| Tuesday, October
3, 2006
Who Are We, Who Are Our Enemies – The Cost of
Historical Amnesia.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1409
- Roland Dobbins
Any information security mechanism, process, or
procedure which can be consistently defeated by the successful application
of a single class of attacks must be considered fatally flawed.
-- The Lucy Van Pelt Principle of Secure Systems
Design
==========
Subject: This'll ruin your evening, Dr. Pournelle...
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1885259,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
Charles Brumbelow
==============
Iraq, the Army, Mutiny,
etc.
It began with
Fred's column predicting mutiny in the
army. I have been gathering comments on the subject since.
The first is from a former senior sergeant
and junior officer who has been in the Middle East theater:
Subject: Iraq News
http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=160126
"Light at the end of the tunnel" was one of those
optimistic phrases from the Vietnam War that was widely mocked, until
political pressures led the U.S. to abandon Vietnam. The light became the
oncoming train of another Cold War cliche, "the Domino Effect," as Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos fell into decades of communist oppression, unspeakable
violence and chaos.
But that's old news. Last week, there was a glimmer of
hope in the news from Iraq. Al-Qaeda is on the ropes and sounding desperate,
and Iraqis are gaining confidence in their own government and its forces.
A new recruiting video by the emir of al-Qaeda in
Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, brags of the loss of 4,000 foreign fighters in
Iraq. He assures budding martyrs their ardent wish for death in righteous
battle will be achieved.
There's more in that article.
I reached the conclusion that Fred on Everything was
stuck in the 60s militarily quite some time ago. I can't recall discussing
this with you or not, but his earlier mention of militaria or Iraq convinced
me he doesn't really think about the difference between a draftee army and a
volunteer army, or between the 70s and the oughts. People I've served with
for almost 20 years have died over there, and I know only a tiny amount of
soldiers who think we aren't doing more good than bad over there.
This is, however, irrelevant. Civil control is still
one of our fetishes, and the government issues instruction which we will
obey. Demonstrably, we've done stupid things when the government told us to,
and we've done brilliant things.
I suppose it all boils down to whether you think the
main stream media or the soldiers are a better source of information on what
is happening. Arguably, either or both sets could be blinded by local
conditions which aren't typical, or a cultural mindset. The media relies on
locally hired stringers to get the news, since at any given time less than
two dozen are imbedded with troops, and the rest simply don't leave the
green zone. The soldiers go out, do their missions, which are successful,
and presume that success in missions means success in the mission. My bias
should be pretty obvious.
In any event, I will include one insight. The chatter
about the number of terrorists is unimportant. Just because I hand you a
rifle and tell you that you are now a Brother on a Mission From God, doesn't
make you dangerous. It takes training to be more than a bullet magnet. Those
who plan, who train, who build bombs, who can take a believer, put him in a
car bomb and actually get him to the target undetected, those are who are
important. Those who understand money, how to create it, move it, hide it
and solicit it. Those who have technical skills from actually having a
mortar round hit where you want to those who can stage pretty pictures for
the press. The concern should be how quickly we are killing and capturing
that expertise, not the total body count. The pattern and method and success
rate of enemy attacks ought to tell a few things about that.
The danger has never been being defeated. It has
always been politics, theirs and ours.
I can kill the armed foes of my nation. Its the
unarmed foes I fear.
I have some confidence in these
observations; I have known him for some years.
==
More:
Dr. Pournelle,
A couple of points on his latest essay; I have seen a
bit of what Fred is talking about in our Officer Corp. When we were
preparing for the invasion of Iraq I remember being the only officer I knew
who had even the slightest reservation about what we were about to do. It
was universally believed to be the the right move, and about time. (and many
were looking forward to opportunties to get combat patches and CIBs)
Since then and having spent a lot of time in Iraq I
have seen little change in this attitude. I hear talk about progress beating
the insurgency and changing tactics and 4th Generation Warfare (does warfare
have generations?). There is some small dissent, but it is the extreme
exception and mostly among very junior officers who are getting out soon
anyway.
Unlike Fred, I do not see this as Moral Cowardice, but
rather as the end result of a vetting process. The Officer Corp attracts a
certain type and weeds out those who do not fit the mold. Your typical
officer believes what he is doing is right and good and true. He looks no
deeper. This may be the nature of a professional officer corp and a large
standing army, but not cowardice. The Founding Fathers knew the dangers of
this. I believe that they did not intend that we have such an army.
