Will The OIC Ever Understand Freedom of Expression?

Not a chance--if the recent statement of the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference is any indication.

Flying well under the radar of the Western mainstream media, the fifty plus members of the OIC held a two day meeting in Istanbul to consider ways and means of countering a phenomenon the member states don't like.

The term used by the OIC is "Islamophobia."

More correctly, the little something which annoys the OIC is called "Free Speech."

Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, OIC Secretary General kicked off the International Conference on Islamophobia with a florid diatribe against the "defamation" of Islam. See http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_detail.asp?t_id=711.

In the course of his remarks, the professor not only demonstrates that he has no concept of free speech, open inquiry, or the clash of ideas, he exhibits a complete lack of historical awareness and caps it off by proving Sam Huntington was right--we are engaged in a "clash of civilizations."
"Prove it!" You challenge.

OK, let's listen in. Here is how the prof sees freedom of expression. To put it simply, he understands it as one big "yes, but."

Another bone of content with the proponents of Islamophobia is the question of the freedom of expression. Although all agree that any freedoms are always linked to responsibility, such as respecting human rights, and avoiding any form of incitement to hatred or defamation of religion, we find that some circles in
the West tend to ignore this basic universal and moral value. There is a
tendency here to consider that narrow and local interpretation of the universal
values, comes above any other given value, thus putting the local, ethical or
moral values in total contradiction with the universal values.

Perhaps the General Secretary has been too busy constructing this tortured logic to have noticed that Muslims have a great experience at inciting hatred and defamation of religion. If he needs a refresher in this, the professor needs only to go to Cairo and wander through the bookstores. If this is too hard, he can check http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/eng/eng_n/hi41207e.htm and link on to a number of other excellent examples of Islamic "literature" which defames and incites hatred for Judaism.

Then there is the GenSec's take on history. Read on, "No Muslim has ever been accused of demonizing or vilifying any of the sacred religious Christian symbols or national one." It is a fact of history that Muslims have demonized and vilified both Christian and Western national symbols. It is ludicrous to say otherwise.

(The only rival in the ludicrousness department might be the "apology" of some overly politically correct people offered to Muslims for the Crusades. The Geek might think that the "apology" was justified if the Muslims offered a similar mea culpa for the conquest of the Iberian peninsula, or the attempted conquest of Vienna. More to the point of reality, "apologies" for historical realities are utterly irrelevant exercises in feel-good verbiage.)

The SecGen pays lip service to the "dialogue between civilizations," but the essential subtext indicates that the OIC actually believes in a "clash of civilizations."

"The subtext?" You ask.

Consider the first field of the OIC's website, http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/index.asp. It shows a global map with the member countries shown in red. Now, play along with the Geek in a little thought experiment. Picture the headlines in, say, the Washington Post, or the London Times, if an OCC (Organization of the Christian Conference) were to be formed. Were to post a website with a global map where all the predominantly or exclusively Christian countries were displayed in blue.

Pretty ugly, right?

Of course, the world will never have to deal with an OCC or a map where blue countries cover the majority of the world. The historical trajectory of the post-Reformation period militates against the idea of an OCC taking form regardless of the fantasies of some Christian evangelicals. Politics and religion in the West may be linked by values or ideas, but they are not joined hip and head as Islam posits and Islamists demand.

Get a grip on this. In the preliminaries to the recent Annapolis Conference, the Palestinian Authority negotiators made it clear that the PA would not accept characterising Israel as a Jewish State. Presumably, the OIC has no problem with this stance or, if it does, the problem has been well hidden.

Yet neither the PA nor the OIC have any difficulty with the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. There is no indication that the OIC would make a face at any of the member countries designating themselves as Islamic.

Now, think for a moment what the reaction of the OIC's Secretary General would be if a country would rename itself a Christian republic. There is no doubt in the Geek's mind that such an action would be quickly and loudly decried as "Islamophobic." Heck, the resulting brouhaha would make the lunatic protests over the Danish cartoons last summer (over which the SecGen spills more than a few words) look like love making.

In short, the subtext of the OIC as represented in its Secretary General's speech is simple: What's ours is ours. What's yours is negotiable.

