Carrying Water And Doublethinking

Leon Panetta is an old Chicago pol.  He came of political age as a cog in the oldest, longest running, smoothest operating machine in the US--the Cook County Democratic Party.  As such, he knows well the primary duty of a machine man--loyalty to the Boss.  By definition the Boss is the Nice Young Man From Chicago, Barack Obama.

Only the overarching requirement of loyalty could have impelled the new Secretary of Defense as he moved from his old job of DCIA to announce that the defeat of al-Qaeda was "within reach."  Only days later Mr Panetta demonstrated the requisite degree of doublethink when he thundered against the possibility of doubling the 400 billion dollar cut in the next decade's defense budget under the debt ceiling increase deal.

Given that the American participation in the Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq is in its death throws and the rush to the exit has started in Afghanistan, the new SecDef is perfectly well aware that the costs of war will go down as well which will allow for significant decreases in the Pentagon expenditures without a single real cut in procurement or force size.  And, if his statement regarding the impending end of al-Qaeda is taken at face value, the need for the large security establishment created in the immediate wake of 9/11 and the consequent decisions of George W. Bush evaporates as well.  If al-Qaeda does well and truly turn its collective toes to the sky, the need for mountains of money marked "For the Pentagon" goes away.

Presumably, the end of al-Qaeda would allow the US to return to the (relatively) lower levels of defense appropriations which characterized the days prior to 9/11.  In that case, Panetta should quit his bitchin' and find a few additional programs to cut so as to please his Boss properly.

Of course, the Panetta Dictum regarding the morbidity of al-Qaeda like the rumors of Mark Twain's death is greatly exaggerated.  Al-Qaeda is not dead.  It is not on some sort of Islamic life support.  It is not even gravely ill.

The real deal of which Leon the Loyal must be completely aware considering his previous job as well as his daily access to the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (as well as the Presidential Intelligence Brief) is that al-Qaeda has morphed.  It has changed profoundly from its original form.  Most critically, it is far more of a threat in its current incarnation than it was in the Bad Old Days.

In the far distant Eocene of 2001, al-Qaeda was a small, hierarchical organization with a tight command and control system.  It was dependent upon Osama bin Laden as inspiration, decision maker, leader, and chief fund raiser.  None of this obtains today.  Nor has it obtained for some time.  Long before bin Laden went to Paradise, the "Base" had fissioned, decentralized, become far more of an idea than an institution.

Just as American doctrine and tactics changed under the stresses of real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so also have the operational concepts and organizational methods of the al-Qaeda predicated practitioners of violent political Islam.  Arguably, the Mighty Men of the Koran have changed more radically and more effectively than have the armed forces of the US.

The most obvious feature of the new, improved "al-Qaeda" is the spawning of franchises.  Both al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are obvious spin-offs or imitators of the famed original.  "Allied" groups such as al-Shabaab in Somalia may not use the old brand name but exist as self-conscious copies of Osama's group.  It is a brute fact that AQAP has become a larger threat to the civilized states than the ragged band of drone pressed fugitives headed by al-Zawihiri lurking in either the stone huts of the FATA or living in relative comfort in anonymous houses in some sprawling Pakistani city.

The far more important change in the universe of violent political Islam is the transformation of the old al-Qaeda brand into a metaphysical idea.  This coupled with the elevation of bin Laden from a jihadi ideal to the Perfect Martyred Warrior of the Prophet has provided the intellectual substrate for the emergence of powerfully motivated "lone wolf" terrorists.

In this context it is important to recall that war, all war, exists first as an idea.  It matters not in the least what type of war or what level of intensity, war is first and foremost an intellectual construct.  The now dead or captured theorists of Islamist martyrdom operations along with bin Laden have provided a basic set of ideas which define asymmetrical warfare from the point of view of the advocate of violent political Islam.  These ideas have been enlarged, filled out, and spread by the assorted jihadist websites as well as videotaped sermons (and hectoring) by Muslim clerics.  Many of these Men of the Islamic Cloth are quite unknown in the West.  Others, most notably Anwar al-Awlacki, are nearly household names throughout the civilized states.

Self-radicalization facilitated by the web and the arguments of clerics great and small, well known and unknown alike has become the major feature of the current version of al-Qaeda.  Individuals or very small groups of self-radicalized adherents of violent political Islam represent a very real threat to the civilized states as well as a quite meaningful challenge to security and law enforcement agencies.  The several high profile arrests of wannabe "martyrs," the spectacular failures of the Underwear Bomber and the Times Square Bomber, or the quick police follow-up on the alert gun shop clerk in Kileen, Texas do not militate against the reality of the jihadist threat or the thinness of the margin between tragedy and tragedy narrowly averted.

Of course, crowd sourced terror does not exist alone.  In addition to the ideological support provided by the memes originating with al-Qaeda 1.0 and the effective tools of self-radicalization and not completely irrelevant instruction in the practical considerations of waging one man wars on the West, there exist potent and growing al-Qaeda facsimiles.  AQAP has been acknowledged properly as the single largest threat.  AQIM is growing.  Rapidly.

The senior French investigative judge holding the counterterrorism brief has issued a reassuring nostrum to the effect that AQIM does not represent a threat to Europe.  This pronouncement is rather like patting the hoi polloi gently and telling them not to worry their pretty little (empty) heads about terrorism, that the adults in the government know better.  In this way M.Marc Trevidic echoed Panetta's declaration of al-Qaeda's impending death.  Feel good words which belie the substance of reality.

AQIM has extended its reach to Nigeria.  Kidnapping Europeans.  This is an expansion of their reach with the view to forcing changes in European policy.  In short, it is terror of the violent political Islamic sort.  Operations in Nigeria taken in conjunction with the local Islamist group would have been unthinkable a year ago.  Now, the action shows a growing potential to strike Europeans if not Europe.  There is every reason to believe that by this time next year AQIM will rival AQAP as a threat to the West generally.

Al-Shabaab may have evacuated Mogadishu, but that is not a sign of its defeat regardless of what the imitation government of Somalia may say.  Rather, the real potential of al-Shabaab was demonstrated by its set of highly lethal attacks in Uganda last year.  Al-Shabaab has tight links with AQAP as well as a ready source of English speaking recruits in Somali refugee communities in the US.  It is one more rapidly growing threat.

Of his two contradictory statements, Panetta was much closer to the truth when he warned against overly dramatic cuts in the Pentagon budge.  He must know that ten years from now the US will be engaged heavily even if not with conventional forces on the ground.  He must be aware perfectly that the war against the advocates of violent political Islam will be ongoing in 2022 as it is today.  Probably on a larger scale geographically.

Panetta may be a good machine politician, but he is also an American.  Doublethink like loyalty to a misguided Boss has its limits.  When push comes to shove as it must in the next few months, it is likely that the Secretary of Defense will fight with all the political skills he possesses to assure the the US has the means necessary to continue the fight against the forces of violent political Islam until the civilized states finally win.

Leon Panetta came a very long way during his years as DCI.  That was a surprise to any and all who have personal acquaintanceship with the mindset of typical Chicago pols.  It has been obvious that Panetta has learned that there is a wide and dark world out there,  that the limits of Cook County are not the limits of the US, that the interests of the machine are transcended by the interests of the US.  If a bit of experience can manufacture that level of miraculous transformation, it is not impossible that a few months running the Pentagon and talking more and more often with commanders responsible for the lives of those under them will carry the transformation to the next step--a Leon Panetta who is willing and ready to drop his Boss's water bucket in the higher cause of the country as a whole.