His views on the enlisted corps I tend to disagree
with a bit more. The primary difference between the Army of now and that of
the Vietnam era is the draft. An Army of draftees is significantly different
than a volunteer army. It is important to note that in today's all volunteer
army you tend to attract certain types. Some join for financial reasons,
some for college money. These types tend to do a hitch and get out. Others
join as a form of social welfare. It's a way to support a family and get out
of a bad area. These tend to flock to the support units. Many stay for
careers.
The heart and sole of the infantry and SF units (Army,
Marine, and SEAL), however, are composed of guys who are there because they
like what they are doing, don't much care who they fight (as long as they
can somehow justify it to themselves), and will stay as long as they enjoy
what they do (or are offered more money by the private companies). This is a
generalization, but exceptions are few enough. A draftee army might refuse
to go up the hill again, but an Army like this? I tend to doubt it. Maybe
the National Guard?
We have a professional army now. We have learned well
from the mistakes of Vietnam. Then we had professional officers leading a
conscript army. Today, both are professional. A professional army does not
think of such things as do citizen soldiers which, perhaps, led to the
troubles of Vietnam of which Fred speaks.
Matt Kirchner
Houston, Texas
I do have to observe that the Iraq War is
requiring more and more participation by National Guard and reserves who
have not volunteered for overseas war. The old republic had a small
professional army and a militia controlled mostly by the states. We
nationalized the militia into the National Guard, but many of those serving
in the Guard do not think of themselves as professionals and regulars.
==
Mutiny- Fred on Everything
I have a son who just graduated from West Point (and
was prior enlisted) and another son (and daughter in law) who just finished
up five years of enlisted service in military intelligence in the Army. I
retired from the Navy as a Chief Petty Officer after 21 years service.
Fred's ramblings sound like those of a former
disgruntled and unhappy enlisted man. Today's enlisted personnel are
different from those of yesteryear. All volunteer, for one. They know what
they are doing, and what they are getting into. They're not ignorant of
their mission. Nor are they ignorant of the political world in the United
States. And they believe in what they are doing.
Far more than the "elite", and even the senior
officers, most that I have talked to seem to understand that the war we are
in is a generation war, that will involve not only my children, but my
grandchildren yet to be born.
Unless, of course, the radical Islamists do something
to provoke us into genocide. Talk about solving the terrorism problem by
creating large glass parking lots is not uncommon...
Genocide is a solution to terrorism, albeit a last
resort. But it is neither unforeseeable nor unimaginable, nor inevitable.
But, Islam is going to have to radically transform itself or... I don't know
the or.
The United States is currently ill-equipped to fight a
war vs. a religion and ideology rather than a state. WE won't stay that way.
Harold Hamblet
MMC USN(ret)
==
And from Colonel Couvillon, USMC, onetime
provincial governor in Iraq
Jerry - you can certainly attribute these comments to
me.
Is Iraq as bad as the media portrays? No. Is Iraq as
good as the administration portrays? No. (Really, does the administration
portray it as good???).
Who has more insight? Troops on the ground? Media
observation? Government (US and/or Iraqi)? Who's to say. My observation,
though, is that all have an element of input. Certainly one can find someone
to in any situation to support the bias of any writer (even the hard
sciences are succumbing to this!). Exclude or short-shrift opposition
information or facts and we find spin. Too often in today's media we have to
look at completely different articles, authors, pundits, opinions, etc. get
a reasoned discourse from which to make a decision on a topic. In other
words the masses have to do their own research! Doing your own research was
available in the past, but also in the past I found that there were authors
and articles that did the research FOR YOU and presented the material for
your consumption, then they'd give you their opinion (supposedly, just what
I was required to do in my college class papers). Appears now, everyone
(well, almost everyone) starts from an opinion and gives facts to tilt to
that support.
From my time in Iraq I've always said it'd take at
least 5 years get things into some semblance of order there. At the time
most people were talking in terms of months. I was wrong. It'll take 10 or
more years. History is replete with examples of why that is true. But as an
observation now, I'd say that Iraq is about as good as it can be, given past
decisions and serious miscalculations. Despite all of the problems, it is
amazing that progress IS being made. AND, we're fighting terrorists in Iraq
and winning. Most of the cataclysm people see there now is not the terrorist
fight, but internicene fighting among groups (religious, tribal, criminal,
political). Not actually a civil war - no one is apparently trying to
OVERTHROW the current government, but to grab their piece of it. At one
time, in 2003/4, shadow governments were forming in Iraq but those have all
disapated with the elections in 2005.