Admittedly, there have been some awfully stupid actions taken by Western governments to limit speech, inquiry, and debate in recent days and years. One need only recall the "Truth in History" laws of Germany and Austria which criminalise something called Holocaust Denial. Many of the speech codes adopted by American universities in the search for sensitivity protecting political correctness fall in the same category of idiocy.

What the OIC obviously wants is much more than either of these examples. What it wants is nothing less than either a highly constricting self-censorship on the part of Western media, academia, and politics or imposition of such limitations by the United Nations.

The UN General Assembly is no advocate of free speech. It is no upholder of free inquiry. It is no friend of wide open, free swinging debate. This has been shown not simply by the repressive measures imposed on journalists (including bloggers) and academics. It has been shown not only by past actions taken by the UN or a subdivision thereof to limit journalism or satellite broadcasting.

The generally negative, not to say destructive, view of free speech afflicting the UN has been shown in recent weeks by the expressed attitude of its Special Rapporteur on Racism, who has been a major cheerleader for governmental action against "Islamophobia" which he, like the OIC, equates with the worst excesses of racism.

Get a grip on this unpleasant reality. The OIC, and presumably the majority of the countries which comprise it, are hellbent on imposing limits on us in the West. The organization wants to stuff a gag to end all gags in our collective mouth.

It's simple. If you can't say something nice (that is something we at the OIC like) about Islam or Muslims--say nothing at all.

Get a grip on this, OIC. The answer to speech you don't like hearing isn't censorship. It isn't a gag. It isn't accusations of "racism." The answer to speech you don't like is more speech.

Why don't you blokes try something new? Try entering the debate. Try listening to opposing views. Try to heal your hyper-sensitivity to words or pictures that might be considered (even by non-Muslims) offensive.

Heck, guys, debating sure beats suicide bombing.

You really ought to try it.

The Iran Nuke NIE--Politics Or Good Work?

Having spent a good chunk of years as a close student of the whacky world of intelligence, the Geek must profess himself mystified and baffled by the bloviation and hyperventilation crowding the mainstream media and blogosphere over the new NIE regarding Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Sure the new NIE is antipodal to the 2005 effort.

So what?

Get a grip on this. An intelligence estimate is never fixed in stone for all eternity--unless, of course, the intelligence community is totally out to lunch.

There are many, to the Geek at least, self-evident reasons for this reality. First, new information surfaces. Second, the analysts may revisit old information with new eyes. Third, the target may change its intentions, actions, capabilities.

In the present case all three factors were present.

It has been acknowledged that new information regarding the Iranian program emerged over the summer and early fall. The success of the (formerly) covert program to encourage defections from the Iranian nuclear effort which started in 2005 has been obliquely acknowledged. Finally, the new information including the success of the "brain drain" operation encouraged reopening the old files and looking at their content with newly opened eyes.

Not surprisingly, this interlocking set of considerations occasioned an analytical product at great variance with the previous one. For this the intelligence community deserves high marks and thanks from We the People. The community did its job--and did it well.

To do the job, and, more importantly, to release an unclassified summary, required the executives of the sixteen agencies involved ignore command pollution from the neocon ninnies in and around the White House. To the further credit of these executives, the political sensitivities of the current administration and its allies were ignored so the product might be released.

Despite the fact that the NIE in no way discounts the threat Iran will or might present to the US and other countries in the not too distant future, neocon ninnies have taken it under attack. Senator John Ensign (R-NV) has said that he will introduce a bill establishing a bipartisan commission to assess the NIE and report back to Congress in six months. Take a look at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602457.html.

The model is the 1995 effort by congresswallahs to discredit a controversial NIE which concluded there was no likelihood of any country beyond the major nuclear powers (Russia and China) obtaining a missile capability which would directly threaten the US before 2010. The Republicans didn't like this. (Neither did a posse of neocon Democrats.) The result was the formation of a commission under the command of Donald (Don't You Be Dissing Me!) Rumsfield. To the shock of no one with an IQ above single digits, the Rumsfield Commission concluded that the NIE was wrong as a soup sandwich, muttering darkly to the effect that virtually every country other than Somalia could possess arsenals bulging with ICBMs before fifteen years were out.

(We are now only two years from the deadline year. How many countries beyond the old nuclear club members have ICBM capability? How many are projected to demonstrate one within the next twenty-four months?)

