The Destroyer

You can kill a man,
but you can't detsroy an idea
--Medgar Evans

Load up on guns, bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend 
--Smells Like Teen Spirit, 
Nirvana

Beneath this mask there is an idea,
Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof 
--V for Vendetta (2005)
________________________

 The Big Stick talk on the United States' Executive, State and Department of Defense street is about destroying Islamic State (IS) / ISIL / ISIS/ Daesh, forever and ever, amen. President Obama has stated this objective clearly on the White House web page ("We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL.")

But this idea should be examined in a realistic manner, devoid of the feminine dithering of our leaders.

Fact: the destruction of IS is not going to happen anytime soon. Following 12+ years of hostilities , Al Qaeda (the original Bad Boys on the block) has not been destroyed, so what makes us think IS can be destroyed? The best that we have achieved with Al Qaeda is to have killed numbers one through three in their hierarchy; wash - rinse - repeat.

However, these attempts to disorder the group did not destroy the organization. It seems they have the military idea of "slotting" down better than we could imagine. We can kill people with explosives, but we cannot destroy their ideas as handily.

The Islamic State is not the problem in the ME. IS did not destabilize the region. IS simply exploited the now existing power vacuums. IS is not an aberration but rather the apotheosis of a prevailing Middle Easernt mindset. This is why their iteration has been so successful.

Through our efforts at destabilization, we handed the thugs a present. The force that animates and populates IS was already there, simmering and roiling beneath the surface. We simply unleashed it.

To focus on the destruction of IS would simply be to remove a symptom, not to address the disease. 

News flash: The United States military forces have never destroyed an enemy army. We may have defeated them, but the vanquished forces may live to fight another day, or to morph into something new and try again.

Moreover, calling for the destruction of any entity is philosophically as barbaric as the destructive actions of IS. If destruction is the best the U.S. can conjure as a realistic course of action, then we have lost the finesse that makes democracy unique among governmental systems.

How does destroying an entire army (IS) express the values of a civilized Western  military tradition? Are we deserting our laws of land warfare and reverting to Old Testament standards of conduct?

The Fallujah Fallacy

--2004 cartoon on what went unseen 

It is a popular delusion that the government
wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth.
Enormous effort and elaborate planning
are required to waste this much money
-- P.J. O'Rourke
___________________

Fallujah was neither won, nor lost, despite the shocked news headlines. The violence in Fallujah was not warfare then, nor is it now. It is sectarian violence packaged as warfare to serve the cynical needs of a invading nation. This godforsaken city served the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) template well, and according to the mainstream media, it's the gift that keeps on giving (for the puppeteers behind the scenes.)

Fallujah is a symbolic terrain, a body over which the warring tribes of Sunnis and Shias continue to fight for governmental power. It is not a rogue band of al Qaeda fighters causing mayhem but the citizens themselves. The Sunnis may be "al Qaeda affiliates", but if they do affiliate with this terrorist group it is out of sheer pragmatism and necessity as their goals do not extend beyond securing their city.

No democracy, liberty, freedom or women's rights are being sought; it is just a 1,300-year power struggle played out now with U.S. taxpayer dollars supplying both sides of the fight. What did the killing achieve at any level, and did we ever have a realistic policy in Iraq? The obvious conclusion (from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, et. al.) is that U.S. combat power does not build nations.

Saddam had controlled the violence in Iraq and The U.S. invasion unleashed unbridled violence, and the killing today is simply a continuance of the U.S. set-up. The U.S. gave much to Iraq, but the upshot is a continuing spiral of violence.

When Fallujah was recently wrested from Iraqi Shia control, this was not an al Qaeda success -- this was the Fallujans voting with their guns. The money has run out to bribe the "Sunni Awakening", and so all parties return to their tribal status quo.

