Bin Laden Singing Iraqi Blues

Bin Laden's glorious revolution has not been doing very well lately.

On October 22nd, Osama bin Laden admitted that al Qaeda had lost its war in Iraq. In an audiotape speech titled "Message to the people of Iraq," bin Laden complains of disunity and poor use of resources. He admits that al Qaeda made mistakes, and that all Sunni Arabs must unite to defeat the foreigners and Shia Moslems. What bin Laden is most upset about is the large number of Sunni Arab terrorists who have switched sides in Iraq. This has actually been going on for a while. Tribal leaders and warlords in the west (Anbar province) have been turning on terrorist groups, especially al Qaeda, for several years.

...Many of the Iraqi Sunni Arab terrorists are religious, but not religious enough for the al Qaeda hard core. And it's the hard liners that usually set the agenda. That's a fatal flaw with groups that depend on terrorism to keep the fight going. Cracking down on the hard core requires more clout and muscle than al Qaeda possesses these days. And that's another unspoken reason by bin Laden is singing the blues.

Source

Around the world, the news is bad for the pale and ghostly leader of the violent terror movement al qaeda. While Europe's mosques and the mosques of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are generating plenty of "youth bulge" fanatics willing to blow themselves up for God and Virgins, the logistical infrastructure for the movement has been eroded by constant attack from US coalition and allied intelligence and security services.

The leftists who control the US Democratic Party and anti-American interests internationally, do not like to see bin Laden so unhappy. Defeat for America in Iraq would be equally good for Al Qaeda as for the leftists. Perhaps that is why you see North American and international journalists painting desperate pictures of defeat in Iraq despite the real progress made by Petraeus and the Iraqi security forces.

Christopher Hitchens Forced to Face a Harsh Reality of War

In this Vanity Fair Column, Christopher Hitchens tells the story of 2nd Lt. Mark Daily, who was killed in Iraq by an IED 15 Jan. 2007. Hitchens was badly shaken by this particular death, because he may have been partially responsible for it.

In a way, the story was almost too perfect: this handsome lad had been born on the Fourth of July, was a registered Democrat and self-described agnostic, a U.C.L.A. honors graduate, and during his college days had fairly decided reservations about the war in Iraq. I read on, and actually printed the story out, and was turning a page when I saw the following:

"Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him … "

I don't exaggerate by much when I say that I froze. I certainly felt a very deep pang of cold dismay. I had just returned from a visit to Iraq with my own son (who is 23, as was young Mr. Daily) and had found myself in a deeply pessimistic frame of mind about the war. Was it possible that I had helped persuade someone I had never met to place himself in the path of an I.E.D.? Over-dramatizing myself a bit in the angst of the moment, I found I was thinking of William Butler Yeats, who was chilled to discover that the Irish rebels of 1916 had gone to their deaths quoting his play Cathleen ni Houlihan. He tried to cope with the disturbing idea in his poem "Man and the Echo":

Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot? …
Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked?

...as I wrote to his parents, I was quite prepared for them to resent me. So let me introduce you to one of the most generous and decent families in the United States, and allow me to tell you something of their experience.

In the midst of their own grief, to begin with, they took the trouble to try to make me feel better. I wasn't to worry about any "guilt or responsibility": their son had signed up with his eyes wide open and had "assured us that if he knew the possible outcome might be this, he would still go rather than have the option of living to age 50 and never having served his country. Trust us when we tell you that he was quite convincing and persuasive on this point, so that by the end of the conversation we were practically packing his bags and waving him off." This made me relax fractionally, but then they went on to write: "Prior to his deployment he told us he was going to try to contact you from Iraq. He had the idea of being a correspondent from the front-lines through you, and wanted to get your opinion about his journalistic potential. He told us that he had tried to contact you from either Kuwait or Iraq. He thought maybe his e-mail had not reached you … " That was a gash in my hide all right: I think of all the junk e-mail I read every day, and then reflect that his precious one never got to me.

...I have now talked to a good number of those who knew Mark Daily or were related to him, and it's clear that the country lost an exceptional young citizen, whom I shall always wish I had had the chance to meet. He seems to have passed every test of young manhood, and to have been admired and loved and respected by old and young, male and female, family and friends. He could have had any career path he liked (and won a George C. Marshall Award that led to an offer to teach at West Point). Why are we robbed of his contribution?

Vanity Fair

Go to the article and read the whole thing. Mark Daily was a man who should be known for who he was, in his own words. To Hitchens' credit, he limits his personal wallowing in guilt, and allows 2nd Lt. Daily to speak for himself.

Anyone who has followed the milblogs understands that as special as Lt. Daily was, he was not terribly out of the mainstream of the young men who have died in Iraq. The US military is currently meeting its enlistment quotas in all its service branches. The men and women going to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight could make more money elsewhere, almost all of them with significantly less risk. They, like Lt. Daily have consciously chosen to risk their lives by enlisting during wartime, because in overwhelming numbers they believe in the mission of the US led coalition.

Hitchens, for all his self-absorption, did not invent the ideas he published concerning the dangers of islamo-fascism. His writings are of high quality, but perhaps not the highest, and certainly he is far from alone in raising the alarm against allowing jihadis free run of the middle east and Asia.

