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Fighting & Winning The Global War on Terror (WW IV)

48Highlander said:
Sure, have it your way, no terrorists have ever crossed into the US from Canada except for Ressam.  The Americans are having a fit over nothing.  Canada in fact has a GREAT legal system, a WONDERFULL immigration system, and the Liberals are the BEST government we could EVER hope for.  Oh yeah, and anything printed in the National Post is gospel, whereas anything in the NRO or Fox News is, ofcourse, horrible lies by those evil republicans.

I don't know man, if I'm going to go to either extreme I think I'd prefer to go the other way.  At least the yanks are getting things done, wether or not the results turn out the way they intended.  It's much better than the indifference and complacancy shown towards most problems by our own government.

Now why would you say that?  Does criticising one extreme imply that the exact opposite must be true?  Talk about jumping to conclusions.  ::)

As Obi-wan would say, "Only the Sith deal in Absolutes!"
 
Infanteer said:
Now why would you say that?   Does criticising one extreme imply that the exact opposite must be true?   Talk about jumping to conclusions.   ::)

As Obi-wan would say, "Only the Sith deal in Absolutes!"

Yes master.  Yet the dark side tempts one so.

Alright, so I was being a bit facetious.  Just saying if I HAVE to pick an extreme, I'd rather go far right wing and start blowing away anything that may be a threat then go far left and live the remaining 10 minutes of my life with my head in the sand.  Personaly I prefer to stay centered.

Common sense and past experience tell us we have an axtremely pourous border, very lax immigration policies, and a multitude of terrorist orgaizations working within our borders.  I'm not sure what Acorn is trying to prove, other than that we tend to assume more terrorists have gone to the US from here than is actualy provable.
 
Meanwhile, in one of the active theaters:

http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens200511070904.asp

the publication of a letter from al Qaeda's number-two official, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the bandit-in-chief of al Qaeda in Iraq, which lays out al Qaeda's long-range plan for Iraq and the rest of the region. According to the Washington Post of October 7:

The letter of instructions and requests outlines a four-stage plan, according to officials: First, expel American forces from Iraq. Second, establish a caliphate over as much of Iraq as possible. Third, extend the jihad to neighboring countries, with specific reference to Egypt and the Levant â ” a term that describes Syria and Lebanon. And finally, war against Israel.

The article continues:

. . . bin Laden's deputy also purportedly makes clear that the war would not end with an American withdrawal and that anything other than religious rule in Iraq would be dangerous. "And it is that the Mujaheddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal. We will return to having the secularists and traitors holding sway over us," the letter reportedly says.

We are beholden to al-Zawahiri for reminding us why the stakes in Iraq are so high.

This also ties in somewhat with the situation in France, where Islamic rioters are attempting to drive out the French Government from their areas. Purportedly local "Islamic Leaders" are trying to tell the French government to back off with the police and allow them to establish order in these neighbourhoods. Although there is no evidence that the Jihadis or their friends are directly involved, this certainly expands the scope of things, and if there is some help or direction from AQ or Iran, then it indicates they are attempting to mount an asymmetrical offensive against the West (a big if, of course).

The real danger is that the Jihadis will move in and establish themselves in the resulting power vaccum in the French neighbourhoods, just as they are attempting to establish themselves as the primary power by attacking legitimate leaders and symbols of authoraty, and destroying economic infrastructure to breed misery and expand their potential recruiting pool in Iraq.
 
48Highlander said:
Alright, so I was being a bit facetious.   Just saying if I HAVE to pick an extreme, I'd rather go far right wing and start blowing away anything that may be a threat then go far left and live the remaining 10 minutes of my life with my head in the sand.   Personaly I prefer to stay centered.

Facetious? How about silly? Where can you possibly conclude that my comments come anywhere near this:
Sure, have it your way, no terrorists have ever crossed into the US from Canada except for Ressam.  The Americans are having a fit over nothing.  Canada in fact has a GREAT legal system, a WONDERFULL immigration system, and the Liberals are the BEST government we could EVER hope for.  Oh yeah, and anything printed in the National Post is gospel, whereas anything in the NRO or Fox News is, ofcourse, horrible lies by those evil republicans.

Your reading comprehension is severely clouded by your assumptions and bias. I am suprised at the comment agains the NP, though I suppose its new role as a Liberal Party house organ is the root of that. Any Canadian papers impress you? (Please don't say anything from the Sun chain....)

Common sense and past experience tell us we have an axtremely pourous border, very lax immigration policies, and a multitude of terrorist orgaizations working within our borders.   I'm not sure what Acorn is trying to prove, other than that we tend to assume more terrorists have gone to the US from here than is actualy provable.

We have a pourous border between us an the US. Any lgical suggestions on how to fix that? Lax immigration policies? All right smart guy, what are those policies and why are they lax? Maybe if you know that you can suggest solutions rather than just slag the system.

A "multitude" of terrorist organizations? What constitues a terrorist organisation?

What I'm trying to "prove" is that we need a little more critical thought, a little less bias-driven assumption. Otherwise you're just a mirror image of Naomi Klein - still biased and "lying with statistics" just at the other end of the political spectrum. The National Review needs as much a jaundiced look as the Toronto (Red) Star.
 
Acorn said:
Facetious? How about silly? Where can you possibly conclude that my comments come anywhere near this:

Where?   Um...how 'bout in what you wrote?   You asked what terrorists have crossed into the US from the Canadian side, other than Ressam.   To me, that indicates you beleive he was the only one.   You whined about "people on this site" treating the National Review as gospel while denigrating anything from the National Post (neither of which is truthful mind you), so I figgured you'd like it the other way around.   AND you complained about knee-jerk slagging of anything Canadian, so I figgured I'd throw in some compliments about our government etc.   So yes, facetious is the correct word, although silly fits too.   But at least I didn't try to compare terrorism with immigration rates   ;D

Acorn said:
We have a pourous border between us an the US. Any lgical suggestions on how to fix that? Lax immigration policies? All right smart guy, what are those policies and why are they lax? Maybe if you know that you can suggest solutions rather than just slag the system.

I've been suggesting solutions for years but nobody's been listening.   Really, coming up with "solutions" isn't even all that neccesary - I don't need the system massively changed, I'd just like them to apply a bit of common sense.   When a boat load of Chinese immigrants arrives on our shores, it generaly might be a bad idea to say "hey, listen guys, we're a little swamped with immigration hearings right now, so we're going to cut you lose for a while.   but make sure you show up for YOUR hearing!".   Then there's the idiotic quota systems which bring in individuals with next to no usable work or language skills from one country, while turning down educated proffesionals from another.   Followed by our refusal to reckognize equivalences in several fields including medical, which leads to fully qualified doctors working as janitors.   And there's deffinitely something wrong with a system where a deportation hearing takes over a year during which time the deportee receives publicaly funded legal council and can continue to live off the welfare system.   Ofcourse we also have problems actually getting deported individuals to STAY OUT.   I've lost track of how many times I've read about a criminal getting arrested for commiting a crime who had already been deported several times.

So you want solutions?   Refugee claimants show up and we're too busy to proccess 'em?   Send 'em back!   Hire more immigrations workers for future cases, but in the meanwhile get rid of the problem.   Can't seem to keep deportees out of the country?   Get better screening procedures.   There's so many things that could be improved just by applying some common sense!


Acorn said:
A "multitude" of terrorist organizations? What constitues a terrorist organisation?