The Land Of Pinocchio Is At It Again

No one oriented in time and place expects governments to be open, honest, and ever truthful in their public (or most private) statements.  Diplomacy is often a contest of careful mendacity on a par with the sort practiced by lawyers working in an adversarial system.  That is, blatant duplicity of the easily exposed sort is eschewed in favor of the well-crafted framing of a statement, an issue, a position.  The good diplomat like the good advocate in court depends on what is not said even more than that which is said to mask the truth--particularly when the truth is uncomfortable from one's perspective.

The heavyweights of the Pakistani military and intelligence service (ISI) fail to meet the standard of proper diplomatic lying.  This is unfortunate as the armed forces and ISI are the government of Pakistan far eclipsing in both power and public esteem the elected civilian political structure.  As such, they are far more a part of the problem and in no way a contributor to the solution as regards the threat posed to civilized states by the damaged but not yet defeated advocates of violent political Islam which stalk Afghanistan, the FATA, and Pakistan proper.

The power elite of the armed forces and ISI is back at it.  As has so often been the case, they are lying in a fashion which boggles the mind in its breathtaking absurdity.  In the most recent ejaculations of denial and counter accusation, the spokesman for the Pakistani general staff insults the intelligence of all who read or hear his thundering denunciation of a recent spate of articles and editorials linking the ISI and armed forces with groups dedicated to violent political Islam and the recent murder of a well known and respected Pakistani journalist.

The immediate reaction of any half-way intelligent and well-informed person to the preposterous posturing of Major General Athar Abbas' remarks is to quote Ronald Reagan's comment during one of the 1980 debates, "There he goes again."  The line delivered with a slow, sad shake of the head.  The modern major general was announcing that the shoe put upon the collective foot of the Pakistani military and ISI fit tightly--it pinched and he was yelling, "Ouch!"

As unbelievable fables go, the Abbas Denial was on a par with the outpouring of outraged dignity following the Great Abbotabad Raid.  The credibility of the Pakistanis, never high, was stretched far beyond its Young's Modulus with the earnest protestations of innocence with which the Pakistani heavies met the news that the Americans had found and liquidated Osama bin Laden within pistol shot of their very own military academy.

While the US government for reasons of state (the justification of all ill-advised and ultimately less than productive actions) has downplayed the possibility that the senior ranks of our "ally" in the "joint" war with al-Qaeda, the various Talibans, and all similar groups could possibly have known that bin Laden resided close at hand in comfortable isolation, this reticence should not be interpreted as accepting the Pakistanis as being pure and lofty of motives and intentions.  Indeed, it is hard to see how anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the long standing relationship between ISI and the army on the one hand and the several terror merchant groups on the other could keep a straight face while stating they had seen "no smoking gun."

Back in the Oligocene--the days of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush--one did not have to be a member of the American intelligence community to know that ISI and the Pakistani armed forces were connected hip and shoulder with various Islamist groups, including the one which would come to power in Afghanistan as the Taliban.  Minority opinion in both administrations warned against turning over responsibility for the endgame in the anti-Soviet effort in Afghanistan to the Pakistanis as the latter would take advantage of the opportunity to install entities hostile to the interests of the US in the region and globally.  As is usually the case, the minority was shoved to the margins so they could watch their gloomy prognostications come to pass with the fullness of time.

Way back in the regime of Zia it was obvious that the Pakistani military would eagerly embrace the ideas of the dictator which focused on importing Wahhibism so as to promote Islam of the most austere and demanding sort as a mechanism of social and political cohesion.  The implications of this were high profile: The Islamification program would drive a move to the more and more extreme.  The program would facilitate the growth of violent political Islam oriented groups.  And, ultimately it would assure that Pakistan would become an evermore Islamist state.

American decision makers were immune to the negative counsel, seeing instead an easy way to slip out of the continued burden of doing something in a small, inconvenient, and out of the way state with a history of being ungovernable.  Anyway, the boys of Islamabad were big on reassuring Washington's rarefied levels about the pacifistic nature of Islam and the need of the Pakistani people for a stronger national identity in the face of Indian aggression.

In the event, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the cold war put the problem of Pakistan and its operations in Afghanistan very much on the far back burner.  The Clinton administration was so disinterested in Pakistan that its Deep Thinkers would have had a hard time finding the place on a map--until the Pakistanis demonstrated their nuclear capacity.  By then, of course, it was too late.  Too late to stop the nuclear arms race between Pakistan and India.  Far too late to undo the damage done by the Pakistani backed installation of Taliban in Kabul.

Of course, the ending of the cold war reduced Pakistan's importance in American eyes.  For decades Islamabad had depended upon the Left-leaning policies of India to turn on the spigot of US military aid along with the occasional civilian project.

The best thing that happened to Pakistan was the attack on 9/11.  After a nearly proforma demonstration of reluctance, Islamabad signed on to the Global War on Terror in exchange for massive amounts of American money.  It was interesting to say the least that the goodies demanded by the armed forces of Pakistan were those useful for high intensity conventional war with India rather than the more pedestrian items having utility in counterinsurgent or counter terrorist operations.

To keep the goodies flowing, the Pakistanis had to rely on their capacity to lie convincingly and in a well-timed manner.  They played a transparently double game from the very outset of the so called "joint" effort.  Given that the US already knew that the only reason Osama bin Laden had escaped a cruise missile strike years before 9/11 was a phone call from Islamabad, yet we went on catering to the Pinocchio of the Sub-continent. There was no intention of even closing the borders to Taliban and al-Qaeda personnel escaping the American invasion and its aftermath let alone actually fighting the Mighty Men of the Koran.

But the Pakistanis talked a good game.  And, because they had a nuclear arsenal, we had to pretend they were telling us the truth.  All we could do was hope that the bribes we paid bought us sufficient influence on their decision making that the armed forces and ISI might stop their training, supporting, harboring, and strategic planning efforts.

The hope was illusory at best.  However, the US had compounded its errors by invading Iraq and so mishandling the day after "victory" that it became the main event and Afghanistan a mere sideshow.  As a result, we had to continue believing the palpably false assurances of cooperation issuing from Islamabad on a daily basis.  The reality was far different.  The Pakistanis provided sanctuary in the FATA in return for a promise, since broken, that the Great Warriors of the One True Faith would limit themselves to killing Americans and apostate Afghans.

During the long interim from 2004-2010 the Taliban(s) and the Haqqani network as well as al-Qaeda rested, retrained, refitted, and grew safe from harm in the cities and hillsides of Pakistan and the FATA.  As a result, the Americans were losing more and more in country and the Pakistani military and ISI felt more and more confident in their ability to lead Uncle Sam around by the nose using a string of lies.

The pity of it all was the lies worked.  They worked because there seemed no viable alternative available to American decision makers.  We became co-conspirators in our own defeat.  Our role was limited to a continued refusal to blow the whistle on the easily demonstrated prevarications of the Pakistanis.  One of the services provided by Private Bradley Manning and his publicists at WikiLeaks has been to expose many (but not all) of the lies peddled by Islamabad as well as the reality that American diplomats knew them to be untruths.  In short we were not stupid, merely adrift at the policy level.

The Pakistani string of successful lying came to an end dramatically in May.  There was no way the lies of the Pakistanis could be accepted, even as a pretense, after the raid.  It is regrettable that the Obama administration has not taken advantage of the sea change initiated by Boat Six to force the Pakistanis to choose sides finally and definitely.