The intelligence community did not play politics with the 1995 NIE. Neither did it make policy. It did its job. Did it well. Very well when it is considered that the time frame was lengthy.

The intelligence community is not playing politics with the new Iranian nuke NIE. Neither is it making policy. It is doing its job.

The neocon ninnies howled back in 1995. They are howling now. John Bolton, a man noted for his ability and willingness to call upon others to fight, bleed and die, has termed the NIE a "quasi-putsch." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bolton9dec09,1,233789.story?coll=la-headlines-world. If that isn't politicising the NIE, what is?

Norman Podhoertz, the Gramps of all neocons, is equally intemperate even though he eschews Bolton's colorful language. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602457.html. But, the former editor of Commentary and current advisor to Rudy Giuliani, has long been in favor of bombing Iran. It is not surprising that he would be darkly suspicious of any piece of paper arguing that there was no immediate need for this action--particularly one signed off by all sixteen agencies of the intelligence community.

The politics have come. Not from the analysts or executives of the intelligence community. No. Not them. The source of politicization has been those whose ox has been gored. The folks who were so wrong on Iraq. The neocon ninnies.

Intelligence estimates can be and have been wrong. The Geek thought those regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction back in 2002 were of the grilled watermelon sort. He believed the same of the 2005 view of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The latest estimate doesn't cloy in the Geek's nose. But, the reactions of Bolton, Ensign, Podhoretz and the "experts" at the American Enterprise Institute do.

Fear--And How To (Ab)use It

The Geek in former days enjoyed England. It was a great place to visit in all respects.

Not now. Now, if you held a gun to the Geekmo's head and said, "Get on the plane or I'll shoot," the Geek would have to answer, "Pull the trigger. It's faster and won't hurt so much."

"Why's that?" You ask.

Simple. To paraphrase Lincoln Steffen's (in)famous statement about his trip to post-revolutionary Russia, "I've been over to the future and it doesn't work."

In recent years, England has become a dystopia of intrusive nanny statism, which not only bodes to become worse, but may serve as a model for the United States.

British politicians have become masters and mistresses of exploiting fear. Preying with great success on public apprehensions, many of which were artificially generated, the governments of Blair and now Brown have successfully turned the "sceptered isle" into a paranoid nation of health Nazis and safety Fascists.

The Geek sets to one side the health Nazism to focus on the issue of safety and security.

Pushing the fear button of terrorism, Her Majesty's Government has put a number of liberty reducing measures into place. Since success breeds ambition, HMG now hopes to put further intrusions into place.

The most worrisome of these is the national identity card scheme.

"What's that got to do with us?" You object.

Plenty. It is not unlike the Real ID plan foisted on us in the wake of 9/11. And, like the Real ID exercise in government intrusion, it bodes well to be the nose of the camel in our private, personal tents.

OK, the real rub is that our government, in tandem with the British, is seeking to heighten our fear of shadowy figures labeled "terrorists," to put each and every one of us under greater scrutiny not only as regards actions and behaviors once thought private and personal but to examine (and, if possible) control and limit our words, or access to the words of others and even our very thoughts.

You shake your head slowly. "Come on, Geek! You're getting paranoid."

The Geek wishes that might be the case, but he can't. There are three reasons. Human nature. American history. HR 1955, "The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act."

Walk through the reasons with the Geek and see if we're in tandem when we get to the end. OK?

First of all, the nature of we humans. Fear is the primal emotion. It is the most powerful of the many to which we are all heir. It is the emotion that serves to protect us--or destroy us. Because of its power and universality, it is the best tool for those who wish to manipulate us whether genuine terrorists, advertisers, or politicians.

Another universality of human nature links with the first. Politics is all about power as the Geek has written previously. Politicians seek to maintain and expand their power over the perceptions, beliefs, and behavior of those subject to their sway.

The use of fear is an almost fail-safe way to expand the authority of government and the politicians which comprise it.

Now, let's take a short look at American history. Relatively recent history, the years after the Second World War when the greatest fear of Americans was Communism. For just over ten years, Americans were bludgeoned with fear of Communist subversives in our midst, Communist spies under our beds. It was a time of blacklists, silent lips, books not written or, if written, not published, books not read, thoughts not shared.