Now we're REALLY getting silly

Acorn said:
What I'm trying to "prove" is that we need a little more critical thought, a little less bias-driven assumption. Otherwise you're just a mirror image of Naomi Klein - still biased and "lying with statistics" just at the other end of the political spectrum. The National Review needs as much a jaundiced look as the Toronto (Red) Star.

On that we can agree, however, a little bias isn't a bad thing.   I know that articles in both the NRO and the Star are likely to be inaccurate, so I tend to disregaurd them if I see contrary information from a more reliable source.   Similarily, when I hear about a problem in Canada with crime or immigration or something similar, I tend to beleive it untill I see evidence to the contrary.   Sure, it's a beleif grounded almost exclusively in bias, but so are most things that people beleive.
 
You know, I normally don't find you this obtuse. I was going to post a long rebuttal, but I figured if you got this much wrong:
Where?  Um...how 'bout in what you wrote?  You asked what terrorists have crossed into the US from the Canadian side, other than Ressam.  To me, that indicates you beleive he was the only one.  You whined about "people on this site" treating the National Review as gospel while denigrating anything from the National Post (neither of which is truthful mind you), so I figgured you'd like it the other way around.  AND you complained about knee-jerk slagging of anything Canadian, so I figgured I'd throw in some compliments about our government etc.  So yes, facetious is the correct word, although silly fits too.  But at least I didn't try to compare terrorism with immigration rates 
Your inability to check your work, even from posts that are on the same page or only one page back, indicates that you need a little seasoning. Get your poop in one sock son. My writing wasn't that unclear.
 
You seem to be arguing something with Acorn but I can't figure out what it is.  Make your point and substantiate it with fact or quit chewing bandwidth up.
 
A description of operations along the Iraq/Syria border. There are lessons to be learned for us as well, substitute Afghanistan/Pakistan border and I think very similar conditions apply:

http://www.nationalreview.com/smitht/smith200511210820.asp

The Badlands of Al Anbar
Cutting the ratlines and quashing the insurgency in Western Iraq.

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Insurgencies are not put down in a fortnight. But considering the successes in the recent counter-insurgency sweep in Iraq's Al Anbar Province, one fact becomes obvious to anyone with so much as a sliver of an understanding of ground combat operations: Eliminating the insurgency in Iraq is best left to those who best know how to do it.
   
Not the White House: Americans learned the hard way in both Vietnam and the Iranian desert that the Oval Office should never call the tactical shots once forces are committed to action. President Bush understands this, and thus â ” to all of our benefit â ” does not micromanage his commanders in the field.

Certainly not the House and Senate: Many on Capitol Hill seem more concerned about scoring points with their stateside constituencies than they are the Marines and soldiers who must battle the enemy on the ground. And make no mistake, the ground along the Euphrates River valley and up along the Syrian border has been the stage of an ongoing series of running gun-battles between insurgents and coalition troops for months.

Therein lies the obvious: The troops on the ground, taking the fight to the enemy, are the ones who best know how to quash the insurgency. They are doing so systematically. The proof is in the results of their work (whether opponents of the war want to believe it or not), and the vast majority of those troops express no intention of abandoning that country with work to be done.


STEEL CURTAIN
Much of the most recent "work" is within the realm of Operation Steel Curtain, launched Nov. 5 against a string of villages and townships along the Iraqi-Syrian frontier. Steel Curtain is a subordinate operation to the larger, ongoing Operation Hunter, which began in July when U.S. and Iraqi forces began sweeping the Euphrates River valley with the dual-goal of cutting the insurgent ratlines from Syria and establishing a permanent Iraqi military presence in the Al Qaim region.

Success has been achieved in both cutting the lines and bolstering the presence. Additionally, nearly 40 weapons caches have been discovered and destroyed in just over two weeks, and civilian residents of the region are now leaving displacement (refugee) camps and returning to their homes.

But what makes Steel Curtain different from previous actions is that an increasing number of al Qaeda senior leaders are being captured or killed (a sign that the number of insurgent junior leaders and foot soldiers is decreasing), more outlaw towns and villages are being liberated (thanks to human-source intelligence from residents disgusted by what the insurgents are doing to their country), and a greater number of Iraqi soldiers are taking the lead in both scouting operations and offensive actions.

The biggest problem remains the porous borders.


THE EUPHRATES RATLINES
"The Syrian border is full of active smuggler routes that have been in use for centuries," says Lt. Col. Bryan P. McCoy, who commanded 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines in the Al Anbar Province during the invasion phase as well as the spring 2004 Fallujah operations. "During Saddam's era, they were used by black marketeers and Bedouin nomads. Now they are used by the insurgents."

McCoy, who currently serves as operations officer for the Marine Corps Training and Education Command, tells National Review Online, the smuggling routes are connected by a network of way-stations covering a vast region: Some border stretches are rural and isolated. Others are developed and populated.

Of course, such an environment is conducive to the infiltration of foreign fighters and weapons, as well as the exfiltration of terrorists, regrouping guerrilla units, weapons merchants, and, yes, any type of weapon or weapons system Saddam Hussein might have wanted out of Iraq in 2003.

The question is not so much how to shut down the border crossings â ” there are simply too many â ” but how best to interdict the border crossers.

"The issue becomes persistent surveillance and a persistent presence over a very large area," McCoy says. "Meanwhile, you have to have a presence in the towns and cities, which â ” due to the dense and dissected nature of that terrain â ” requires a lot of people."

It's a simple question of numbers, he adds: "You're either in one place or you're in the other. The insurgents and the smugglers know where you are, and where you are not.
And they use that information to their advantage."


Nevertheless, Steel Curtain has freed the towns of Husaybah, Karabilah, and â ” as I write this â ” Coalition forces are rooting out the insurgents in Ubaydi. And with more Iraqi infantry companies coming online, a permanent security presence is being established in the region. "We have taken out a significant chunk of the al Qaeda leadership in these areas," Capt. Patrick Kerr, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division in Ramadi, tells NRO. "We believe these operations out west and the frequent disruption operations we are conducting throughout the province â ” such as in Ramadi and Fallujah â ” have severely impacted the insurgents' ability to fight."


THE BAD GUYS
The insurgents operating in the Euphrates River corridor are a mixed bag. Though reports vary from think tank to agency to commanders on the ground, most agree that many of the guerrilla leaders are al Qaeda Sunnis, whom U.S. forces officially refer to as al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The AQI guerrillas are led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Others are al Qaeda or AQI-sympathizing foreigners from various points throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Some are Hezbollah. Some Hamas. Some are Chechen, considered by many Marines and soldiers to be the toughest fighters in the insurgency. Many bad guys are simply poorly trained locals who have been whipped into a frenzy by older, more seasoned terrorists. Unfortunately, most of the young locals wind up as suicide bombers or as opium-pumped members of "sacrifice squads."

Insurgent tactics run the gamut from Banzai-like suicide charges launched by the small "sacrifice squads" screaming "Allahu Akbar!" as they attack Marine riflemen â ” suicide indeed â ” to wiring houses and other buildings with bombs, taking families hostage (specifically using women and children as human shields), kidnapping children to force parents into compliance, and detonating bombs in civilian crowds.

In all cases, weapons are plentiful: Assault rifles, light machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), mortars, and the biggest casualty producer of them all, the improvised explosive device (IED). The bad guys also have laptop computers, portable GPS receivers, cell and satellite phones, but almost no night-vision equipment.