The biggest advantage which will accrue to the US from the decision to draw down our forces in Afghanistan and adopt more of a counter terrorist posture is our logistics dependence upon Pakistan will be decreased.  This means we will be in a much better position to link any continued assistance to Islamabad on demonstrated performance rather than nice sounding words.  It is much harder to lie by actions than it is with mere words.  So, Pakistan will be deprived of its advantage, an advantage it has used against us for a decade now.

While it may not be approved diplomatic form, it would be good politics both domestic and international to call the liars of Islamabad to account.  Diplomacy is usually conducted by vague words and ambiguous phrases so everyone walks away claiming success, but the Pakistanis need to be handled with a direct and blunt approach.

The time is now to say to Islamabad, to the armed forces, to ISI, to Major General Abbas, "Cut the crap!  You're busted!"

Think Globally, Act Locally

This old bumper sticker phrase much loved by the tree hugging crowd some twenty years ago has become the new, de facto slogan of al-Qaeda under the direction of its new capo d' tutti capi, Ayman al-Zawahiri.  This, in itself, is not surprising as the good doctor has long been known for his possessing a far greater interest in making Egypt a model of shariah in action than in establishing a global caliphate.

What makes the latest expression of the world according to Zawahiri (it has a catchy title: The Message of Good Hope and Tidings For Our People In Egypt.  OK, maybe it loses something in translation.) is the way in which he combines the ideas of making Egypt safe for a Salifist view of Islam with the further disestablishment of the US as a force in the region.  The six parts of "The Message" are themselves a riff on Zawahiri's earlier and vastly important philosophical book best known by its short title Exoneration.  In both he argues that the successful jihad mounted to date by al-Qaeda and its franchises forced the Obama administration to abandon Mubarak and prepare the way for the success of violent political Islam in Egypt.

In both "The Message" and "Exoneration" al-Zawahiri contends that the moment has come to shift the focus of jihad on the internal revolutions in Egypt and other countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Tunisia and Syria so as to put more pressure not only on the local apostate rulers but on the US.  In essence he is calling for al-Qaeda to act not as a global non-state player but rather as the facilitator and coordinator of local efforts such as those being waged by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP,) al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM,) and al-Shabaab.  It is clear that he believes that the US will be overstretched by simultaneous challenges mounted by these groups as well as smaller entities and lone wolves preying on soft targets throughout the Mideast and North Africa.

Even in this context it is self-evident that al-Zawahiri's focus in on Egypt.  His view of the Ummah is through the prism of Egyptian nationalism.  He sees the (in his eyes) necessary victory of the most austere form of Islam in Egypt will vault the country to primacy in the emerging caliphate.  As a good Egyptian nationalist, one who rivals the quite secular Nasser as a hyper-nationalist, al-Zawahiri sees Cairo as the fulcrum of the new Islam, the next Caliphate.

To this end "The Message" calls upon Egyptian Muslims to act as one, to act quickly and decisively so as to assert Egypt's pride of place among the Muslim majority states of the world.  This appeal will not fall on deaf ears.  Overlooked in all the hoopla over the yearning for genuine democracy expressed during the overthrow of Mubarak is a very basic and potent ground truth: Egyptians have felt diminished as a people, a nation over the past thirty years.  After the national high point of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 the road has been strictly downhill.

Egyptians have increasingly seen themselves as citizens of a diminished country.  More and more they have come to see themselves as having lost status, position, even dignity.  The thought that Egypt had become nothing more than a dependency of the US rankled--deeply.  As is the case in Russia, the notion of having lost national status not only rankled, it motivated.  Mubarak was deeply hated not simply because he presided over a country neck deep in corruption, nepotism, inequity, but because he had not only acquiesced in but actively fostered the decline of Egypt in the region and in the world.  On Mubarak's watch, many believed and continue to believe, Egypt was no longer a country worthy of respect but rather the object of derision.

Al-Zawahiri's skilled blending of religion and nationalism serves to counter this pervasive sense of Egyptian degradation.  By seizing the present moment, al-Zawahiri argues, Egyptians can reclaim their dignity, their status, their pride, their place in the sun.  Merging the Egyptian national identity with the true belief of basic and uncompromising Islam will bring salvation, or, if not salvation, at least pull Egypt and its people out of the slough of the marginalized, the trivialized, the ignored, the bowed head beggers.

Al-Zawahiri promises that an Egypt powered by Islam of ninety proof purity will once more be what it seemed to be many, many years ago during the heyday of Nasser--a force in the world, a country that could call the tune danced to by supposed superpowers.  All that is required, the one time medic alleges, is for Egyptians not to fall prey to American blandishments or secret plots made in the USA and hold true to the calls of the faith and the needs of political Islam--including the use of violence should such be either necessary or desirable.

In "Exoneration" al-Zawahiri extends his argument to include countries such as Yemen, Syria and the states of North Africa.  His position is both simple and inherently attractive, particularly to younger members of the over-educated and underemployed middle class.

In short he says, "All of you, Syrians, Yemeni, Algerians, Tunisians, Libyans are members of societies which were once great.  You are all citizens of states which were once respected, even feared by the infidels.  You are people of nations which were once great but are now small."

He then asks the essential question, "Why?  Why were you who were once so great are now so small?"

And, unsurprisingly, he gives the correct answer.  "Because you abandoned the path of pure and true Islam.  Because you surrendered to government by apostates, by turncoats who say they are Muslims but act and govern as if they are kaffir."

Then comes the expected call to arms.  "You will be great once more, respected and feared once again, feel the dignity you deserve only when you join the jihad.  Only when you throw out the apostates and restore genuine Islamic rulers will you regain your greatness."

Shrewdly al-Zawahiri backs his argument by emphasizing Islam's stance on social justice, economic equity, and political openness.  He contrasts the nature of the Islamic posture in all these critical and highly emotional issues with the stance of the US and Uncle Sam's local clients.  He wraps all the ills of the Islamic Mideast and North African states in an American flag.  He demands locals act for local goals while doing so in the global context of putting increased pressure on the US--pressure to withdraw.

It is worth considering that the thinking of al-Zawahiri has been picked up, reflected and even amplified by other high profile advocates of violent political Islam.  Anwar al-Awalacki in Yemen has done this in recent weeks.  Indeed much of the theoretical writing in the several issues of Inspire might have come from the keyboard of the American born and educated cleric, but the ideas and arguments, the logic and goals, are those of al-Zawahiri.

Even in the geographic expression, Somalia, where one is surprised to discover a level of literacy which would allow the reading of al-Zawahiri's rather dense prose, the locals have been extolling the ideas of the medic turned mass murderer.  The same applies to recent musings by spokesmen for AQIM.  Clearly, al-Zawahiri has a message that many are both reading and amplifying.

The US has been playing the role assigned to it in The World According to Ayman.  Our aid to the Ugandan forces in Somalia has been increased as has been the assistance provided to the fictitious government of Somalia.  Shortly we can expect more Predator strikes in Somalia along with a significant ramp-up of the remote controlled death from above operations in Yemen.  Carefully targeted special operations will not be long in the offing.

The regional impact of the ongoing mess in Libya is growing.  There will be a requirement in the not-too-distant future for the US to make some choices as to what we should or must do to help the local forces and governments in their struggle with AQIM.  While we have no bulls in the herd, particularly as compared with European countries, the small but rapidly growing AQIM will reach the level of potential threat to US interests long before the next election here.

