russian leaders a tilt to blunt speech--and blunt actions to match.

From Vladimir's perspective not only is his status on the line, so also is the Great Power status of Russia. The irony here is that only days after having levered the US successfully to achieve not only a new START but also the level of diplomatic and political attention and respect due a Great Power, the Black Widows prove that Russia is not master of its own house. That sort of thing does not further the credibility and good repute of a genuine Great Power.

If Vladimir Putin is to remain in power, under whatsoever job title, Doku Umarov and his scrofulous jihadist gang including the ladies auxiliary must be eliminated. If Russia is to continue to lay claim to the title Great Power, Doku Umarov and his crew must be eliminated. Or, to use that fine old Soviet origin term, "liquidated."

The repressive measures taken to date, most importantly those of the past few years following Putin's decision to localize the Chechen war and marginalize both its existence and its costs, have been sufficiently repressive enough to force the evolution of the insurgents from a local band focused on the local goal of autonomy to an internationally linked entity which accepts the unlimited vision of Islamism including but not limited to the creation of an independent Islamist republic in the North Caucasus.

During the same time period and for the same reasons the counterinsurgency efforts of the Putin team have not been such as to lever the insurgents of limited goals away from the more expansively oriented Islamists. The net result of the several military campaigns stretching back over a decade has been the creation of a lot of dead bodies. The dead bodies in turn have created an ever greater number of ever more dedicated and expansively oriented insurgents whose fury has been stoked by foreign Islamists.

The dead bodies of the two wars and numerous "anti-bandit" operations have created another reality, a reality which is not only the centerpiece of today's Metro attack but is far more typical of the Caucasus conflict than it is other Islamist insurgencies. That reality is the female suicide bombers long ago dubbed the "Black Widows" not only because they are widows or because they habitually dress in black, but because they are highly lethal in both intents and actions.

The "Black Widows" are a product of the culture of the Caucasus. They are not specifically Islamist nor even Islamic. Rather they are part and parcel of the long traditions of family and clan loyalty which includes the blood feud and revenge over generations. The "Black Widows" are avenging the deaths of their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons. They are a culturally approved expression of an underlying "payback is a medivac" worldview.

The Black Widows can be killed but otherwise they are an unstoppable force. Recognizing this, the Islamist jihadists of Umarov readily employ this priceless asset. This asset ably employed by a leadership which is also quite willing and capable of employing other mediagenic tactics such as seizing hospitals, theaters, and schools filled with the sick, the young or, at least, the civilian, knowing what the Russian response will, must, be.

The choice presented to Vladimir Putin and company is simple and stark. Create a desert and name it "Peace" and by so doing risk the opprobrium of the world, or at least the Great Powers (other than China.) Do less and run the real risk of both political collapse domestically and the loss of even the pretense of Great Power status globally.

Putin used the word "destroy" so it is apparent which way he is tilting. It is unfortunate that he cannot face Umarov mano a mano, since that possibility and that one alone would allow the "Good Czar" to win without losing even more in the process.

Somali Pirates--Life Gets Better And Worse

A couple of recent events draws one's attention back to the Jolly Brigands of the Somali Coast. Overall the incidents of late draw a sort of fever chart, tracking the ups and downs of the pirate plague in the waters of northwest Africa.

A week ago the skiff riding thugs captured a Norwegian flagged, Burmese crewed chemical tanker off Madagascar. Due to its route and destination the ship was not registered with the fusion center controlling anti-piracy efforts in and near the Gulf of Aden. In its not-registered status the ship was one of the nine thousand plus vessels plying dangerous waters without letting the assorted patrolling navies know of their existence.

The seizure of the nine thousand ton tanker was good news for the pirates. So also is the unwillingness of shipowners and operators to wait for naval convoys--or even register the passage.

Thus the Norwegian tanker becomes another figure in the loss column. If one stares only at the goats, the number of attempted piracies, the news is all good for the pirates. This year seems on track to equal or surpass last year's record number of attempts--198. If, however, one's attention focuses on the number of successful pirate actions, the news is not at all good for the Thugs of the Blue Briny. Only forty-four ships were taken. That is only two more than the previous year where the numbers were forty-two for 122 attempts.

While the pirate net has spread ever wider, the catch is going the way of the bluefin tuna--down. One very good reason for this development is the acceptance by ship operators that minimum defense measures such as razor wire on the rails, blasting raiders with firehoses and, simplest of all, abrupt maneuvers at high speed turn attempts into failures. The addition of an armed guard has been shown to be the ultimate deterrent. It seems the pirates like to shoot but really don't cotton up to being on the receiving end of fast moving bits of metal.

