The outrageous charge is that my "Truespeak" efforts to promote a new truth-in-language glossary of terms for use in the "war of words" aspects of the broader War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism are being done in league with fomenters of suicide mass murder who, like Mr.Coughlin himself, insist on calling their atrocities "Jihadi Martyrdom" -- but which I propose to condemn as "Hirabah" (unholy war, forbidden "war against society") and as "Irhabi Murderdom" (terroristic genocide), instead.
And for this effort on my part to remove the self-sanctifying "holy guy" legitimacy from AQ-style and al Sadr-style terrorism, one of the DoD's active-duty interpreters (name withheld here for reasons of courtesy) of this Coughlin document has concluded that:
"Exceptionally important in the analysis is the role of the "Truespeak" organization and Jim Guirard who has been arguing in DoD circles and academic institutions that the term jihad should be suspended from the GWOT lexicon to be replaced by hirabah. This analysis demonstrates that "Truespeak" contributors are part of the Muslim Brotherhood threat network, with the implication that this entire communication and lexicon effort is part of a strategic disinformation and denial and deception campaign."
The truth of the matter is that while I am trying to undermine bin Ladenism's self-canonizing language of "Jihad by mujahideen and martyrs destined for Paradise as a glorious reward for killing all of us infidels and for destroying The Great Satan," it is Mr. Coughlin and others of his persuasion in the Government, the media, the universities and elsewhere who are busy parroting and promoting this perverse AQ and Muslim Brotherhood narrative as the true face of Islam -- rather than as a satanic deviancy and an apostasy toward that religion.
Contrary to current DoD, State and White House Doctrine, they seem to be arguing that the Real Enemy are not the Terrorists but Islam itself -- which is exactly the "war of religions" and the "America's War Against Islam" message that bin Laden is trying to sell in the Muslim World, as well. In the all-important "War of Ideas" and "War for Hearts, Minds and Souls," that does not sound to me like a very bright idea at all.
Some of these well-intentioned people -- who are probably as anti-AQ as I am -- cannot see the destructive illogic and even the "cognitive dissonance" of insistently defining bin Ladenism by exactly the same holy, godly and Paradise-bound labels by which UBL himself defines it -- as does the Salafi-Wahhabi-Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy throughout.
A Warning From Pat Moynihan and Fred Ikle
In this "war of words" context, the admonitions of the late, great Senator Pat Moynihan and of Dr. Fred Charles Ikle (President Reagan's Under SecDef for Policy) about the dangers of "semantic infiltration" are extremely relevant. As Senator Moynihan defined the term and the problem in the early 1980's:
"Simply put, semantic infiltration is the process whereby we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality. The most totalitarian regimes in the world call themselves 'liberation movements.' ...[substitute AQ's "Jihadi Martyrdom"] ... It is perfectly predictable that they should misuse words to conceal their real nature. But must we aid them in that effort by repeating those words? Worse, do we begin to influence our own perceptions by using them?"
For my most recent truth-in-language and truth-in-Islam recommendations as to how we might avoid those elements of "semantic infiltration" which favor the Terrorists and their politico-religious support groups here and abroad, please take a look at two recent articles in the always excellent SmallWarsJournal.com website, as follows:
FIRST, a June 29, 2007 essay, entitled "David Kilcullen Calls for a New Lexicon," which can be found at the following URL -- and which lists and defines about a dozen Arabic and Islamic words which will finally begin to label the Terrorists as who they actually are, rather than as the "holy-guy martyrs" who Osama bin Laden and his ilk want them to be called.
SECOND, an August 7, 2007 essay, entitled "Gen. James Mattis -- Attacking The Al Qaeda Narrative," which is based on Gen. Mattis' recent charge that AQ Terrorism is nothing but "tyranny in false religious garb" and which proposes a powerfully negative counter narrative to bin Ladenism's self-sanctifying narrative of so-called "Jihadi Martyrdom" -- by turning it into "Irhabi (terroristic) Murderdom" with a hot ticket to Hellfire, instead.
ALSO, for a number of my earlier "war of words" and "war of ideas" essays published over the last three or four years in a variety of news outlets (including several in the DoD-funded Marshall Center's PTSS Daily Report from Garmish, Germany), please check my new Truespeak.org website.
Selected Scholarly and Clerical Quotations re "Hirabah"
Next, there is the matter of Mr. Coughlin's attacks on some of the quotations compiled in 2003-05 and cited in some of my writings. These are from a variety of Middle Eastern affairs experts and scholars of Islam in support of the "Hirabah" (unholy war, forbidden "war against society") by "mufsiduun" (evildoers, sinners, corrupters) destined for "Jahannam" (Eternal Hellfire) frame of reference -- which imagery, it seems to me, expresses a powerful and much needed disincentive to suicide mass murder.
Three or four of these quotes did, indeed, come from Muslim-American individuals who are clearly "suspect" to Mr. Coughlin -- who quite erroneously suspects me, as well !! -- but whose sharp words of condemnation for AQ-style terrorism may be quite accurate and quite usable by our PsyOp, Information Operations and Public Diplomacy experts, nonetheless.
And just because a valid and usable condemnation of Terrorism comes from some person or group whose anti-AQ bona fides are or once were questionable, this does not at all imply approval of or support for anything else that source might otherwise be doing. In fact, many of those organizations cited by Mr. Coughlin have been extensively investigated by Federal agencies and are in various stages of good-standing with the Government -- the Holy Land Foundation, Hizb ut-Tahrir, CAIR and the MAS being among those which are either "guilty" or at least deserving of more serious scrutiny than they have thus far received by those Agencies which have authority in such matters.
Indeed, the US Justice Department (which includes the FBI) had a major anti-terrorism booth at last week's annual convention of ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America -- from which one of the many quotations in support of the "Hirabah by mufsiduun" labeling came into my compendium about four years ago.