Think Globally, Act Locally!  Al-Zawahiri has it right.  So right that we may soon be wishing for the good old days of Osama bin Laden.  The legion of experts assured us that al-Zawahiri would be a nebbish as the Lord High Poobah of al-Qaeda because he had the charisma of a nematode.

What a crock!  Brains beat charisma every time--particularly in war.

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.

Cranking Up A (Too) Rapid Pull Out From Afghanistan

Reportedly the Obama administration is ginning up a public relations effort oriented at justifying a very rapid withdrawal of significant combat forces from Afghanistan.  Jerking out a giant posse of grunts from the Land Of Karzai will not only meet with widespread approval within the war weary American public, it will be greeted with hosannas on the part of Obama's base, particularly the congressional contingent where a very other worldly congresswoman has demanded that fifty thousand trigger pullers be brought back to CONUS ASAP.

The thought of a faster withdrawal will not only fit with the recently revealed conversations between the US and representatives of Mullah Omar but also with the latest expression of distaste for the presence of the "foreign forces" delivered by Hamid Karzai.  The US should be talking with Taliban.  The participation of this group in a comprehensive peace agreement is fundamental.  Given that Mullah Omar has long repented of his ill-advised extension of "Muslim hospitality" to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, there is strong reason to conclude that the old leadership of the group is ready to exchange the politics of the AK-47 for a less robust means of acquiring and exercising power.

Karzai is comfortable with Taliban as he and they share language and cultural ties as well as religion.  Taliban without the al-Qaeda dimension is no threat to Pushtu dominance.  The other ethnic and cultural groups which make up the Afghan mosaic are not so sure.  And, considering the memories of Taliban's repressive regime, there is no reason for women to support any role for Taliban in the future.  However, it is probable that Mullah Omar and his generational colleagues learned some key lessons in the limits of theocracy and may well be less objectionable in their attitudes and actions regarding women, education, and popular culture.  In any event, the US is well advised to abandon the hopelessly misguided Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Neocon Ninny notion of creating a modern Western style nation-state in Afghanistan.

The necessity of a political solution including Taliban is recognized and has been so for years by all observers well oriented in time and place.  The administration's new add-on in justifying a rapid and steep draw down in US combat forces centers on the effectiveness to date of our efforts to destroy al-Qaeda's organizational integrity and efficiency.  There is no doubt but the Predator strikes in the FATA along with special forces operations including but not limited to the Great Abbottabad Raid have severely degraded al-Qaeda's upper and mid-level management.  The organization has been disrupted severely.

This does not mean al-Qaeda no longer exists.  It does.  Nor does it mean that al-Qaeda no longer represents a threat to the US or other civilized states.  It does.  Rather, the point of the administration's argument is simply that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan no longer is central to the panoply of threats presented by assorted advocates of violent political Islam.  This is true.

It is also far less relevant than the administration would have any of us believe.

There are two ramifications of an overly rapid, overly steep withdrawal which the administration does not credit.  The first is the recuperative power of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan given the ready availability of support from Pakistan and the unwillingness of the Pakistani military or intelligence service to block that support.  The second is the power of history.

The US must not cut and run in a way which will allow the advocates of violent political Islam and their supporters or apologists to write a narrative in which the centerpiece is the assertion that the Mighty Warriors of the One True Faith defeated the infidel crusaders.  It was the willingness and ability of Osama bin Laden and others to claim victory over the Soviet forces which provided the original legitimacy for al-Qaeda and other similar groups--including the Taliban of Mullah Omar.

The Islamist version of history is not only specious, it is a total fabrication giving credit to Arab fighters which was and is totally undeserved.  Insofar as anyone defeated the Red Army, it was the Afghans--and the support they received from the US.  Afghan courage, blood, and endurance along with American technology defeated the Soviets--as much as they were defeated by external pressures.  The down and dirty truth was that the Soviets were not defeated.  They simply gave up.  This loss of political will was the made-in-the-Kremlin equivalent of the American self-inflicted defeat in Vietnam.  In a very real sense, the Afghan fighters simply had to keep on fighting, refuse to admit defeat until the Soviets packed it in.  This, of course, is the basic cause of any insurgent's success right on back to the patriot "victory" in the American War of Independence.

The Arab hijacking of reality in the according-to-Osama interpretation of history was a work of fiction which prevailed simply because nobody challenged it at the time.  The cause driven bin Laden invented a tale and kept telling it to all who would listen until one fine day it was taken, at least in the Arabian Peninsula, as the gospel truth.  The tale-telling sheik told his tale of faith and fighting so well and so often that the money and recruits flowed in.  Osama's version of history may not have been a Big Lie as Dr Goebbels understood the term, but it turned out to be a Great Lie, the greatest lie of the last decades of the Twentieth Century.

The bin Laden approach to creative fiction as history recommends itself to any and all advocates of violent political Islam today--and into the future.  If the American forces are withdrawn hastily and in too great a number, the next bin Laden will claim that the infidels were militarily defeated by the Holy Fighters Of The Koran.

It will not be a true and accurate history to be sure.  That does not and will not matter.  It will be the history that many Muslims will want to believe.  It will be history as they deeply wish it to have been.  There is no Islamic concept of history as we in the West understand the concept.  Rather, all history is in Muslim eyes a record of great men doing great deeds on behalf of the faith and in the pure name of the faith.  Thus the defeat of the infidel crusaders by the followers of Islam, the followers of the "martyred" Great and Learned Osama bin Laden will be believed eagerly and fervently by many future recruits to the cause of violent political Islam.

This powerful ground truth is not and will not be accepted by the Deep Thinkers in and around the Oval.  Yet it exists as a reality, a reality as potent and long lasting in effect as the American deficit and the war weariness of We the People.  In the contest between a work of fiction, a myth on the one hand, and mere facts, mind numbing statistics, the aggregate of countless after action reports, the first will defeat the second--particularly when the myth meets the needs of people who perceive themselves to have been exploited, marginalized, trivialized even though they are the members of a community promised global dominance by the deity and his prophet.

Wars are ultimately won and lost not on the physical battlefield but on the ineffable terrain of the human mind. It is this foundation truth that gave the Osama bin Laden fictional history of how the Arab true believers defeated the Red Army its power and persistence.  It is this foundation truth which will give some future myth maker vast potency when he creates the fiction holding the infidel Americans were defeated by the blood, courage, and conviction of the Men of Islam.

Contrary to a prevalent American belief, history does matter.  It matters far, far more than money and elections--even the reelection of Barack Obama.

It Was A Good Day, But Not The Final Day

The death of Osama bin Ladin is good--and long overdue--news.  The means of the man's demise is a credit to what is arguably the best special operations unit in the world today, Boat Six of the Navy's SEALs.  The consequences of this termination with extreme prejudice are easy to overstate.

Also easy to overstate is the decisive courage of President Obama.  The most annoying aspect of the aftermath of the Raid At Abbottabad has been the praise lavished on the Guy in the Oval.  Much has been made as well of the lack of unanimity among the presidential advisors concerning the raid.  Lack of unanimity is a good thing--it would have been better, much better for the US had there been more dissent from the group think during the run up to the Bay of Pigs or the adventure in regime change in South Vietnam which resulted in the death of the authoritarian ruler, Diem, and the onset of a decade of political chaos in the insurgency and American riddled republic.  And, to be sure, it would have been better had the White House crew of George W. Bush had a few more dissidents and a lot fewer team players.