Terrorists, Jihadists, Islamo-facists, extremeists -
whatever you want to call them (call them "mufsidoon engaged in Hiraba" to
mirror the culture and religious values they continually pervert) are being
beaten. Their leaders in the field are being captured and killed. Financial
webs are being broken and many Muslims are being disgusted by their actions.
They are throwing personnel into the fight in Iraq, but increasingly finding
the Iraqis not buying into their vision (Iraqis are mostly interested in
their OWN causes). This isn't a short term thing, for even in 10s recruited,
terrorists can continue to cause tremendous destruction. I've heard it said
that the US and President Bush have played into Osama Bin Laden's hand by
'starting' this war and thus increasing recruits to his cause. In my
opinion, OBL wanted a major uprising of Islam against the west. That hasn't
happened and doesn't look like it will. I can see where this could have been
engineered, but OBL jumped the gun - he didn't have the political, military,
or financial standing to pull it off. The emphasis there is on the
'political' - he banked on the Muslim population to join his cause. Despite
the video shots of Arabs in the streets cheering the 9/11 attack, the
population just didn't follow up.
Now on to Fred Reed's assertion that the US Military
is inevitably going to face mutiny and degredation as exampled in the
Vietnam War. I've received Fred's newsletter for a long time and have
fowarded a number of them to others. Sometimes I like his observations,
sometimes I don't. This one, I think is just plain wrong. Fred appears to be
looking at today's current military structure and make-up through the prism
of the late 60s, the 70s and early 80s. In the late 60s and early 70s you
had the "shake and bake" NCOs and Lieutenants (instant 'leaders' with little
training or experience). Overall leadership was average, at best, and there
was a pervasive feeling that the country didn't like the military. Fraggings,
disobedience, disdain for leaders, poor morale characterized the service.
I've been in the Marines since 1974 and saw my beloved
organization at it's worst. Black Panther and KKK meetings in the barracks.
Drugs rampant. Discipline pathetic (my bunk mate ran prostitutes in the
barracks on weekends - picked 'em up in Mexico and brought 'em over to pimp
them out; duty officer got a freebie). Servicemen in those days were truly
the stereotypes the media would have you believe of today - down & outers,
ne'er do wells, runaways, low IQs, ill educated - basically they had plenty
bodies. Not all, mind you, but more than just a few.
Today's military is completely different. First,
today's enlisted men are all volunteers and more educated than in the past.
There is a large percentage of today's enlisted who have college degrees and
an even large percentage working on a degree. Today's officers go through
continuous education throughout their career. Second, the officers and
enlisted in today's military have a general pride in their service and
believe they are actually of service to their country - whether the country
appreciates it or not! That isn't to say there aren't people with problems
in the military, or that the military has no problems with it's people. But
as a generalization, today's US Serviceman is the best trained, best
supported and best educated in the history of the country. To intone that
we're on the cusp of mutiny and anarchy in the ranks is ludicrous. Third,
most of the servicemen I have spoken to who have served in Iraq or
Afghanistan understand the good that is going on there - and agree with
helping those countries. What they are mostly frustrated with is the
shackles put on them in engaging the enemy or providing the force to
maintain security. Given a greater leeway in application of security
measures and a reduction in the bureaucratic oversight of the rebuilding
process, many believe that the speed of rebuilding and security can be
greatly increased. If we're going to use the military to handle a problem,
let it be done militarily. In other words, don't use a hammer to paint a
barn.
No, I don't see mutiny. I'd predict a renegade unit
ignoring restraints to tackle a situation before I'd predict a mutiny. (Or,
am I tilting the facts to my opinion?)
Couv
My reply was
Your view isn't far from mine, but then we haven't
ever been far apart.
You may recall that before we went into Iraq I said
"at least a generation" before we would realize any benefits from
occupation, and even then it might not work. It's hard enough to build a
nation out of tribes. It's even harder when you start with at least 3
nations in an imperial structure and try to make a single nation out of
that; and when there is that much money at stake as spoils for the victor,
it really gets tough. I haven't seen anything to cause a change of opinion.
The cost will continue to be 50 - 100 billion a
year in addition to the cost of keeping the military ready to do other jobs.
We can buy energy independence and one hell of a voluntary navy and military
for that. For the $300 billion already spent we could have energy
independence I think.
==
I said "10 years", but you're more correct - it'll be
2 generations. One of the reasons I was insistent on focusing on children
and education while I was in country. It'll be that today's kids with a fond
memory of a friendly Marine or Soldier who passes that on to his kids who
have will have had the benefit of a freer education and better materialistic
opportunities that really makes the area less of a threat to the West.
