Look For the Briefcase

For John, BLUF:  I think there is an assumption out there that all European descendents are racist, an assumption that ignores history and the prejudice against immigrants from Ireland, or France, or Poland, or Italy or ....  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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White People on a Plane

Here is the sub-headline:

Bigotry in the Sky

From An Injustice!, by Ms Roz Warren, 26 August 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

I’d just boarded my plane from Philadelphia to California. When you travel alone, sitting on a plane always is a lottery. Would the person sitting next to me be pleasant and friendly? An obnoxious drunk? A motormouth? A jerk who’d assault the first flight attendant who insisted they wear a mask?

This was going to be a six-hour flight and I was hoping for somebody pleasant and low-key. No demands and no drama.

I was in luck. When I got to row 20, I saw that the fellow in the middle seat was a friendly smiling man in his fifties. A woman who I assumed was his wife — they’d lowered the armrest between them — sat beside him in the window seat.

As I sat down and settled into my aisle seat, the man gave me a welcoming smile. “I’m so glad you’re sitting here,” he told me.

That seemed a little much. Was he being flirty? No, I decided. Not only was he at least a decade younger than me, but his wife was sitting right there. Maybe he was just a really friendly guy?

“Thank you,” I replied.

“I was scared it would be the guy with the turban,” he explained. “When I saw him in the boarding lounge, I was really hoping he wouldn’t sit near us.”

She nailed him.  A White racist.  There is not a shred of doubt in her mind.  There is no exploration of her interloctor's personal trauma.  No specuation that he might have lost an older Brother or Father on 9/11.

My first complaint is that the guy in the next seat isn't "White".  He is a Caucasian.

My second point is that as we approach the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States some are alert to the possibility of a repeat of that terrorist event.  Frankly, the vast majority of Muslims walking around in your City, and mine, are just like the rest of us.  They are just more Caucasians, or Blacks, or Asians, trying to have a good day, a good week, a good year.  There is a fringe in their Community who wish to change the world, by violence if needs be.  Is this not true?  And, there are fringes in other communities, but they tend to blend in and not be noticed, like real "White Suppressicists".♠ 

If one is not looking around and paying attention one is living in a fog.  One needs to know where the exits are, not just on the airliner.  One needs to note anyone who looks like they don't belong.  One should be suspicious of packages or briefcases that seem to be abandoned.♥  When I was at Staff College, in the United Kingdom, one of our sister Colleges had a bombing that killed one person.

We shouldn't be paranoid, which would ruin the beauty of life, but we need to be aware.  One the other hand, we shouldn't have our head in the sand, as does, it appears, our Author.  She apparently has not read many history books, or perhaps only those by Mr Zinn.  Lost in school is that an expansive Islam made it to tours in France and the Gates of Vienna, in Austria.

And, we shouldn't assume everyone with a slightly different view is a racist.  We are in this with them.  We should be willing to exchange views.  Perhaps everyone will learn something.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  See Professor Arie Perliger's American Zealots:  Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism
♥  Remember, it was a briefcase that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg left in the briefing room of the Wolf's Lair on 20 July 1944, in an attempt to kill Chancellor Adolph Hitler.

Afghanistan is Not Becoming Better

For John, BLUF:  This is a very insightful article, a warning that it isn't over just because we are pulling out of Afghanistan.  Their goal is to expand Islam by the sword.  Spain is not safe.  None of us are safe.  Even China should be concerned.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Afghanistan, Again, Becomes a Cradle for Jihadism—and Al Qaeda

Here is the sub-headline:

The terrorist group has outlasted the trillion-dollar U.S. investment in Afghanistan since 9/11.

From The New Yorker, by Robin Wright,♠ 23 August 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

In March, I travelled to Afghanistan and the Middle East with General Kenneth (Frank) McKenzie, Jr., the Alabama-born marine who heads Central Command.  He has been overseeing the frantic evacuation out of Kabul.  During one of several interviews aboard his plane, I asked him, “Do you really think, given the intermarriage, the interweaving of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, that the Taliban is really ever going to be able or willing to restrain Al Qaeda from doing anything against us?”  By then, the Taliban held roughly half of Afghanistan, a country about the size of Texas. McKenzie was chillingly candid.  “I think it will be very hard for the Taliban to act against Al Qaeda, to actually limit their ability to attack outside the country,” he replied.  “It’s possible, but I think it would be difficult.”