When the interminable number of National Security Council meetings--five--finally came to an end, the president took the only rational choice available--a commando style operation.  The stand-off alternatives might not have done the job correctly as was the case with the recent attack in Tripoli which missed Gaddafi the dad but did manage to kill his youngest son and three of that man's children.  Or, even if the stand-off alternative did succeed, there would have been even less convincing proof of Osama's death than is the case currently.  And, not a trivial consideration, only the up-close-and-personal approach would have the positive collateral of collecting useful material to keep intelligence analysts occupied.

Of course, there would have been those in the NSC or supporting staff who would have feared a replay of "Blackhawk Down"--a prospect which came oh-so-close when one of the birds either suffered a mechanical malfunction or combat damage and had to be left on the ground.  Others might have felt a pucker factor over the possibility of American combat fatalities and how that would play at home.  Still others might have dreaded a complete debacle equivalent to that at Desert One.

Since no special operations senior commander would be so out of touch with reality as to guarantee success, there was a risk with the operation, but the use of Boat Six went a very long way to mitigate that consideration.  So also have the vast improvements generally in the tactics, techniques, and materiel of special operations.  When night fell, the use of the commando raid option was the only way to go--other than to convince oneself that the intelligence just was not sufficient and let the moment go by ungrasped.

There is, in the real world at least, never enough intelligence.  It is rare to the point of being nonexistent for a Two Shop--including CIA--to say, "This is the real deal, one hundred percent sure thing."  For an intel weenie to say such a thing would be identical to the Spec Ops guy saying success would be certain.  In this case, even given the chance that the narrative released by the Obama administration regarding the long, winding, and rough road traveled is a cover for simple penetration, the correlation of intelligence factors was strong, even very strong--and it just doesn't get any better than that.

One cannot help but wonder if the decision making process was so lengthy because so many lawyers must have been involved.  It rather appears that the actual planning and rehearsal for the raid took less time than did the five meetings of the NSC and who knows how many confabs between the legal counsel for the principals.  It may  even be that the factor tilting the final decision in favor of the on-the-ground option were legal considerations, specifically the existence of a remote chance that bin Laden could have been taken prisoner.  No matter how slight that chance might be and no matter how certain it was that Osama or those around him would offer armed resistance thus allowing fire to be returned, the legal fiction of a possible arrest was maintained.  That would have been impossible using the stand-off options.

The theoretical option of turning over the "actionable intelligence" to the Pakistanis was, no shock here, a non-starter.  Outside of Islamabad, is there anyone willing to hazard the view that the Pakistani army, Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, and government had no idea that Osama had been living in a nice, large, and well furnished semi-prison located cheek-to-cheek with a major military academy and a large army base for some years?  Similarly, is there anyone, again outside of Pakistan, who would argue with a straight face that Osama could not have lived on the outskirts of Abbottabad without a "support service" furnished by Pakistanis, and not just ideological soulmates operating as private citizens?

The movers and shakers of Pakistan will have to do a lot of fast talking--something at which they are quite experienced and competent.  The Obama administration will not put too much pressure on the Koran loving senior men at ISI or in the army.  Congress, particularly the House, is not likely to be quite so easy going--and they control the flow of bribes to Islamabad.  Even considering that factor, the odds are in favor of the US going along with some (very) modest changes in Pakistani behavior and public protestations of innocence in a manner not unlike that of earlier administrations and congresses (think Panay Incident.)

The removal of bin Laden from the board does not change the Great Game of countering terror conducted by proponents of violent political Islam in any significant way.  The global movement has sufficient inertia, manpower, and experience to keep on going and growing even with the loss of Osama to the welcoming arms of seventy-two virgins.  Even if the US is able to follow on by removing the al-Qaeda number two man, al-Zawahiri, it will not make an end to to violent political Islam as  practiced by Taliban, AQIM, AQAP, or any of the other groups.

In short, the Abbottabad Raid has been an emotionally satisfying moment in a long and bloody war with years if not decades yet to run.  It demonstrated not only the very high competence of the US in a very demanding form of military operation but also the dedication the country can have over two administrations of vastly differing political ideologies and world views.  It also has shown that Mr Obama like JFK has the capacity to wreak havoc when his masculinity has been challenged--which bin Laden has done to a degree not equaled even by JKF's bete noir, Fidel Castro.

The game will go on.  The war between the civilized states and the reactionary, barbaric proponents of violent political Islam will continue.  Obama will get a bump in the polls.  His reelection chances may even have been enhanced.  On the upside, Osama bin Laden will not be around to enjoy life and the Great Game.

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.

"Sword Of Justice"--One Plenty Bad Man

Regardless of how matters play out in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden's presumably as-good-as-on-the-ropes al-Qaeda has brought a new/old and very dangerous player to the global board.  Bin Laden personally named the new operations director, the man in direct operational charge of violent efforts against the West generally and the US in particular.

The man's name may be Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi or Ibrahim Madani.  He has been called Omar al-Somali.  His self-chosen sobriquet is Saif al-Adel.  Translated this comes out as, sword of justice.  Modest, eh what?

Muhammad or Ibrahim or Omar or Saif was born in 1960.  Or, perhaps, 1963.  If you get the idea that there is little extant in the open literature regarding this one time colonel in the Egyptian army, that is correct.  Most of the little that is known comes from the Sword's autobiography written five years ago, and is difficult or impossible to confirm without the resources of CIA (and perhaps not even then.)

The details are less important than the main theme of the man's thinking, his concept of how to wage effective war against the US and the other "infidel, Crusader states."  He has a clear concept that is well rooted in a sound understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of his enemy.

In 1987 Saif al-Adel was a rather impatient person with great ideas of how to reform the apostate government of Egypt.  His notions featured both a truck bomb and the use of a civilian aircraft as a cruise missile.  Both instruments of death and mayhem were to be employed against Egypt's parliament building.  The plans were aborted when security forces rolled up Saif and his fellow plotters of the rather directly albeit unimaginatively named group al-Jihad.   In the slammer Mr Adel became underwhelmed with the views of his fellow advocates of violent political Islam.

No, bucko, it is not as if the future Sword of Justice became disillusioned with the precepts and goals of violent political Islam.  That would have made future life too simple, too peaceful.  Rather the man viewed his fellow travelers as too impatient, too filled with zeal, and too able to underestimate the capacities of the assorted components of the House of War and its apostate tools.

For reasons known only to the heavyweights of Egyptian internal security, the man who would become the Sword of Justice was released.  He decamped to--where else?--Peshawar.  In those hospitable environs he made contact with the new kids of jihad, al-Qaeda.  He spent '91 and '92 in Khost training al-Qaeda trigger pullers and bomb throwers in the basics of military art and science.

Not surprisingly Saif trailed along when Osama bin Laden relocated to Sudan.  As has been attested to by the convicted terrorist, Mohammed Odeh, Saif was engaged at the bin Laden owned Damazine Farm where he whiled away the days teaching.  No, he was not instructing in the area of agricultural science but rather giving tuition in the manufacture and use of explosives.

When not giving helpful hints on how to blow things up and kill people, Saif waxed philosophical.  He was all in favor of moving the jihad to other areas of the world as Taliban was winning in Afghanistan and conditions in Sudan were not suitable to martyrdom operations.  Apparently Saif could forgo the inviting conflict in Bosnia as there is no record of his having accompanied any of the Mideast origin jihadis to that nasty little war.  Instead it appears that the peripatetic Egyptian spent several years traveling around the constellation of training camps in Africa and Asia set up by al-Qaeda and others of the violent political Islam sort.  Reputedly he was involved directly in forming working relations with jihadist groups in Iraq.