After all, are we not looking -- in a Reaganesque "trust but verify" fashion, to be sure -- for a few significant defectors from the Salafi-Wahhabi-Saudi funding empire? Might not some of these people now be —as faithful Muslims to revise their earlier thinking, to come to the defense of their own versions of Islam, and to oppose its wholesale take-over by UBL's, Hizballah's, al Sadr's and the Muslim Brotherhood's evildoers (mufsiduun), hypocrites (munafiquun) and Slaves of Satan (abd'al-Shaitan)?
A representative sampling of these quotes (some provided at my urging, some several years old with no guarantee that they would be repeated, some lifted from media reports but all sharply critical of terrorism in Islamic religious terms) are as follows:
DR. ABDUL HAKIM (a.k.a. SHERMAN JACKSON), of the University of Michigan, points out in a major article about al Qaeda-style terrorism in the Fall 2001 issue of Muslim World: "In the end, however, Hirabah assumes its place as an effective super-category hovering above the entire criminal law as a possible remedy to be pressed into service for the more sensational, heinous or terrifying manifestations of these and other crimes.
"In this capacity, Hirabah appears, again, to parallel the function of terrorism as an American legal category. Its function is not so much to define specific crimes but to provide a mechanism for heightening the scrutiny and/or level or pursuit and prosecution in certain cases of actual or potential public violence...
"In sum, we may conclude that it is terror, or the spreading of fear and helplessness, that lies at the heart of Hirabah. From this perspective, Hirabah speaks to the same basic issue as does terrorism in American law. As mentioned earlier, however, Hirabah actually goes beyond the FBI definition of terrorism, inasmuch as Hirabah covers both directed and coincidental spreading of fear.... Hirabah, as it turns out, is [once was and should become again] the most severely punished crime in Islam, carrying mandatory criminal sanctions."
PROF. AKBAR AHMED (Chair of Islamic Studies, American Univ.) "Properly understood, this is a war of ideas within Islam -- some of them faithful to authentic Islam, but some of them clearly un-Islamic and even blasphemous toward the peaceful and compassionate Allah of the Qur'an..... As a matter of truth-in-Islam, both the ideas and the actions they produce must be called what they actually are, beginning with the fact that al Qaeda's brand of suicide mass murder and its fomenting of hatred among races, religions and cultures do not constitute godly or holy "Jihad" -- but, in fact, constitute the heinous crime and sin of unholy "Hirabah"..... In its worst excesses, particularly in the wanton killing of innocents -- both non-Muslim and Muslim alike -- as a method of terrorizing the entire community, such ungodly "war against society" should be condemned as blasphemous and un-Islamic."
DR. AKHTAR EMON (President, Arabic Language Inst. Foundation) "Hirabah represents an Unholy War against innocent civilians. The truth stands clear from falsehood. Hirabah can never be confused as 'Jihad' (Holy War), as much as al-Qaeda would like to label their heinous acts against humanity as Jihad.... Hirabah is forbidden and sanctioned not only by the teachings of Qur'an, but also by the Bible and Torah -- all three Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) agree on this, and so also other major faiths such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Bahai's, and the New Age religions addressing "mind, body and soul".... TrueSpeak efforts are highly commendable in educating the world citizenry with truth-in-language and expanding the lexicon e.g., to distinguish a good guy with a bad guy (mufsidoon), a good act with an act of blasphemy (tajdeef), etc."
DR. SAYYID M. SYEED (Sec. General, Islamic Society of N. America, ISNA) "The Quran and the sayings of the prophet emphatically distinguish the term jihad from Hirabah, a destructive act of rebellion committed against God and mankind. Hirabah is an act of terrorism, a subversive act inflicted by an individual or a gang of individuals, breaking the established norms of peace, civic laws, treaties, agreements, moral and ethical codes.... Whereas different forms of jihad are highly commendable acts of virtue, Hirabah is recognized as a despicable crime. A mujahid (someone who performs acts of jihad) is respected and recognized as a person with high spiritual ranking in this life and promised paradise and eternal bliss in the hereafter. But individuals and groups indulging in Hirabah are condemned as criminals, subjected to severe deterrent punishments under Islamic law and warned of far more punishment and humiliation in the life after life."
DR. RADWAN A. MASMOUDI (President, Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy) "The war against society and innocent civilians that Usama Ben Laden is calling for is not Jihad. To the contrary, it is a forbidden and un-Islamic war (Hirabah) which is counter to all the values and teachings of Islam. This is a crime against innocent civilians and therefore a crime against humanity. In Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), there is no justification for killing innocent people."
IMAM YAHYA HENDI (Muslim Imam, Georgetown University, interview, Feb. 7, 2003) -- "I believe that terrorism has no religion. And violence has no faith. Violence is violence, and terrorism is terrorism, whether they are conducted by Jews or Christians, Muslims, Baharis — any of those communities, and they have to be condemned. .... Any religion cannot support terrorism. But can a religion be used to promote terrorism? Of course. And I think all of our religious communities — within the Jewish community, within the Christian community, within the Muslim community — we all have done so. And that has to be rejected. ... I mean, the Arabic word for terrorism is hirabah. And it is a term that was developed about 1,000 years ago by Muslim jurists ... Hirabah means what I mentioned, the three types of terrorism, either [sponsored by] states, government or individuals ... And it was condemned by Islamic jurists those hundreds of years [ago]."
IMAM TAMMAM ADI, PhD. (Director, Islamic Cultural Ctr -- Eugene, Oregon): "International terrorism claims to be fighting a jihad against followers of the Gospel and the Torah, a jihad that ends in 'martyrdom,' despite murder and suicide. But this is a flawed understanding. Interestingly, the verse following the Quran's definition of mosque-exploiting Hirabah (9:111) defines true jihad and true martyrdom. It says that the Torah, the Gospel and the Quran all promise paradise to believers who fight, not against each other, but for God's cause (i.e., to defend the weak). The masterminds of international terrorism are not fighting a jihad, they are Hirabah thugs.......The Quran also speaks of international terrorism that exploits religion (9:107-110).