For more than a year, both the Trump and Biden Administrations had reams of warnings—from the military and diplomats, congressional reports and a commissioned study group, its own inspector general, and the United Nations—that the collapse of the Afghan government, an ever-growing possibility, would also mean a resurgence of Al Qaeda.  In April, a U.S. intelligence assessment warned Congress that Al Qaeda’s senior leadership “will continue to plot attacks and seek to exploit conflicts in different regions.”  The jihadist group, which carried out the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was active in fifteen of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces, primarily in the eastern and southern regions, the United Nations reported in June.  The Taliban and Al Qaeda remained “closely aligned and show no indication of breaking ties,” it noted, as like-minded militants celebrated developments in Afghanistan as a victory for “global radicalism.” In a haunting final report on the lessons learned from America’s longest war, John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, warned that the U.S. decision to pull out the last U.S. troops “left uncertain whether even the modest gains of the last two decades will prove sustainable.”  The decision to pull out was made by President Trump in February last year, with the timetable decided by President Biden in April this year.

She goes on:

As the core of the movement came under U.S. military pressure, he [Al Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri] and bin Laden advocated for the creation of Al Qaeda branches across the Islamic world as part of its survival strategy, according to Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. special agent for counterterrorism and the author of “The Black Banners:  The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda.”  Zawahiri’s more patient strategy has worked, while the more aggressive strategy of the rival Islamic State has flamed out, Soufan told me.  ISIS had many times more members, but Al Qaeda fighters were far more experienced, more strategic, and hardened in battle.  Al Qaeda’s strategy—dubbed the “management of savagery”—has three phases.  The first includes terrorist attacks to weaken the international and regional order.  The second, as government authority erodes or collapses, is to prevent other political forces from filling the vacuum, so as to allow Al Qaeda’s movements to “take pride of position,” Soufan said.  The final stage is to establish a state and stitch the other regions together into a caliphate.

And further:

The common flaw in U.S. policy has been the focus on the fight rather than the economic, political, and social flash points that gave rise to multiple jihadist movements among both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, dating back at least four decades, Soufan said.  “We’ve been spiking the ball at the five-yard line,” like a football player claiming points before actually scoring a touchdown, he told me. “Yes, we defeated the physical manifestation of the caliphate in Iraq and Syria, but we never dealt with the ideology.”  The extremist brands of politicized Islam have usually emerged in countries plagued by poverty and high unemployment, autocratic rule and political alienation, sectarian or social marginalization, and heavy foreign influence.  “All the elements that gave rise to these movements, they’re all worse than they were immediately prior to 9/11,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat who is now the coördinator of the U.N. Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team that tracks extremist movements, told me.  “I can’t think of a serious underlying factor in the rise of isis or Al Qaeda that has been mitigated, and some are worse.”

Al Qaeda’s resurgence may not have immediate consequences for the U.S. homeland, the experts said.  “Al Qaeda probably does not pose, right now, a direct threat to the West,” Fitton-Brown said.  “But it intends to do so and has a route to do so, which may bear fruit in one or more of these locations,” whether Syria, Yemen, Somalia, the Sahel and West Africa, or elsewhere.  “It would be premature and risky to regard Al Qaeda and isis as defeated, and to relax that counterterrorism pressure.”  Al Qaeda’s broader focus, Soufan said, will be on destabilizing Muslim countries where, as in Afghanistan, governments are frail, have fled, or do not exist.  The goal now is to replicate the victory in Afghanistan elsewhere—phase two.  “Their plan,” he said, “is much more dangerous than a terrorist attack.”

It won't be over when we finally pull out of Afghanistan.  Our opponents have longer term goals and the are bigger than Afghanistan.  They are bigger than Iraq and Syria.  The leaders of the Taliban, al Qaeda and ISIS see themselves restoring the reach if Islam, reaching into Spain and the gates of Vienna and into India (and, I suspect, into China).

We can ignore where we are going, but it will be costly.

Regards  —  Cliff

< ♠  Robin Wright, a contributing writer and columnist, has written for The New Yorker since 1988. She is the author of “Rock the Casbah:  Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World.”

9/11 Again

For John, BLUF:  The attack on 11 September 2001 was a traumatic event for almost everyone in the United States, and the larger West.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today is the 18th Anniversary of the 9/11Attack.

A terrible event.  And now, 18 years on, do we still want to be fighting in Afghanistan?  In The LA Times Retired Historian and Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich talks about pulling out of Afghanistan.