It was a time which bears the name of one man, Joe McCarthy, the Republican junior senator from Wisconsin.

Get a grip on this. Senator McCarthy might have given his name to this period of great fear, but he didn't manufacture--or exploit--the fear on his own. He had ample assistance from a number of bellowing stegosaurs such as Pat McCarran (D-NV) and Karl Mundt (R-SD).

(A side note: Karl Mundt once described the Constitutionally embedded rights of free press and freedom of speech as "extreme privileges," which shows the mentality of the fear provoking, power hungry politicos of a half century ago.)

Behind and above all the bloviating, hyperventilating congresswallahs was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover, his tight-suited, white-shirted Special Agents and the Feeb's extensive files fed and led the great Anti-Communist Crusade as it rolled over lives, careers, and reputations without regard to truth or honesty.

The juggernaut rolled on and on through the Fifties, the Sixties, and into the Seventies crushing almost all who sought to stand up to it, to block it, to slow its destructive careening across the American political and social landscape.

It sputtered for awhile in the late Seventies only to lurch back to a simulacrum of life in the Eighties when Ronald Reagan brought us "Morning in America." Then, finally, the Great Crusade seemed to have died for once and for all with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Heck, the Commies were gone. It was "the end of history."

Now, like one of those Nightmare on Elm Street movies, the mentality which produced the Great Anti-Communist Crusade is back. The cause of the fear may have changed but the goal remains the same.

The fear to be stoked and exploited now?

Simple: Terrorism. (Notice, that is not the actual adversary of the US or the West today. As you know, the real enemy is Islamism and its violent arm, Jihadism.)

The goal?

Equally simple: Increased governmental power over ideas, words, beliefs, and, thus, behavior.

This brings us to the third reason, the reason that links past and present, the US with the United Kingdom.

HR 1955. (There is a delicious irony to this bill number. 1955 was the year after McCarthy was censured by the Senate for disrespecting the body, but it marked an uptick in the Great Anti-Communist Crusade.)

Sponsored by Rep Jane Harman (D-CA), the bill passed the House with only six dissenting votes just over a month ago and now rests with the Senate Homeland Security and Government Operations Committee. (You might recall that Joe McCarthy gained his renown as chairman of a Government Operations subcommittee.)

Ms Harman's bill seems innocuous enough as it simply establishes a non-partisan study commission charged with investigating how radicalization might occur among Americans as well as how terrorism might become an expanded homegrown threat. It also provides for the commission to propose legislation to avert threats and for the establishment of an "Excellence Center" to continue to devise ways and means of countering homegrown terrorism and ideological radicalization.

(The entire text is available for your edification and deliction at this site if you want it fast. http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/11/25/p21365)

Legislation always looks innocuous, filled with good intentions, written to seem both rational and fear reducing. If you don't believe the Geek, take a look at the Communist Control Act or the McCarran-Walters Act. They were written to seem limited, prudential, fear reducing. In their effect they were anything but.

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act in conjunction with the hopelessly mis-named USA Patriot Act points at a future every bit as grimly marked with federal government intrusion in the words, thoughts, and behaviors of Americans as that already underway in the United Kingdom.

Privacy is central to a full, effective life. The ultimate, most basic purpose of a liberal state is to protect, jealously guard even, the rights of privacy which make a citizen a whole, self-actualizing individual.

The mantra of the Blair and Brown ministries, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear," will soon be heard here, brayed to the skies by the congresswallahs seeking to terminally undermine our God (and Constitutionally) given right of private existence.

Recently, a high ranking US intelligence official blithely declared that we Americans would have to redefine privacy given the technology currently existing. He missed the point. It is our choice what and how much of ourselves we will display to the world on the Internet. We decide how we will either expose or conceal ourselves in the virtual universe.

Our choice. Not the government's.

Freedom means the right to choose. To choose whether to be naked to the world or not.

In so far as the past is prologue, to the extent that England shows the wave of tomorrow, fear exploiting politicians will do whatever they think necessary to deny us the right of choice, the freedom to be private selves. It is up to us to stop the newest juggernaut before it crushes us all.

We don't surrender to the Jihadists. We must not surrender to fear and fear mongers in Congress.

Are Muslims The Vipers In Our Nest?