Further east, toward Baghdad, the insurgency is similar in terms of weapons and tactics â ” as evidenced by Friday's horrific mosque bombings and Saturday's attack on a funeral procession â ” but has its roots stretching north into Iran.


CROSSDRESSING GUERRILLAS
Despite the dangers encountered in operations like Steel Curtain, U.S. and Iraqi forces are also enjoying what they see as desperate, even "comical," incidents on the part of AQI-insurgents, whom the Marines have dubbed "the mighty jihadi warriors."

In more than one instance â ” and to the delight of American and Iraqi troops â ” insurgents have been caught attempting to flee the battlefield dressed as women: Considered a particularly disgraceful act among Iraqis.

"They've proven to be cowards," says Kerr. "We found a number of them skulking among a flock of sheep trying to escape in Ubaydi, and there have been several instances of insurgents dressing up as women trying to escape."

In one instance, Iraqi soldiers discovered three foreign fighters dressed as women trying to enter an Iraqi displacement camp. "The Iraqi soldiers wound up killing them after the insurgents revealed their identity and tried to engage the Iraqi soldiers with AK-47s hidden under their dresses," says Kerr.


THE SCOUT PLATOONS
Currently, the Iraqi security forces are comprised of more than 200,000 Iraqi soldiers and paramilitary policemen. Of that number, some 15,000 Iraqi soldiers are operating in Al Anbar, and approximately 1,000 of those soldiers have been fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with 2,500 U.S. Marines, sailors, and soldiers in Steel Curtain. That's 10-times the 100 Iraqi soldiers who participated in Operation Spear, also in Al Anbar, in June.

Many of the current numbers have been recruited locally where insurgents are now losing both face and ground. And many of the new recruits are serving in specially trained Scout Platoons (also known as "Desert Protectors"), hearkening back to the 19th-century American plains Indians who served as scouts with U.S. Army cavalry units. Like the Native American scouts in the Wild West, Iraqi scouts in Al Anbar are prized by U.S. forces for their courage, navigational skills, ability to relate with tribal leaders, and an understanding of local customs and dialects.

According to Kerr, the scouts and Iraqi infantry have had a huge impact on the success of Steel Curtain. "They have been the biggest difference between this operation and past operations in the area," he says. "They see things that U.S. forces just do not see. They recognize those who do not belong, and they are every bit as committed to eliminating the insurgency as their coalition counterparts."


Steel Curtain is the first operation in which Iraqi Scout Platoons have been deployed.

A surge in recruiting numbers in untamed regions like the Al Anbar Province is not the only measure of progress American commanders are seeing within the Iraqi military. Iraqi units are performing well operationally, and Iraqi soldiers are now almost always the vanguard units kicking down the doors on any given mission. Still there are challenges for U.S. forces standing up the Iraqi units.


A CULTURE OF "SHAME AND HONOR"
"My biggest frustration is that they still operate under a centralized decision-making process," U.S. Army Col. Michael Cloy, a Fort Jackson, S.C.-based brigade commander and the senior military advisor for the 2nd Iraqi Army (Light) Infantry Division in Mosul, tells NRO. "Many of their subordinate leaders, even at division level, are tentative in their decision making for that reason. They will always look up for permission as opposed to operating on initiative. That's due to the fact that they've been beaten down for years. If anybody was seen as displaying initiative in the past, they were usually done away with."

Cloy says he and his officers are effectively coaching the Iraqi military officers on the various particulars of leadership â ” especially when poor examples of decision-making are witnessed â ” but with a gentle hand.

"We will pull the officer off to the side, but we have to be careful," says Cloy. "In this culture of shame and honor, you do not want to embarrass anybody. Sometimes we have to step back and repair the relationship."

Iraqis are learning to fight for themselves, and they're proving their worth as combat soldiers daily in operations like Steel Curtain. But the learning process is "slow and deliberate," says Cloy. "These things take time."


THE CUT-AND-RUN CROWD
Of course many â ” who, again, don't understand the complexities of ground combat â ” rail against President Bush for not conceding "defeat" and withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. But how could we responsibly withdraw from a fight â ” that terrorists and terror-sponsoring nations fear we will win â ” when we have the enemy on the ropes? Why should we shut down operations in Al Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq when we continue to glean solid intelligence from captured foreign fighters in that country about terrorist activities, worldwide? Why should we abandon a new nation and its people who we've made promises to, and they've responded in kind with their own enormous sacrifices and courageous votes? And why should we abandon a growing and remarkably developed military force that we've stood up from scratch in less than three years?

And despite what the cut-and-run crowd would have us believe, American troops on the ground are not deceptively recruited pawns in some unfortunate military adventure. U.S. soldiers and Marines in Al Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq know exactly what they are doing, and why. They also see the fruits of their labors, which, to their consternation, are rarely reported.

Speaking before a group of U.S. airmen in South Korea, Saturday, President Bush said, "There are some who say that the sacrifice is too great, and they urged us to set a date for withdrawal before we have completed our mission. Those who are in the fight know better."

Indeed, says Capt. Kerr, "We have the initiative and we intend to keep driving hard against these guys [insurgents]. Our goal is to stay on the offensive and capitalize on the considerable momentum we have."

â ” A former U.S. Marine infantry leader and paratrooper, W. Thomas Smith Jr. writes about military issues and has covered conflict in the Balkans and on the West Bank. He is the author of four books, and his articles appear in a variety of publications.

The enemy is also concerned that they might be overtaken by events, as illustrated in this letter:

a letter from al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri to Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, dated July 9, 2005. In this letter, Zawahiri reminds Zarqawi that the war does not end with the expulsion of the American from Iraq. The danger is that the Americans might cut and run before Zarqawi is ready to fill the vacuum.

The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam-and how they ran and left their agents-is noteworthy. Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them. We must take the initiative and impose a fait accompli upon our enemies, instead of the enemy imposing one on us, wherein our lot would be to merely resist their schemes.

 
More for the repository. The expansion of the ME Theater of Operation is certainly being resisted within the administration by the State Department and DOD certainly has resource constraints which might make a full scale military offensive impractical, but as the author points out, there are some possible alternatives:

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200511230844.asp

Engage!
If you want to win the debate, win the war.

More than three years ago, prior to the liberation of Iraq, I lamented that our great national debate on the war against terrorism was the wrong debate, because it was "about using our irresistible military might against a single country in order to bring down its leader, when we should be talking about using all our political, moral, and military genius to support a vast democratic revolution to liberate the peoples of the Middle East from their tyrannical rulers. That is our real mission, the essence of the war in which we are engaged, and the proper subject of our national debate."

The proper debate has still not been engaged, and the administration's failure to lead it bespeaks a grave failure of strategic vision. The war was narrowly aimed against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. But, as President Bush himself said after 9/11, it was logically and properly a war against both the terrorists themselves and against the regimes that foster, support, arm, train, indoctrinate, and guide the terrorist legions who are clamoring for our destruction.

Following the defeat of the Taliban, there were four such regimes: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia. They were the true terror masters, without whose active support the terrorist groups would have been unable to mount a global jihad. They had â ” and the surviving three still have â ” two common denominators: all actively support terrorism in one way or another, and all are tyrannies.

Contrary to much of today's conventional wisdom, they did not all rest on religious fanaticism: Saddam had no religious standing, having come to power as a secular socialist, and the Assad family dictatorship has similar origins. They are not all Arabs: The Iranians (aside from a small minority in the south), would bridle at that misidentification. All share a common hatred for the Western world and unconcealed contempt for their own peoples, knowing full well that their oppressed citizens are a threat to their power and authority.

