General Nagata and the Secret Sauce

 WASHINGTON — Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East, sought help this summer in solving an urgent problem for the American military: What makes the Islamic State so dangerous?

In the space of two short paragraphs, the NYT uses the words "decipher', "complex", "conundrum", "brain", "professors", "understand", and "idea" - in connection with a savage, sadistic enemy that rapes and tortures children.

This is the language of intellectuals whose only weapons are their intellects and their immense self-regard.

There is a time for intellect and reflection; and there is a time for courage and action. The sad irony here is that these geniuses are precisely the people who will NEVER understand the Islamic State. It is too simple for them to grasp.

*

I found the intellectualism of the Times' approach off-putting, but I want to focus here on what I take to be the substance of Gen. Nagata's comments.  I'll begin at the end: 

“When I watch Americans use words like cowardly, barbaric, murder, outrageous, shocking, etc., to describe a violent extremist organization’s actions, we are playing right into the enemy’s hands,” General Nagata added. “They want us to become emotional. They revel in being called murderers when the words are coming from an apostate.”

There are three components to this quote:  (1) "playing into the enemy's hands" i.e. the assumption that if the enemy wants us to do something, it is in our interest to do the opposite; (2) "they want us to become emotional" and therefore respond with rash, ill-considered action; and (3) "they revel in being called murderers [by] an apostate" because this is an indication that they're fighting an effective war against an an enemy they hold in contempt.

In general, you want to do the opposite of what the enemy wants you to do; but if you have reason to believe you can win a confrontation and that the enemy underestimates your capabilities, then you and the enemy want the same thing:  you both want a confrontation.  If you have capabilities that the enemy doesn't know about or underestimates, then it's in your interest to do what the enemy wants, and it would be just as logical to speak of the enemy playing into your hands.  That Gen. Nagata presents this scenario in purely reactive terms is, I think, unfortunate.

Clearly a calculated decision is more likely to represent sound judgment than an emotional one.  But an emotional - or I would say gut-level - response to a threat is basically one of two things:  fight or flight.  The enemy prefers the latter because it makes their job easier:  they can then enslave and butcher us at their leisure with minimal cost or risk to themselves.  The enemy "want us to become emotional" precisely to the extent that they assume this will be our response, and their early experience with the Iraqi Army no doubt confirmed this assumption.  We gain the advantage precisely to the extent that we defy the assumption.

It is perfectly reasonable for any army to value a reputation for toughness.  Combat involves killing and soldiers are not babysitters.  When the enemy embraces an ethic (for want of a better word) utterly different from our own, we should not be surprised that they take pride in being called murderers, as it signifies both their effectiveness and their indifference to our cultural standards.  Yet all of this seems to be a conundrum for Gen. Nagata.

Returning to the question of "playing into the enemy's hands", I would say that the enemy's interests are served just as well when we busy ourselves with endless hairsplitting and deliberation.  By Nagata's own admission, he does not understand the movement, or even its "idea", and therefore is not even close to defeating the enemy.

A general who wants to "engage in a long-term conversation" does not fill me with confidence.  This is an admirable trait for a debating society, less so for an army.

*

It looks to me like Gen. Nagata - along with a lot of other smart people - is trying to find the "secret sauce" of Islamic State's success.  There is nothing wrong with that, I just don't think it is all that complicated.  You can control people pretty easily if you terrorize them enough. 

I think a more interesting and more productive approach would be to find the secret of those who have successfully resisted - notably the Kurds.  It seems that a strong cultural identity is a key ingredient.

"The enemy's will is strong because his identity is strong.  And we must match his strength of purpose with strong identities of our own."  This is Natan Sharansky's thesis in 'Defending Identity' (preface, p. x), and I think it's an important idea for us now.

Sharansky explores the perceived conflict between identity and liberty, and refutes the liberal fallacy that "nationalism leads to oppression, so we must erase all forms of national or group identity".  On the contrary, Sharansky asserts:  "Despite our profound differences, we recognized that to successfully defend the values most dear to us, we had to make sure that others were strong enough to defend theirs."  (Sharansky, p.41.)  Among Sharansky's closest allies in the Soviet prison camp were evangelical Christians.

Michael J. Totten observed - back in 2006 - that "the Kurdistan Regional Government actually provides money and housing for Arab Christians who want to pick up and resettle in the north."  ('In the Wake of the Surge', p. 31.)  This suggests to me that the Kurds as a culture have internalized Sharansky's insight. 

I don't know if there is a "secret sauce" for Kurdish success, but if there is, I think its ingredients include a sense of identity.  I think Americans have a long-established sense of national identity that incorporates this insight.  Perhaps Iraqis, as a nation, have yet to develop it.  Perhaps they can learn it from the Kurds.

The Future

The Federal and state governments will likely go broke, and people who depended on government benefits will feel a lot of hurt. Social Security will be long gone. Big liberal states like California will be hardest hit. Infrastructures will suffer and things like serviceable roads, law enforcement, and emergency services will deteriorate.

Depending on how successful Obama is in his effort to wreck our economy in general and our medical system in particular, doctors and hospitals will likely be few and far between.

Over the past couple of generations, a lot of worthless paper has changed hands because (1) loans were given to people who didn’t have the means to repay them; and (2) politicians made promises that they didn’t have the means to pay for.

The government and its agencies will grow hungry and mean – like any other predatory animal – and will increasingly focus their dwindling resources on functions that generate revenue. This means finding ever more creative ways to expropriate citizens of their money and belongings. So we can expect to see increases in everything from petty robberies such as parking tickets to major hauls like seizures of cars, homes, and businesses on the pretext that they were used for “drug trafficking”.