"False religious organizations are created only as outposts for terror masterminds (Hirabah veterans) who will sabotage and destabilize communities, cause faithlessness and insecurity and instigate clashes between faith communities, maybe so far as a clash of civilizations. Fortunately, the verses tell us that this plot is very fragile, built on the crumbling edge of a mud hill and bound to collapse with the plotters into Hell."
PROF. SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR (George Washington University Professor of Islamic Studies) "The usage of technical terms especially those with religious connotations must be done with the greatest care for such terms evoke the deepest responses in the human soul. In the present context of the world situation it is essential to understand the authentic meaning of such terms as Jihad, Shahada and Hirabah. It is important to understand the authentic Islamic interpretations of each term and to clarify where and how they can be used in a truthful manner. It is especially important to understand clearly the meaning of Jihad in all its different dimensions and its difference from Hirabah. To speak truthfully about such terms is itself a major step towards better understating between the Islamic world and the West and also within the Islamic world and deeper comprehension of crucial concepts and ideas and the nature of actions based upon them within the Islamic world itself."
PROF. KHALED ABOU EL FADL, Islamic legal scholar of UCLA and author of the highly esteemed book "Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law" (Cambridge University Press, 2001), clearly and authoritatively defines the sin and crime of Hirabah as "killing by stealth and targeting a defenseless victim in a way intended to cause terror in society."
And more recently in his highly acclaimed 2005 book, "The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists," Professor El Fadl points out that the al Qaeda-style killers and their apologists "entirely ignore the Qur'anic teaching that the act of destroying or spreading ruin on this earth is one of the gravest sins possible -- fasad fi al-ard, which means to corrupt the earth by destroying the beauty of creation.
"This is considered an ultimate act of blasphemy against God. Those who corrupt the earth by destroying lives, property and nature are designated as mufsiduun (corruptors and evildoers) who, in effect, wage war against God by dismantling the very fabric of existence... the crime is called Hirabah (waging war against society)."
Others also under attack -- and eventually Mattis and Petraeus, as well ???
Finally, please be aware that both in the Government sector and the media, not only I but several of my scholarly colleagues (Dr. Michael Waller of the Institute for World Politics, Dr. Doug Streussand of the Marine Corps Staff and Officers College, Col. Harry Tunnell of the National Defense University and, quite significantly, Dr. David Kilcullen while he was on General Petraeus' senior staff in Baghdad) have all been severely chastised for wandering off the "Jihadi Martyrdom" Reservation.
And sooner or later, both General David Petraeus and Marine Corps General Jim Mattis -- the two signatories of the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual -- are likely to be targeted. Both men are moving slowly and prudently toward challenging what Gen. Mattis calls the "false religious garb" in which AQ Terrorism is masking itself, and of doing so not in Western secular terms only but in Qur'an-compatible Islamic religious words, as well.
As these terms appear in one of the SmallWarsJournal.com articles recommended above, here are a baker's dozen of such terms -- which the S-W-MB-AQ conspiracy does not even want us to know, much less to begin using in stripping the pseudo-Islamic hides off of bin Ladenism and al Sadrism and their bloodthirsty killers.
Unfortunately, even after six years of this War on Terrorism, there is still no USG-designed and approved work-a-day glossary of Arabic and Islamic terms anywhere in the Government. This is primarily because any such glossary would have to include several sensitive Islamic religious words which, to date, we have chosen to avoid entirely rather than to use correctly.
Notice, please, that rather than removing the word "Jihad" from the New Lexicon as the DoD critics charge, I have included it FOUR TIMES -- with a simple appeal that when it is used at all, it should be used appropriately and truthfully and, when necessary, in quotation marks, rather than parroted in ways which polish bin Ladinism's halo and relegate us to the status of "infidels" and of "The Great Satan."
irhab (eer-HAB) -- Arabic for terrorism, thus enabling us to call the al Qaeda-style killers irhabis, irhabists and irhabiyoun rather than the so-called "jihadis" and "jihadists" and "mujahideen" and "shahids" (martyrs) they badly want to be called. (An appropriate use of this word changes AQ's "Jihadi Martyrdom" into "Irhabi (terroristic) Murderdom," instead.)
Hirabah (hee-RAH-bah) -- Unholy War and forbidden "war against society" or what we would today call crimes against humanity. Among the many al Qaeda-style crimes and sins which constitute this most "unholy war" are such willful, and unrepented transgressions as those enumerated in the next section of this proposed glossary of terms.
Jihad al Akbar (gee-HAHD ahl AHK-bar) -- this "Greater Jihad" is a personal and spiritual struggle or striving to become closer and more faithful to Allah and his teachings as set forth in the Qur'an.
Jihad al Saghir (gee-HAHD ahl sahg-HEER) -- "Lesser Jihad" can be a physical -- and even a military -- struggle to protect or to free Muslims and non-Muslims from oppression, but only in strict accordance with reasonable and non-terroristic standards set forth in the Qur'an, which provides that only the Caliph (or head-of-state?) can legally declare such a Jihad. Osama bin Laden is neither.
Jihad al Kabir (gee-HAHD ahl kha-BEER) -- the spiritual and intellectual quest to promote common knowledge of Divine Revelation through all of Islam's Prophets and to carry out ijtihad (consultative efforts throughout the Umma) in applying both Revelation and Natural Law -- and Reason -- to human affairs. (Taken to the extreme, even this essentially non-military version of the struggle is used to rationalize the worldwide Fascist-Left Caliphate envisioned by an imperialist and "istihlal" (playing God) Osama bin Laden.)