Our failure, their catastrophe

Here is the sub-headline:

When Americans finally leave Afghanistan, we won’t look back. It will be Vietnam all over again.

Ending a war with someone who has a radically different view of culture and government can be difficult and the outcome may not be what we desire.  However, this isn't World War II and we are not going to crush the opposition, the way we did Japan and Germany.

The other side of the coin is that we need to do some strategic study, thinking about what is the best way to engage in these kinds of wars.

That is, we need to ask, now, what we will do the next time.  There will be a next time, because the ISIS crowd is intolerant and we are not knuckling under.

Yes, I am a Viet-nam Veteran, and was part of the force supporting Cambodian forces against the Khmer Rouge, by flying Close Air Support and Air Interdiction missions.  I was not there for the last day of Us Operations, having chosen to take leave and avoid the reporters, lest I say something untoward.

Regards  —  Cliff

911 From the Other Side

For John, BLUF:  The perpetrators of the 911 attacks, back in 2001, al-Qaddafi, has not gone away and the US is the focus of their attention.  The US is the main enemy .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Al Qaeda leader:  America is the main enemy in a ‘single war with different fronts’

From Long War Journal, by Mr Thomas Joscelyn, 11 September 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

Al Qaeda released a new message from its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 hijackings earlier today.  Titled “How to Confront America,” the talk is intended to rally jihadists and supporters against their common perceived enemy.  Much of the message is not a how-to so much as it is a restatement of al Qaeda’s anti-American view.

Zawahiri portrays the US as the chief enemy of Muslims around the globe.  Of course, al Qaeda has repeatedly plotted and called for terrorist attacks inside the West.  But that is not the only way Zawahiri thinks the jihadists should continue to fight the Americans.

“We must wage the war – in any part of the Islamic World – as if it is a single war with different fronts against a united enemy,” Zawahiri explains.  The wars in “the tribal areas in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Mali, Somalia and elsewhere” are not just “between the Muslims and the local governments only,” according to Zawahiri.  Instead, these conflicts have “always been between the Muslims and the system of the major international criminals – America being the foremost.”

In Zawahiri’s framework, there is no firm line between al Qaeda’s so-called far and near enemies, as they are all part of the same global war.

In our thinking we need to differentiate between the Taliban (Afghanistan) and al-Qaeda (Global jihad).

We can pull out of Afghanistan, and while that might placate the Taliban, it will not placate al-Qaeda.  The terrorist threat will remain.

Hat tip to Defense News, "Early Bird Edition".

Regards  —  Cliff

Barcelona and Charlottesville

For John, BLUF:  There is a theme and if the facts don't follow the theme the facts are ignored.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Charlottesville, Barcelona, and the Left's Nostalgia for Naziism

The source is Pajama Media and author Roger L Simon, on 17 August 2017.

Here is the lede plus one:

Within minutes of the announcement of the vehicular terror attack in Barcelona, Jim Sciutto and Wolf Blitzer of CNN were opining that the horrifying events in Spain may have been inspired by (i.e. were a copycat of) Charlottesville.  The implications of this comparison are not only wrong-headed, they are reactionary and dangerous to the American public and the world.

And this is for even more important reasons than the fact that Barcelona was a catastrophic attack with, as of this writing, 13 dead and over 100 wounded, many seriously.  (Coordinated attacks were apparently attempted in other parts of Catalonia.)

Yes, what were Reporters Wolf Blitzer and Jim Sciutto thinking?  Perhaps the urge to be first overpowered the urge to be correct.  It is not the CNN of the 1980s, which I remember fondly.  How could they possibly draw the connection?  This appears to be politics over analysis and reporting.  Shame.

And, of course, it is the media and the Bien-Pensant minimizing the involvement of Islam and in particular radical Islam with a bent toward killing the infidels or enslaving them—the Yazidis, the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims who don't believe the way Daesh and al Qaeda believe.  If we ignore this long enough we will disappear under a wave of terror.

Here is a key paragraph out of Mr Simon's piece:

Not only that, a significant percentage of the left evinces sympathy for Islamic radicals, identifying with them and justifying their cause, despite the obvious misogyny and homophobia, through such latter-day crypto-fascist inventions as "intersectionality."  The Antifa movement, in the forefront of that nauseating sympathy for Islamism, is far more prevalent and dangerous in U.S. society than those few pathetic remaining losers in the KKK and similar neo-Nazi groups.  The Antifa thugs are seemingly everywhere, smashing windows and making life Hell for weak-willed university administrators across the country.