Death is an inevitable consequence of war, and some particular deaths may touch us personally in ways almost too harsh to abide. If a war is worth fighting, it is worth fighting even if very bright and worthy men and women may die.

In this case, of course, the war in question is not Iraq. The war in question is the greater war against the religious jihadi movement for a world-wide caliphate. Iraq is merely a battle within the war. The war itself is being carried out in London, Paris, Madrid, rural Virginia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria--on every continent and in virtually every nation.

Mr. Hitchens, if you are too weak to see this larger war through, this long, long war--you may certainly bow out any time you like. The Mark Daily's go to fight because they believe it is the right thing to do. They will continue to go to fight--and some will come home in flag-draped coffins--even if you choose to put your particular burden down.

Life contains many trials by fire. Some face them very early in life. Some are allowed to wait until middle age or later.

War in Iraq, Afghanistan,(and Iran and Syia?)

I was opposed to the war in Iraq for about a year, unconvinced of the basic arguments for the conflict. I still don't buy the rationale that our military members are dying to help the Iraqis have their own modern, prosperous, democratic government. Democracy is over-rated, for one thing. Democracy is rule of the mob, by the mob, for the mob. If the arabs get true democracy, they will get one man, one vote, one time. Not worth dying for at all.

In my mind, there is only one excuse for maintaining a western troop presence in the muslim arab world. Muslim arabs have different brains than westerners. The Koran is qualitatively different than any "book of wisdom" that most westerners now take seriously. Tribal arab traditions are thousands of years away from modern western mores and traditions.

Currently, there is an arab youth bulge (also present in Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and many other muslim nations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East). Arab and other muslim youth are easily led into jihad by their imams, mullahs, ayatollahs and other clerics. One fanatical suicidal jihadi can do billions, even trillions of dollars of economic destruction, and kill many thousands of lives, if backed up by enough money and weapons expertise. It's not a laughing matter to be brushed aside as if it did not exist.

It's like the Dutch boy with his finger plugging the leaking dike. Temporarily, while this youth bulge lasts, it may very well be necessary to plug a large number "badly leaking holes" in the muslim (esp arab) world. People we care about will probably die in doing this. That's not a matter to be brushed aside either. But death in this inevitable conflict is a given.

How much death will be inevitable? How little death can we get away with and still keep fanatical and collectivist forces at bay? After all, once the next level kicks in, all of forces of collectivism and religious fanaticsm will be ineffectual against the potency of next level humans. But it will take time to midwife the next level, and the muslim youth bulge will continue during that time. In addition, the pressure cooker that is China, and the doomed ship that is Russia will continue to accumulate and improve the accuracy of their nuclear arsenals. Pacifism is not an option for the big kid on the block, the king of the hill.

So how small can we keep the death toll? More later.

Old Brit Lefties--Where are They Now?

Online Videos by Veoh.com
This is from a BBC look back at the leftist backlash in 1987 against Margaret Thatcher's tough love rescue of Britain's economy.

Hat tip David Thompson via Philosophical Detective.

The Lighter Side of Mahmoud--From Saturday Night Live

SNL - Andy Samberg's Love Song to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Uploaded by nono_the_bean

Here he is, presented without apology or excuses, Mahmoud, the playful boychild.
Hat tip Razib at GNXP

Tammy Bruce Out of the Darkness--Lifting the Curtain on the Media Network Demonizers

I'm not a big fan of Bill O'Reilly. Political commentators and pundits are a mixed bag. O'Reilly's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, although he's not nearly as dull as Keith Olbermann among others.

Tammy Bruce, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air compared to most political commentators. A former lefty like myself, an unapologetic lesbian (unlike myself), and one of the most clear-speaking of the media pundits, Bruce is worth reading and listening to.

Some people think everyone should hold exactly the same political opinions as themselves. A good term for them is gestapo-esque. Most vocal leftists that I observe speaking loudly in the media and the net are gestapo-esque. They want to shut up the people who disagree with them, and failing that they want to demonize them beyond redemption.

Inside Iran's House of Cards

Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, with only North Korea and Venezuela jostling for future position. Michael Totten goes to the Kurdish border with Iran, looks across, and contemplates walking across undetected to conduct more interviews with Iranians. Here is is report on the Iranian mullahs' house of cards, from Kurdistan.

I’ve stood on the border myself and contemplated walking undetected into Iran. Komala leaders even offered to take me across and embed me themselves. “We can get you inside Iran and leave you for weeks, if you want, among our supporters and among our people,” Mohtadi said. “It is very easy.”

If I were caught in Iran without a visa or an entry stamp in my passport, I would almost surely be jailed as a spy. Tempting as the offer was, I had to pass. Anyway, I could speak to Iranian dissidents, if not necessarily ordinary Iranians, in the Komala camp just as easily as I could have inside Iran. As it happened, a famous Persian writer and dissident had arrived there just before I did.

Kianoosh Sanjari is a member of the United Student Front in Tehran. At 23, he has been imprisoned and tortured many times. His last arrest was on October 7, 2006, after he wrote about clashes between the Revolutionary Guards and supporters of the liberal cleric Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi. Charged with “acting against state security” and “propaganda against the system,” he was released on $100,000 bail last December. Some months later, he fled to Iraq and moved to the Komala camp.