Saif was involved in the planning of 9/11.  In the late summer debate over the final execute decision, Adel took sides with Omar in opposing the idea.  The dissent registered by Mullah Omar and seconded by Adel was documented to the satisfaction of the 9/11 Commission.

As the US troops entered Afghanistan, Saif al-Adel left.  He went to Iran where he amused himself by planning and organizing several attacks on US and other foreign troops.  During its transient spasm of fear following the American invasion, the Iranian government authorized the arrest of Adel and other al-Qaeda leadership figures.  He was released a few months later.

The Saif al-Adel of 2005 was a man far different from his younger incarnation, the wannabe bomber of the Egyptian parliament.  The differences are what make the Sword a dangerous, a very dangerous opponent now.

Adel has become a prophet of protracted conflict.  His observations and ruminations had combined to convince him that the US along with the rest of the West could not survive a lengthy siege of terror politically. Operationally this means he supports relatively small, one-off, single actor attacks as opposed to the 9/11 sort.  In his estimate the best method of operation is one which envisions attacks no larger than the 7/7 London bombing or the similar strike on the Madrid subway.  In his mind a slow motion sequence of such attacks carried out over a long enough time primarily by homegrown "martyrdom seekers" would exhaust Western political will such that maximal Islamist demands would be met.

Adel is also convinced that it is essential that the global movement in violent political Islam have no geographic base.  The identification of Afghanistan with al-Qaeda was, he has concluded, a ghastly mistake, bad for both Afghanistan and al-Qaeda.

The Sword seeks a network of facilitators and recruiters even more diffuse than that which has existed in recent years.  He intends to make the "leaderless war" a reality.  The absence of an identifiable and thus targetable geographic center will inhibit, even prohibit, a Western retaliation or will render any retaliation far more provocative than punishing.

In both of these theses Adel is far more right than wrong.  American political will is strengthened mightily by a direct attack on our citizens and our soil.  Even if the butchers' bill is far smaller than that of 9/11, the demand of We the People for retaliation would be loud and long.  Provided there is a place upon which to retaliate, the probability of an American president not doing so is very, very slim at best.

A series of attacks, large or small in effect, but carried out by homegrown operatives gives no target against which to retaliate.  The absence of an identifiable outside figure, foreign group, alien sanctuary would prevent any meaningful American response beyond the judicial (provided the actors survive the act.)  The same dynamic would apply to Western European states.  The combination of Western values, norms, political relations render each and every government a pitiful helpless giant when confronted by domestic actors who have no direct, actionable ties with a foreign puppetmaster.

Adel intends to make an operational doctrine compatible with the political statement of Mullah Omar, who in 2009 explicitly (and belatedly) separated the Taliban in Afghanistan from the violent acts of groups such as al-Qaeda.  Adel like Omar understands that this sort of explicit rhetorical and operational separation serves best the coinciding interests of both states and non-state actors which share a commitment to political Islam.

Bright lad, eh, bucko?

Operational successes under a (distant and discrete) al-Qaeda umbrella when coupled with the current political trajectories in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, North Africa, and portions of sub-Saharan Africa will bode best for the fortunes of resurgent political Islam.  The combination will allow for peace in the "House of Islam" and a better form of war in the "House of War."

In his current thinking Saif al-Adel is putting into practice the idea first broached by the great-grandfather of contemporary violent political Islam, Abul Ali Mawdudi.  More than seventy years ago Mawdudi wrote, "war in the name of Islam is a revolutionary ideology which seeks to change the social and political order of the entire war."

And, so it is.  Now Saif al-Adel gives the ideology a new and far sharper edge.

Red Faces On Red Square

OK, to err on the side of accuracy, the red faces are not in Red Square but right nearby in the Kremlin.  The cause for the embarrassment is easy to discover.  Despite recent declarations of victory, the advocates and practitioners of violent political Islam are not only alive and well in Chechnya but eager to show their vitality.

As if the failure of assorted handpicked retired KGB generals and other hard cases to "clarify the situation" in Chechnya and the other disputed provinces in the North Caucasus were not enough, the highly annoying and quite able jihadists in Tajikistan are demonstrating both resiliency and commitment, which puts the Russians and their local clients behind the power curve.  Worse, the degenerating situation in Tajikistan puts an increased burden on the US and its partners in Afghanistan.

The three suicide commandos, presumably adherents of the "Caliphate of the Caucasus" attacked the parliament building in Grozny.  They died, of course.  They took three locals with them following a gun battle and the detonation of the attackers' suicide bomb vests.

The attack might have been low cost for both insurgents and government, but its effects should not be discounted.  The man placed in charge of Chechnya by Vladimir (I-Put-Out-The-Fires) Putin, a fellow of little scruples, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been trumpeting success over the jihadists this past year.  In less than a half hour of noise and fear, his claims, like those of his boss, were called into serious question.

Making the question all the more compelling was the presence of the Russian interior minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, during the gun battle.  This VIP from the Kremlin went on stage with the "shaken" Chechen parliamentarians almost before the cordite fumes had dissipated.  He thundered, "We will not allow anyone to come at us with a sword."

The predominately Muslim republic has been relatively quiet this year.  But, the operative word is "relatively." Considering that the defensive insurgency has been underway in an off-and-on fashion since 1994, it is not surprising that while the level of violence has subsided, there has been no move toward "victory" by either side.

For the past several years, the war has been slow motion and low in overall casualties.  Still, more than four hundred police and other security personnel have been killed by insurgent acts since 2005.  In addition, over three thousand civilian non-combatants have been killed or wounded by insurgent actions in the same period.  All of the several provinces in the North Caucasus have seen the same phenomena--low intensity, slow tempo, a death by a thousand paper cuts sort of war.

The demographic and economic realities along with nearly identical cultural patterns and social structures assure that the title for Leader in the War For the Caliphate can shift easily between the several provinces of the North Caucasus.  Until today's attack in Grozny, the Russians were of the view that Dagestan was the nexus of the Islamist insurgency.  The subtext read: "Dagestan will be clarified and put to order if the Kremlin can find the correct Kadyrov clone."

The good news to date is that al-Qaeda has shown only the most limited interest in linking with the jihadists of the Caucasus Caliphate.  While there have been some contacts between Mideast based sympathizers of al-Qaeda and the insurgents of Chechnya and coterminous provinces, these have been few and sporadic.  The reason for al-Qaeda's senior leadership having no interest in establishing another franchise in the North Caucasus is self-interest.

Al-Qaeda has nothing to gain by tossing its turban into the North Caucasus ring.  The locals are doing just fine without any external "guidance."  Al-Qaeda has no need to add Russia to the list of its enemies.  While the Russian military and FSB may not be particularly impressive in the results category, both are noted for the ruthlessness with which they will engage a threat.  With no real benefits and a very real downside as well as a disinclination of the locals to seek outside aid, al-Qaeda has been content to sit on the sidelines.

If one is given to a conspiracy theory of politics, the existence of an understanding between the Kremlin and al-Qaeda is conceivable.  The FSB and other organs of state security can turn a blind eye to al-Qaeda dealings in Russia or even quietly facilitate these dealings.  In return, al-Qaeda can agree to not complicate the situation in the North Caucasus.  Stranger relations of mutual convenience have happened in the past.

