Friday, May 16, 2008

A widening net

I think I'm missing something when I read the following piece: A Dutchman complains to the police that he's being victimized by a Dutchman who draws cartoons. The cartoons are 'racist.' A Dutchman converts to Islam, but what race does that make him? I would have thought he'd still be Dutch. What do I know? Obviously not as much as the ten cops who arrested the cartoonist. Ten cops to bust a cartoonist. That's gotta be some deadly pencil he wields. Quick on the draw, maybe. And the paper? Well, maybe it's criminal paper somehow. Yeah, ten cops to bust a guy for cartoons. It's as good or better [read "worse] than Rachel Davis or Bill Simpson complaining about Death Hippies at the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver, Canada. Worse perhaps than Mark Styne, Ezra Levant, and company. And that's just the locals. Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ai, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, all those racists, what are we going to do? It looks like the Death Hippies will arrest everyone. And the way to do it is to create a police state so the whole place, walking or sitting, is a prison.

The Dutch authorities have arrested the cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot (a pseudonym. Nekschot means deathblow, litt: "shot in the back of the neck" [An interview with Nekschot here]). The judicial authorities in Amsterdam said yesterday that the cartoonist was arrested as a suspect for the criminal offense of "publishing cartoons which are discriminating for Muslims and people with dark skin."

The cartoonist was arrested on Tuesday, while the police searched his house for "discriminating evidence." His computer, backups, usb sticks, mobile phone and a number of drawings were confiscated. Nekschot was released two days later but it is possible that he will be charged following a complaint in 2005 by the Dutch imam Abdul Jabbar van de Ven, an indigenous Dutchman who converted to Islam.

[....]

Nekschot, a friend of the late Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film maker who was ritually slaughtered by a Muslim fanatic in 2004, hides his real identity in order to avoid unnecessary risks. Hans Teeuwen, a Dutch stand-up comedian and friend of Nekschot's, told the Dutch media yesterday that the police had told Nekschot as they released him earlier that day that "he has now lost his anonymity." Teeuwen said this was "a rather intimidating remark."

As spokeswoman of Xtra, Nekschot's publisher, said today: "He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen." The spokeswoman asked that her name not be used because the cartoonist and publisher have received death threats. Nekschot told the Dutch newspaper Het Parool today that police officers had told him: "What you draw is worse than what they did in Denmark. Do you realize what can happen to you if your identity gets known?" The cartoonist fears for his live if he is being sent to jail. "As the maker of those cartoons my life is in danger in prison," he said.

Nekschot's work is rude and often sexually explicit. As such it is characteristic for the Dutch liberal mentality and not beyond the limit in the Netherlands. In his cartoons, however, he mocks the multicultural society, and that does seem to be beyond all bounds.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3257

Marisol at Dhimmiwatch leads with this:

"We suspect him of insulting people": Dutch cartoonist could face years in prison

He could end up serving more time than some jihadists in European criminal justice systems do on terrorism charges.

[....]

A spokeswoman for the Amsterdam public prosecutor, Sanne van Meteren, said Nekschot remains a suspect in a criminal investigation.

"We suspect him of insulting people on the basis of their race or belief, and possibly also of inciting hate," she said.

Each is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison under Dutch hate laws - or two years for multiple offences.

Van Meteren said prosecutors were investigating a complaint that dates to 2005. They are now focusing on eight or nine published cartoons, she said, but prosecutors are not disclosing which ones.

[....]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/021046.php

Let's face it: most people in the West do not care at all about freedom of speech. They don't care one little bit. They'll apathetically accept a police state without a complaint. It's the nature of things. Only a few will try to preserve and extend our right to freedom. Yes, there's a high price to pay for it. You might end up in jail. But really, what's the difference? You might get out one day and find yourself in a better place than the one you left rather than languishing in a deteriorating place on the outside. Erich Fromm knew it first-hand. We're learning quickly:

"We have been compelled to recognize that millions in Germany were as eager to surrender their freedom as their fathers were to fight for it; that instead of wanting freedom, they sought ways of escape from it; that other millions were indifferent and did not believe the defense of freedom to be worth fighting and dying for. We also recognize that the crisis of democracy is not a particularly Italian or German problem, but one confronting every modern state. ....