Unlike most Iranian visitors who use Komala as a safe house, Sanjari didn’t bother remaining anonymous. He told me his real name and said I could publish his picture. If you can read Farsi, you can read his blog at ks61.blogspot.com. “I’m just now coming out of Iran,” he said. “It’s a hell there. I know the sufferings. I am inclined to accept any tactic that helps overthrow this regime.”

“Does that include an American invasion of Iran?” I asked.

“Maybe intellectuals who just talk about things are not in favor of that kind of military attack,” he said. “But I have spoken to people in taxis, in public places. They are praying for an external outside power to do something for them and get rid of the mullahs. Personally, it’s not acceptable for me if the United States crosses the Iranian border. I like the independence of Iran and respect the independence of my country. But my generation doesn’t care about this.”

...Everyone I met at the Komala compound said the Iranian regime itself wallows deep in the post-ideological torpor that inevitably follows radical revolutions. Except for the most fanatic officials, the government cares only about money and power. “Followers of the regime are not ideological anymore,” Sanjari said. “They are bribed by the government. They will no longer support it in the case that it is overthrown. Even among the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards, there are so many people dissatisfied with the policies of the regime. Fortunately there aren’t religious conflicts between Shias, Sunnis, and different nationalities.”

Mohtadi concurred. “The next revolution and government will be explicitly anti-religious,” he said.

The Iranian writer Reza Zarabi says the regime has all but destroyed religion itself. “The name Iran, which used to be equated with such things as luxury, fine wine, and the arts, has become synonymous with terrorism,” he wrote. “When the Islamic Republic government of Iran finally meets its demise, they will have many symbols and slogans as testaments of their rule, yet the most profound will be their genocide of Islam, the black stain that they have put on this faith for many generations to come.”

...If the Islamic Republic is overthrown, almost anything might happen. Iran could become a modern liberal democracy, as most Eastern European states did after the fall of the Soviet Empire. It could revert to a milder form of authoritarian rule, as Russia has. It could, like Iraq, face chronic instability and insurgent attacks. Or its various “nationalities” could tear the country to pieces and go the way of the Yugoslavs. Optimists like Sanjari and Mohtadi may have a better sense of what to expect than those of us in the West, but still they do not know.

The only thing that seems likely is that a showdown of some kind is coming, either between factions in Iran or between Iran and the rest of the world. Predictions of the regime’s imminent demise have been staples of Iranian expat and activist discourse for years, so it’s hard to take the latest predictions seriously. But authoritarian regimes increasingly seem to have limited shelf lives. As Francis Fukuyama’s flawed but compelling book The End of History points out, there has been a worldwide explosion of liberal democracies since the 18th century, from three in 1790 to 36 in 1960 to 61 in 1990. (In 2006 Freedom House classified 148 nations as free or partly free.) History isn’t over and never will be, but it hasn’t been kind to dictatorships lately.

Reason

It is instructive to read Totten's article in full. Totten, Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, and other independent observers have risked their lives to report from the front lines of islamist terror and tyranny. It is high time that westerners begin to listen.

Axis of Dumkopfs

Assad and Ahmedinejad have been very bad boys. Bad enough to be spanked. The problem is, they are not likely to learn anything from even a very harsh spanking. Their problems go much deeper.

Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Defence Weekly report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.

Reports of the accident were circulated at the time; however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection.

The report comes on the heels of criticism leveled by the Syrians at the United States, accusing it of spreading "false" claims of Syrian nuclear activity and cooperation with North Korea to excuse an alleged Israeli air incursion over the country this month.

SOURCE

These bad boys will never learn, even if the entire world tells them to behave. They will require another type of solution entirely, before their bad behaviour will end.

Iran and the US Congress Digging Deep Holes for Themselves

It's clear that some people know just enough to acquire power, but not enough to do anything constructive with it. The US Democratic Congress shares that characteristic with the mad mullahs and mad dog president Ahmedinejad of Iran.

The Revolutionary Guards, or at least the al Quds force (which specialize in supporting pro-Iranian terrorists in foreign countries) is having a hard time in Iraq. With the collapse of al Qaeda in Iraq (because the Sunni Arabs turned on them), U.S. troops are now concentrating on Iranian supported groups. Coalition commando forces are specifically looking to capture as many al Quds operatives as they can. As a result of this, Iran has been pulling its al Quds people out of Iraq. Those that have been captured so far have given up embarrassing and damaging information.

In northern Iran, the war against the Kurds is not going well. Before 2003, Iran was supporting pro-al Qaeda Kurdish groups by providing sanctuary inside Iran, as well as weapons and supplies. These Islamic radicals took control of some villages inside Iraq, but were destroyed by Kurdish militiamen and American Special Forces. Then Kurdish separatists groups began sneaking into Iran and recruiting Iranian Kurds who were willing to fight. That problem has grown over the past four years, to the point that there are several thousand Revolutionary Guard troops, including artillery and some armored vehicles, operating along the Iraq border. The Iranian artillery fires shells at Kurdish villages in Iraq, and Revolutionary Guard patrols often cross the border. But the Iranians know they cannot get too aggressive. The Kurdish militias can handle Revolutionary Guard patrols, and the Iranians have suffered dozens of casualties in these clashes over the Summer. The Iranians also know that if they put too many people into Iraq, they will have to deal with American smart bombs. While some Revolutionary Guard commanders say otherwise, most Iranian military leaders don't want to fight U.S. troops, especially not in largely Kurdish areas along the Iraq border. Most of those Kurds would welcome an American invasion, and the Iranian generals don't want to invite one. Even with that restraint, the fighting over the last few months has left over 200 dead, and many more wounded.