Exactly.  We are worried about a few meatheads who identify with the Klan or the National Socialists and forget the Fascists who believe they are anti-fascist, going by the name Antifa, while carry Soviet Flags and allegiance to Communism, Socialism and Anarchism.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Daesh Heading Into A Death Spiral

For John, BLUF:  President Obama has the wrong strategy.  Ms Clinton has not suggested a better one.  Nor, for that matter, has Mr Trump.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Islamic State Caliphate Staring Into ‘Death Spiral’

From Mr Jeff Seldin, of Voice of America News, on the 16th, we have a report on progress.

For the United States and its coalition partners, it is the sound of progress – the dull roar of engines as Iraqi Humvees kick up dust and dirt on the outskirts of Fallujah.  In the distance, smoke rises as Iraqi forces push on with a slow but steady advance.

The scene, shared in a video handout by the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, makes the battle for the key city look more methodical than it is.  Closer in, Iraqi forces are meeting with what coalition officials have described as “stiff resistance” from Islamic State (IS) fighters.

But for many, the trend appears clear:  The terror group’s self-declared caliphate is starting to crumble.

“This is the first time ISIL is experiencing pressure from a number of places,” said a U.S. official who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, using an acronym for the group.

“We’ve never seen them have to react to this sort of pressure,” the official added.  “We’re looking closely.”

This idea of a "Death Spiral for Daesh is supported by Mr Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has been closely following IS’s fortunes.

We could be looking at a death spiral that will destroy the organization.

On the other other hand, there is this more pessimistic, and realistic, view:

It's actually irrelevant.  Everyone seems to be focused on the organisation and not the idea.  IS is but one of the many Hydra heads from Al Tawheed Wal Jihad.  IS will die, but the phenomenon will remain.  Only until nation states cease waging politically correct wars will they learn to harness a combined military, civil and law enforcement exercise that not only targets the leadership but the "teachers" of the phenomenon, the IT support and the financiers.  This hasn't been done yet. That is why this threat will metastasize.  Also, we tend to forget AQ.   But...this isn't the worse threat.  Criminal organizations and politically aligned militias are learning and emulating this phenomenon.  The world is heading into very chaotic times.

And there it is.  This is not about Daesh or al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood, but about a kernel idea that says Sharia is the supreme law over all other law and that certain things are wrong under Sharia and deserve death.  What percentage of Muslims believe this?  Probably a very small percentage, but they exist and they fuel the multiplication of groups like Daesh.

And then, there are those who believe Islam has been oppressed by the West for the last 500 years and maybe the last 700 years.  Remember that 1492 may be the year the people in Cambridge believe represents the infliction of Western values on the Western Hemisphere, but for Muslims it means the year they were thrown out of Iberia.  Daesh and others of an Islamic historic orientation want to go back into Spain.  Would that be good for the West, and the rest?

Regards  —  Cliff

Thoughts on Islam and Terrorism

For John, BLUF:  I don't think we are helping American Muslims by pretending there is no nexus between Islam and Terrorism.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From the Hillsdale College Imprimis we have an adaptation of a speech by Mr Andrew C McCarthy, Islam—Facts or Dreams?.

Mr McCarthy's bona fides for making this discussion about terrorism connected with some version of Islam include his experience in 1993-95 leading the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks.

Mr McCarthy makes the point that the Administration has bent over backward to exculpate Islam and Muslims with regard to terrorism and terrorists, including those related to Daesh and al Qaeda.

At one level the Obama Administration is absolutely correct.  There are some 1.6 Billion Muslims in the world.♠  Those connected with various terrorist organizations are, at best, less than 1% of those Muslims and probably closer to 0.04% (around 600,000).

However, ignoring the impact of Islam on these terrorists is to not fully understanding what is going on here.

For example, the connection of the Wahhabist version of Islam is something that should not be ignored, but to raise it is to put us cross-ways with our long term friend in Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This leads us to the fact that fixing the problem of Daesh means fixing the Saudi Arabian relationship with the Wahhabist Imams.  But, Saudi Arabia operates with an agreement with the Wahhabist Imams (the Al ash Sheikh).♥

No easy answers, but a little more transparency and openness would be helpful to the American Citizenship.