As one Marine who fought there wrote in the Guardian (UK) last week:

The Iraqi government's recent actions in Falluja turned the non-violent movement violent. When the protest camp in Falluja was cleared, many of the protestors picked up arms and began fighting to expel the state security forces from their city. It was local, tribal people - people not affiliated with transnational jihadist movements - who have taken the lead in this fight against the Iraqi government (I Helped Destroy Falluja in 2004. I Won't Be Complicit Again.)

In addition, the press is loathe to recognize the role of Saudi Arabia in providing weapons, training and fighters to stoke the instability in Iraq. "Saudi Arabia" may be fungible with "al Qaeda fighters", but our "friendship" disallows such considerations.

Fallujah's fall is no surprise. It's "securing" was smoke and mirrors.

To RangerAgainstWar's mantra: Killing people in a war on terror is foolish if they can be replaced the next day. That is not warfare, but a simple cycle of violence.

Being John Kerry

  I've been very lonely in my isolated tower 
of indecipherable speech
 --Being John Malkovich (1999) 

Show me the Money! 
--Jerry McGuire (1996) 

The best is yet to come 
And babe won't it be fine 
The best is yet to come 
Come the day your mine 
--The Best is Yet to Come,
Frank Sinatra
_____________________

[NOTE: Robert Fisk addresses this well in his 7 Mar 13 piece, Which Rebels Should We Support?]

It is hard for Ranger to formulate a clear understanding of the Syrian revolt and the rules for supporting or not supporting such events.

Why would the United States support any revolution?  Why did we rearrange the societies of Iraq and Afghanistan, and what was the result?

In Afghanistan, the Taliban is supported by Saudi Sunni sectarians. Initially, the U.S. invasion pitted the Northern Alliance (NA) against the Sunni alliance.  The NA were and are allied with the Iranian "bad guys". So who are the good guys in Afghanistan?  If the Afghan government and its forces are the good guys, then the definition of "good" and "bad" must be a fungible construct.

In Iraq we imposed a tyranny of democracy on a country which imposes a Shiite, American-backed majority -- one which marginalized the Sunnis. (As for the Kurds, not much can be said other than they are the Kurds.) The present government of Iraq is largely Shiite; Iran is a Shia power -- so who benefited from the Afghani and Iraq shake-ups?

The Syrian government is supported by the Hizbollah, associated with the Iranian Shiites.  So is our current policy in Syria simply a slap at Iran?  If so are we now allied with the Sunni forces that we once fought in Afghanistan and Iraq?

If Syria is overthrown, to whom will the power transfer?  A Syrian government defeat will be a Sunni victory, no?  If Syria falls, who will benefit?

Why does the U.S. support the anti-Sunnis in Afghanistan and Iraq, while supporting the Sunnis in Syria?  The entire Middle East - Southwest Asia gambit eludes Ranger; what is America hoping to gain by throwing in our chips with the Syrian opposition?

Jihadists in Libya and Syria got their combat experience fighting U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.  They are the Islamic equivalent of the Lincoln Brigade of the War on Terror; they are mercenary insurrectionists. In Iraq and Afghanistan they were trying to protect the existing order; now, they are trying to overthrow the existing order.

Where do their loyalties lie and who pays them?  There are linkages to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain. Why do Americans arrogantly presume all rebels are looking for a freedom day like that of 1776?

Ranger is hoping someone of a higher pay grade can clarify his thinking here.

Talk to the Hand

Every game has a distinctive fire-and-dodge action
that you will gradually master.
In Defender it is a fast two-finger action
on Fire and Thrust,
in Asteroids a spray action on Fire and Rotate.
In Space Invaders it is a continuous co-ordination
of Fire and retreat, Fire and retreat ...."
--Invasion of the Space Invaders, Martin Amis

We were as men who through a fen
Of filthy darkness grope:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope
--The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde

--I thought you spies knew everything.
--Only God knows everything.
He works for Mossad
--The Constant Gardner (2005)
____________________

Max Boot in the L.A. Times argues that the U.S. not only stop al Qaeda, but also stop it from "regenerating itself as it has in the past" (Staying the Course in Afghanistan.) That means preventing the Taliban from returning to prominence and projecting power into Pakistan.