In the southwestern province of Khuzestan, police executed three Iranian Arabs, who were accused of terrorist bombings inside Iran. The Iranian Arabs are despised by ethnic Iranians (an Indo-Aryan group, related to Indians and Europeans), and the current generation of Iranian Arabs are fed up with the discrimination they suffer. Their fathers fought bravely for Iran when Iran invaded in the 1980s, and all the government gave in return was more abuse. There's more anger than organization and violence. British agents are widely believed to be helping to organize armed resistance, but there's no proof. Those rumors have been an Iranian staple for over a century. But there are a lot of unhappy Arabs in Khuzestan, and there is some violence.

In the southeast, there's a lot of violence, and several hundred casualties a year. But it's more crime-wave than war. It's all about drugs. Iran is a prime market, and transit route, for heroin and opium from Afghanistan. Pushtun tribes in Afghanistan, and Baluchi tribes in Iran, are getting rich from this trade, and the police, reinforced by Revolutionary Guard units, are fighting a losing battle against the well armed and motivated (by huge amounts of cash) smugglers.

Strategy Page

The US Democratic Congress needs the Iranians to succeed in Iraq. That is their only hope to precipitate a disastrous US withdrawal soon--so as to wrap up this US defeat as Bush's Vietnam. That's what the US Democrats are praying for, for Christmas. An unequivocal US loss in Iraq.

As soon as the US public understands that that is the extent of the forward thinking of the US Democratic Party--a monumental defeat for the US military--the 2008 election will begin to gel.

War With Iran Not Improbable

The French foreign minister has publicly said what most intelligent observers have been thinking--Iran is placing itself almost irrevocably in the path of war with the west.

The world should "prepare for war" with Iran, the French foreign minister has said, significantly escalating tensions over the country's nuclear programme.

Bernard Kouchner said that while "we must negotiate right to the end" with Iran, if Teheran possessed an atomic weapon it would represent "a real danger for the whole world".

The world should "prepare for the worst... which is war", he said.

...Amid unconfirmed reports that the US is drawing up plans to attack Iran's nuclear installations, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said that diplomacy remained the administration's preferred approach.

Asked if President George W Bush would consult Congress before launching any strikes on Iran, Mr Gates said he would not be drawn on "hypotheticals".

But he added: "We always say all options are on the table.

"But clearly, the diplomatic and economic approach is the one we're pursuing."

...A senior US nuclear official said that North Koreans advisers were in Syria and that Damascus might have had contacts with "secret suppliers" to obtain nuclear equipment.

Syria and North Korea have both denied allegations that some sort of joint nuclear project was the target for the Israeli precision airstrike 10 days ago.

Telegraph

Iran is playing a game for which it is not suited, beyond a certain point. It is easy to taunt a more powerful adversary when there is little chance of paying any consequences. Iran's mad mullahs and the apish Ahmedinejad have perhaps less taunting time left than they imagine.

Islamist Turkey Exports Terror to Germany

Will the German government place an import tariff on Turkish terror imported into Germany? Perhaps that explains Turkey's rush to join the EU--no more terror tariff!

On Thursday, September 6, the German authorities were still hunting some ten suspects, described as a mixture of Germans, Turks, and others. This Turkish connection is troublesome in light of the recent election of the Sunni-centric, religious AK party in Turkey. German Turkish and Kurdish Muslims have described infiltration of their communities by "soft" fundamentalists ever since the religious parties emerged as a serious political force in Turkey more than 20 years ago. Similarly, moderate Muslims in Turkey's neighboring and related cultural zones, the Balkans and Central Asia, now warn that Turkish, rather than Arab, Islamists are beginning to throw money around and establish networks in their regions.

... Al Qaeda is losing the war in Iraq. Its fanatical dedication to Wahhabi-style takfir--or expulsion from the religion and slaying of Muslims with whom it disagrees--has alienated many Sunnis who formerly fought against the U.S.-led Coalition and the Iraqi government (see Frederick W. Kagan's "Al Qaeda in Iraq"). As Iraqi Sunnis change sides in our favor, al Qaeda is bent on transferring the jihadist battlefield to Europe, which is the nearest and most vulnerable theater of opportunity.

The European Union has not formulated an effective common anti-terror strategy. European federal authority is fragmented and subject to local political vagaries--as seen by the hurried withdrawal of the Spanish from Iraq after the Madrid metro horror. Differences like that between, in the past, typically secular Turkish and Kurdish Muslims in Germany, diverse groups of Arab and African Muslims in France, and radical Muslims from Pakistan and India in the United Kingdom have also obstructed a common EU response.

...There are not enough Uzbeks or even Pakistanis in Germany to support a "homegrown" radical Islamist network among them, and for the Germans of Turkish origin, as indicated, the phenomenon is new and imported. In Germany, at least, terrorism is clearly not "homegrown"--it is an exotic import, supported with foreign money.