Ignoring connections will not make us safer.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The majority of whom are not Arabs.
♥  This willingness to compromise can turn bad, as in Belgium, where the live and let live approach has turned out to be ineffective in keeping the terror threat at bay.

Daesh!

For John, BLUF:  Our understanding of "Daesh" is evolving, from the "JV Team" to an actual Government (Caliphate) spreading over a number of borders.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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On City Life Host George Anthes uses the term ISIS and belittles those who say ISIL as being ignorant Obama followers.

Mr John McCreary [Night Watch] uses the term ISIL.

From The Jordan Times we have this item:  House speaker says Daesh should not be called 'Islamic State'

AMMAN — Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh on Tuesday called on the international community to refrain from referring to Daesh terrorist group as the "Islamic State", stressing that this group is not related to Islam.

So, no "Islamic State", no ISIL, no ISIS.

On the other hand, in an article in The Atlantic there is a 10,000 word article, "What ISIS Really Wants".  The subheadline is:

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

Note the idea of a coming Apocalypse.  Remember the Book of Revelation?  The usually somewhat reliable Wikipedia discusses the Apocalypse, but doesn't mention Muslim consideration of the event, which, as a wrapper surrounding the future coming of the Messiah, unites all three Abrahamic Religions.♠  There is this from Wikipedia, Islamic Eschatology.

Have I recently mentioned the fictional meditation on this issue of a coming Messiah, The One Donkey Solution.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  That would be Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Anti-Semitism Here?

For John, BLUF:  No group, no religion, no race, should live in terror, at least in these United States.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Originally published in The Jerusalem Post, this article, by Ms Caroline Glick, talks to the perception that the President is "Mainstreaming Jew hatred in America".

US President Barack Obama is mainstreaming anti-Semitism in America.

This week, apropos of seemingly nothing, in an interview with Mathew Yglesias from the Vox.com website, Obama was asked about terrorism. In his answer the president said the terrorism threat is overrated. And that was far from the most disturbing statement he made.

Moving from the general to the specific, Obama referred to the jihadists who committed last month’s massacres in Paris as “a bunch of violent vicious zealots,” who “randomly shot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.”

So, Mr Ahmedy Coulibaly, who shot up the Paris Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, who called a French TV Station to tell them we wanted to kill Jews, was just some random guy, randomly killing people, who he thought were Jews.

The President is correct to say that this is not about Islam.  It isn't.  It is about a small group of people who have taken their understanding of God to an extreme and have decided to impose it on everyone else.  We are trying to outgrow these kinds of attitudes here in the US.

The President is correct to say we shouldn't be on our "high horse" about these folks.  Picking the Crusades and Inquisition was ahistorical.  He should have picked lynchings here in the US.  Horrid page in our history.  And no mention of how Barbery Pirates used to come to the Northern Atlantic and kidnap and enslave American fishermen.

Do I believe our President is trying to spread Anti-Semitism, either here or abroad?  No.  But, I am bothered by what I see as a lack of sensitivity on the part of the President with regard to the terrors Jews feel in France and across Europe, not to mention within Israel itself.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Where Are We Going in War on Terrorism?

For John, BLUF:  It looks like we lack a strategy.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The President may well be correct that what we are dealing with are random criminal acts, rather than some criminal conspiracy on the part of radical Islamists.  However, he is not doing a good job selling his thoughts.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Inspire Actually Inspired

For John, BLUF:  The struggle against violent and anti-Western Jihadism is going to take a while.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From The Washington Post we have an article by Ms Karen DeYoung on "New issue of jihadist magazine produced by al-Qaeda in Yemen suggests attacks on U.S."

The issue is the 13th since Inspire was first published online in 2010. Its founder, Samir Zafar Khan, was born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents but grew up in New York state.

Khan, a blogger on jihadist themes who was well-known to U.S. intelligence, is believed to have traveled to Yemen and joined al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, the year before the magazine’s debut issue.

Khan, an American citizen, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011, along with Anwar al-Awlaki, also an American, whom President Obama described as AQAP’s “operational commander.”

Those terrible drone attacks.

And, looking back in history, Ms DeYoung makes this timely note about the Tsarnaev Brothers.  Surviving Brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is fighting (via his lawyer) to have his trial kicked down the road until the Autumn of 2015.  What ever happened to a speedy trial?♠  It was 15 April 2013.  At any rate, here is the tie:

The most infamous article published by Inspire, a Khan-authored instructional guide titled“How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom,” was used by the Boston Marathon bombers in a pressure-cooker explosive they planted in their April 2013 attack, according to prosecutors in the case.