[F]reedom is not less endangered if attacked in the name of anti-fascism than in that of outright Fascism. This truth has been so forcefully formulated by John Dewey that I express the thought in his words: 'The serious threat to our democracy' he says, 'is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority, discipline, uniformity and dependence upon The Leader in foreign countries. The battlefield is also here-- within ourselves and our institutions.' "

Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom. Avon: New York. !941; rpt 1966; pp. 19-20.

It doesn't matter who you are. If you live in a police state and you don't care, then things will become worse daily. Whether you care or not, daily your life will worsen. So, in the event that things get drastic, we'll stand on the street-corner soon in Vancouver to wave our placards in support of Styne when his hearing comes up. What a great thing to be arrested for fighting for freedom.

No? Then see what it is to live in a prison without even needing to be arrested. Your whole state a prison, and never any escape from it. Your life itself a prison.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Free Speech has a High Price.


There are days, many, I confess, when I have nothing at all to offer that is anything like the work of my colleagues, and today is one of those. Thus, may I direct your attention to RS at Downtown Eastside Enquirer, and Truepeers at Covenant Zone. Both posts are long, and both are rewarding for those with the time to pursue them.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Can America Go Home Again?

'Now if Fortune were just in its decree it would not empower the worthless with authority." The First Makabah of al-Hariri.

I'm not a predatory guy, I think. I'm one who sees a deal, perhaps, and if possible, I go for it. Such is the case with the housing market in America, my home, all else said and done. I haven't really been back in 30 years, or maybe 35. But if I were to return and buy a farm, (my distant dream,) would I find myself in the same nation I left, lo those many years ago? Or will I find myself in some alien place where the next best thing to Communists rule the roost? Is it still America? Can one go home again? Maybe no. And if the market continues to make return attractive to a wandering soul like mine, will the government step in and foreclose me? I often do want to go home again. I'm sure those who have homes at home already would like to stay in them. Is capitalism, the market that allows me to buy while others are forced to sell, a bad thing? Is home a bad thing now? Maybe yes. True, there are very few farms available in Los Angeles, maybe fewer still in Miami. But there is a farm waiting for me. Is home really home anymore? And what of the coming years, a time of Barak Obama? Is it America? The marketplace of ideas might well give us a president I won't want to live with. My choice. But what of America? What of the house of America itself?

Rick Moran, "Foreclosures up 65% in April," American Thinker; 14 May 2008


Housing foreclosures are up 65% compared to last year indicating that the housing slowdown and credit crunch show no signs of abating:

Nationwide, 243,353 homes received at least one foreclosure-related filing in April, up 65 percent from 147,708 in the same month last year and up 4 percent since March, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida were among the hardest hit states, with metropolitan areas in California and Florida accounting for nine of the top 10 areas with the highest rate of foreclosure, the company said.

[....]

One in every 519 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in April. Foreclosure filings increased from a year earlier in all but eight states.

The combination of weak housing sales, falling home values, tighter mortgage lending criteria and a slowing U.S. economy has left financially strapped homeowners with fewer options to avoid foreclosure. Many can't find buyers or owe more than their home is worth and can't get refinanced into an affordable loan.

Measures passed by Congress will affect only a small percentage of these homeowners as the economy continues to flush out the bad loans and risky customers who took advantage of the housing boom to purchase houses they couldn't afford or make loans that never should have been made.

While the mortgage backed securities crisis on Wall Street seems to have passed, expect many more months of bad news in the housing market before things bottom out.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/05/foreclosures_up_65_in_april.html

Not yet. Can't quite yet skip ahead. Maybe later I can head my post with this wonderful line:

"Then I struck the tents of exile and saddled the steeds of return." The Twelfth Makabah of al-Hariri.

I get home-sick sometimes. If you're up to it, sing along with me here.



Daniel D. Emmett, 1859
O, I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old times there are not forgotten
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land where I was born in
Early on one frosty mornin'
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Chorus:

O, I wish I was in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand
To live and die in Dixie:
Away, away, away down south in Dixie! :


| 2. Old Missus marry Will, the weaver,
William was a gay deceiver
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
But when he put his arm around her
He smiled as fierce as a forty pounder
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Chorus:

3. His face was sharp as a butcher's cleaver
But that did not seem to grieve her
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Old Missus acted the foolish part
And died for a man that broke her heart
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Chorus:
****

Next Year in Dixie. Or the year after that....

Untitled.

Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae.

"Let conversation cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where death delights to help the living."

One would think martyrs would have a say in their actions, a nod, a wince, a shrug-- something. But it's not so. These things are in the hands of others, and in the Hand that holds. That would be a mystery to me.