It is no accident that the terror masters work together, notwithstanding the oft-overstated differences between Arabs and Persians, and Sunnis and Shiites. The Syrians and Iranians worked hand-in-mailed-glove for years, supporting Hezbollah and other terror groups in occupied Lebanon. Nearly a decade before the overthrow of the shah of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini's fanatical Shiite Revolutionary Guards were trained in Lebanon by the Sunni terrorists of Yasser Arafat's al Fatah. They are working together today, to kill Iraqis and Coalition soldiers.

The most dangerous, and paradoxically the most vulnerable, of the terror masters was, and likely still is, Iran. Most everyone agrees that Iran played a unique role in the terror war that has been waged against the United States for nearly a quarter-century. According to the State Department's annual survey, Iran has long been the world's leading sponsor of international terror. Both Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are Iranian creations and clients, which is why Imad Mugniyah of Hezbollah and Aywan al Zawahiri of Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda keep showing up in Tehran, along with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of the jihad in Iraq who had operated out of Tehran for many years. Unsurprisingly, the 9/11 Commission found hard evidence of collusion between Iran and al-Qaeda, going back into the mid-nineties.

In 2002, I argued that our first move against the terror masters should be to give political and economic support to the Iranian people in their efforts to topple the mullahcracy. At that time, the streets of the country's major cities were filled with demonstrators almost every week. Had the democratic opposition received the same kind of help we gave to Solidarity in Poland, the anti-Milosevic forces in Yugoslavia, and the anti-Marcos movement in the Philippines, the mullahs might have been brought down then and there, thus making the war against Saddam, the Assads, and the pro-terrorist elements of the Saudi Royal Family much easier, and greatly reducing the requirement for military power. A strategy of actively supporting democratic revolution throughout the region was precisely what President Bush proposed, and it made good historical sense: It was of a piece with the dramatic spread of freedom in recent decades, including the defeat of the Soviet Empire.

It was objected that such a revolutionary mission was far too ambitious, and that prudence required us to move carefully, one case at a time, all the while mending our diplomatic fences with friends, allies, and undecideds. But, as so often happens, the "prudent" strategy proved more dangerous. Moving step by step â ” first Iraq, then we'll see â ” gave the surviving terror masters time to organize their counterattack before we liberated Iraq, and, as I predicted, the extra time was also used to develop the weapons of mass destruction that rightly concern us, and give urgency to our cause.

The long period of dawdling after the defeat of the Taliban, along with the failure of strategic vision that blinded us to the regional nature of the war, enabled the terror masters to develop a collective strategy, for which we were famously unprepared. Yet there was no excuse for us to be surprised, since, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad announced publicly that a terror war would be unleashed against us inside Iraq. That terror war would be modeled on the successful campaign against American forces in Lebanon in the mid-eighties. And so it was, including the Syrian-Iranian (Sunni-Shiite) alliance, often using Saudi jihadi volunteers.

Like it or not, we are in a regional war, and it cannot be effectively prosecuted within a narrow national boundary. There will never be decent security in Iraq so long as the tyrants in Tehran and Damascus remain in power. They know that the spread of freedom is a terrible threat to them, and that if there were a successful democratic Iraq, their power and authority would be at risk. That is why they are waging an existential war against us in Iraq.

It is virtually impossible to read the daily press without finding at least some further evidence of the Syrians' and the mullahs' deep involvement in the terror war in Iraq, and the Iranians are up to their necks in Afghanistan as well. Several weeks ago Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that playing defense against the terrorists in his country wasn't good enough. Karzai stressed that we need to take the fight to those foreign countries where the terrorists are trained, which certainly includes Iran. There is abundant information about joint Iranian/Syrian support for the terrorists in Iraq, even including photographs captured after the battle for Hilla last year, which showed terrorist leaders meeting in Syria with Iranian and Syrian military intelligence officials. This was confirmed to me by a translator who worked for U.S. special forces during and after the fighting, who also read documents with similar information in both Hilla and Fallujah.

Our most potent weapon against the terror masters is revolution, yet we are oddly feckless about supporting pro-democracy forces in either country. Nor is there any sign of support for the Iranian workers, who just last month staged a brief national strike. Workers need a strike fund to walk off the job and stay at home, a lesson mastered by Ayatollah Khomeini, who sent sacks of rice all over the country in the weeks leading up to massive strikes against the shah in 1979. The opposition groups need good communications tools, from cell and satellite phones to laptops and servers. It wouldn't be very difficult to organize this sort of support; it wasn't that hard in the eighties, when we did the same for Solidarity and other democratic forces in the Soviet Empire.

Alas, we have no policy to support regime change in Tehran or Damascus. Indeed, there is no policy at all, four long years after 9/11. A State Department official recently assured me that there were regular meetings on Iran, although there is still no consensus on what to do. Whether this is paralysis or appeasement is hard to say, but it is certainly no way to wage a war on terror.

If we were able to get past the basic strategic error â ” reflected in the national debate as in our conduct on the ground in Iraq â ” we might yet see that we hold the winning cards. Freedom has indeed spread throughout the region. Contrary to the confident predictions of many experts, many, perhaps most, Arabs and Muslims crave democracy, and are willing to take enormous risks to win it. Syria has received several devastating blows to its hegemony in Lebanon as the result of a popular uprising. The Egyptians and the Saudis have to at least pretend to hold free elections. The Iranian people are being beaten, tortured and killed as never before, but most every week there are large-scale demonstrations, reaching even to the oil-producing regions without which the mullahcracy would be brought to the verge of collapse. And there is an encouraging surge of pro-democracy enthusiasm in Syria itself. These people are the gravediggers of the old tyrannical order in the Middle East, and they deserve our help.

The main arguments against this policy are that the repressive regimes in Damascus and Tehran are firmly in control; that any meddling we do will backfire, driving potential democrats to the side of the regimes in a spasm of indignant nationalism; and that the democracy movements are poorly led, thus destined to fail. The people who are saying these things â ” in the universities, the State Department, National Security Council and the Intelligence Community â ” said much the same about our support for democratic revolution inside the Soviet Empire shortly before its collapse. They forgot Machiavelli's lesson that tyranny is the most unstable form of government, and they forgot how much the world changes when the United States moves against its enemies. Most experts thought Ronald Reagan was out of his mind when he undertook to bring down the Soviet Empire, and hardly a man alive believed that democratic revolution could bring down dictators in Georgia, the Ukraine, and Serbia. All these dictatorships were overthrown by a small active proportion of the population; in Iran, according to the regime's own public opinion polls, the overwhelming majority hate the mullahs. Why should it be more difficult to remove the Iranian Supreme Leader and the Syrian dictator than it was to send Mikhail Gorbachev into early retirement?

What is the alternative? If we do not engage, we will soon find ourselves facing a nuclear Iran that will surely be emboldened to increase its sponsorship of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jamaah Islamiah, and Hamas, and will redouble its efforts to shatter Iraq's fragile democratic experiment. Which is the more prudent policy? Cautiously defending Iraq alone, or supporting the revolutionaries against the terror masters? Active support of the democratic forces in the Middle East would be the right policy, even if there were no terror war, and even if Iran were not a shallow breath away from atomic weapons. It is what America is all about.

Faster, confound it.

â ” Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute


 
Back! Thucydides, Herodotus, the Talmud, Soviet defence spending in the 80's and interdependant co-arising have been sucessfully tackled, now onto things that really matter.