A good clean translation in English should be available soon.  By "clean" I mean scrubbed so there are no hidden viruses.  Is anyone interested?

And, in additional news, here is an article that says the Islamic State is trying to recruit families and not just individuals.  At the same time the same newspaper (The Washington Post) has an article saying "The Islamic State is failing at being a state".♥

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  There is the Sixth Amendment, which talks to a "speedy trial".  The "speedy trial" clause and subsequent legislation that talks to a six month limit on prosecutors, would suggest they should have moved on this.  Granted, it is the defense asking for a delay, but is that really because the Prosecutors have dumped such a large witness list and list of exhibits that they are forcing the defense to ask for more time?  But, back to "speedy trial", the lawyers for Mr Tsarnaev make this point—"The trial in this case is currently set to begin just 18 months after the defendant was indicted, which would bring this case to trial faster than 99 of the 119 federal capital trials to get under way since 2004."  What happened to six months?
♥  For George, this last article on the Islamic State quotes others using the term ISIS (twice).

Savage War of Peace

For John, BLUF:  If we want to lead the world in the values area we need to dial back the EIT and Black Sites.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From the web magazine War on the Rocks we have a piece on the issue of Torture, or Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.  The headline is "Torture in a Savage War of Peace:  Revisiting the Battle of Algiers".  Back when I was young, in the 1950s, I must have been a bit of a Franco-phile.  I followed the Battle for Dien-Bien Phu on the radio.  I knew that French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France had tried to introduce milk as a suitable drink in France.  I followed the return of Charles de Gaulle to lead the French People.  And, around 1959, on the recommendation of my Father, I read The Question.

In their article, War on the Rocks provides a reprint of an extract from Historian Alistair Horne's book on the French fight to retain Algeria as part of Metropolitan France, A Savage War of Peace.

Torture, or Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, are wrong.  The Bush Administration should not have gone down that rabbit hole.  On the other hand, I can understand how there was movement in that direction.  Who knew what was going to happen next?  The unfolding of events on 9/11 just seemed to go on and on and we had no idea what would happen on 9/12.

I am not one of those calling of prosecutions, but I am one of those calling for us to repudiate those techniques and to return to our previous legal standards.  I think former Vice President Chaney is wrong in this area.

I commend to you the article from War on the Rocks.  Here again is the link.

Regards  —  Cliff

Intel Report Out

For John, BLUF:  Yes, this is an issue for which there is no hard and fast right answer.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The hot topic of the day is the release of the US Senate Report on the use by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques following the 9/11 Attacks on the US.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program

The Forward, the Findings and Conclusions, and the Executive Summary can be found here.

The report was signed out by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

UPDATE:  Here is a rebuttal by some retired CIA Professionals, "CIA Saved Lives".

Regards  —  Cliff

Senate "Torture" Report Update

For John, BLUF:  Here is another question for which there are no answers, just ethical or moral positions.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by other means.

That, at least, is the conclusion of the forthcoming Feinstein report, a long and, in certain quarters, much-anticipated review of the CIA’s detainee and interrogation programs during the Bush administration.  A steady stream of leaks in news stories over several months has provided the public a preview of its contents.

That would be Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California.

And so go the top two paragraphs in the Weekly Standard article on the report being produced by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is chaired by Senator Dianne Feinstein.  It is being done by the Democrat staffers, as the Republicans on the Committee declined to participate.  There is bipartisanship for you.

The article, by Reporter Luis M. Alvarez, is headlined "The Truth About Interrogation" and the subheadline, telegraphing the story's punchline, is "The enhanced techniques work."♠

This is an infinity of mirrors and with this being a report from Capitol Hill, by Democrats alone, the idea that it will be seen as being balanced by those outside the Democrat corral, including those unenrolled in a political party, is between slim and none.

People I know and respect have written that torture is not necessary to extract needed information.  On the other hand, there is always, lurking in the background, the idea of the "ticking time-bomb" scenario.  That is where the bomb is going to go off within the next 24 hours (or so) and you have someone who (you believe) knows the location of the device and perhaps how to disarm it.  This can wander of into the Sodom and Gomorrah Scenario, where Abraham pleads with the Lord to spare the two cities for the sake of the righteous (Genesis 18:16-33).