The case of theodicy leaves me at the doorstep. I doff my hat, and I remain silent. If the ummah loves death more than we love life, then let them all die if they so choose; but why drag us into their cowardly designs? Such is the Mystery. Muslim cowardice demands that they demand that we correct them for their own sakes. Why should we? This is the place that beckons us, and calls us to our duty to do what we would not choose. I find no comfort in it. Somewhere there might lie some answer to these mysteries. Somewhere there might be some shrouded smile to greet us when. Maybe, when all is said and done and this is forgotten generations later, maybe then we'll see some plan unveiled and we'll gasp at the beauty of it all. Maybe there will be weeping and joy and gladness at the deed done for the Living. Call me, please, when that day arrives.
****

Iraqi insurgents use eight-year-old girl as suicide bomber

Daily Mail 14 May 2008

An eight-year-old girl was strapped with remote-controlled explosives and used as a human bomb by Iraqi insurgents in a blast that killed an Iraqi commander earlier today.

[....]


Photo from Opacity. Pilgrim State Hospital, Brentwood, New York.

Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae

Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae.

"Let conversation cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where death delights to help the living."
One would think martyrs would have a say in their actions, a nod, a wince, a shrug-- something. But it's not so. These things are in the hands of others, and in the Hand that holds. That would be a mystery to me.

The case of theodicy leaves me at the doorstep. I doff my hat, and I remain silent. If the ummah loves death more than we love life, then let them all die if they so choose; but why drag us into their cowardly designs? Such is the Mystery. Muslim cowardice demands that they demand that we correct them for their own sakes. Why should we? This is the place that beckons us, and calls us to our duty to do what we would not choose. I find no comfort in it. Somewhere there might lie some answer to these mysteries. Somewhere there might be some shrouded smile to greet us when. Maybe, when all is said and done and this is forgotten generations later, maybe then we'll see some plan unveiled and we'll gasp at the beauty of it all. Maybe there will be weeping and joy and gladness at the deed done for the Living. Call me, please, when that day arrives.

Photo from Opacity. Pilgrim State Hospital, Brentwood, New York.

Monday, May 12, 2008

What is to be Done, Theoretically?

Theory? Is it a good idea or a bad one? We face a current of conflict with Islam and our own reactionary Left, and to my mind it means war in the physical sense. It means to me a matter of preparing and planning and organizing for the war that is here and now and that builds daily in our lives. War, the kind in which people are killed and things are wrecked, and civilizations die and the life of Man is transformed, for the worse, for the better, or maybe just wrecked for no good reason at all. Still, war is here and worsening. I see it, I engage in it. War, and it needs a theory to make it work for us in our own minds so we might reify our victory in the world. We require, as those engaged in war and warfare, an idea of why we are at war and a clear, written presentation of our goals that we might share and build alliances with our programme.

We can be trapped by our own devices as thinkers, stuck in our own delusions of final answers to questions that have no answers, fooling ourselves into believing that ours are the answers for all times and all people everywhere. This can be both utopian and apocalyptic thinking. If we theorize and attempt to clarify our approaches to the nature of things we might well find that we've precluded other paradigms by doing so, blocking creative attempts that don't reside within our perimeters of analysis. To do this as people involved in politics or science is a sure mistake, one that leads to totalitarian thinking, of 'Our way or the highway.' I'm not convinced, of course, that such is certain. Yes, writing has its pitfalls, but they are not written in stone, and those who write are not Moses, so the problem of being followed is unlikely to arise for most of us. Writing is an attempt toward, even when it's written in stone as eschatology. Personally, I shrug. The future, though unknowable and unguessable is still not exactly something we can, as thinkers, pretend has no bearing on our lives in the current. The flying fickle finger of Fate writes, and having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. So concludes Omar Khayyam. He wrote, and Rowan and Martin wrote, and life goes on, no one paying particular attention to the finer details of any of it. And Moses. They wrote, and Fate writes, and Life continues its petty pace from day to day.... Leaving open the future unknowable is to leave open the future whether we attempt to usher in the Millenium or we don't, things of Nature not following our wishes anyway, History never slowing down simply due to a barricade of paper in the way, Clio's light feet never really touching the pages of even our greatest. All is Vanity.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28

But I write of war in our day, not of Nothing. Below is a conversational account of Fourth Generation War. Nothing changes. Whether we theorize or we don't life will continue right on past us. Sooner if we're dead wrong about the few things we might try to anticipate if we anticipate wrong. I don't see any problem with the following attempt at clarifying and theorizing on the ways of war. I do see it as an attempt to redefine the wheel. It's a worthwhile essay regardless if only to bring about the chance to write about war as filibuster, which I will do briefly at the conclusion of this piece immediately below.