The good news of al-Qaeda's non-involvement in the Caucasus is more than offset by the ground truths governing the local dynamics.  Kadyrov has been a failure in all but the most superficial aspects of counter-insurgency.  The Kremlin appointed strongman has done nothing to address any of the very long standing causes of political disaffiliation.  Many of these date back to the early Nineteenth century and all have their roots in the forced relocation of the Chechen population during the days of Stalin.

Over and above these historical causes, the severe economic disparity between ethnic Chechens and the Russian minority have grown during the Kadyrov ascendancy.  Money has flowed from the central Russian government to Chechnya and other Caucasus states, but it has tended to fill Russian, not local, pockets.  Even purportedly well-intended measures such as the barring of the long standing practice of bride selling have backfired.

Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus are highly traditional, tribal societies.  Any action, any law, any pressure to change time honored, customary familial and social structures will breed resentment and opposition.  This is equally true whether the change sought is that of eliminating the selling of brides or the ill-considered Islamist effort to put Chechen women into burkas.

Back to the drawing board, Vladimir.  The situation will not be "clarified" nor will it "be put to order" unless and until the Kremlin acknowledges and effectively caters to the Chechen sense of nationalism.  The Geek has outlined in previous posts how this can be done, but the fact remains that the Russians are themselves nationalists without superior.  It is fatally difficult for the Boys in the Kremlin to bring themselves to accept that other nation's nationalism is valid.  So, they are stuck with a war which can be "won" only at a very high cost in lives lost and international embarrassment suffered.

In either event, time is not on the side of the Kremlin.  The pressures of time are being accelerated by events in Tajikistan.  The close connection between al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and the Tajik proponents of armed political Islam was underscored by the "discovery" of an al-Qaeda base and training camp in the Rasht valley roughly thirty miles from the Afghan border.

Abdullo Rakhimov who is the heavyweight among Central Asian Republic adherents of Osama bin Laden was in charge of this and other camps in the Rasht valley.  The camps were established originally by the Islamic Union of Uzbekistan (IUU) and have been active for several years.  Rakhimov and his running buddy Mirzohuja Ahmadov recruited wannabe martyrs from throughout the Central Asian Republics and even as far afield as Europe for training in the remote camps.

The IUU has been around since 1991.  Members of this group have been fighting in Afghanistan and are found in the FATA of Pakistan as well.  Recently IUU has been identified as a major facilitator of operations directed against European targets using citizens of Muslim ancestry with valid current European passports.  This make IUU a large and growing threat.

The camps in the Rasht valley were safe until the Tajik government had a attack of delusions of adequacy with the result it dispatched the army into the previous no-go zone.  The move initially had no response from the IUU or Tajik insurgents.  However, the shoe finally dropped when a Tajik unit was ambushed and nearly wiped out.

Since then there have been numerous small engagements between Tajik forces and insurgents.  Also involved were units from the Russian Army's 201st motor rifle division.  This unit shares responsibility for border security.  Unlike its local counterpart forces, the 201st can engage in sustained operations such as the twenty hour fire fight on the frontier last week.

The net result of operations over the past two months indicates the Tajik military is punching above its weight. This implies the Kremlin will have to carry more local water.  Considering Russian interests not only in Tajikistan but the other Muslim majority Central Asian Republics, this picking up the local burden is to be expected.

Russia cannot afford and will not continence an expansion of al-Qaeda or affiliated groups to establish a diffuse network of bases in the region.  Additional forces will be sent in an appropriately low signature way in the very near future, probably before the snows fall.

The US has a bull in this herd.  Tajikistan provides alternative land lines of communication should Pakistan either close the roads it controls or collapses.  The US relations with Russia are a bit touchy in this context, but far more so in Uzbekistan than in Tajikistan.  Provided the US does nothing the Kremlin might interpret as challenging its position in the Central Asian Republics, there is room for useful collaboration between the US and Russia.

The up tick in successful operations by jihadist groups gives additional impetus to the Russian adoption of a firm line against Iranian ambitions.  More than the current US administration, the Kremlin understands the relationship between Tehran and groups espousing armed political Islam everywhere.  To impair Iran's nuclear ambitions is to serve one's interest in eroding the political strength and appeal of jihad.

There is a bit of delightful irony in the situation confronting Russia.  The more the armed political Islamists challenge Russia, the more Russia must act against the ultimate patron of armed political Islam, Iran.  In a sense, the jihadists of the Caucasus and Tajikistan have become our strong allies in keeping Iran from getting the Big Bomb.

Don't you just love it?

A Better State Of Peace

In every war, both inter-state and interventionary, each and every belligerent fights in order to see the war end with a better state of peace. It is the conflicting views of what would constitute an improvement in the pre-war state of peace which lies at the heart of every war.

A very real complication emerges in the case of interventionary war. In this situation there may be real, deep contradictions between the "host" government and the foreign intervenor. So it is in Afghanistan. Not only is there a variance of view between the Karzai government and the insurgents, there is no harmonious symphony of agreement between the US government and its "host" in Kabul.

Had the US limited its goals in Afghanistan to the elimination of al-Qaeda as a threat and the punishment of Taliban for its ill-advised exercise of "Islamic hospitality," there would have been no disagreement between Washington and most of the rivals for power in Afghanistan as to what constituted a better state of peace. But the shift in American policy to the goal of creating a Western style pluralistic democracy with an independent judicial system, an absence of mass market corruption, civil liberties, gender equality, and, at least implicitly, a separation of faith and state assured that an increasingly large gap would emerge between Kabul and Washington (as well as other foreign capitals) as to the precise nature of a better state of peace.

The dichotomies have emerged in a high profile and utterly unmistakable way in the past few months. On subjects as crucial as power sharing, ending governmental corruption, squeezing the flow of drugs, corruption, and extortion generated money out of country, the animus between the governments of the US and Afghanistan have grown.

In each of these areas as well as the legion of lower profile issues, a careful parsing of the causes of the differing understandings of the much desired better state of peace hinge on one word. The word is one which is most unwelcome not only by the current American administration but by the opinion molding elites of the US and Western Europe. In the minds of many, perhaps all of these self-elected hoi olligoi, the word is a virtual epithet.

And, you might wonder, just what is this magic word, this word of unlimited ju-ju?

Nationalism.

Yep, bucko, that is the evil and ever-so-potent word. It is the word invoked by President Karzai and his people almost every other breath. To the Afghans the better state of peace is defined almost exclusively by the implications of nationalism.

In the US and most of the West, nationalism has been unilaterally consigned to the scrap heap of history. Nationalism is seen universally within the elite, academic, political and journalistic, as the cause of wars, the basis of misery, the virus of xenophobia, racism, and other ills which have beset humanity for generations. We are assumed to live in a post-nationalistic age where trans-national corporations, multinational institutions, the "international community" are celebrated as the axis around which the globe now rotates.

Ironically, the foreigner forces led by the US have been attempting to impose a highly nationalistic template upon the raw material of Afghanistan and the Afghans. Tossing multi-cultural sensitivities to the winds, the US and its partners have been beavering away in an effort to create a nation-state with all the features of the liberal democracies of the West, an arrogant and highly nationalistic notion to say the least.

Why anyone in the Obama administration would be surprised by the Karzai government's invocation of nationalism as a defense against the better state of peace sought by the outsiders is a mystery. Only Afghans can determine what is in their domestic interest which is to say what constitutes a better state of peace, Afghan style.

To Americans or Westerners generally it is impossible to believe that Afghans would willingly accept a government which tolerates, indeed engages in, corruption. Or why they might accept a better state of peace predicated upon an austere interpretation of Islamic law. Or, why they might welcome former insurgents, including the most barbaric members of Taliban, into the central government. Or, why they might be comfortable with a society and government which has more centripetal than centrifugal features.