Source

The Turkish experience is trying to tell us that Islamism--even in its moderate forms--is still a threat to non-muslim populations. Admitting Turkey to the EU will simply make it much easier for the "moderate Islamists" of Turkey to export an intrinsically violent culture to Europe.

Islam was born out of violence, spread by violence, and attempts to dominate as much of the world as it can through violence. While Islam may be a religion of peace from an Islamist perspective, from a European perspective it is an existential poison.

Iraq's Struggle: Who You Gonna Believe? The Media or Your Lyin' Eyes?

The list of those who have invested deeply in a US defeat in Iraq (actually a defeat for the Iraqi people) is long, and includes most western media, most leftist politicians, most leftist bloggers, and most academics in the social sciences. Iraq indeed has relatively few westerners who believe in its future. How long would that take to change?

The major problem in Iraq is back in the United States. There, many politicians either don't bother, or don't want to believe, what is actually happening, and has happened, in Iraq. In a way, that makes sense. Because what is going on in Iraq is so totally alien to the experience of American politicians. Moreover, many Americans take a purely partisan, party line, attitude towards Iraq. So logic and fact has nothing to do with their assessments of the situation.

...When Saddam was deposed in 2003, most (well, many) Sunni Arabs believed they would only be out of power temporarily. This sort of thing you can pick up on the Internet (OK, mostly on Arab language message boards, but it's out there). Saddam's followers (the Baath Party) and al Qaeda believed a few years of terror would subdue the Shia, scare away the Americans, and the Sunni Arabs would return to their natural state as the rulers of Iraq. U.S. troops quickly picked up on this Sunni mindset. Because Sunni Arabs were the best educated group, most of the local translators the troops used were Sunni Arabs, and even these guys took it for granted that, eventually, the Sunni Arabs would have to be in charge if the country were to function. The Sunni Arabs believed the Shia were a bunch of ignorant, excitable, inept (and so on) scum who could never run a government. Four years later, the Shia have sort-of proved the Sunni Arabs wrong. Now many Sunni Arabs want to make peace, not suicide bombs.

Which brings up another major issue in Iraq. Many Iraqis believe only a dictator can run the country, and force all the factions to behave. However, a majority of Iraqis recognize that dictatorships tend to be poor and repressive, while democracies are prosperous and pleasant. The problem is that the traditions of tribalism and corruption (everything, and everyone, has their price) do not mesh well with democracy. This doesn't mean democracy can't work under these conditions, many do. It does mean that it takes more effort, and the results are not neat and clean, as Americans expect their democracies to be.

The basic problem is that the United States is divided into two groups; those who have worked (or fought) in Iraq, or otherwise paid close attention to what's happening on the ground, and those who create their own picture of what's happening, one that fits other needs (personal, political, religious). No amount of wishing will change what is going on over there. The majority of the population hates the Sunni Arabs, who now have four years of terrorist attacks added to their list of sins. The Kurds, although beset by corruption and factionalism, have shown that you can still have peace, security and prosperity if everyone works together. The Arabs to the south see that, but have not been able to work together well enough to make it happen. Will the Arabs be able to overcome their factionalism and hatreds? THAT is the big question. What is lost in all the rhetoric about Iraq is that Iraq is the only real Arab democracy in the Middle East. Egypt is a one party state, a dictatorship masquerading as a dictatorship. Every other Arab state is either a dictatorship or a monarchy.

Iraqis know they are in a position to show the way, to an era of better government, and the freedoms and prosperity that flows from that. Iraqis know they have problems with religion, tribalism and corruption. Iraqis know what they are up against. Do you?

Strategy Page

Once a blogger, a journalist, a politician, an academic, an intellectual invests so deeply in defeat that he cannot possibly extricate himself without serious explanation, such a person--unless scrupulously honest--will feel forced to present defeat as the reality, well beyond the point when a reasonable person begins to have doubts. Since a widespread belief in defeat often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, such persons may feel that their best course is to bluff the situation to the end. They feel, if they are lucky, that defeat will surely happen, if they can convince everyone of its inevitability.

This pretense of theirs, which seems the most important thing in the world to maintain, is actually quite a small thing in reality. But will they ever understand?

To them, it is important that a particular politician, or a particular political party, or a particular ideological grouping, or a particular nation, lose. But it is the people who want a better life who will lose, thanks in no small way to these small time investors, who invested so deeply in the defeat of those they hated, which was actually the defeat of the hopes of many millions for a better life.

Michael Totten in Mashudah

Michael Totten has a new dispatch, this time from Mashudah. It is worth reading in full, like all of Totten's Iraq dispatches. Here are a few short excerpts:

He introduced me to the man in charge of the station, Captain J. Dow Covey from New York City.

“Do you know the Weekly Standard magazine?” Captain Covey asked me.

“Of course,” I said.

“My buddy Tom Cotton was just written up there,” he said. “It was pretty cool seeing him in that magazine.”

“What did he do to get in the magazine?” I said.

“He’s like me,” he said. “He’s a Harvard Law grad who joined the Army after 9/11. I’m an attorney.”

“You’re an attorney?” I said. “What are you doing out here in Iraq?”