"Jihad" (gee-HAHD, so called) -- al Qaeda's false label for both Irhab and Hirabah, which is at heart an anti-Islamic, apostate and forbidden "war against society" and a clearly satanic assortment of "crimes against humanity."
mufsiduun (moof-see-DOON) -- Islam's word for evildoers, sinners and corrupters whose criminality and sinfulness, unless ended and sincerely repented, will incur Allah's ultimate condemnation on Judgment Day; this is Islam's optimum antonym for "mujahideen."
munafiquun (moon-ah-fee-KOON) -- hypocrites to Islam who pretend to be faithful to the Qur'an but who willfully violate many of its basic rules, mandates and prohibitions -- killing of innocents, fomenting suicide for purposes of intimidation, desecrating bodies, spreading hatred and envy, destroying other Muslims' mosques, issuing unauthorized fatwas, etc.
hizb (hizb) - a political party, as in Hizballah (Party of God), or as the senior Saudi cleric Sheik Jafar Hawali recently called this radical and arguably apostate Shi'a organization Hizb al-Shaitan (Party of Satan, Party of the Devil).
Jahannam (jyah-HAH-nahm) -- Islam's antonym for Paradise and meaning the Eternal Hellfire to which Allah on Judgment Day condemns unrepentant, unforgiven evildoers and hypocrites of the unholy war variety.
khawarij (kha-WAH-reej) -- outside-the-religion and outside-the-community deviants and activities; derived from the ancient al Qaeda-like militant Khawar or Kharajite cult, who were eventually suppressed and expelled as apostates and enemies of Islam.
istihlal (eesh-tee-LAHL) -- Islam's cardinal sin of "playing God," as Osama bin Laden is doing when he attempts to pervert Islam into his own murderous image, and turning it into nothing but a killing machine -- of all Christians, all Jews and all Muslims who disagree.
irtidad (eer-tee-TAHD) or ridda (REE-dah) -- apostasy, a certifiably correct conviction for which is often punishable by death in this life and by Allah's eternal damnation in the next, with al Qaeda's murderous extremism eventually to be labeled "The al Qaeda Apostasy."
takfir (tahk-FEER) -- the Wahhabi and al Qaeda-style practice of making false accusations of apostasy and disbelief toward Allah and the Qur'an. Radicals, absolutists and judgmental fanatics who engage in this divisive practice of false excommunication are called "takfiri."
Shaitan and shaitani (shy-TAHN and shy-TAHN-ee) -- Islam's Arabic words for Satan and satanic [example: Osama Abd'al-Shaitan, Osama Slave or Servant of Satan]
IN CONCLUSION, in reviewing these and other Arabic and Islamic terms, we should not imagine ourselves using them quickly, expertly, loudly or in a fashion of pontificating or of lecturing to any audience -- particularly Muslim audiences.
But we should at least understand them well enough -- one word at a time if necessary -- to know which ones will serve our purposes and which ones are to be avoided because they are preserving and enhancing the legitimacy of the "Irhabi Murderdom" likes of Osama bin Laden, Moqtada al-Sadr and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Only then can we begin designing strategies, operations and tactics which will, at long last, begin to define these hyena-like suicide mass murderers, rather than America and the West, as the real and everlasting enemies of authentic, Qur'anic Islam -- which, despite all of its many faults, the Terrorists are trying to pervert into something immeasurably worse: namely, nothing but a perpetual killing machine of all Christians, all Jews and all peaceful and compassionate Muslims who dare to disagree.
Assuming an effective use of the new words identified above, please imagine how difficult it would be for the IrhabiFascists to recruit the suicidal zealotry of young Muslims -- or the support of any faithful Muslims whatever -- once their forbidden Hirabah (Unholy War) and their de facto apostasy against a "peaceful, compassionate, merciful and just" Allah of the Qur'an have been recognized as such.
And even how much more difficult will their satanic mission become once the young suicide bombers are perceived -- and begin to perceive themselves -- not as heroic mujahideen and martyrs destined for a virgin-filled Paradise but as mufsiduun (evildoers, mortal sinners) and as khawarij (outside-the-religion deviants) who are quite likely being led by bin Ladenism into a demon-filled Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire), instead.
Might this not be the powerful Islamic disincentive -- the optimum antidote -- to suicide mass murder for which we are all so desperately searching?
A DC-area attorney, writer, lecturer and anti-Terrorism strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His TrueSpeak Institute and new TrueSpeak.org website are devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.
Eating Soup with a Spoon - Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile
The Army's new manual on counterinsurgency operations (COIN), in many respects, is a superb piece of doctrinal writing. The manual, FM 3-24 "Counterinsurgency," is comparable in breadth, clarity and importance to the 1986 FM 100-5 version of "Operations" which came to be known as "AirLand Battle."
The new manual's middle chapters that pertain to the conduct of counterinsurgency operations are especially helpful and relevant to senior commanders in Iraq. But a set of nine paradoxes in the first chapter of the manual removes a piece of reality of counterinsurgency warfare that is crucial for those trying to understand how to operate within it...
Flashpoint: No Bungle in the Jungle - Peter Brookes
Whether you agree with it or not, it's likely there will be some changes to the current size and shape of U.S. forces in Iraq over the next year. For reasons from the political to the practical, the current troop surge in Iraq isn't going to last forever.
So, as the politicians and policymakers search for a future strategy in Iraq that would be amenable to the American people, Congress, the Pentagon and the White House, it makes sense to open the intellectual aperture pretty wide in the search for good ideas.
In some corners of defense intelligentsia, the U.S.-backed effort in the southern Philippines against the al-Qaida-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group ("Bearer of the Sword") is being touted as the most successful counterterrorism campaign of the post-Sept. 11 period. Indeed, some are promoting Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines (OEF-P) as a model counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) operation. Although not everyone would agree with that characterization, it's worthwhile to take a look at OEF-P to see whether the strategy and policy might be applied to the ongoing challenges in Iraq — or elsewhere...
Picking up the Pieces - Christopher Griffin
Over recent years, the blogosphere has been its own theater in a propaganda war that has centered on the significance of such individuals as "Jesse Macbeth," "Aidan Hajj" and "Jamil Hussein." These people, and the veracity of their stories, have served as proxies in the fight between bloggers who support U.S. efforts in Iraq and the Middle East and those who oppose them. In July, this fight leapt into the mainstream media when The New Republic published what was purported to be a soldier's firsthand account of his deployment in Iraq.