Understanding Fourth Generation War

by William S. Lind

Rather than commenting on the specifics of the war with Iraq, I thought it might be a good time to lay out a framework for understanding that and other conflicts. The framework is the Four Generations of Modern War.

I developed the framework of the first three generations ("generation" is shorthand for dialectically qualitative shift) in the 1980s, when I was laboring to introduce maneuver warfare to the Marine Corps. Marines kept asking, "What will the Fourth Generation be like?", and I began to think about that. The result was the article I co-authored for the Marine Corps Gazette in 1989, "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation." Our troops found copies of it in the caves at Tora Bora, the al-Qaeda hideout in Afghanistan.

The Four Generations began with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the treaty that ended the Thirty Years' War. With the Treaty of Westphalia, the state established a monopoly on war. Previously, many different entities had fought wars – families, tribes, religions, cities, business enterprises – using many different means, not just armies and navies (two of those means, bribery and assassination, are again in vogue). Now, state militaries find it difficult to imagine war in any way other than fighting state armed forces similar to themselves.

The First Generation of Modern War runs roughly from 1648 to 1860. This was war of line and column tactics, where battles were formal and the battlefield was orderly. The relevance of the First Generation springs from the fact that the battlefield of order created a military culture of order. Most of the things that distinguish "military" from "civilian" - uniforms, saluting, careful gradations or rank – were products of the First Generation and are intended to reinforce the culture of order.

The problem is that, around the middle of the 19th century, the battlefield of order began to break down. Mass armies, soldiers who actually wanted to fight (an 18th century's soldier's main objective was to desert), rifled muskets, then breech loaders and machine guns, made the old line and column tactics first obsolete, then suicidal.

The problem ever since has been a growing contradiction between the military culture and the increasing disorderliness of the battlefield. The culture of order that was once consistent with the environment in which it operated has become more and more at odds with it.

Second Generation warfare was one answer to this contradiction. Developed by the French Army during and after World War I, it sought a solution in mass firepower, most of which was indirect artillery fire. The goal was attrition, and the doctrine was summed up by the French as, "The artillery conquers, the infantry occupies." Centrally-controlled firepower was carefully synchronized, using detailed, specific plans and orders, for the infantry, tanks, and artillery, in a "conducted battle" where the commander was in effect the conductor of an orchestra.

Second Generation warfare came as a great relief to soldiers (or at least their officers) because it preserved the culture of order. The focus was inward on rules, processes and procedures. Obedience was more important than initiative (in fact, initiative was not wanted, because it endangered synchronization), and discipline was top-down and imposed.

Second Generation warfare is relevant to us today because the United States Army and Marine Corps learned Second Generation warfare from the French during and after World War I. It remains the American way of war, as we are seeing in Afghanistan and Iraq: to Americans, war means "putting steel on target." Aviation has replaced artillery as the source of most firepower, but otherwise, (and despite the Marine's formal doctrine, which is Third Generation maneuver warfare) the American military today is as French as white wine and brie. At the Marine Corps' desert warfare training center at 29 Palms, California, the only thing missing is the tricolor and a picture of General Gamelin in the headquarters. The same is true at the Army's Armor School at Fort Knox, where one instructor recently began his class by saying, "I don't know why I have to teach you all this old French crap, but I do."

Third Generation warfare, like Second, was a product of World War I. It was developed by the German Army, and is commonly known as Blitzkrieg or maneuver warfare.

Third Generation warfare is based not on firepower and attrition but speed, surprise, and mental as well as physical dislocation. Tactically, in the attack a Third Generation military seeks to get into the enemy's rear and collapse him from the rear forward: instead of "close with and destroy," the motto is "bypass and collapse." In the defense, it attempts to draw the enemy in, then cut him off. War ceases to be a shoving contest, where forces attempt to hold or advance a "line;" Third Generation warfare is non-linear.