“I practiced law for three years,” he said, “then got into investment banking. When 9/11 happened I just had to sign up with the Army. Investment banking is a lot more stressful than this.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I said.

“No,” he said and laughed. “I am totally serious.”

[ed: WTF???]

Pride is much more important in Arab culture than it is in the West. Humiliation is therefore more painful. I wondered if this created problems when Americans train Iraqi soldiers and police officers. What must it feel like for local men to be yelled at by foreigners who showed up uninvited and knew their job better than they did?

Colonel Steele insists it isn’t a problem.

“They don’t want to be babied,” he said. “They want to be treated as equals and adults. Their shame culture actually helps. Our new recruits recently complained about having sore feet during a march. When they noticed our female soldiers are in better shape than they are, they never complained again. Also, when we first had them try on our body armor, it nearly broke their spines. They want to be physically capable of wearing it, too.”

[ed: this fear of being made to look bad by American females seems to be a powerful motivator for arabs. What is it about their culture that makes arab males naturally lazy and weak?]

“I am optimistic,” he said. “But only for one single reason. Because I talk to the average Joe in Iraq. I meet the children and parents. Iraqi parents love their children as much as I love mine.”

I knew what he meant. Counterintuitive and contradictory as it may seem, I never felt more optimistic in Iraq than I did when I walked the streets and interacted with average Iraqis. Iraq looks more doomed from inside the base than it does outside on the street, and it looks more doomed from across the Atlantic than it does from inside the base.

Major Mike Garcia said this view of Iraq is typical. “Soldiers who don’t leave the FOB [Forward Operating Base] are more likely to be pessimistic than those who go out on patrol. They’re less aware of what’s actually happening and have fewer reality checks on their gloom.”

...We drove back down IED Alley to Camp Taji. It was 4:00 in the afternoon, and so unbearably hot. The air conditioner in the Humvee hardly did anything. I desperately wanted a shower so I could wash Iraq off my skin.

Nothing exploded on our way back.

Major Garcia wanted to know what I thought. I didn’t know what to say.

“Whether we like it or not,” he said, “and whether we like them or not, they are the future of this country.”

Source

Totten doesn't try to sugar coat the dismal situation in Iraq. That is good. Neither does he present the situation as completely hopeless, like some defeatist bloggers and politicians.

Dealing with arabs is not easy or predictable. TE Lawrence and many other embedded officers of more modern militaries have learned that lesson the hard way. Many more will have to learn it in the future. Cultures are slow to change, particularly cultures such as arab cultures and other tribal cultures.

Metrics for Iraqi Success

When General Petraeus reports to US President Bush in September on the progress of the nation-building and counter-insurgency mission in Iraq, what metrics will he use? Austin Bay, a writer and former US military intelligence officer, suggests a possible list that the general may use.

This list is a “rough draft” of “rough metrics” but I am certain it includes in some shape or form a few of the “metrics” the September report will consider. Call it a Baker’s Dozen – not to be confused with James Baker and the Iraq Study Group. Some of them obbiously incorporate both qualitative judgments and quantitative measures.

1) Number of trained and equipped Iraqi troops and their level of training

(2) Number of qualified Iraqi senior and mid-level military officers (key measure: can they plan and lead their own ops?)

(3) Number and locale of police precincts judged competent and minimally corrupt (and don’t mention Chicago to me — I know minimally corrupt applies to places in the US — like every Texas border town)

(4) Number of “extremist violence” related incidents (incline, steady, or decline) and location of incidents

(5) An assessment of the “demonstrated commitment” of key sheiks and local leaders in terms of cooperating with security forces and development teams – perhaps analyzed on a neighborhood by neighborhood level.

(6) Control of Iran and Syrian borders (what does this mean? Good question — better surveillance of the borders, more border forts, more reliable border cops, dimunition in flow of supplies for sectarian militias and terrorist groups…etc)

(7) Estimate of “robustness” of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia cells. (If we have killed a lot of these sociopaths, have the sociopaths we’ve killed been replaced?)

(8) Quality of Iraqi government action against Shia death squads (including Mahdi Militia) [NOTE: maybe quality is a hedge word, but you get the point.]

(9) Competence of key ministry officials and senior department heads — Interior and Defense — as well as an estimate of their commitment to a free, federal Iraq, [This leads to an assessment of provincial and national leaders commitment…)

(10) “Infrastructure protection” trend lines — are power lines, pipelines, key installations being protected?

(11) Trend line of development. At the local level: have the revitalized PRTs begun to do their jobs? At the national level: What’s happening to Iraq’s GDP?

(12) A neighborhood by neighborhood evaluation of the “new security plan” — which on the ground was about securing neighborhoods and stopping the “cycle of violence” (ie, Sunni terrorists kick it off, Shia death quads enter, the locals are caught in between…)

(13) An estimate of the quality of intelligence (better, same, worse) provided by Iraqi police, military, and citizens. If the intel from a neighborhood, town, or province has improved, this potentially is an indcator of increasing faith in the government’s capacity to defend vulnerable civilians. (Intel obviously affects several other metrics…few of these metrics are discrete.)

Austin Bay Blog

Michael Totten Reports From Iraq--A Must Read!