In our recent scenario, al Qaeda had shot its wad and there were no further terrorist attacks along the lines of 9/11.  Was it due to the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques or to the limits of al Qaeda's capabilities?

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Here is the Wikipedia article on EIT or Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.  Fortunately, aside from use by Germany and Japan in World War II, torture has never been used by any other nation or group.

Again?

For John, BLUF:  Could this be a disinformation operation on the part of the Clinton Camp?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Associated Press is reporting that our Vice President, Joe Biden, had to apologize to the leader of another country over remarks he, the Vice President, may have made.  The word used is "clarify", as in "Biden calls UAE prince to clarify remarks on Syria".  The Reporter is Ms Aya Batrawy.

Here is the beginning of the article:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday called the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates to clarify that he did not mean to imply in his remarks last week that the Gulf ally was supporting al-Qaida fighters in Syria.

Biden spoke with Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and a key Emirati leader, the White House said.

What ever happened to Chatham House Rules and Deep Background?  That is to ask if the Vice President, and his aides, are just careless or if the Press is not acting in an ethical manner?

In fairness to Vice President Biden, there are a fair number of folks who think that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are, in fact, supporting Sunni insurgents against the Alawi Islam♠ led Government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Followers of Alawi Islam are Twelvers.

War Without End

For John, BLUF:  The enemy of my enemy....  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Here is a comment on ISIS, or, more properly, ISIL.

I blame Ms Gertrude Bell.

Regards  —  Cliff

Problems in Iraq

For John, BLUF:  The price of oil is going to go up.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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We have ourselves a bit of a mess in the Middle East.  Syria is in turmoil and now the ISIL♠ has taken several town in Iraq, including Mosul and Tikrit.  There is a report of beheadings in the wake of the ISIL advance.

Here is an overall report from The Economist.

From the web Magazine War on the Rocks we have this insight:

First, ISIS’ expansion and rejection of Al Qaeda’s central leadership represents a new evolution in jihadi extremism.  The near-extinction of Al Qaeda’s core—the organization constructed by Osama bin Laden and now led by Ayman al-Zawahiri—has created space for new and more extreme forms of jihadi militancy. In 1999, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi challenged Osama bin Laden’s ideological direction because he considered Al Qaeda too accommodating to Shia Muslims.  Fifteen years later, Zarqawi’s ideological and organizational descendants have the power to confront Al Qaeda’s leadership more thoroughly.  At the core of Zarqawi’s ideology were two ideas:  that commanders close to battle had ultimate political authority and that purity in the movement was paramount.  In its interaction with Al Qaeda, ISIS embodies both ideas and, not surprisingly, has quite famously been expelled from Al Qaeda, ostensibly for insubordination, but perhaps also for acting like the sovereign state that is has de facto become.

There is the question of where the ISIL reaches its culminating point.  If it isn't until Baghdad then we will have some serious issues.  What will be the position of the United States if Baghdad is under threat?

For those who wonder who is behind the ISIL, they are on their own.  There appears to be no evidence of state funding.  It seems to be private money, looted stuff from Syria, revenues from kidnappings and perhaps some oil revenues.

There is some irony here.  Many condemned President George W Bush (read all Republicans) for "fighting wars for oil" and then they turn around and fight domestic US drilling and pipelines.  If these folks want to reduce energy consumption, they should just come out and say it.  Why dance around it with this or that effort to curtail the source of energy without up front adjustments in the culture.

I end by hoping for good luck for the Iraqis who seek freedom and fight the tyranny of ISIL.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Sometimes called the ISIS.  From somewhere I found the following:  The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (sometimes translated "Syria" instead of "Levant") (Arabic: الدولة الاسلامية في العراق والشام‎ ad-Dawlat al-Islāmiyya fī’l-‘Irāq wa’sh-Shām), abbreviated as ISIL or ISIS, is an active militant group in Iraq and Syria.  In its unrecognized self-proclaimed status as an independent state it claims the territory of Iraq and Syria, with implied future claims intended over more of the Levant (e.g. Lebanon).  It was established in the early years of the Iraq War and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2004.  In February 2014, after an eight-month power struggle, al-Qaeda cut all ties to ISIL.

Texas and Syria

For John, BLUF:  Human patterns are pretty consistent over time.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The magazine Foreign Affairs has an article on "What the Texas Revolution and the Spanish Civil War Reveal About al Qaeda".  The author is Mr David Malet, who is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.  He is also the author of Foreign Fighters:  Transnational Identity in Civil Conflicts.