Infanteer said:
So, you think the insurgency in Iraq is based upon the notion of "Iraqi"?   The Shi'ites who flocked to Moqtada al-Sadr's banner had their reasons for doing so (and so did those who sided with al-Sistani).   The Sunni Insurgency has its own impetus (it is largely under the banner of Ansar al-Sunnah, AFAIK) while the foreign element is there for its own reasons (this is related to fighting Americans and the concept of the ummah that I refered to above).   The foreigners had ties to some Kurdish sects (MUK?), but now seem to have gathered under the Jordanian Abu Musib al-Zarqawi and his Tawid organization (AQ in Iraq).   The other Kurdish factions have their own beef with everyone around them (including our buds the Turks).   Throughout these relationships, we see tribal instinct manifesting itself through religious, ethnic and base tribal groupings.

There is nothing "Iraqi" about this - "Iraq" was the formulation of a "state" out of three seperate Turkish provinces.   It was usurped by what is largely a tribal faction, the Sunni Tikritis (a minority) which used Ba'athist Arab Nationalism to justify what was essentially a tribal putsch in an area with a Shia majority (hence why Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti dropped the last part; tribalism didn't jibe with the whole Ba'ath idea).

You'd see the same in Syria and Lebanon.   You think Syria is entralled by the notion of "Syrian" nationalism?   You've got the same situation as existed in Iraq except the religious scenario is revered - the Assad clan is from the Shi'ite minority Alawites who pulled the same stunt over the majority Sunni population.   Want to see how "Syrian nationalism" turned out?   Look up Hama.   Lebanon is a clash between changing demographics between Christian Moronites, the Druze, and the Shi'ites.   For good measure, throw some Sunnis in there, the odd Palestinian and the Israelis.   Beirut was a nice place, and it may look nice now with "Cedar Revolution" but I have no doubt that the tribalism beneath the whole situation can easily rip the fabric that is "Lebanon" apart again - read Beirut to Jerulsalem by Friedman for a good look at this.   We've already seen some of these tremors with the violence in Beirut and the pro-Syrian rallies that tend to take place after the anti-Syrian rallies.

No, you're right. Iraqi and Syrian have little to do with national groups in the middle east. Lebanon, IMO, does have an emerging national movement, and we can pick up some Syrian nationalism from time to time though I wouldn't put much credence in it's holding power. I was mistaken in pointing to Iraqi nationalism as a powerful resistant force.  

The nationalism we need to watch out for, and the sense of nationalism I was trying to identify (but did so stupidly) is Arab Nationalism, which is largely responsible for this almost automatic hostility towards the Americans for being on Arab land, regardless of what they do there. This is at least partly (along with religious beliefs) responsible for much of the foreign intervention in Iraq (interestly religous concerns turned out to be minimal to suicide bombers, most of them were pissed off that the americans were interefering in Arab lands...along with drugs and coercion). Regardless of whether an Arab is Egyptian, Iranian, Shiite or Sunni, they do have their Arab heritage in common, and across all these barriers will become offended and moved to action if they feel a fellow Arab is being sufficiently attacked (but like anything this can just be ignored, and IMO is still a developing movement)

Arab nationalism means that when we go into a middle eastern country not only are we pissing off the local tribes or religous sects, we are pissing off all of those who consider themselves Arab... which is a big problem.
As I said above, the characteristics of nationalism are nothing new; kin-group preference and selection is something hardwired into the human psyche - "Nationalism" in the Western political sense is when you tie this to the Westphalian Nation state - getting the vast "tribal" identities of Britain or France or Germany to focus on some common themes (Kirkhill can talk about this in detail).   It is largely foreign to the area we are discussing which has its own unique cultural understanding of where tribal loyalties lie (as I mentioned, the ummah is one very important one).
You're right, kin selection is a very powerful force, and is theorized to be behind much of what we normally perceive as "alturistic" acts. But no, I am still going to disagree with you in that it is not tied to the westphalian state, as the state itself has little to do with the nations contained within it. The arbirary political borders which we set up have in history rarely been in line with the outlines of national groups (except in modern day western europe where things have worked themselves out). This creates problems when these national groups discover themselves and wish to form their own nation states, and the colonial conflicts were characteristic of this.

You argue that nationalism is merly tribalism writ large. To me it seems that this would have to be taken very broadly. If you are simply saying that tribalism and nationlism are the same in that they are social phenomenons where people feel strong ties to other similar peoples, sure. However, these are two very different different concepts when one gets into how these behave, their specific characteristics, and usually the scale on which one is speaking. Typically a nation is a group that is much larger than a tribe, and often times encompasses many tribal groups. Different tribes, while sharing common languages, customs, and histories, will still indentify themselves as being distinct groups centered around the leaders of the local heirarchy (take the the Vandals and the Visigoths being two notable germanic tribes). Nations see past these local affiliations and look to the commonality shared by incredibly large groups of people.

The biggest mistake you can make when looking at the Arabs, the Indians, the Chinese or the Martians is looking at them through the bias of Western thought.
Indeed

  You say that new-fangled "nationalism" provides some will to resist which seems to imply that that capability was lacking before the advent of some complex political idea from France.
I'm saying that given the typical scale of national groups and the ferocity with which history has demonstrated these groups willingness to fight to acheive their goals, especially when threatened by another national group, this force has to be taken into consideration. Comparing ancient occupations where this was not a concern with modern examples where nationalism has to be taken into account is not a wise course of action.

I'd say this is a lack of understanding of what can drive the Arab, or any other entity that falls back on its tribal base, to fight.   Read the Gallic Wars; tribalism led to Gaulish fighting the Romans and each other for a variety of reasons and it will have the same effect in the Arab world.

Tribalism, exactly. All tribalism could muster was the Senones to attack Rome under Brennus, who were then quickly driven back by another army. All Ceasar does in the De Bello Gallico is divide Gaul into three bits, the Celts (Galli is what he calls them, Celtae being their language) being one of them. This was not a national group, nor even a tribal group, but a linguistic group. Indeed individual tribes or groups of tribes did attack the Romans but this was not because of some overreaching concern of the Gaulish nation but temporary alliances between tribal groups.

And yes indeed tribalism is still a force in the Arab world, you are definately right about it. Do we need to be aware of it and exploit it? Yes.

Are these tribal groups the same as Arab national groups? No. Do we need to be aware of these national groups and exploit them? Yes. Are these Arab national groups much larger than these tribal groups? yes

And to my very point, can we then take examples from history where national groups did not play a role in determining the strength of resistance? not really.

After the emergence of the idea of the nation in France in the 18th century we see these tribal groups beginning to recognize their common heritages and bond together forming even larger and more powerful groups. Arab nationalism is part of this outgrowth, it is not merly tribalism writ large (as you have pointed out, tribes are still widespread across Iraq, last I counted there were 150). Nationalism is a much larger force.

And to clarify there may be smaller national forces at work than just pan-arabism, but to me it seems that pan-arabism is the largest and a cause for great concern.

Thus, what I was trying to express before, was that overt military actions will most likely, IMO, not be very sucessful if we offend this Arab Identity by calously attacking and occupying various Arab states. We need to be more descreet about it and try not to collectively piss off 320 million people.

Now to try and catch up on what the hell has been going on around here.
 