The article, "Shock Troops," was written by "Scott Thomas," a pseudonym for a soldier who The New Republic said was serving in Iraq at Forward Operating Base Falcon and who described scenes of callous brutality. According to Thomas, he and his cohorts publicly mocked a female IED victim on a crowded day at their base's chow hall; wore a child's skull found in a mass grave as a hat for more than a day; and used a Bradley fighting vehicle to run down dogs in the streets of Baghdad, killing three in one day. The piece is worth quoting at some length to give a sense of both its style and substance...
When Muslim Armies Won - Ralph Peters
When terrorists or insurgents in Iraq detonate a roadside bomb to draw out our forces in response, or when they stage a small ambush to lure us into a larger one, they're pursuing a Middle Eastern way of war more than two millennia old, with roots in the techniques of tribes from the steppes. What's surprising isn't that the old lure-and-ambush technique is still in use, but that, after many centuries of Western experience with this particular hook, we remain prone to taking the bait.
While doing research for a history project, I was struck both by the enduring characteristics of jihadi warfare — even though yesteryear's triumphant Muslim armies have been replaced by terrorist cells and irregular bands — as well as the specific military lore the Islamic world lost. Much of what Arab, Seljuk or Ottoman armies did in bygone campaigns to annihilate their enemies is now the intellectual inheritance of Western commanders — although cultural flaws that led medieval Christian armies to defeat remain with us, as well...
Culture Battle - Colonel Henry Foresman Jr.
The Army, like all military organizations, is defined by its culture, and the culture is defined by the history. Its culture has been defined by its overwhelming success in World War II and shaped by a perceived history of fighting grand wars. Although the culture is consistent with the perceived history, the reality is the Army has been involved in stability and support operations, not grand wars, for almost 80 percent of its existence.
Grand wars, as I define them, are those military engagements that pit army against army. I define stability and support operations as those in which the military is not fighting an army but is opposed either by those resistant to its occupation, passively or aggressively, or is opposed by an organized force executing disperse, nonconnected and localized operations designed to defeat the will of the occupiers to achieve victory.
For the Army, it is World War II that has shaped its thinking, culture and ethos. Fighting the grand war has become the Army's be-all-and-end-all mantra...
Building Resilience - Frank Hoffman
A pair of books build on Jared Diamond's warning in "Collapse" that rigid social structures and environmental mismanagement combined to destroy a society from within. Both share Diamond's chilling warning of economic and ecosystem disruption. Both authors realize that our increasingly technologically sophisticated civilization is built upon the fragile fault line of many pending environmental disasters and unsustainable patterns.
"The Upside of Down" lays out a theory about social life cycles, capturing the growth, demise and renewal of societies. The convergence of today's pressing economic, energy and environmental stresses could produce a global breakdown or just merely a national crisis. The author, Thomas Homer-Dixon, brilliantly mixes the history of Rome's development and its impressive architectural accomplishments with speculations on how societies rise and fall. This includes his theory of social catastrophe based on a concept called energy return on investment (EROI). Based on some historical sleuthing in the Coliseum, our author contends that societies can die off when their energy consumption patterns outpace the total effort required to acquire the energy. Having to search farther, dig deeper and expend more effort to extract every unit of energy we need to support our fast-paced and inefficient societies can put a strain on EROI. As we approach peak oil in the coming decades, this theory will become apparent...
Our second book, "The Edge of Disaster," is more direct and very much reflects the blunt and relentless personality of its author. Stephen Flynn is a retired Coast Guard officer who has established himself as the nation's leading homeland security expert. One of the very few analysts who could define vulnerabilities with chilling predictions before Sept. 11, he has been aggressively challenging policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches about the growing dangers the nation faces from an aging infrastructure, misplaced investment priorities and highly interdependent but brittle systems that undergird our daily lives...
Much more at AFJ.
By Linda Robinson
During a three-week trip to Iraq in late August and early September, I found the security situation improved compared to the spring and even more markedly over last year. But it was harder to determine whether there had been any change in the all-important question of Iraqi political will. The views about the Iraqi government's true intent among those working most closely with it tend to break down into two groups. Senior U.S. military and civilian officials believe that they can painfully and haltingly nudge the Maliki government forward on reconciliation as its fears of a Sunni return to dominance are allayed. Many of them believe this option is merely the least worst option. Lower-ranking officials are more pessimistic, perhaps because they can afford to be. They tend to believe that the Shia-led government is bent on domination of Sunnis, who are now largely fighting for their survival rather than a return to power.
Behind closed doors, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker and their subordinates are engaged in a full-court press to get more Sunnis into the government and to push Maliki ahead on reconciliation. They have achieved some success on local initiatives, though not on passage of key legislation and not enough to demonstrate unequivocally that the Maliki government has the will or ability to achieve a power-sharing agreement if given more time. Success in Iraq, if it comes, is not going to come in a big bang but rather through a series of piecemeal steps that at a minimum give the Sunni minority the ability to secure and govern the areas they inhabit, with funding from the central government. The vision is federalism, not partition. The U.S. officials hope to allay Shia fears as it becomes clear that these local concessions do not court the return of their oppressors. In the lingo of peacemakers, these are called "confidence-building measures." It is a grinding, exhausting business, and certainly not one given to headline-making breakthroughs.
The most significant (and underreported) development has been the U.S. recruitment of thousands of Sunnis to serve as U.S.-paid security guards, which the Iraqi army is now permitted to work alongside. This is not just an Anbar phenomenon. In an interview Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the three-star commander of the Multinational Corps, told me that some 15,000 Iraqi volunteers have been contracted by U.S. battalions in greater Baghdad (Ameriya, Ghazaliya, Adhamiya, Taji, Radwaniya, Abu Ghraib, Yusifiyah) and provinces to the north. That is as many as have been recruited in Anbar. The volunteers I talked to in southern and western Baghdad see this as their best chance to secure their neighborhoods and to become part of the Iraqi security forces. They still distrust the Iraqi government, but they now see the U.S. military as their best bulwark against further sectarian attacks. Many of these groups once fought both American and Iraqi forces, but they have responded readily to the chance to the come in from the cold.