While the suggestion that the U.S. operate as constant gardener of evil weeds has a nice ring of closure, how can anyone or anything stop anyone or anything from regenerating itself? One can spray Ortho Weed Control, but sure as hell those weeds will be back in a few weeks, usually hardier than ever.

We do not control the future. We control only now, and that just barely. How can anyone say that we are trying to keep the Taliban from returning to prominence and projecting their power into Pakistan? This seems ass backwards since the problem with the Taliban began, matured and to date is the result of Pakistan's projection of power into Afghanistan rather than vice versa, as Max Boot and crew would assert.

How many decades, or centuries, should the U.S. allocate to giving the surge time to work? When did the U.S. begin championing its failures? The ill-fated Challenger mission made its way onto a license plate, as did the seriously dead Nascar hero Dale Earnhardt. Keeping people from joining groups which are their pleasure is a losing proposition -- why does the U.S. want to be a loser?

We could say, "Home by Christmas", but what year?

Unbridled Aggression

We need take no more note of it than of a war
between two African kingdoms in the fourteenth century,
a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world,
even if a hundred thousand blacks perished
in excruciating torment
--The Unbearable Lightness of Being,
Milan Kundera

And I don't know how you do it
Making love out of nothing at all
--Out of Nothing at All,
Air Supply
_______________

While our Bill of Rights applies to our citizens, the U.S. is also a signatory to the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which applies to citizens in the rest of the world. As a ratified treaty, it is every bit the rule of law as our our own Constitution. Or so the story goes.

Along comes the events of 9-11, and here's the ball game so far, 11-06-09:

• NATO, which was and is a defensive alliance to counter the Warsaw Pact threat has now become a strike force to implement U.S. policy. This policy is that of aggressive invasions which lack a clearly-defined or evident defensive purpose.

• US/NATO forces are arresting, detaining and interrogating prisoners that they have no right to arrest, detain or interrogate.

U.S. military and intelligence agencies are employing drones and Hellfire missiles to kill, interdict and intimidate citizens of AFPAK, and are killing people based upon intelligence indicators and reports rather than upon legal decisions. However, belonging to the Taliban and/or being an insurgent is not a death offense.

Any nation has the legal right to oppose and foreign invasion with any power within their means. Unfortunately, that means the Afghan resistance fighters have every right to bear arms against any foreign invader. This is the same right accorded to U.S. citizens were the tables turned.

It makes no difference how the war ends in Afghanistan. Whatever the result, the people will be exploited and downtrodden whether it be by a U.S.-backed lapdog or an anti-coalition amalgam. Afghanistan will not become a beacon of democracy and continuing the war will not contribute to the destruction of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is not bound by national borders.

The same short-sightedness and muddled thinking that motivates U.S. banking and corporate life is the same feature that defines the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©): You simply cannot make something out of nothing. You cannot make a democracy out of an antrenched clannish tribal hierarchy, and you can't win hearts and minds by dropping Hellfire missiles into mud huts.

The waste of this war is indefensible at every level -- philosophically, militarily, economically and morally. We have lost hold on rational thought, our actions based upon emotion and twisted logic.

It is obvious that Mr. Obama is not going to soon end the wars and bring the troops home, pledging as he did in the elections to trudge on in the Good War. But this is neither war, nor is it counterinsurgency. It is unbridled aggression, and as such, rife with ignorance and inhumanity.

This is something a good soldier has a hard time getting behind.

Bang Your Head

We’re lousy at recognizing when our normal
coping mechanisms aren’t working.
Our response is usually to do it five times more,
instead of thinking, maybe it’s time to try something new
--Vicious Stress Loop, Dr. Robert Sapolsky
_______________

Few would argue we have had a stressful eight years. Maybe as Dr. Sapolsky suggests, we are hardwired like hamsters running their wheels. Perseveration is the behaviorist's term for uncontrollable repetition; maybe the U.S. has turned into a nation of perseverationists.