Michael Totten and Michael Yon are the two most reliable reporters recently or currently inside Iraq. Totten's latest dispatch is must reading for anyone wanting to dispense with his own prejudices about Iraq, and read Totten's harsh blend of optimism and pessimism that is modern Iraq.

“They act like our friends,” said Master Sergeant Tyler. “It is a façade to an extent, yes. They get benefits from having a good relationship with us and will do and say anything to keep us on their side.”

I heard rumors that the Iraqi Army colonel in charge of his side of War Eagle is himself a supporter of Moqtada al Sadr. I could not, however, confirm that with Military Intelligence. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t. American soldiers there believe it is.

Nothing makes me more pessimistic about Iraq’s future prospects than this. The Mahdi Army is Iran’s major proxy in Iraq. It is, in effect, the Iraqi branch of Hezbollah.

...I went on mounted and dismounted foot patrols with American soldiers every day in that part of Baghdad. Except for one slightly creepy experience where shadowy figures stalked us in the dark, all the local Iraqis I met and interacted with were exceptionally friendly.

On a typical patrol at dawn the soldiers I embedded with did only two things: they kept up a visible presence in the area and tossed boxes of Girl Scout cookies to children.

As the morning progressed and more people woke up, entire families came out of their houses to greet us and wave. Private Goings, the gunner in the Humvee I rode in, threw one box of cookies after another. Kids and their parents received them ecstatically. We did this all morning, for four hours. Aside from a 20 minute dismounted patrol near a palm grove, all we did was drive around and throw cookies.

...“A lot of the people around here are Sadr supporters,” said Sergeant Lizanne. “But they’re also pro-coalition. I don’t really understand how that works.”

Don’t ask me to explain it. Moqtada al Sadr is an enemy of the United States. His militiamen kill or at least try to kill Americans every day elsewhere in Baghdad. How anyone in Iraq could support both him and the Americans is beyond me.

Iraq is a bewildering country. I can tell you what I see and what I hear, but I can’t unravel and explain with confidence the contradictions in the hearts and minds of its people. The Kurds are fairly straightforward and easy to read. The recently turned pro-American Arabs of Anbar Province likewise aren’t too complicated these days. Baghdad, though, is all but impenetrable. I don’t suggest you trust any Westerner who hasn’t spent years there who says he or she understands the alleyways and secrets of that city.

In my mind I keep returning to what an Iraqi interpreter named Hammer said to me a few days before. “You can’t understand Iraq because you can’t get inside their mind. When you get inside their mind…it is a crazy mind.”

“Do you think the civilians here are genuinely friendly or just faking it?” I asked Sergeant Lizanne. Private Goings tossed more boxes of cookies.

“Hmm,” he said. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be out here by myself at night, I’ll tell you that much. The children really do love us, though. At least we’re making friends with the next generation.”

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I am not willing to excerpt more than this. One really must read the entire report to understand what Totten is trying to say.

Iraq will never be an American style democracy--duhhhh! Who ever believed it would? No one that I know. Regardless, check out the link to Totten's article.

Hey Nancy!...The US Military Is More Successful Than The World Wants to Believe--Don't Tell Harry

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

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When you are so deeply invested in a US defeat in Iraq as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Barak Obama, the European news media, the BBC, many bloggers . . . you simply cannot let this information sneak past the internal censors. Too much cognitive dissonance.

This is not the story of a war that is won. But neither is it the story of a war that is lost. The problem is much deeper and wider than those simplistic terms allow. Simpleminded people are unable to look at deeper, longer-lived historical trends, and understand more profound meanings. These simple minds typically teach in universities and work as journalists.

Those of us who enjoy a deeper game will always include more variables, and more sources of information.

Why US Marines Enlist in Wartime

Journalists, professors, and other pseudo-intellectuals have a difficult time understanding how marines and other military members think. A volunteer military in wartime is clearly different from a draft-based military in wartime.

Getting inside the heads of these volunteers is almost impossible for people who make a living interpreting reality for university students and the public. For pseudo-intellects, ignorance is no obstacle to pontification. That is what they do for a living--pontificate out of ignorance.

This video presents the point of view of most marines who sign up voluntarily for wartime duty, in the present day US.

Al Qaeda in Iraq--Monstrous Face of Arab Jihad

Other than trying to achieve the next level, there are few human activities more worthwhile than undermining would-be autocrats, tyrants, and religious terrorists. Al Qaeda in Iraq demonstrates what the jihad will be like in any nation of the world that harbors enough sympathetic residents to shelter jihadis. The UK is incubating a horrific future, by not facing the problems that Al Qaeda brings to Iraq.

Five weeks ago, I came into a village near Baqubah with American and Iraqi soldiers. Al Qaeda had openly stated Baqubah was their worldwide headquarters — indeed, Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed just a short drive away.

Behind the village was a palm grove. I stood there, amid the crushing stench of death, and photographed the remains of decapitated children and murdered adults. I can still smell the rotting corpses of those children.

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If a child is seen by Al Qaeda as an obstacle to the jihad, Al Qaeda will kill the child in such a way as to get its message across in a visceral way.

This is the al qaeda behind the Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan. This is the Al Qaeda that is nurtured and promoted by Wahabi clerics, financed by Saudi and Persian Gulf oil wealth.