I returned to two of the most conflicted neighborhoods in Baghdad, which I had visited in April. The first group of volunteers in Baghdad came forward in the neighborhood of Ameriya on May 31. Violence has dwindled dramatically since then, from 35 bombs in May to two in August. The soldiers there have suffered heavy losses and still patrol in Bradley fighting vehicles outfitted with extra armor. Unfortunately, even that extra protection did not prevent heavy losses: 14 soldiers were killed there in May by massive buried bombs, concocted from hundreds of pounds of homemade explosive.
Since May 31, a group of 227 Sunnis led by a 40-year-old former Iraqi soldier named Abu Abid has helped U.S. forces pick off Al Qaeda targets in the neighborhood and capture those who have killed Americans. Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, the U.S. battalion commander (1-5 Cav) says Abu Abid's targeting has been much better than anything he has seen in the Iraqi army. I spent a fair amount of time with Abu Abid and his motley group of fighters and concluded that he clearly has the charisma and skill to lead. To ride herd on the band, Kuehl's soldiers patrol with their new allies and oversee payday and other activities at Abu Abid's headquarters and the half-dozen outposts the volunteers have set up in Ameriya.
On the east side of Baghdad, Adhamiya is still a bastion of Sunni insurgents, but even there attacks have declined and the number of bodies on the streets has decreased from a weekly average of 10 to 2. A possible turning point was reached last month when a local sheikh stormed the Sunnis' most important mosque, Abu Hanifa, and uncovered weapons caches. Several hundred volunteers have signed up for U.S. training at Combat Outpost Apache. So far, thirty stand guard at the gas station and thirty are guarding the only hospital in eastern Baghdad where Sunnis can go without fear of abduction.
The only way these Sunni volunteers will contribute to lasting peace is if they are incorporated into the standing security forces of the country. The U.S. has drawn up a plan to institutionalize this wave of Sunni volunteerism through Operation Blue Shield, which aims to incorporate 12,671 of those guards into the Iraqi police force in the next six months. A National Reconciliation Committee made up of three officials close to the prime minister has been formed, and after much prodding, come up with a transparent vetting policy to approve the Sunni candidates.
So far 1,500 volunteers from Abu Ghraib have begun training at the police academy, and 691 more from Mansour have been accepted. Getting the first group admitted to the academy required Petraeus to confront Maliki in one of their more heated exchanges. Abu Abid wants to get his fighters into the regular Iraqi forces, and Lt. Col. Kuehl and his brigade commander, Colonel J.B. Burton, have taken Abu Abid to meet with the National Reconciliation Committee twice in the past month and are continuing to push for their incorporation in the police or army.
The U.S. officers in charge of this initiative doggedly push it along, one decision at a time. The Baghdad division deputy commander for maneuver, Brig. Gen. John Campbell, is the man laboring in the trenches on this initiative. In addition to flying around to see units deployed all over Baghdad, Campbell attends all the Iraqi operational planning meetings for the Baghdad security plan. The Iraqi general in charge of the Baghdad operations, Lt. Gen. Abboud Qanbar, has come to support bringing the volunteers into the standing security forces. He told me that he sees the utility of having Sunnis provide security in Sunni areas and acknowledges that it will fill the under-strength and Shia-dominated police. In most Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad there is no police presence whatsoever, and where they do exist, they huddle inside their blue-and-white police stations instead of patrolling among hostile citizens.
Campbell has brought Abboud around by taking him out three or four times a week to meet the Sunni volunteer militias and see what is happening on the ground. On one trip to meet a wealthy sheik who has recruited 650 volunteers to guard the Radwaniyah area on Baghdad's southern fringe, Abboud met two volunteers who were colonels in Saddam Hussein's army until 2003. One came up to kiss him on the cheeks at a sand-bagged checkpoint manned by men in reflective belts. The man remembered Abboud from his days as inspector general of Saddam's army. The other former colonel sat next to the sheik, taking notes and giving him advice, as they discussed the possible incorporation of the volunteers into the police.
Baghdad is the most difficult and important area for this initiative because it is the center of power and has the most intermixed population. U.S. officials have had more success to date in getting the Iraqi government to support the empowerment of Anbari Sunnis. The Iraqi government may invite Sunni leaders in Anbar and other provinces to fill some of its 17 vacant cabinet seats, although the murder of Sheik Sattar eliminates one key candidate. Sunnis in Anbar have been admitted to the army and police to secure that province, additional resources have been funneled to the provincial government, and more Sunnis have joined Anbar's provincial council. This is the shape of the emerging national deal: Sunnis control their local security and local government and win an adequate share of resources.
In an interview in his office on August 27 and a subsequent visit to Fallujah on September 1, Petraeus made clear how much stock he places in this bottom-up approach to get there. Anbar is his model for how to link the local volunteer security initiative to national political and economic power-sharing and institutionalization. "You see local progress that produces improvements in local security, and then leads to local leaders wanting to connect to the central government, because all resources here flow from the central government," he said in his office. That power of the purse, he added, in turn "provides a degree of control that addresses some of the legitimate concerns of the Shia-led central government about hiring in some cases former insurgents and in any case Sunni Arabs."
Every step toward this incipient deal has come at the insistent prodding of U.S. officials, with the help of a few statesmanlike Iraqi officials such as Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. In the second Anbar reconstruction conference in early September, the Iraqi government did come forward with more economic resources for Anbar, but it balked at increasing the authorized level of Anbar police from 21,000 to 30,000, despite heavy pressure from Petraeus. I sat in a meeting in Fallujah on September 1 when the general reminded a top Interior Ministry official that that bargain had been struck and its formal announcement was being eagerly awaited. But in the end, the government reneged on the bargain; instead, its response was "first fill the 21,000 slots and then we'll see."