Debate is broadening concerning the presumed imperative nature of the War in Afghanistan -- the once Good War gone bad.

President Obama will deploy 68,000 American troops there by year’s end, and calls Afghanistan"'a war of necessity' to prevent the Taliban from recreating for Al Qaeda the sanctuary that it had in the 1990s" (Crux of Afghan Debate: Will More Troops Curb Terror?).

Clearly the Taliban are radical Islamists that provide a safe haven for the Al Qaeda operatives. Clearly the 9-11 hijackers received military training in Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. What is lost in translation is: The skills learned in these camps had absolutely nothing to do with the success of the attacks carried out on 9-11.

The ability to shoot an AK-47 and throw hand grenades is moot. These operatives were sophisticated well beyond training camp standards. Their trade craft was gleaned in the West. In addition, Afghans are conspicuously missing as terrorists on the world scene. Simply: The problem is Al Qaeda, and not the Taliban.

The Times story continues, "[counterterrorism experts] point out, the CIA has killed more than a dozen top Qaeda leaders in the lawless Pakistani tribal areas, disrupting the terrorists’ ability to plot and carry out attacks against the United States and Europe." But how do we know the dead are actually Al Qaeda operatives, and not simply Taliban personnel? The two entities are not necessarily interchangeable.

"The administration’s “clear, hold, build” strategy is meant to win over Afghans. It is based on the counterinsurgency principle of protecting the population — or, in this case, at least Afghan population centers — to win confidence and support, before isolating remaining insurgents to be killed or captured. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have maintained that the United States cannot fight terrorists from afar."

U.S. policy is to isolate then kill or capture remaining insurgents, but we have never figured out what to do with those we capture, because we are short on clarifications -- because insurgents are not necessarily terrorists (though that is what the briefcase-toting, money-sucking experts would lead us to believe.)

It is absurd to be killing Afghani insurgents because there might be a chance that their deaths might save an American life. Why are Afghani lives less valuable than American lives?

Terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says, "the success of strikes from Predators in killing Qaeda suspects in Pakistan depended on accurate information on terrorists’ whereabouts from Pakistani intelligence. In Afghanistan, without such sources, 'we’d be flying blind'."

Basing Predator targeting on Paki intelligence is a joke -- why would U.S. officials believe anything they tell us? This is reminiscent of the old War on Drugs tactic where a little dealer is sacrificed and the DEA agents claim strategic success. If intel is not A-1 and confirmed by U.S. sources, we are fooling ourselves with phony successes in a phony war.

Speaking for many advocates of an interminable war, Hoffman continues his fantastical thinking with, "Disengagement from Afghanistan could destabilize Pakistan and 'guarantee' a future attack on the United States from the region." This is reminiscent of a Domino Theory war in which Ranger served.

The entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is based upon unverifiable beliefs and faulty assumptions regarding the nature of the threat. Al Qaeda is a threat, but not one which will be resolved via extensive military action.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal opined, "The simplistic case for NATO's mission in Afghanistan is that it's the country that harbored al Qaeda when the plans for 9/11 were hatched. ... But Afghanistan matters not because that's where 9/11 was conceived. It matters because that's where it was imagined (The Afghan Stakes)." Now there's a reason to attack a nation -- because someone had a thought to do something bad.

The question really is, "Who had that thought?" The answer, probably an Al Qaeda member. That requires finding the persons who had that thought, an operation better done with a fillet knife than a sledgehammer.

Unfortunately, as Andrew Bacevich said, "despite the Obama administration’s assertions that it has a new approach, 'the truth is they want to try harder to do what we’ve been doing for the last eight years.'" Perseverationsists are us.