Religious beliefs formed the foundation of the United States nearly two centuries before the country came into existence. We (sort of) acknowledge that fact with our continued celebration of Thanksgiving. The original celebrants of Thanksgiving were a group of religiously intolerant fugitives from the "blasphemous" air of Anglican polluted England.

Make no mistake about it. The Puritans saw themselves as the only "real" Christians. In their estimate the Church of England was as un-Christian as the hated Roman Catholic Church. Nor were they any more willing to accept any other "dissenting" groups such as the Quakers or the motley bunch assembled around Roger Williams in the Rhode Island Colony.

The Puritans came to New England to hold themselves "pure" and prepare for a return to the "world" in order to redeem it when God so directed.

So, they drank, fornicated, repented every Sunday and went back to drinking and fornicating with the occasional time out to hunt "witches." A nice Godly crew, right?

Religious intolerance continued well into our collective national history as shown by the anti-Catholic bias that continued through (and beyond) the Nineteenth Century. The Democratic Party was branded as the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" after the Civil War, and the distrust of Catholics continued into the Twentieth Century as seen in the campaigns of Al Smith in 1928 and John Kennedy thirty-two years later.

In recent years the Christian Right has brought back the fires of the Puritan witch hunts in at least metaphorical form with judicial and political litmus tests which subordinate economic and other considerations to an amorphous mass dubbed "values." These "values" whether a position on women's rights to control their reproductive lives, the relations between people of the same (or opposite) sex, or stem cell research have taken pride of place over such matters as the ways in which our tax money might be spent or even the issue of war and peace.

H. Rap Brown once said that violence was as American as apple pie. He might have more accurately averred that religious bigotry and myopia were as American as cherry pie.

Now we have to face the bedrock of religious belief and its perversion in a more concrete and potentially threatening way. We have to take a hard and long look at the position of Muslims in American society.

Muslims currently make up only a small percentage of the American population. However that percentage is bound to grow, perhaps significantly given immigration and the increased number of conversions, particularly among Americans of African ancestry.

Europe has already been faced with the difficulties of an increasing number of Muslims. We must not only observe--and learn, we must also examine how Islamic jurists define the responsibilities of a Muslim living in a non-Muslim country.

For a start, take a look at http://www.meforum.org/article/1761. The author gives a well-balanced synopsis of the state of play regarding the determinations offered by various Islamic clerics/jurists on the relationship between the Muslim and the non-Islamic society in which he lives.

Douglas Farah offers a less-than-positive stance on this article in his post (which is reposted on the Counterterrorism Blog) http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/278/in-some-ways-the-crux-of-the-matter.com. He emphasizes the duty laid upon Muslims to consolidate their position and seek the creation of a global Islamic state.

The creation of a new, presumably global, caliphate is the end goal of Islamism. Various Islamist writers from Qutb to bin Laden have made this clear. Further, whether Islamist or not, the assorted Islamic jurists and clerics have asserted that the corrupt, decadent West will and must accept Islam.

In a similar way, Islamic clerics and jurists of all stripes agree that the first loyalty of a Muslim is to Islam, not the state. This is not a restatement in updated terminology of the old canard held to be true for so long in the US that the first loyalty of a Catholic is to the Pope and not the State. The Islamic community is held to be an alternative to the nation-state, a superior option which can and will be brought into existence thus replacing the Western invention.

Politically articulate and aware Americans would be well-advised to study Islamic formulations regarding the relation of Muslim and state. Each of us must reach a well-founded position on this critical matter. Unless we do so we face two dangers. Each is as bad as the other.

The first is that Muslims who reject our view of separation of religious community and secular state will be able to use the liberties of our Constitution and political system to our ultimate disadvantage.

The other is that we Americans will dip deep into our well of religious bigotry and intolerance to make judgments and take actions which will do us long term harm.

It is a long, hard, and winding road between the idiocy of mindless, uncritical multiculturalism on one side and base bigotry on the other. Finding the road requires judgement based on knowledge. Keeping on it requires a clear awareness of who we are and what we are all about.

Is The Islamist War Getting Wider--And Longer?

The prime difficulty with fighting a limited war in support of policy is that both sides have to agree to keep the show under control.

In the Korean War, which should be seen as the prototype of modern period limited war, that was the case. The US along with the USSR and the PRC wanted to keep the war limited in space and means.