Not only do tactics change in the Third Generation, so does the military culture. A Third Generation military focuses outward, on the situation, the enemy, and the result the situation requires, not inward on process and method (in war games in the 19th Century, German junior officers were routinely given problems that could only be solved by disobeying orders). Orders themselves specify the result to be achieved, but never the method ("Auftragstaktik"). Initiative is more important than obedience (mistakes are tolerated, so long as they come from too much initiative rather than too little), and it all depends on self-discipline, not imposed discipline. The Kaiserheer and the Wehrmacht could put on great parades, but in reality they had broken with the culture of order.

Characteristics such as decentralization and initiative carry over from the Third to the Fourth Generation, but in other respects the Fourth Generation marks the most radical change since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. In Fourth Generation war, the state loses its monopoly on war. All over the world, state militaries find themselves fighting non-state opponents such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the FARC. Almost everywhere, the state is losing.

Fourth Generation war is also marked by a return to a world of cultures, not merely states, in conflict. We now find ourselves facing the Christian West's oldest and most steadfast opponent, Islam. After about three centuries on the strategic defensive, following the failure of the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, Islam has resumed the strategic offensive, expanding outward in every direction. In Third Generation war, invasion by immigration can be at least as dangerous as invasion by a state army.

Nor is Fourth Generation warfare merely something we import, as we did on 9/11. At its core lies a universal crisis of legitimacy of the state, and that crisis means many countries will evolve Fourth Generation war on their soil. America, with a closed political system (regardless of which party wins, the Establishment remains in power and nothing really changes) and a poisonous ideology of "multiculturalism," is a prime candidate for the home-grown variety of Fourth Generation war – which is by far the most dangerous kind.

Where does the war in Iraq fit in this framework?

I suggest that the war we have seen thus far is merely a powder train leading to the magazine. The magazine is Fourth Generation war by a wide variety of Islamic non-state actors, directed at America and Americans (and local governments friendly to America) everywhere. The longer America occupies Iraq, the greater the chance that the magazine will explode. If it does, God help us all.

For almost two years, a small seminar has been meeting at my house to work on the question of how to fight Fourth Generation war. It is made up mostly of Marines, lieutenant through lieutenant colonel, with one Army officer, one National Guard tanker captain and one foreign officer. We figured somebody ought to be working on the most difficult question facing the U.S. armed forces, and nobody else seems to be.

The seminar recently decided it was time to go public with a few of the ideas it has come up with, and use this column to that end. We have no magic solutions to offer, only some thoughts. We recognized from the outset that the whole task may be hopeless; state militaries may not be able to come to grips with Fourth Generation enemies no matter what they do.

But for what they are worth, here are our thoughts to date:


If America had some Third Generation ground forces, capable of maneuver warfare, we might be able to fight battles of encirclement. The inability to fight battles of encirclement is what led to the failure of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, where al Qaeda stood, fought us, and got away with few casualties. To fight such battles we need some true light infantry, infantry that can move farther and faster on its feet than the enemy, has a full tactical repertoire (not just bumping into the enemy and calling for fire) and can fight with its own weapons instead of depending on supporting arms. We estimate that U.S. Marine infantry today has a sustained march rate of only 10-15 kilometers per day; German World War II line, not light, infantry could sustain 40 kilometers.


Fourth Generation opponents will not sign up to the Geneva Conventions, but might some be open to a chivalric code governing how our war with them would be fought? It's worth exploring.


How U.S. forces conduct themselves after the battle may be as important in 4GW as how they fight the battle.


What the Marine Corps calls "cultural intelligence" is of vital importance in 4GW, and it must go down to the lowest rank. In Iraq, the Marines seemed to grasp this much better than the U.S. Army.


What kind of people do we need in Special Operations Forces? The seminar thought minds were more important than muscles, but it is not clear all U.S. SOF understand this.


One key to success is integrating our troops as much as possible with the local people.


Unfortunately, the American doctrine of "force protection" works against integration and generally hurts us badly. Here's a quote from the minutes of the seminar:

"There are two ways to deal with the issue of force protection. One way is the way we are currently doing it, which is to separate ourselves from the population and to intimidate them with our firepower. A more viable alternative might be to take the opposite approach and integrate with the community. That way you find out more of what is going on and the population protects you. The British approach of getting the helmets off as soon as possible may actually be saving lives."


What "wins" at the tactical and physical levels may lose at the operational, strategic, mental and moral levels, where 4GW is decided. Martin van Creveld argues that one reason the British have not lost in Northern Ireland is that the British Army has taken more casualties than it has inflicted. This is something the Second Generation American military has great trouble grasping, because it defines success in terms of comparative attrition rates.