Al Qaeda would like to franchise groups in the UK, Canada, Australia, and all of Europe. Australia, at least, may be waking up to the threat. Canada is a bit slower, and the UK is the slowest of them all.

While Sweden may be lost irrevocably to the civilised world--if current trends continue--it is not necessary that the UK repeat Sweden's mistake. Sadly, there are no signs that the new PM is alert in any way to the nascent danger under his nose.

US Democrats Hoping for Defeat for their Own Troops in Iraq

US Democrats who control the US Congress are unflinching in their claims that the US military has already been defeated in Iraq. Until recently, the US media has been proclaiming the same message--in unison with the US Democratic Party. But if the US media does begin presenting a more objective view of the military situation in Iraq, public opinion polls may begin to change. And if that happens, some of the presently lock-step Democrats may fall out of cadence.

When two critics of the Bush administration's handling of the war came back from a trip to Iraq and printed an op-ed article with the title "A War We Just Might Win" (New York Times, July 30, 2007), most Americans cheered, grateful to see some progress.

But while most Americans embraced the good news, the Democratic leadership continued on its pessimistic path toward defeat. In fact, they have little choice.

Since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared, repeatedly, that the war is already lost, he's backed his Democrats into a corner. They've invested so much political capital in bringing the troops home regardless of the status of the job they are doing to back down now would be a tacit admission that President Bush's surge strategy might just have a chance of working.

It's a terrible thing to have to say, but the Democrats have to bank on things getting worse over there. They've leveraged their entire political futures on it. Yet in the long run, it could spell disaster for them on many levels.

From congressional candidates to presidential hopefuls, Democrats who oppose a strategy that appears to have a chance of winning will only further distance them from the average American, who hates to see troops injured and dying overseas, but hates to lose a fight even more.

Democrats are once again in danger of shooting themselves in the foot, a habit they seem to have every time they gain any momentum. If things get worse in Iraq, you can count on them making as much hay out of it as possible.

On the other hand, if things get better, the Democrats will have to make a choice: to continue on the Reid-Pelosi-Schumer party line in their blind ambition to put a Democrat in the White House, or to try to figure out a way to distance themselves from their party in an effort to reconnect with Americans who will jump on the bandwagon.

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The Democrats are so deeply invested in defeat--as are many bloggers--that they can only hope the news gets even worse.

Rationally, the situation in Iraq is not one that can be lost, unless the US declares defeat and leaves. It cannot be easily won, because it is the Iraqis who must demonstrate the ability to rule themselves democratically--something no other group of arabs has been able to do.

So we are left with neither a win nor a lose situation, unless the US declares defeat--as the Pelosi/Reid/Obama coalition wants to do. If the US stays, more American troops will be killed, certainly. If the US leaves, it is equally certain that the terrorist "insurgency", more accurately the world jihad, will follow US troops to the homeland. Then more American civilians will die in large scale attacks perhaps much bigger than 9/11.

US military members volunteer for combat, risking their lives in the belief that by holding the line in the heartland of jihad, they are protecting US civilians back home. It is something they are willing to do for the rest of you, including Pelosi and the gang.

And all the Pelosis in the world can do is hope they lose.

Inconvenient Truths About Iraq

Harry Reid and his party cohorts have invested their political futures in the coming defeat of US coalition forces in Iraq. It is to be the grand defeat of the Bush-Chimp-Cheney overreach, and the ushering in of the Grand Democratic Party Millenial Reign. But something happened on the way to the glorious revolution:

The inconvenient truth here is that, apart from the irreconcilable Left, the American people's support for withdrawal has been based on an assessment that we were losing the war. If that no longer seems true, support for withdrawal will melt away. The Democratic leaders know this; that's why they made a concerted effort last week to get a vote on withdrawal in July. September, which will likely see a favorable report by General Petraeus, will be too late. Claims that the inability of the Iraqis to reach a political settlement is a reason for us to leave will ring a bit hollow in the face of a possible military success. After all, the American people have noticed that our Congress, unthreatened by anything more serious than an upcoming election, couldn't pass an immigration bill, can't eliminate earmarks or adopt ethics rules, and can't agree on energy legislation when gasoline is $3.50 a gallon. Politicians, they know, will be politicians, but that doesn't mean we should hand our enemies a victory instead of a defeat.

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As I explained earlier to a less than perspicacious commenter, it is my view that one can neither describe Iraq as a won or lost war--despite what slow-witted Democratic Party officials of divided loyalty may say. Iraq is merely a small slice of the world-wide pie of Sunni and Shia youth-bulge driven "revolutionary jihad." The jihad will last as long as the muslim youth bulge lasts--unless Islam receives a badly needed reformation.

Since that is unlikely, it appears that problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Gaza, etc. etc. etc. will be with us for many decades. In the meantime, much of the effort required of western nations such as the US will involve "finger in the dike" efforts such as the Iraq and Afghanistan military missions.

If the Iraqis and Afghanis are able to outgrow traditional tribal corruptions and inbred ideology and customs--that is all for the good. If on the other hand, the inertia of customs, traditions, and primitive religions holds sway, it will simply be necessary to outlast the youth bulge--devising energy strategies to defund radical muslim terror organisations along the way.