None of the three saw any advantage in widening the war geographically. As a result, the US did not bomb north of the Yalu river even though airbases there were sanctuaries for North Korean and PRC fighters. In an often overlooked quid for the American quo, neither the PRC nor the North Koreans attempted to interfere with the lines of communication between Japan and South Korea.

The Soviet Union may have made a mistake when Joe Stalin gave the thumbs-up to the North Korean plan for a quick war in the South, but it did not worsen the error by seeking horizontal escalation at a place and time of its choosing. The US leadership fretted over the Soviet potential but finally came to the realization that it wasn't going to happen.

Another non-starter was the desire expressed by the American proconsul in Asia, Douglas MacArthur, to either "turn Chaing loose" or to go ahead on our own and dump atom bombs on Chinese targets. MacArthur's vision of both horizontal and vertical escalation across the nuclear threshold had a fair measure of support among some of the more stegosaurian types in Congress, the press, and the public.

The politically beleaguered Truman Administration kept on course. Korea was not a crusade of roll-back. It was a carefully limited war in support of one particular policy--containment.

The Korean War was seen symmetrically by the three major powers. By the tacit agreement of congruent national interests, the war was kept limited in scope, means, and goals.

The current administration has shown itself completely gripless concerning the nature of limited war. Or, if you prefer a more sinister interpretation of the past six years, it has shown itself to have no interest in limiting the wars which we are fighting.

The Geek admits that the second, the sinister, interpretation is implied by the grandiose and completely out-of-touch-with-reality phrase, "global war on terrorism." Even so, the Geek cannot pump up enough paranoia to make the charge.

The invasion of Afghanistan could, charitably, be characterised as a limited war in support of policy. At least the goal was limited: Eliminate the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The geographic scope was limited. The means were limited.

Arguably the goal and means were too limited...

"What's that!" You interrupt.

The Geek believes a case can be made for contending our goals and means were too limited in the beginning of our Afghan adventure. The interlocking, negative goals of eliminating Taliban and al-Qaeda were necessary but not sufficient.

The accomplishment of either or both of the negative goals required the setting and accomplishment of a complementary positive goal. Afghanistan would have to be (re)constituted as a functioning social-economic-political entity. As is so often the case in life, the positive goal would be far harder to accomplish than the negative.

The limitation of means, specifically the refusal of the current administration to deploy sufficient troops, assured that not even the negative goal could be accomplished. The replacement of men by technology, of boots on the ground by Tomahawks from submarines, made sure that both Taliban and al-Qaeda would be damaged but not destroyed.

Machiavelli wisely counseled the Prince not to leave any wounded enemies. The current administration developed and executed a plan of overly limited war on the cheap that created wounded enemies in wholesale lots.

Not only was the attack on Afghanistan too limited in goal and means, it was too limited in scope.

Before you squawk in outrage, let the Geek continue, please. As the desperately flawed endgame strategy of the Reagan Administration demonstrated, it is impossible to achieve anything in Afghanistan without considering Pakistan.

The current administration should have known this. All the information was right there. In the archives as well as in the living memories of individuals who had played key roles in the denouement of the American proxy war in Afghanistan during the Reagan-Bush years.

Taliban was the creation of Pakistan. The Islamists of the Zia al-Huq period in Pakistan made sure that this "Student" organization came into existence; that it was supported; that it gained military ascendancy over rivals in the Afghan internal wars.

There were two reasons for this "tilt to Taliban" approach within the government and military of Pakistan. One was ideological--Islamism to be precise. The other was the perceived need for "strategic depth" to the north and west against the threat to the east and south--India.

The second reason may seem idiotic from the perspective of the US, but it had (and has) power within the Pakistani government and military. This perceived strategic need links directly, even intimately, with the ideological cause.

India has a potent advantage over Pakistan in geographic area, population, and economic strength. In all the features of "hard" power, India has it all over Pakistan. The only possible counter to this advantage was the increase of Pakistan's resources in territory, population, and, most importantly, the social/cultural/political coherence of its human assets.

If Pakistan could extend its sway over not only Afghanistan but potentially beyond that region into the Islamic societies of at least some of the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, it could off-set many of the Indian advantages. The off-set could be made even more potent if the Islamic population could be made coherent by ideology--Islamism.