Couv
And that, I think, is what the national debate
should be about: are we willing, as a nation, to commit to what it will take
to win this war?
It is not an encouraging prospect. The
alternatives are not very attractive either.
And Fred quite properly calls attention to
the problem of conducting a long term war with conscripts; and our
professional officer corps and our professional army do not, I think, quite
understand the implications of sending in involuntary state militia and
reservists, who are not conscripts but are not regulars either. Serious
debate on this subject must take this into account.
I have said before: the right army for war
and conquest is not the right army for constabulary duties.
Empire and republic have different needs;
and transforming Iraq, for its own good, is not what we would have thought a
goal of the republic. If it is to be a national goal of a republic it will
require endorsement by a great part of the republic, a consensus that I do
not believe we have.
==
Jerry:
If one accepts the premise of George Friedman's book
"American's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America
and Its Enemies," that the invasion of Iraq was purposed to convince
ostensibly friendly but uncooperative governments (re: Saudia Arabia) that
the US had the resolve to take them on if necessary to assure its own
safety, one now has to ask the question: how much of the success of the
insurgency in Iraq has been due to opposition of our war plans by the
so-called "loyal" opposition and the resulting aid and comfort to our enemy?
While it is impossible to predict a "what-if" with any
confidence, would the insurgency have withered if the opposition had stood
behind the President, or had at least opposed the invasion on matters of
principle (as I believe you have) rather than launching all-out ad hominem
attacks on everything related to the Administration's conduct of the war on
terrorism without offering any strategy more definable (or defensible) than
Chamberlain's in opposition.
J
It is almost certain that in the face of a
united republic as we were after 911 the opposition would have been
terrified; and that the ways of the opposition have encouraged the enemy.
But recall what I have said: we have a
3-way war, of Judao-Christian Civilization, Islam, and atheist humanism. It
is almost certain that one of the first two will win. There are atheist
humanists willing to die for their freedoms, but they are few in number.
Poul Anderson was among that number, and I have other such friends; but it
requires deeper commitments than I usually find in that persuasion. Those
willing to die for a cause will usually win over those who will not.
=============
Yesterday Eric Krug wrote:
Even if we decided to build 100
nuclear power plants immediately, there are not enough experienced
engineers to staff them properly. This is a profession where
experience is quite important. Chernobyl was caused by human error
exposing the flaws in a poorly designed reactor. The
situation in the US is made even worse by the fact that foreign
students often outnumber US citizens in the hard sciences and
engineering, and US citizenship is required for many jobs.
There are a large number of former U.S. Navy nuclear
engineering officers and enlisted operators in the population who are not
currently working in the nuclear field. Many of these might return to the
nuclear field for the right incentives. It wouldn't take 4 years of college
education to get them up to speed.
Pete Haglich
Good point.
============
=========
Subject: Can the West defeat the Islamist
threat? 10 reasons why not.
Jerry, I heard an interview with David Selbourne and
was very impressed. I think you will agree with much of this. Maybe it has
been on your site and I missed it. It seems like something that would be
there.
Dave C
Can the West defeat the Islamist threat? 10 reasons
why not.
The following was inspired by an article by David
Selbourne in The Times of London,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2349195,00.html .
1. The West lacks the will to survive. We make
mountains out of trivial political issues, such as humiliating terrorists,
and obsess instead about the rights of people who will cut our throats at
the first opportunity. 9/11 has been relegated to historical movie status,
not the wake up call it should have been. Too many Americans view the war
with radical Islam as an inconvenience or a political problem and not
something that concerns and threatens their very existence. A reality check
is essential for survival.
2. The West is selfish and divided. Politics and party
have become the priority and survival has been relegated to the closet.
Politics no longer stops at the waters edge, but war has become a thing to
manipulate for political advantage. The voters seem to not care that
undermining the war effort for political gain is the order of the day, as
long as their lifestyles aren’t compromised or discomfort brought down upon
their heads. Our enemies and our politicians play that to their advantage.
We have exposed to all our enemies, our soft divided underbelly and naively
expect that they will but rub it for us.
3. The West is too open and too naive about war. We
have lost our smarts about what a war is. War is not a made for TV movie
with a pre-written script. The other side writes its own game plan, while we
foolishly and openly talk of withdrawal schedules. The same people who
demand such schedules would react in horror were their favorite coach to
announce the play he is going to use next. Mistakes are always made in war.
It is in correcting and adjusting, that victory comes about, but never
without a will to survive, and that means a will to fight and die in the
first place. Supporting out troops means stifling our open disagreements
about details. Enough with the armchair generals, and the neutral, but
biased media - we have lost our sense of the evil of treason.