We must recognize that in 4GW situations, we are the weaker, not the stronger party, despite all our firepower and technology.


What can the U.S. military learn from cops? Our reserve and National Guard units include lots of cops; are we taking advantage of what they know?

One key to success in 4GW may be "losing to win." Part of the reason the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not succeeding is that our initial invasion destroyed the state, creating a happy hunting ground for Fourth Generation forces. In a world where the state is in decline, if you destroy a state, it is very difficult to recreate it. Here's another quote from the minutes of the seminar:

"The discussion concluded that while war against another state may be necessary one should seek to preserve that state even as one defeats it. Grant the opposing armies the 'honors of war,' tell them what a fine job they did, make their defeat 'civilized' so they can survive the war institutionally intact and then work for your side. This would be similar to 18th century notions of civilized war and contribute greatly to propping up a fragile state. Humiliating the defeated enemy troops, especially in front of their own population, is always a serious mistake but one that Americans are prone to make. This is because the 'football mentality' we have developed since World War II works against us."

In many ways, the 21st century will offer a war between the forces of 4GW and Brave New World. The 4GW forces understand this, while the international elites that seek BNW do not. Another quote from the minutes:

"Osama bin Ladin, though reportedly very wealthy, lives in a cave. Yes, it is for security but it is also leadership by example. It may make it harder to separate (physically or psychologically) the 4GW leaders from their troops. It also makes it harder to discredit those leaders with their followers… This contrasts dramatically with the BNW elites who are physically and psychologically separated (by a huge gap) from their followers (even the generals in most conventional armies are to a great extent separated from their men)… The BNW elites are in many respects occupying the moral low ground but don't know it."


In the Axis occupation of the Balkans during World War II, the Italians in many ways were more effective than the Germans. The key to their success is that they did not want to fight. On Cyprus, the U.N. commander rated the Argentine battalion as more effective than the British or the Austrians because the Argentines did not want to fight. What lessons can U.S. forces draw from this?


How would the Mafia do an occupation?


When we have a coalition, what if we let each country do what is does best, e.g., the Russians handle operational art, the U.S. firepower and logistics, maybe the Italians the occupation?


How could the Defense Department's concept of "Transformation" be redefined so as to come to grips with 4GW? If you read the current "Transformation Planning Guidance" put out by DOD, you find nothing in it on 4GW, indeed nothing that relates at all to either of the two wars we are now fighting. It is all oriented toward fighting other state armed forces that fight us symmetrically.

The seminar intends to continue working on this question of redefining "Transformation" (die Verwandlung?) so as to make it relevant to 4GW. However, for our December meeting, we have posed the following problem: It is Spring, 2004. The U.S. Marines are to relieve the Army in the occupation of Fallujah, perhaps Iraq's hottest hot spot (and one where the 82nd Airborne's tactics have been pouring gasoline on the fire). You are the commander of the Marine force taking over Fallujah. What do you do?

I'll let you know what we come up with.

Will Saddam's capture mark a turning point in the war in Iraq? Don't count on it. Few resistance fighters have been fighting for Saddam personally. Saddam's capture may lead to a fractioning of the Baath Party, which would move us further toward a Fourth Generation situation where no one can recreate the state. It may also tell the Shiites that they no longer need America to protect them from Saddam, giving them more options in their struggle for free elections.

If the U.S. Army used the capture of Saddam to announce the end of tactics that enrage ordinary Iraqis and drive them toward active resistance, it might buy us a bit of de-escalation. But I don't think we'll that be smart. When it comes to Fourth Generation war, it seems nobody in the American military gets it.

Recently, a faculty member at the National Defense University wrote to Marine Corps General Mattis, commander of I MAR DIV, to ask his views on the importance of reading military history. Mattis responded with an eloquent defense of taking time to read history, one that should go up on the wall at all of our military schools. "Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation," Mattis said. "It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead."

Still, even such a capable and well-read commander as General Mattis seems to miss the point about Fourth Generation warfare. He said in his missive, "Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face NOTHING new under the sun. For all the '4th Generation of War' intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, the tactics are wholly new, etc., I must respectfully say…'Not really…"

Well, that isn't quite what we Fourth Generation intellectuals are saying. On the contrary, we have pointed out over and over that the 4th Generation is not novel but a return, specifically a return to the way war worked before the rise of the state. Now, as then, many different entities, not just governments of states, will wage war. They will wage war for many different reasons, not just "the extension of politics by other means." And they will use many different tools to fight war, not restricting themselves to what we recognize as military forces. When I am asked to recommend a good book describing what a Fourth Generation world will be like, I usually suggest Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century.