This strain of thinking gave rise to the Pakistani support of Taliban as well as the efforts of A.Q. Khan. The combination of Islamism and nuclear proliferation would do much to assure that Pakistan would have superiority when the bell rang for the next round of Indian-Pakistani fighting. (It might even make war unnecessary as the Indians realized the shift in what the Soviets used to call the "correlation of forces.")

Instead of taking a long, hard, cold look at the realities of Pakistan and its international politics before sending Tomahawks to Kabul, the current administration simply assumed that the new military strongman in Islamabad, General Musharraf, would be a staunch ally in the effort. It kept on with the long standing, and not particularly well advised, policy of tilting toward Pakistan.

Gosh, the Geek knows that the Indian government to say nothing of particular personalities within that government can be extremely annoying. India has a long record of irritating US administrations going all the way back to that of Harry Truman. Just because the lads (and lassies) in New Delhi have been aggravating doesn't mean they are threatening to either the United States or Pakistan.

By overly limiting goals, means, and geographic scope to the war in Afghanistan, the US assured that the war could not remain limited. It would spill over into Pakistan whether we or the government of Pakistan wanted it to. Over time, the spill over would be of such magnitude as to threaten the continued existence of the Musharraf regime.

None of what is happening right now in Pakistan should have come as a surprise to anyone with even a cursory understanding of the region's history over the past fifty years. The way in which the current administration planned and executed its invasion of Afghanistan kicked the rock over the edge. Now we are seeing the avalanche.

Had the US not invaded Iraq it might have been able to retrieve the situation in Afghanistan by putting enough boots on the ground. The Geek believes this would have been unlikely. By the time the current administration would have realised that the "shock and awe" approach to limited, unconventional war didn't work, Taliban and al-Qaeda would have already gone to ground in the Tribal Agency areas of Pakistan.

The choice would have been between sending the new boots to Pakistan or depending on military assistance to the Pakistanis to boost their ability to fight the Islamist groups on their own territory. The highest probability is that the current administration would have taken the latter course.

In short, we would have done in Pakistan what we have been doing. With the same results. Inevitably the war would have widened. And lengthened.

As it was, the current administration opted for horizontal escalation by invading Iraq. Not surprisingly, the opposition, the Islamists, have sought horizontal escalation of their own.

There is no doubt that the war with the Islamists which was forced upon us on 9/11 will widen more. This will occur whether or not the current administration takes military action in Iran.

What's the lesson in all of this?

Simple. Define the political goals, both negative and positive which will bring about a better state of peace from at least the American perspective. Limit the geographic scope of the war by correctly understanding not only the dynamics in play within the target country but between it and other regional actors. Use means that will allow the accomplishment of the goals within the limited geographic scope of the war. Finally, it is necessary that goals and means combine to effectively deny the opposition the opportunity to seek horizontal escalation.

If a country (us in this case) can't define goals, scope, and means such as to assure a better state of peace is achieved rapidly enough to prevent horizontal escalation; if coinciding national interests cannot be at least tacitly enlisted to hinder horizontal escalation, then don't go to war. Find some other way to project national power so that the goal might be achieved.

Did Musharraf Have Another Choice? Do We?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sounds good, right?

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

And, now for the kicker.

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

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

Wrong!

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

Phooey!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ayman al-Zawahiri Raises The Stakes

Physcian turned al-Qaeda strategist, al-Zawahiri comes on hot and heavy in his hot off the recorder tape today. While the linkage between al-Qaeda and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) is not exactly a recent development despite what many mainstream media reports indicate, the tape is interesting. Perhaps important. Perhaps even very important.

For good reason, Americans focus on the Mideast. Like a precision guided munition on steroids, we keep an unblinking eye on Iraq. A blinking eye on Afghanistan. An occasionally opened eye on Israel.

For Americans, the huge swath of North Africa doesn't exist.

For Islamists and Jihadists, North Africa is a wide open theater of operations not yet properly exploited. That is the real importance of the new al-Zawahiri tape.

In it the man in the shadows behind Supreme Icon bin Laden names the new targets: Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco. None of these are unimportant little geographic pimples on the map of Africa. None are without recent experience with Islamist threats.