Another way of showing pirates the downside of their chosen occupation was brought into sharp focus by the French frigate Nivose. The frigate, a component of the EU's naval task group went on a romp last week. The crew stopped and seized four motherships and six assault skiffs. The bag was thirty-five pirates in custody--and, one presumes, a whole lot of hard feelings back on shore.

While the loss of thirty-five members of the Jolly Roger Club is minuscule considering there are fifteen hundred or so pirates organized in seven syndicates doing a handsome business in ransoms (estimated 110 million for 2007 & 2008 combined), the French stop-seize-and-arrest is an arrow pointed in the proper direction.

(The Geek cannot help but wonder, given the current public view of the Obama administration being soft on terrorism, why doesn't one of the president's political men urge him to call up Secretary Gates or JCS Chair Mullen and tell them to ginger up our naval efforts, to, well, you know, out French the French?)

The problem for the French (and the rest of the League of Civilized States) is what to do with the pirates who are captured. All too often Kenya is used as a convenient dump for suspected pirates. The Kenyans are not thrilled by this. Even though the US and other nations help underwrite the direct expenses involved, the dumping of maritime pollution has caused severe difficulties for the Kenyan judicial system and is putting a strain on their jails.

The current practice also puts Kenya at greater risk of terror attacks emanating from Somalia. It is not surprising that members of the Kenyan legal and political establishments have been pushing back, hard, on the use of their country as the designated waste dump.

The Kenyans have been "playing up" in cricket terminology as shown by the recent conviction and sentencing to twenty years of seven pirates captured by the Royal Navy two years ago. Life in a Kenyan slammer might be bad, but at least these seven ex-thugs are better off than the two of their mates who died in the firefight with the Brits.

The UN Convention which governs the legal response to piracy gives primary jurisdiction to the country controlling the ship which captures the pirates. The US observed this law as well as its own domestic laws with the sole survivor from last year's episode which saw an American merchant captain held hostage by pirates thwarted in their attempt to take his ship. Three pirates were "double tapped" by SEAL snipers and the fourth has been indicted in New York.

The reasons that more pirates are not similarly treated (the Geek means arrested, not given head shots much as he prefers the latter) are transparent--and transparently bogus. The US and other Western states fear abuse of their legal systems by those representing and offering apologies for the pirates as well as entertaining some sort of misplaced anxiety that captured thugs-at-sea will claim political asylum.

Duh!

To make life worse, much worse, for the pirates it is necessary for more of the many navies now offering patrol, protection, and overwatch in the threatened sealanes to do what the French did. In addition it is necessary that all captured pirates be taken to stand trial and do their time in Western courts and prisons. The certainty of capture or worse, the sureness that the slow grinding judicial mills of the US, the UK, and other Western nations will produce in the fullness of time a long stretch in durance vile will raise the costs of doing business as a pirate syndicate.

History, a lot of history stretching back to the quite literal days of Julius Caesar, demonstrates that the vocation of maritime banditry loses its appeal when the costs are raised sufficiently. This does not mean we must return to the days of Execution Dock but it does mean that we must stop off loading the problem onto Kenya. It means that the countries who have stepped up to provide some measure of deterrence and protection against the Somali marauders must take the next step--bring the nasty little buggers to our homelands, give 'em a fair trial, let the apologists apologize, let the defense lawyers do their best, and, when the last hurrah has died away, lock the bloody blighters up for a goodly chunk of their lives.

The trouble and expense will be worth it. At the least by making a salutary example of the Somalis, there is some chance a far greater threat to maritime commerce and thus the global economy can be deterred.

That's right, bucko, there is a far greater threat on the near horizon. The Malacca Straits have been targeted according to Singapore maritime security officials. While the group has not been identified, it (or they) are Islamist in nature. The Malacca Straits constitute one of the greatest if not the greatest maritime chokepoint in the world carrying infinitely more trade than does the Gulf of Aden. The Straits are territorial waters for Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, none of which has a significant navy. At the same time none of these rather prickly entities desires international assistance or an international naval presence. And, of course, two of them are Muslim majority countries and have internal problems with Islamist jihadists.

As even a member of the Obama administration should be able to see and understand, there is much more to be gained by showing palpable resolve against the annoying Somali skiffers than simply making the Gulf of Aden less risky. All that is necessary is to look at a map and see just how many very critical shipping lanes merge in the Straits and imagine what sort of destabilizing damage could be done by a few Muslim pirate/terrorists on skiffs of the Somali sort.

Making life worse for the Somali pirates will make life a lot less worse for the rest of us.