I'd wager nationalism is declining in importance. Group identification, even in the long-standing nations of the West, is becoming increasingly fractured. States where the concept of nationalism is in competition with powerful civil society elements such as religious sectarianism or ethnic sub-division are even more likely to have weak nation-based systems of loyalty. Such is the problem throughout much of Africa - strong civil societies and non-nation-state loyalties make for weak governments and collective action external to the democratic process. That's not to say that a people can't have loyalties to their sect, tribe, and nation all at the same time, but it seems to me that the nation, especially when present in the form of a nation-state, is taking a back seat to more personal/ground-level identities.
 
couchcommander said:
Regardless of whether an Arab is Egyptian, Iranian, Shiite or Sunni, they do have their Arab heritage in common, and across all these barriers will become offended and moved to action if they feel a fellow Arab is being sufficiently attacked (but like anything this can just be ignored, and IMO is still a developing movement)

You are right out to lunch - Pakistani, Indonesian, and Persian Muslims are equally upset with what is going on.  Nassir went out of style after 1967 - look for Qutb and the Ikhwan.

As for the rest of the blahblahblah, I can't figure out what you're trying to say, because it's all based on your idea of Arab Nationalism which is a Cold War relic and has little real value in the politics that are driving Dar al-Islam today.
 
Glorified Ape said:
I'd wager nationalism is declining in importance.

Martin van Crevald would agree with you.  Infact, I'd argue that nationalism never really was important in most of the world - as I said before, when applied to the state level it is largely a Western construct and those who placed their loyalties elsewhere really had no need for it (except to pull it out when it meant US/Soviet funding and weapons to deal with the tribe next door).
 
Infanteer said:
You are right out to lunch - Pakistani, Indonesian, and Persian Muslims are equally upset with what is going on.   Nassir went out of style after 1967 - look for Qutb and the Ikhwan.

As for the rest of the blahblahblah, I can't figure out what you're trying to say, because it's all based on your idea of Arab Nationalism which is a Cold War relic and has little real value in the politics that are driving Dar al-Islam today.
Qutb is fringe figure on the extreme of Islamic fundamentalism and doesn't have a lot of pull with your everyday Arab. Infact he managed to piss off the egyptian population and now really only finds support with very very hardline extremists (in part due to the divisive nature of his message).

And yes your right regarding the Pakistani's, Indonesians, etc.... doesn't mean there still isn't Arab nationalism.

Would you not be upset if say.... Sweden was attacked? Especially if you and the majority of Swedes shared a common religon and worldview? Doesn't mean there is no such thing as Canadian nationalism (heh... well you get my point).

Rest of what I was trying to say in once sentance: If we continue to overtly and callously attack Arab states we will come up against increasing resistance regardless of what we are trying to accomplish.
 
Glorified Ape said:
I'd wager nationalism is declining in importance. Group identification, even in the long-standing nations of the West, is becoming increasingly fractured. States where the concept of nationalism is in competition with powerful civil society elements such as religious sectarianism or ethnic sub-division are even more likely to have weak nation-based systems of loyalty. Such is the problem throughout much of Africa - strong civil societies and non-nation-state loyalties make for weak governments and collective action external to the democratic process. That's not to say that a people can't have loyalties to their sect, tribe, and nation all at the same time, but it seems to me that the nation, especially when present in the form of a nation-state, is taking a back seat to more personal/ground-level identities.

You may be right about this. However, historically speaking it has been a very powerful movement, and my concern is just that we need to address this in forming our policy.
 
couchcommander said:
Qutb is fringe figure on the extreme of Islamic fundamentalism and doesn't have a lot of pull with your everyday Arab. Infact he managed to piss off the egyptian population and now really only finds support with very very hardline extremists (in part due to the divisive nature of his message).

Fringe figure?  Now I know you are talking through your hat....

And yes your right regarding the Pakistani's, Indonesians, etc.... doesn't mean there still isn't Arab nationalism.

Rest of what I was trying to say in once sentance: If we continue to overtly and callously attack Arab states we will come up against increasing resistance regardless of what we are trying to accomplish.

And, since you missed it the first and second time, the identity of "Arab" isn't the one driving folks these days - Arab Nationalism lost its lustere following its defeat at the hands of Israel; it doesn't seem to garner a strong sentiment from Arab populations; it's either below that (tribal sense) or above it (the ummah).
 
Infanteer said:
Fringe figure?  Now I know you are talking through your hat....

Do you honestly think that your average muslim puts much if any bearing in Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq? It would be like looking to Strauss for your average westerner. Though he may be highly influencial in certain circles, including powerful ones, I don't see him affecting the decision making of your run of the mill guy (and it's your average run of the mill guy who will be having to decide whether or not he wants to risk the lives of his family to tell us about the mean men that are building bombs).

And, since you missed it the first and second time, the identity of "Arab" isn't the one driving folks these days - Arab Nationalism lost its lustere following its defeat at the hands of Israel; it doesn't seem to garner a strong sentiment from Arab populations; it's either below that (tribal sense) or above it (the ummah).

If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. Is some new and extreme thread of Islamic fundamentalism driving people to take up the sword against the infidels based upon some notion of a pure society, or alternatively deny us the intelligence we need (certain groups in society would like us to believe this, they would like it very much), or are they just pissed off because we are running around in lands occupied by people they feel a commonality with?

Actual interviews with thwarted suicide bombers support the latter in the vast majority of cases combined with a strong sense of oppression and powerlessness.



 
couchcommander said:
Do you honestly think that your average muslim puts much if any bearing in Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq? It would be like looking to Strauss for your average westerner.   Though he may be highly influencial in certain circles, including powerful ones, I don't see him affecting the decision making of your run of the mill guy (and it's your average run of the mill guy who will be having to decide whether or not he wants to risk the lives of his family to tell us about the mean men that are building bombs).

If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. Is some new and extreme thread of Islamic fundamentalism driving people to take up the sword against the infidels based upon some notion of a pure society, or alternatively deny us the intelligence we need (certain groups in society would like us to believe this, they would like it very much), or are they just pissed off because we are running around in lands occupied by people they feel a commonality with?

Do you honestly think that the average communist insurgent knew the finer points of Marx and Engels?   Instead of farting back what you Googled on Qutb, why don't you do some research in the direction I'm pointing you in.   I have two of his books sitting right infront of me, and if you'd familiarize yourself with them, you'd see themes that resonate within today's militant Islamist thought - considering this is the prime source of conflict in the region, I don't have any idea where you get off saying he is a "fringe writer" that nobody follows.

I don't care what your professor told you last week, get Arab Nationalism out of your head.   If you want to read a good account of its decline, look to the last chapter of Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples - it goes into detail covering Arab disenchantment with pan-Arab Nationalism following its inability to lift their prosperity and power out of the marginalization of 200 years of being on the losing end of wars.   What supplanted this nationalism?   Islamic revivalism in a few varieties, of which Sayid Qutb's writings (read Milestones and Social Justice in Islam) are among the most influential to radicals who saw their own governments as part of the problem.   For an interesting Arab perspective on Qutb's writings on the Islamist movement, read Moussalli's Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb.