At the same time it has been reluctant to embrace the wholesale incorporation of Sunnis into the police, however, the Iraqi government has also taken another major, and, oddly enough, unpublicized step to bring former Iraqi officers back into the army. Since the spring Maliki's government circulated a survey and received 48,600 responses from interested former soldiers. According to U.S. officials, Maliki has decided to reincorporate 5,000 officers, offer civil service jobs to another 7,000, and grant full pensions to the rest. Just as puzzling, Petraeus mentioned this in passing in his testimony, rather than making it a centerpiece. It is nonetheless the most significant step toward reconciliation that the government has yet taken.
Another step dismissed in the U.S. debate as meaningless was the August 26 accord among Maliki, the president and the two vice presidents. It was the product of intensive and torturous negotiations and a new, staff-driven effort to broker substantive deals on the core issues of the conflict. The principals agreed on two pieces of legislation, on de-Baathification and on provincial powers, and a new governing mechanism to replace Maliki's insular style. Detainee releases were used as the bait to get Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi to sign on. It will be a significant breakthrough if Maliki honors it and if the laws are passed by parliament. Other parts of the agreement, including a commitment to review and due process for all detainees, also constitute a significant olive branch to the Sunnis. Iraqi and U.S. officials are also trying to gain Sunni acceptance of a key point in the stalled oil legislation. The primary sticking point at this stage is Sunni objections to the Kurds' wish to offer production-sharing agreements to entice foreign oil companies to exploit their more difficult reserves.
Officials also report progress in confronting the most sectarian influences. In contrast to his obstruction last year, Maliki has permitted far more targeting of extremist Shia militia groups than is generally known. Iraqi and U.S. special operations forces conduct almost nightly raids into Sadr City and other Shia extremist strongholds all over southern Iraq. They have captured many of the top leaders, which is probably one reason why Sadr has declared a truce. But in the armed camp that Basra has become, special operations forces require continued cover from British armor to make headway there, U.S. special operations Lt. Col. Sean Swindell told me. In addition to this kinetic action, political efforts have been under way simultaneously for over a year to drive a wedge between Maliki and Sadr extremists and to moderate Sadr's movement.
Finally, the Petraeus and Crocker teams have pushed relentlessly to get the dysfunctional Iraqi government to spend its money and improve services to the Iraqi people. There is a long way to go still, but the efforts have resulted in twice as much money being sent to the provinces this year as last, and power generation has increased to 5300 megawatts from the 4000 mw level where it had plateaued. Iraqis of all sects express outrage at the continuing dismal level of services, and Sunni neighborhoods in particular are still visibly starved of electricity, water, sewage drainage, trash pickup and food delivery.
In his daily morning briefings, Petraeus has persistently asked his staff to find out why repairs of Tower 57, a key high-voltage power line leading from the south into Baghdad, has not been made. Since letters often have more impact in Iraq's legalistic culture, he also wrote a letter to Prime Minister Maliki complaining that the ministry of electricity was not repairing the line. That night, the minister of electricity worriedly called Petraeus and assured him that the work would be done.
From the perspective of folks in Iraq working 18-hour days, this is not a negligible list of accomplishments, but it isn't enough to satisfy a war-weary American public that wants a clear sign that the Iraqi government has the will and capability to move ahead. The September reporting deadline created an expectation that reconciliation and all the key legislation would be completed by then. That was never in the cards.
Against the view of senior officials that this inchworm progress can continue if only we persevere is an alternative view that prevails among mid-level officers who work in the neighborhoods daily with Iraqi security forces. In their view, the Shiite militias and their important allies in the Iraqi government are bent upon total domination and are waging what U.S. Colonel J.B. Burton calls "a campaign of exhaustion by kinetic and nonkinetic means" against the Sunnis. Many officers in different areas told me that the Iraqi army routinely targets only Sunnis, unless their U.S. counterparts insist they do otherwise. In another recent display of sectarian behavior, the Iraqi government has refused to release the final test scores of Sunni students graduating from high school, which will prevent them from attending university.
Such acts convince these officers that the Maliki government is simply playing along, granting some minor concessions in response to the Americans' pressure, until the United States goes home. These officers are pushing back hard, to get sectarian Iraqis fired and to compel the government to provide services and jobs to Sunnis. But if these efforts fail, then the United States owes visas to those Sunnis who have volunteered for guard duty this summer, in addition to the others who are likely to be targeted by the government in the wake of a U.S. departure. The wife of Abu Abid, the first Sunni militia leader to come forward in Baghdad, already fearing the worst, begged me for help in getting visas for her two young children. Abu Abid's two brothers were tortured and killed last year during Ramadan by the Jaish al Mahdi Shia militia.
Despite the dispersal of U.S. troops around Baghdad, the decline in violence and the Sunni response to the recruiting initiative, sectarian behavior continues to plague the Shia-dominated military and police. The most acute current problem is in the Saddiya neighborhood of Baghdad's West Rashid security district. The Shia militia Jaish al-Mahdi is pushing Sunnis out of their homes in a continuing cycle of violence. The National Police unit there is doing nothing to stop it, and in the opinion of at least one officer there are too few U.S. troops in that neighborhood to lay down the security blanket that has proven effective elsewhere in the city. Along Route Jackson, the major thoroughfare bordering the neighborhood, Shia militias continue to pick off U.S. humvees with explosively formed projectiles. They are doing the same on Route Pluto, which borders Sadr City.
When Americans encounter sectarian behavior, the current remedy is for U.S. officers to collect detailed information which is then presented through the chain of command to Iraqi authorities. Many Iraqi units routinely target Sunni insurgents and not Shia militias. Lt. Col. John Reynolds, commander of 1-26 Infantry in eastern Baghdad, believes that the local Iraqi commander he works with may even be implicated in militia attacks on his soldiers. During a recent recruiting drive to hire volunteers in the Sulaikh neighborhood of Baghdad, this commander's strike platoon arrested one of the volunteers. The Iraqi commander told me that while he agreed with the neighborhood watch policy, "we must vet the recruits, and in any case continue to go after the terrorists."