Algeria came within a gnat's eyebrow of voting in an Islamist regime a few years ago. The coup-by-election was forestalled by the Algerian armed forces. Blood flowed fast and hard. While the flow has slackened to a comparative trickle, the combat continues in the souks and in the mountain villages alike.

Tunisia has not been a monument to stability either. The Islamists are alive, well, and killing someone nearly every day. The Tunisian government barely survived the turbulence brought by Arafat and company when they transferred from Lebanon to Tunisia twenty some years ago. Arafat and his coterie of gunslingers and bombthowers have long since departed but not the fissures they left behind.

Libya is not as stable as it once was. Gaddafi is getting on in years. His years of drug use have taken a toll on mind and body alike. The unifying pressure once conveniently supplied by American opposition has faded into the mists of the Cold War. His state security bureau is no where near as efficient as it was back when the East German Stazi provided necessary training and advice. Worst of all, Gaddafi blinked--hard--when we invaded Iraq, (The Colonel didn't need us bombing his tent again.)

Out in the Libyan desert, between the oil pumps and tanks, the Islamists mutter and the Jihadists plot.

Quite recently Morocco has been the scene of several dramatic, if relatively under covered by the mainstream media, acts of Jihadist terror. King Mohammed sits on a throne every bit as unstable as that occupied by King Abdullah of the House of Sand.

Al-Zawahiri is well aware of the weaknesses present in all of these countries. He seeks to exploit them for the benefit of the Islamist cause.

Let's listen in.

"Islamic nation of resistance and jihad in the Maghreb, see how your children are uniting under the banner of Islam and jihad against the United States, France and Spain."

Later the ex-doctor added, "Support... your children in fighting our enemies and cleansing our lands of their slaves (Moamer) Kadhafi, Zine El Abidine (Ben Ali), (President Abdelaziz) Bouteflika and (King) Mohammed VI." The quotes are from the French press agency's translation, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gwwodPc1iWAWogDHpT0pFoMr9bWw.

France, Italy, and Spain all have more directly threatened interests in the countries on al-Zawahiri's little list. Oil leads the list, of course. Beyond that, the European states have wider economic interests which gradate into strategic military and political concerns. All must also view with a fair degree of disquietude the prospect of absorbing a refugee flood if terror attacks rise to a critical level.

The question of economic destabilization as well as that of refugee generation must raise some alarm throughout the European Union. The issue of Muslim immigration is not exactly a below the radar scope matter in most EU members right now.

Islamists have a real need to spread Jihadism beyond its current venues. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been checked--severely. Taliban and its adherents are under increasing pressure in Afghanistan. Pushed by the recent upsurge in Islamist/Jihadist activities, the Pakistani strongman has taken the extreme action of declaring a State of Emergency. It is too early to see how this might play out.

The potential for Pakistani collapse may be high but no one can safely bet that the US would stand by merely wringing its hands. Whether or not the US finds itself deep in the Pakistani morass, the Islamist cause is best helped by horizontal escalation of its war on the West.

That consideration probably lies behind the al-Zawahiri call to Fatah to both overthrow the PA chieftain, Abbas, and join with al-Qaeda and LIFG in one big war.

Horizontal escalation is (or should be) the single greatest nightmare of the deep thinkers in the current administration and the war planners in the Pentagon. In the past, the potential of Soviet horizontal escalation served to inhibit US policy makers and executors alike. (It was one of those if-we-do-this-in-Asia, the Soviets can do something in Berlin considerations.)

So far, the current administration and its critics have been notably silent on the horizontal escalation potential in the "global war on terrorism." There seems to have been some sort of unjustified assumption that we and only we had the initiative in this war.

We made the same mistake in Vietnam. It was one of the main reasons we were shocked to the depths of our collective political will by the Tet Offensive in 1968.

There is no need to be shocked now. The brains of al-Qaeda, the only one of the leadership cadre who might deserve to be termed a political-military strategist, al-Zawahiri, has announced the intent to escalate the war horizontally at a place of the enemy's choosing.

Iran is not the only game in town. Neither is Israel and the West Bank/Gaza Strip.

The current administration and its neocon ninnie supporters need to get a grip on that.

Al-Zawahiri has made that clear. Whether we like it or not, the game will widen.