No analysis of the shift of Middle Eastern political sentiment to Islamist militancy would be complete without properly analyzing how Qutb's views were brought to the mainstream.   An indepth look at the Ikhwan, the "Muslim Brotherhood", should be undertaken.   Its earlier radical approach to politics and its rejection of nationalist, secular regimes is important in understanding the roots of the modern Islamic militant.   You can still see the support for the Islamist message of the Muslim Brotherhood today as its opposition to the heir to Nassir's regime in Egypt is quiet vocal, despite being a banned party (no thanks to the writings of Qutb)

The other very important reason to look at the Muslim Brotherhood is due to the links that were forged by those who joined its ranks.   Two disciples of Sayyid Qutb's teachings who would play big roles in furthering the development of the militant Islam were Sheikh Abdullah Azzam and Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri.   Azzam is famous for issuing the Fatwa against the Soviets for their invasion of Afghanistan and starting Maktab al-Khadamat, an organization for funding, moving, equipping, and training Muslims from all over Dar al-Islam to go to Afghanistan and fight a holy jihad (these fighters became known as the Arab Afghans).   This Fatwa was not started in the name of Arab nationalism, but in defence of the Islamic faith and it attracted fighters from Morocco to the Philippines.   This fatwa generated the impetus for those we now see issued against the West and the United States in specific (Al Qa'ida's being the most well known).   Defence of the Faith, not defence of the Arab lands and peoples.

Azzam is also very important for another reason - he, along with his fellow Qutb disciple al-Zawahiri, took a young, devout, and very wealthy Osama bin-Laden under their wing.   Young bin Laden, motivated by his university studies in Jeddah, was influenced by the teachings of the 12th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya.   Incidentally, Taymiyya's works served as the basis for many of the concepts Qutb espoused - the impetus to fight off the Mongol invaders (who happened to have converted to Muslim) is the historical precedent central to Qutb's notion of jahilliya - which is seen as a crucial piece of Islamic scholarship supporting the notion of sectarian violence within Islam.   Anyways, back to bin Laden and Co.   Bin Laden's role in the Afghan jihad and his service and friendship with both Azzam and al-Zawahiri served to help deepen his beliefs - combined with the success of the mujihadeen in pushing the Soviets out, it served to reinforce their viewpoint that God had justified their actions and beliefs by giving them victory.   This whole trail of radicalization is covered in detail in Michael Sheuer's Through Our Enemies' Eyes.   Pan-Arabism played no role in the development of bin Laden and the other Salafist fighters who gained real credibility in the Muslim world due to their service in Afghanistan.

As well, during this time the Iranian revolution kicked off and gathered steam.   Iran is Persian, so it has nothing to do with Arab Nationalism.   However, the Iranian movement really opened the door for dissent in Muslim countries as a state under Sharia that was run by the clerics was telling Muslims that they lived in apostasy under secular, nationalist regimes.   Qutb and the rest of the Salafist movement also espoused this view from within as a criticism for the failure of Arab nationalist regimes to deliver any sort of prosperity or or victory against Israel.   In response, the Saudi's let the Wahabbi's open the floodgates to prove that they were pious Muslims.   You start to see hardline Muslims get real pissed with Arab nationalists, as you saw with the Hama uprising in Syria.   This is where the movement to Islamist thought discussed by Hourani really takes a hard edge.

Moving along, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri form Al Qa'ida (The Base) to serve as a network for the Arab Afghans that fought to defend the Faith in Afghanistan.   The key question nagging the leaders of the Arab Afghans is what to do next with their success.   Azzam was keen to return to his native Palestine and to declare jihad against Israel, uniting Islam against the next "near enemy" that had "invaded" Dar al-Islam.   Zawahiri also wanted to return home (in this case Egypt) to finish off the work that Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood had started by overthowing the apostate regime in place there with his organization the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ).   Bin Laden had other ideas - he was convinced that the Salafist agenda could be pushed by fighting the other "far" enemy, the United States.   With the Soviets gone and rotting from the inside, he saw the US as the only thing left propping up the apostate regimes that resisted the Salafist vision of a unified Caliphate.   Bin Laden would (many suspect) take out Azzam with a bomb attack and co-opt Zawahiri to bring the focus of the movement into that of the global Salafist jihad.

The rest is history.   Al Qa'ida, as the base of the global Salafist jihad, is an Insurgency Organization, quite possible the first one to be seen on the global level.   It's goal is to unite the Islamic world and defend the Faith against apostasy.   It's short term objectives to meet this goal is to drive the US and the West from the Islamic world, undercutting regimes which oppose the Salafist ideology.   There is nothing "Arab" about this - it is pan-Islamic.   This is all covered in great detail on both the political level by Michael Sheuer and on the social/psychological level by Marc Sageman quite well.   Al Qa'ida's message is that the US and the Israeli's are leading a crusade to subjugate and destroy the Islamic faith. - they are shaping this message around Western policies and it is one that is fairly powerful in Islamic countries.   Again, so you get it this time, it is not based around one of Arab solidarity.   Infact, most Muslims, including Arabs, tend to see themselves as Muslims first and members of their nation-state second, as this Pew report suggests.   Many see extremism such as that represented by the global Salafist Jihad, as a threat, but that doesn't undo the fact that on a broad level, most Islamic nations (there are exceptions) seem to be seeing Islam as the prime factor in their identity.

Now, as for the specifics - the Islamic Insurgency, much like Communism, is not a monolith.   Each area, branch, and network of the movement has its own unique qualities which demand their own unique solutions.   I've touched upon this with the explanation of the tribal intricacies that are common to Mesopotamia and the Levant.   But this does not take away from the overwhelming influence that Islamist thought plays.   The Iraqi Insurgency is not fuelled by pan-Arabism, and Arab nationalism is not a threat to Western policies as you continue to claim (without any substantiation).   Organizations like Ansar al-Sunnah, one of the major players in the Sunni insurgency, are based around defence of the Sunni faith in what is a Shi'ite dominated area.   Notice the fact that they don't give a shit about their Arab Shia neighbours who they gladly attack.   Foreign fighters under the Jordanian Abu Musib al-Zarqawi's Tahwid organization do not flock to Iraq for the sake of the Arab peoples - they are Salafists who see the Americans as a crusader.

Islamist thought has many branches, some moderate, some violent - but they all have great appeal to the Muslim who has seen the Middle East and the Islamic world tugged along by the whim of the globalizing world.   This is where bin Laden's appeal comes from and why he is popular amongst many Muslims.   The violence, conflict and political upheaval that we see today is linked to the social movement away from nationalism and towards an Islamist outlook that Hourani discussed.   Much of the extremist thought that leads men to arms stems from thinkers like Qutb, who you obviously know jackshit about and are so apt to write off as a "fringe writer".   Within each conflict there are people that lash out for far simpler reasons (homeland is invaded, political repression, etc - after all, all politics is local) but they find their banner somewhere, and at the moment that banner is grounded in Islamist thought be it violent or benign.   I've yet to run into any serious information that argues that pan-Arab thought is what drives resistence and insurgency.

So, you have your marching orders.   Read, research, study, and keep up with current events.   Don't try to fool us into believing you figured things out between midterms and last weeks frat party because you can throw a few fancy terms and ideas on the forums.   I'm not in any way an expert, but this is stuff that a careful observer picks up on - stuff you'd be wise to look up if you want to seriously approach Middle Eastern politics.   Until then, spare us the bandwidth and....

stfu.gif

 
Excellent post Infanteer.

It never ceases to amaze me that these naïve oxygen thieves racking up the student loans love to shove their "academic credentials" such as they are in our faces but fail to realize that some ( many?) of us poor dumb grunts have cracked a book or two, spent some time in the proverbial ivory towers, and can add a set a set of academic letters after our names as well. And that's in addition to the actual boots on the ground experience we bring to the table.
 
Infanteer,

(for the record here, snippy comments have been provoked)

Thank you for your chronology of the emergence of what we in the west have identified as Islamic extremism, and some of our explanations of how it might affect suicide bombers, insurgents, etc. I have actually had exposure to this material previously, and no, not just from wikipedia.