Even if this view of the Iraqi government as bent on a winner-take-all outcome is correct, however, the consequences of leaving Iraq to its civil war must still be reckoned with. At a minimum, U.S. regional interests must be looked after and an attempt made to prevent the war from spilling over into neighboring countries. Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, a genial Kurd, told me that while he has been preparing for an alternative policy since June, when he visited the White House and proposed that the U.S. and Iraq begin negotiating a long-term security agreement to replace the United Nations resolution authorizing the U.S. military coalition's presence in Iraq, which expires in December. The White House agreed, and sent National Security Council official Meghan O'Sullivan to Baghdad this summer to begin the negotiations.
Zebari said that the bilateral security agreement will provide the framework for a redefined U.S. presence in Iraq and compared it to those governing U.S. forces stationed in Persian Gulf countries and Europe. "This will impact the level of troops, their mission and role, which will be regulated through the bilateral security agreement," Zebari told me in an interview on August 29 at his office in Baghdad. The August 26 accord commits the Maliki government to seek a renewal of the U.N. resolution into next year until the new agreement is reached. Zebari signaled, however, that Iraq will seek revisions in the U.N. terms to gain more control over its forces and territory.
In the meantime, Zebari fervently hopes the United States will not up and leave. "We need the Multinational Forces to stay and not withdraw in a premature, abrupt or precipitous way because the consequences would be very dangerous," he said. "This would be a devastating blow to U.S. interests in Iraq and the region." The possibilities he enumerated were: a divided Iraq, civil war of unprecedented violence, regional war, and a convenient location for Al Qaeda with plenty of oil revenues to fund its terrorism.
General Petraeus successfully argued within the administration for more time to continue the Sisyphean task of putting Iraq back on its feet and keeping it from splitting apart, but this position pitted him against many senior military officials who believe the stress on the Army and Marines requires a more rapid drawdown sooner. Congress is likely to continue attempts to force a more rapid reduction in the U.S. commitment. Petraeus and his inner circle don't dispute the fact that the Army and Marines are strained. But one of his advisers, chairman of the social sciences department at West Point Professor Mike Meese, argues that while it will take years to recover from the loss of captains and noncoms worn out by the war, "leaving Iraq in the wrong way so it appears to be a failure will have a decades-long impact."
The announcement of the drawdown sets in motion a chain reaction that will be difficult to predict. The risk of "rushing to failure" considerable, given that the positive trends are incipient and reversible and the Iraqi government has still not clearly embraced the Sunnis' wish to come in from the cold. The really thorny question is how fast to draw down the remaining 15 combat brigades. The game plan is one brigade every 45 days, conditions permitting. Lt. Gen. Odierno argues that to draw down more quickly now jeopardizes the chances for consolidating the initial gains won by the surge. "If you tell me today, we are going to go down to ten brigades in six months, I believe that's a failed failed strategy," he told me in early September. "We will not accomplish our goals that I see here in Iraq. If you ask me that six months from now, I might give you a different answer."
The drawdown begins in December, and with it the transition to a support role for U.S. troops. What has not yet been recognized is that U.S. leverage begins to wane at the same time. So the question is how to maximize that leverage while it still exists and to prepare for what will become increasingly a political game. There is no doubt that purging some key sectarian-minded officials and officers from the Iraqi government ranks would help. Also, some senior military officials and Democratic legislators like Senators Carl Levin and Jack Reed believe new deadlines for reporting on the Iraqi government's progress or lack thereof will help hold their feet to the fire. Bringing new diplomatic partners into the effort to negotiate the elusive accord among the Iraqis will also help share the burden of what it likely to be a protracted peace-making effort. But the United States must remain forcefully engaged, outline a clear political strategy and offer some creative new mechanisms. The Maliki government may or may not survive, but Crocker and others I interviewed believe that many months would be lost, at an absolutely critical time, in the effort to form a new government.
What hope of success is there? The war in Iraq will have an ending, and the United States' choice is to influence it or not. Despite the intense U.S. partisan politics surrounding the war, the bedrock reality is that Iraq is simply too important to walk away from. The best reason to believe that further progress might be made is the sheer doggedness of Petraeus and Crocker. Petraeus, unlike previous commanders here, does not shy away from locking horns and pounding tables on the political issues. And Crocker is a professional who has finally assembled a team of top-flight talent that has been missing the entire war, for what is really a peace-making venture. The next best reason is a second tier of well-intentioned Iraqi officials such as Barham Salih and Iyad Samarrai, who crafted the August 26 accord with U.S. help. Additional deadlines and markers imposed by Congress could help move this Sisyphean project along. But with or without progress, 2008 will be, finally, a year of transition.
Linda Robinson, a contributing editor for U.S. News, is working on a book about the endgame for Iraq, to be published next year by PublicAffairs Books. She has been covering the war since 2003.
Hat Tips to Dave Maxwell and Mac McAllister for pointing to this op-ed.
Who in the United States really supports our troops? If truth be told, basically nobody.
My former boss, Sen. Bob Dole — who was grievously wounded in combat during World War II and then spent the next three years of his life in various hospitals trying to survive and recover from his wounds — says this generation of soldiers, not his, is truly "The Greatest Generation." Over the course of the last few years, he has quietly visited with hundreds of wounded soldiers and been brought to tears, not only by their sacrifice, but also by their determination to rejoin their fellow soldiers back in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While Bob Dole, who clearly supports our troops, may think of them as "The Greatest Generation," not many of us agree with his very accurate assessment. Out of a nation of now 300 million people, who really cares about the young men and women we send into harm's way?
Let's see. Those on active duty obviously care, their families care, veterans care, a small number in the media care, some states like Texas care more than others, and a minute amount of the national population actually cares. But for the vast majority of the rest America, the young men and women who serve on the front lines and protect us from evil are all but invisible. They don't exist in our lives, they occupy no space in our minds, and their sacrifice goes unnoticed and unappreciated...
Go to the link to read it all.
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