Nor are we saying that Fourth Generation tactics are new. On the contrary, many of the tactics Fourth Generation opponents use are standard guerilla tactics. Others, including much of what we call "terrorism," are classic Arab light cavalry warfare carried out with modern technology at the operational and strategic, not just tactical, levels. As I have said before in this column, most of what we are facing in Iraq today is not yet Fourth Generation warfare, but a War of National Liberation, fought by people whose goal is to restore a Baathist state. But as that goal fades and those forces splinter, Fourth Generation war will come more and more to the fore. What will characterize it is not vast changes in how the enemy fights, but rather in who fights and what they fight for. The change in who fights makes it difficult for us to tell friend from foe. A good example is the advent of female suicide bombers; do U.S. troops now start frisking every Moslem woman they encounter? The change in what our enemies fight for makes impossible the political compromises that are necessary to ending any war. We find that when it comes to making peace, we have no one to talk to and nothing to talk about. And the end of a war like that in Iraq becomes inevitable: the local state we attacked vanishes, leaving behind either a stateless region (Somalia) or a façade of a state (Afghanistan) within which more non-state elements rise and fight. General Mattis is correct that none of this is new. It is only new to state armed forces that were designed to fight other state armed forces. The fact that no state military has recently succeeded in defeating a non-state enemy reminds us that Clio has a sense of humor: history also teaches us that not all problems have solutions.

I didn't include link to the above essay since I got it from a Death hippie site who threaten vaguely about those reprinting this work without permission. Frankly, I'd be happy to go to war against them myself. And to further my reputation as a pointlessly bellicose fellow I will also add to my reputation as erudite, even at the real risk of alienating my vast readership, by referring to Fransisco Franco.

War, for many in the West, is a sentimental venture. For the majority of anti-war Death Hippies war is something one can emote about in public for the sake of impressing ones fellows with ones deep commitment to Peace. It's a performance art for people who have nothing better to do with their lives than to pretend at morality. For serious people, war is business, the business of living, the business of the tools and material that make Life possible. One doesn't go into a war for no reason and with no expectation of gain. It's not gratuitous. In the Modernity we live in there are civilized rules to obey in war, and they have been in place at the least since the time of St Augustine. One rule is that we do not fight wars we cannot hope to win. Thus:

Franco engaged in war against the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Picasso fans will know of the painting, as such, "Guernica." The painting commemorates Franco's battle against the city during which Hitler sent the Luftwaffe to destroy the city and it's inhabitants, armed and civilian, at random and totally. For those who prefer their history of the non-Stalinist flavor, one might refer to George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. The point: Fascist murderer Franco was aided in his war by friends Mussolini and Hitler against the equally disgusting Stalin, who attempted to exterminate the Republicans as well. Including all involved, there was no good side in the war; however, not all was pointless: each side demanded a result of benefit. Franco, a rational, if murderous, military man, gained more than he lost. He won. He won by following the laws of natural war. Rather than rushing immediately to Madrid to claim victory and to then fight the towns and villages till victory was cemented, he stopped at each point, killed the opposition to the point of annihilation, and moved on to the next, pacifying and consolidating all his gains as he went. Spain remained in the grip of his fascist dictatorship for roughly 40 years thereafter. Western Germany was spared that length of dictatorship thanks to the Allies, among other tactics, burning Dresden.

So, what do we want? What are we prepared for and what are we wiling to pay for it? Of course we are all lovely people here, and we are moreso daily; but what kind of people are we willing to become should the need arise? Do we honestly care about the hearts and minds of jihadis? Do we genuinely care to have an endless and losing jihad against us as do the Indians in Kashmir? Is a sensitive New Age war the kind off commitment we care to make. If our governments continue to collaborate with our enemies, do we care to abide by our own destruction? What goal, if any, do we care to have? What is our point or purpose in waging war? Can we win at all? What is winning a war?

I feel that we need a theory, one written and explained to our public, one debatable and clear. To claim we are at war is one man's considered opinion based on observation of the world we live in. My response is that we should wage war effectively for the purpose of winning; but what is winning? And what do we do to ensure our victory isn't Pyrrhic-- if only in the moral sense? I ask 'What is to be Done?'