We the People and our Western European counterparts would not see such features as desirable in our polity or society. Nor would we be comfortable with a legal system which is, at best, a hybrid of the sacred and the secular. We wouldn't find the pervasive presence of corruption, cronyism, or the supremacy of family, clan, and tribal identities conducive to a stable and comfortable environment.

The people of Afghanistan see the matter differently. For them all these features are as familiar and comfortable as one's own living room. To be sure some features are more objectionable than others, but as far as the locals are concerned, the most ineffective local remedies are infinitely superior to the best ideas imported or imposed by outsiders.

Governmental corruption is a very real, very live issue in Afghanistan. The Taliban uses its existence as a powerful tool for motivating support among the people who are always paying the graft--never receiving it. The use of graft is a universal tool for cementing political alliances, assuring family and tribal fortunes as well as (to quote Bruce Springstein) "to get a little something for yourself." Nearly everyone in Afghanistan wants to "do something" about corruption (usually make sure they are on the receiving end of it) but no one wants the outsiders to move in, take over indirectly, and clean the mess impartially.

Corruption and its control have become the line in the sand dividing the definition of a better state of peace as between Kabul and Washington. In a microcosm who does what with the corruption issue will determine whose definition prevails as the war enters its penultimate stage.

The takeaway for the donor nations, most of all the current administration, is simple. When all the money is spent (or blown) and the diplomatic rhetoric is exhausted, the Afghan people and only the Afghan people will define the better state of peace.

We had best get used to the idea. Get a grip on it. After all, it is nothing new in our experience. The towering figure of international morality, President Woodrow Wilson had the Marines land in Vera Cruz, Mexico to give the locals a lesson in good government and good citizenship. Even Mexican historians have allowed that under the American Marines the city and its surrounding area never had such good, effective, efficient, honest government.

It was a great lesson in good government. It failed to inspire the locals to emulate it. The huge elastic band which is culture, society, the force of "that's how things are done--here" took over the day after the last marine left. The good ole days of graft, corruption, ineffective government resumed as if there had been no interruption.

The lesson is simple. There is no need to relearn it in Afghanistan. When you are the outsider, your notions of a better state are as relevant as would be mammary glands on a bull. Only the locals know what is a better state of peace in terms of their history, their culture, their society, their ideas as to how "things are done around here."

That means we should kill al-Qaeda, Taliban and other armed troublemakers so as to provide an example to future Afghan governments as to what will happen should they repeat the fatal mistake of Mullah Omar and his Koran-waving thugs. Everything else must be left to the locals, for only they have a direct stake in the future.

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David Cameron Is One And One

British prime minister David Cameron was well on his way to winning the Bugs Bunny Memorial "What a Maroon" Award for his characterization of Gaza as a "prison camp" during his genuflection to Turkish sensibilities while speaking in Ankara. Cameron tossed away his chances to be an official "Maroon" when he followed his exercise in asininity with an unprecedented bit of blunt truth telling in India.

In the context of a speech to Indian businessmen, Mr Cameron delivered a view of the role of elements within the Pakistani military and government. He warned Islamabad that it could no longer "look both ways," toward supporting Taliban, the Haqqani network, and LeT and toward "respect as a democracy." His warning in both its starkness and accuracy has been long overdue for issuance in a public forum.

Pakistan has engaged for some time now in what Cameron correctly described as the "export" of terror acts. It is the source of some seventy percent of all recent threatened or executed attacks. That is a ground truth which exists independently of any or all of the WikiLeaks document dump of contemporary notoriety. The role of Pakistan as a country as well as that played by the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as well as other components of the military and government constitute the unmentionable T. rex in the bathroom.

Mr Cameron has performed a great service by finally publicly pointing to the T. rex and calling it precisely what it is--a thwacking great killing beast.

The reaction of Islamabad's minions was instant, vociferous, and freighted with indignation. It is no surprise that the Pakistani officials pinned the rap on the WikiLeaks documents. Without exception, the worthies of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan claimed (inaccurately) that Mr Cameron had shamefully accepted the low level reports emanating originally from Afghan intelligence agencies as proof of the accusations of partnership between ISI and Taliban.

While numerous items within the WikiLeaks trove do point to the ISI-Taliban linkage and many but not all did originate with Afghan sources, Mr Cameron had no need to rely upon them as evidence for the bang-on nature of his observations. There is evidence aplenty extending back many years and coming forward in time to the testimony of the confessed Times Square bomber of direct Pakistani involvement with terror.

The Indian authorities have demonstrated convincingly that "retired" members of ISI were directly involved in both the planning and execution of the Mumbai attack. Cases in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Western Europe have connected the dots of local terror cells and acts with planners, financiers, and operational managers in Pakistan, at least some of whom were employees of ISI.

It was someone in the Pakistani government and most likely ISI who called Osama bin Laden while the Tomahawk missiles were crossing Pakistani airspace. The satellite phone warning allowed bin Laden to get out of the impact area literally minutes before the incoming missiles arrived. In the immediate wake of the Bush ordered invasion of Afghanistan, it was ISI and Pakistani military personnel who held the hands of assorted al-Qaeda and Taliban heavyweights as they left Tora Bora almost literally one step ahead of the Americans.

It was ISI and the Pakistani military (which was the government at the time) who formulated an agreement with Taliban and the Haqqani network which opened the FATA as a sanctuary for their displaced fighters in the years following the American led invasion. The Fearless Fugitives of the One True Faith were provided all facilities necessary for their recovery and rejuvenation by ISI. Had it not been for ISI and the larger military/government understanding and support, the war in Afghanistan would have ended long ago.

That is the record. That is the evidence behind Mr Cameron's indictment. That is the justification for his demand that Islamabad choose a side and stick to it.

In truth, Islamabad should not have it both ways. It should be denied the opportunity to work both sides of the street.

However, as pointed out in yesterday's post on this site, the US and UK need Pakistan far more than the Pakistanis need us. That is the conundrum facing both Foggy Bottom and Whitehall.

Mr Cameron did suggest a viable way out of the morass. It is a route which is neither pleasant to contemplate nor easy to travel. It consists of forcing Islamabad to make a choice: With the civilized states or with the savage primitives of violent political Islam.

The way in which this choice can be forced upon Islamabad consists at root of a truth offensive. This means telling the Pakistanis and, perforce, the world all that we known and can prove concerning the close relationship between ISI or other elements of the Pakistani government and military on the one hand and groups practicing violent political Islam on the other. As an accompaniment, the US, the UK, and other civilized states must make continuation of assistance contingent upon Pakistan making the right choice--and abiding to it.

The reaction of the Pakistani establishment to Mr Cameron's remarks shows it is embarrassed by the truth. Embarrassed to the point of hysteria. This implies the establishment in government and the elite sectors of society which support the government are vulnerable in this area, the area of being openly associated with the primitives of violent political Islam, which is a very real existential threat to both the establishment and the elite.

The vulnerability exists. It exists to be exploited. To be exploited for the interests and benefit of the US, the UK, and the other civilized states. To be exploited for the interest and benefit of Afghans and whatever state they finally create. Even to be exploited for the interest and benefit of Pakistan, its government, its elite sectors, and its future.

Sometimes truth is not only the best, most effective weapon, it is the only weapon. Mr Cameron had both the foresight and intestinal fortitude to recognize this. And, use it.