Mr Malet makes the point in his article that the idea of foreign fighters is not new with the current Civil War in Syria, or even the Afghan fight against the Soviet Union.

Unlikely as it may seem, the transnational insurgents in the 1836 Texas Revolution, the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War, and the 1948 Israeli War of Independence inspired the development of the mujahideen in 1980s Afghanistan, from which the jihadi groups of the 2010s directly descend.

What is different is the reluctance of nations of origin for these volunteers to take them back.  Part of the reason is that nations like Saudi Arabia are not anxious to have their own revolution.

Regards  —  Cliff

NYT On the Beghazi Imbroglio

For John, BLUF:  .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Late last evening, actually, The New York Times came out with an investigative article that says al Qaeda was not involved in the attack on our US compound in Benghazi, where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were murdered over a year ago.♠  However, per the NYT, the video, Innocents of Islam was.♥

Blogger Ann Althouse picked this issue up from a Fox News segment, today, on the issue, where US Congressmen Mike Rogers (R) and the Democrat Adam Schiff (D), both on the House Intellegence Committee, state that the NYT investigative reporters lack information available to the House Committee.  Per Representative Schiff:

I think the intelligence paints a portrait that some came to murder, some people came to destroy property, some merely came to loot, and some came in part motivated by those videos.

Mr Schff further said:

So it is a complex picture. There was some planning, as Mike points out, but it was not extensive. I don't think it's either accurate to characterize this as a long-term preplanned core Al Qaeda operation or something completely unaffiliated.

Regarding some degree of planning, Althouse Commenter "madAsHell" said, at 3:25 PM today:

and some came in part motivated by those videos.

I dunno about you, but I keep an 81mm mortar in the back of my car......cuz, you never know when you will need to provide indirect fire support for light infantry.

For those of you who would quote to me then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “What difference at this point does it make?” I quote TV personality, Mr Bill Slowsky:  "Exactly".  So why did the NYT pick this scab?

Hat tip to the Althouse blog.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  This works if you believe Ansar al-Sharia is NOT part of the al Qaeda franchise system.  If you believe that you then have to believe that Ansar al-Sharia is some penny-ante operation isolated to Eastern Libya, as does Wikipedia..  That is to say modern forms of communication have not come to Salafist Jihadist movements.
♥  The Producer of Innocence of Muslims, Mr Mark Basseley Youssef, who, while clearly guilty of parole violations, was jailed for political reasons, is now out of prison and on probation in Buena Park, California (Home of Knott's Berry Farm).

Fish Got To Swim

For John, BLUF:  To "win the war" on terrorism, we have to dry up the water in which the terrorists swim.  How do we do that?

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This is a report out of the Jay Leno show, by Mr Eric Pfeiffer, of Yahoo! News.  It was President Obama doing his first interview following the recent decision to close US Embassies following intelligence warnings of a possible AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) attack.

As my youngest Brother characterized it, "Some time things don't come out quite right":

Americans should proceed with vacations in a “prudent way, “ Mr. Obama said during the taped appearance, and check the State Department Web site for updates. “The odds of dying in a terrorist attack,” he added, “are a lot lower than they are of dying in a car accident, unfortunately.”

Per the article, President Obama also denied that the US Federal Government does domestic spying:

Obama denied that the U.S. has a domestic spying program but said the work done by the National Security Agency (NSA) is a “critical component” in keeping the country safe from outside threats.

"We don’t have a domestic spying program,” he said.  “What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack.  That information is useful."

In other news, from Doyle McManus, writing in The LA Times, we have:

According to some scholars, Osama Bin Laden's successor, Ayman Zawahiri, always thought it was more cost-effective to strike U.S. embassies in the region than to attempt attacks inside the U.S.

Of course, if it turns out that such an approach doesn't work, someone will come up with a new one.  The real question is what will cause the people in the area to reject AQAP, thus depriving them of a way to survival.  This is the key point, and Mao talks to it in his book, On Guerrilla Warfare, Chapter 6, "The Political Problems Of Guerrilla Warfare".

Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear.  Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops.  The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it.  How may it be said that these two cannot exist together?  It is only undisciplined troops who make the people their enemies and who, like the fish out of its native element cannot live.

"Fish got to swim, birds got to fly."  Is Ayman Zawahirit just a Show Boat? Regards  —  Cliff