4. The West is illiterate about faith and martyrdom.
It is essential to know your enemy. For liberals to continue to preach
multicultural moral equivalency is, but evidence that we act in ignorance of
the seriousness of the enemy’s intent and will to die for his cause. Islam,
as understood by these radicals, is not a religion of country club
requirements and manners. Failing to comprehend what drives this enemy is a
guaranteed road to defeat.
5. The West is reactive not proactive. It is failing
for reasons of domestic political caution, to prepare for international war.
It only looks backward such as the current fascination with who caused 9/11,
Bush or Clinton, as if we’re in denial that the simple unaltered fact is
that we were attacked not once on 9/11, but many times by radical Islamists.
They have openly declared war on our nation and have pledged to eradicate
each of us while we lack sufficient concern to prepare to fight the most
difficult battle of this country’s existence. We have failed to mobilize the
major elements of a society at serious war. For example, we fail, for
political reasons, to reinstitute the draft and the types of things
necessary to engage the enemy fully, as we go about our daily business
wondering, or even actually debating, if attacking the terrorists over there
is better than waiting to have them over here.
6. The West refuses to become energy independent. The
fuel of radical Islam is our petrol-dollars. No war can be fought
successfully when the enemy controls the energy and our economy through our
own continued foolish choices - choices we make because of a paralyzing
political fear of radicalized environmental worship. Russia, Venezuela, and
the Mid-east oil producers can be counted on to close us off in a second
should it be thought by them to be to their advantage. Undermining and
bringing down super-power America is already their desire. All that is
necessary is the minutest turn of events. The eminent war with radicalized
Islam offers much more than minute potential, when it comes to affording
them opportunity. Energy is victory and lack of sufficient energy is defeat.
Our domestic eco-politics have chosen to aid the enemy.
7. Our borders are sieves and remain waiting conduits
for subversive entry and terrorist activity. Moats weren’t invented because
of curiosity or convention. They were created, because in an evil world, the
enemy and the danger he presents needs to be kept out of people’s homes. The
Trojan Horse mentality we play with our open borders is suicidal. Again,
domestic politics by both parties, not security, is the priority that drives
our border policy. A policy, I would predict, that history may very well
write in chapter one of, How Great Nations Have Fallen (In Arabic of
course).
8. The moral case for war. Though we debate about Iraq
and the War on Terror, we really have not as a nation, understood and
accepted the moral case to fight radical Islam on the moral level that they
fight us. We have lost the concept of it being of the highest morality to
defend oneself. In a day where WMDs are available and petrol dollars and
sophisticated weaponry are funneled to radical regimes or Jihadists,
morality requires that we either surrender or capitulate to radical Islam,
or we fight. We have failed to make the case for fighting evil to the nation
and we have failed to win agreement by both political parties about that
core concept. Instead, we play gottcha politics with details and nuance.
9. Propaganda. We fail to use it to bolster our unity
and to undermine our enemy’s unity and cohesiveness. Perhaps we need to use
propaganda in Islam to question the goodness of a God that allows for a
faith that is spread by the sword, and a faith that chooses such weapons of
conversion as dynamite belts on innocent young Muslims. We need to drop our
fear of cartoon type reactions and control our multicultural sensitivities
when they interfere with our action in this vital area. We need to use
propaganda to rally Americans around the need for a common loyalty over and
above, lesser things such as ethnicity, class status, and party affiliation,
that we may survive as a nation, not a land of competing special interest
groups.
10. We lack the decency of a moral society worth
fighting for. Beyond the biological urge to survive, there is a moral level
that man is able to attain that needs and deserves protection and
recognition. When both parties squabble about how much innocent life is
moral to take or use for our pleasure, or health, when we laugh at those who
believe and live in compliance with nature’s God, we lose our moral
authority to fight wars. When we deliberately in the name of liberty,
confuse good and evil in order to manipulate and control the minds of the
masses, we invite evil and lose the sole basis for fighting any war.
A society that believes man is incapable of evil is in
its death throes. A society that fails to recognize evil is already dead. A
country that does battle for neither good nor evil is doomed to lose that
battle.
If we fight just to protect our culture of death or
our radical materialism, be it for hedonist, capitalist, or consumer, we
fight for a hollow cause, for mankind chooses to die for great and noble
causes. Islamists understand that. We had better learn it or live to regret
it.
The Christian faith has not been tried and found
wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." --G.K. Chesterton
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation
for Western civilization as it commits suicide.
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