However, as I stated before, Qutb, Islamic fundamentalism, Al-Qaeda take a back seat when you actually stop reading the half digested puke coming out of Conservative American media, and farting back out the incoherent chunks (I'm not sure which is worse, that or google hershy squirts?).

It first really occured to me that the reasons behind the bombings and the insurgency could not be entirely attributed to fanatical religous extremism at the 10th annual interfaith symposium on terrorism held here at the U of A earlier this fall (sure beats google, and I am having a hard time remembering if it was before or after last weeks frat party.....). :P

There it was pointed out that all religons have a history of terrorism, even in the modern sense. Timothy Mcvay (or however you spell it), Anti-semetic groups, militatant jewish settlers, etc. etc. Further, it was shown that Islam does not really support the position of the bombers, and that only by a very scewed interpretation of the Koran did it actually lend itself to terrorism. To me, it seemed, that basically every Islamic leader I had spoken too had that same message. To me, once again, it seemed as though one would almost have to try and bend the words in the Koran to fit to an already existant anger.

Further, it was not hard to notice the level of anger in the room towards the "imperialist" United States. These people, who had joined together with Jews, Christian, Athetists, etc. to try and explore this phenomenon were certainly not islamic extremists, but yet the room rose to a standing ovation when one of the professors doing a presentation started into how the US was certainly no Ivory Tower, and how ignorant they were to believe that they could spread their idea of "democracy" (the quotations around this word cannot be stressed enough, there was almost a level of disgust when it was said, and no, it's not because he hated democracy in it's true sense, just that the US thought they had the answers to the worlds problems) by riding into these poor, downtrodden middle eastern country and killing hundreds of thousands of people. It did not matter to these people the circumstances surrounding their deaths, whether or not credible intelligence indicated the presence of high level targets or not. They were just pissed that the US was there, killing people.

Well, as you're probably thinking, this is all great, but so far all I've done is share my feelings... where's the proof.

Those were my thoughts exactly. Given the fact that I had just had a thought contrary to every CNN newsclip I had seen over the past few years, I thought this warranted further reivew.

Firstly, being a student in my own Ivory Tower (unfortunately no letters behind my name yet, just wacky ideas), I turned to scholary journals. One of the first ones to catch my eye was a 2004 article in the international journal of public opinion research, an oxford publication, titled "World Opinion Surveys and The War in Iraq". In this of course it detailed the usual general resentment towards the US in non-western countries, and almost hatred in middle east, but a section entitled "Oil, Israel, Muslims, the World" (pg 249), offered some insight into the nature of this resentment.

Outside the US and Britain, in the middle eastern countries surveyed, the majority of respondents said that the US "wanted to control mideast oil" and "dominate the world" and that they hadn't done a good enough job to prevent civilian casualties. These answers were attained from a series of polls conducted by reputible organizations and were now being published in a journal out of one of the most prestigous univerisites in the world.

There was no mention of "kill the infidels" or "interfering in creating a pure society", just your average run of mill guy pissed off that the americans were heavy footidly trampling around in their backyard, and not doing a good job of preventing innocent people from dying.

Further, when asked whether or not the removal of suddam hussein would result in the region becoming more democratic, most middle eastern respondants diagreed (and no, I'm not saying I do). So not only do they think we are trampling around in their backyard, killing innocent civilians, but for no good reason either.

Uh oh. I'm pretty sure this is one of the ways to spell "insurgent".

The extent of this anger went even further. Of surveyed middle eastern countries, a majority of respondants thought that suicide bombings were "justified". Once again this was the general popuation. These are not the leaders of radical islamic sects in Iraq pronouncing intefadas or preaching about the great devil and the need for pure Islamic society, there are run of the mill muslims who's Imams, like the ones we have here, are quite adament that the Koran does not really justify terrorism. Hrm. CNN needs to find a new "expert" IMO.

Combine all of this with continuing questions as to the legality of the war, even in western journals. This quote is from the abstract of "From Unity to Polarization: International Law and the Use of Force against Iraq" in the European Journal of International Law. "The USA and UK have become increasingly isolated in their insistence that implied authorization by the Security Council, material breach by Iraq of the ceasefire regime and, for the UK, humanitarian intervention justify their use of force." Put it all together and we've got a lot of reasons for anger on the part of Arabs, and none of it has anything to do with Qutb or the Muslim Brotherhood.

So, now that we have this construct of "how to build an insurgent sans fundamental Islam", I decided it might be prudent to compare it against actual insurgents. Using the biggest google fart I could muster, I dug up a number if interviews with actual attempted suicide bombers. The responses were interesting.

"Mukdi ultimately attributes his fateful decision to the death by shooting, when he was nine years old, of a much older playmate, and to two humiliating episodes at Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoints â ” one of which occurred just a year before he decided to become a shahid." - http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/1910.cfm

"Hamamreh said her prime motivation was personal, and she declined to elaborate.

Another reason, she said, was the effect on her, along with all Palestinians, of the ongoing violence and what they see as their oppression at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces." - http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000092.html

"OBEIDA KHALIL (translated): There are many reasons why I tried to carry out a suicide bombing. I was very young when the first Palestinian Intifada happened, but I saw how the Israelis killed little children and how they destroyed our houses.

During this Intifada I was engaged, but four days before our wedding my fiancé was killed by the Israelis. Since then my family has started to carry out attacks. My brother and my female cousin were suicide bombers." - http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1042349.htm

"He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when, via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric, savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked through Baghdad.

'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here to help us but to destroy us,' he said.

Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer, said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not better.'

He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time had come. 'We realised. We had to act.' " - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1302718,00.html

and my personal favourite:

"JR: What was the main reason for you deciding to become a suicide bomber? The one reason in particular.

Hussam: The reason was because my friend was killed.

The second reason I did it is because I didn't want to go to school.

My parents forced me to go to school and I didn't feel like going. " - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3899015.stm


The thing that got me was though indeed most of them did feel they had a religous justification for committing the acts they did, it was only after the western world (or Israel) had enraged them to the point of homicide that these beliefs, in the majority of cases, came into play, not the other way around.

The other thing I noticed was a stark difference between these people, the actual perpatraitors of the crimes, and those who represented the organizations they "worked for". The people who didn't actually have to face American guns or blow themselves up were all fire and brimestone (to use a Christian analogy), but when you actually get down to the guy on the ground who is doing the killing, it's the fact that you killed his friend, occupied Arab or muslim lands, treated their societies with disrespect, etc. etc. that provoked them to action, not the writings of some extremist.

So there we have it. Suicide bombers, iraqi insurgents... they are not in it due to some overreaching religous goal or belief (or, as you so heatidly assert, quite possibly not anger at US attacks at what they preceive to be their Arab nation either), they are in it becasue we, through our actions, have pissed them the fcuk off by using heavy handed military tactics and being insensitive to their attitudes and desires.

Thus, we cannot continue to callously use overt miilitary actions to influence affairs in the middle east or we risk running into ever increasing resistance regardless of what we do.

Danjanou:

Why would I be spending hours of my day reading these forums and debating various topics with the posters on it if felt you all didn't have something to add? I appreciate the perspectives that the diverse community on this forum can bring to the table, and the fact that many if not most of the posters have just as much knowledges on these topics as I do, and many of them, on top of having decades of more real world experience, also have much greater academic backgrounds. Doesn't stop me from disagreeing you, even if it uses up precious oxygen, and accusations of naivety can go both ways in this argument.





 
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