End result is that survival strategies are going to go back to being what they’ve always been. Be honest, courteous, hardworking, competent, and educated, and associate with other people who are. Take care of those close to you and be ready to defend them – and yourself.

Source Bias Checklist

1. identify sources
2. assess source's reliability
3. get specifics
4. avoid vendettas
5. first-hand knowledge
6. ideological orientation
7. financial interests
8. debts and favors
9. bias of intermediaries
10. past experiences
11. psychological factors
12. internal consistency
13. external consistency
14. insider details
15. dialog and dissent
16. awareness of objections
17. nuance
18. the human voice
19. snarl/purr words
20. narrative
21. implicit bias
22. red herrings / straw men
23. fallacies
24. weasel words

The Map that Ruined the Middle East | The Tower

The Sykes-Picot legacy.

The Map that Ruined the Middle East | The Tower

Until now, the post-Ottoman order, fashioned by wartime exigency, imperialist ambitions, and ignorance of local identities, has survived a century of independence, revolution, and war. A political map of the region from 1930 looks nearly identical to one from 2013. Middle Eastern borders have become an inviolable and sacrosanct principle of Western international relations. Americans and Europeans have even shed blood to ensure that these borders remain unchanged: in Lebanon in the 1950s and again in the 1980s, Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and Mali in 2013. Western intervention in Syria would likely have the same goal. Even as the ongoing Arab revolt tears at the modern Middle Eastern order, Washington, Paris, London, and Moscow remain committed to defending the status quo.

Mohammad Zoabi, Arab Zionist

Bill Maher's Liberalism: Free Speech, Free Thought, Free Faith

I'm not always a fan of Bill Maher, but here are two clips I think are just splendid, whether you label yourself a "liberal" or a "conservative":

Post by Bill Maher.

Here Maher takes on Kathleen Parker's Washington Post editorial defending self-censorship in a world without privacy.

I would listen to a hundred horrific Cliven Bundy rants if that was the price of living in a world where I could also listen to interesting and funny people talk without a filter. Perhaps most chilling of all, Parker said that 'speaking one's mind isn't really all it's cracked up to be.' Which is quite a statement, since her job is speaking her mind. It's like the mailman telling you letters are stupid.

So let me get this straight: We should concede that there's no such thing anymore as a private conversation, so therefore remember to lawyer everything you say before you say it, and hey, speaking your mind was overrated anyway so you won't miss it. Well, I'll miss it. I'll miss it a lot. And for the record, speaking my mind is absolutely everything it's cracked up to be. ...

Does anyone really want there to be no place where we can let our hair down and not worry if the bad angel in our head occasionally grabs the mike? ...

Who wants to live in a world where the only privacy you have is inside your head? That's what life in East Germany was like. That's why we fought the Cold War, remember? So we'd never have to live in some awful limbo where you never knew who, even among your friends, was an informer.

Go to the video link for the rest. Now here's Maher again, speaking against both the misogynistic violence committed by jihadi Muslims like Boko Haram, and the reluctance of Western "liberals" to name this for what it is:

There was a Pew poll of Egypt, which is a leading Muslim country, and something like 80 or 90 percent believe that death is the proper punishment for leaving the religion.

Where it becomes dangerous is that liberals like yourself [to Arianna Huffington] do not stand up for liberalism. Liberalism means number one - mostly - equality of women. Free speech. No death threats.

Listen to the whole thing, and don't miss the discussion on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Brandeis University at the end (beginning around 7:45).

Now I want to say a few words about -isms. Generally I try to avoid getting too much into ideological debates - "liberalism is better than conservatism" or vice versa - because I think they can be distracting. And arguing over what constitutes "real" conservatism / liberalism / you name it can quickly become a tedious waste of time. An ideology is a way of organizing your ideas and principles to help you make sense of the world, but what really matters is how you live your life.

But it's a fact that we often identify ourselves with our ideologies, be they political, religious, cultural, or otherwise. I vote Republican and most of my liberal friends consider me a "right-winger" but I have never thought of myself as a "conservative". Why? I don't know. I was raised by liberal parents, and I guess I feel my basic values haven't changed from the ones I was raised with.

What has changed, as I see it, is how the whole notion of liberalism - the liberal "brand", if you will - has morphed into something completely different from what it was in my parents' generation.

And what I see Bill Maher trying to do here is to reach out to liberals and remind them of the values that liberalism is supposed to stand for. I hope that he may be able to reach people who identify as "liberals" - the very people who need to be reached, and who may listen to someone they see as a fellow liberal when they will not listen to a "right-winger".

This being Mothers' Day, I'll just take a moment to acknowledge how much I learned from my Mom. She was a complicated woman and growing up with her was not easy; I wrote a short post about her at my personal journal. She had experienced sexism, and hated it; she had witnessed institutional racism, and hated it. She fought for the right of her darker-skinned friends to eat at the same lunch counter.

But she was never anti-American, and she was no friend of Communism. (Among my boxes of books I still have books by Soviet dissidents, from my Mom's collection.) And she had no patience with the entitlement mentality of people who thought society owed them something because of past wrongs. She believed in free access to the lunch counter - not a free lunch.

Mom was raised in a strict Baptist home in small-town Maine, and her childhood was in the pre-WWII era. She moved to the big city - Boston - as a young woman, and later moved to Connecticut and joined the Unitarian Universalist church, where she met kindred spirits, including my father. She had a lifelong distaste for religious orthodoxy and fundamentalism, but was never anti-religious and was always respectful and courteous to people whose beliefs she did not share. She judged people by their actions.

I don't consider myself a conservative, and I don't call myself a "liberal" anymore either, mainly because I don't want to get bogged down in semantics. What you call yourself is your own business. What matters is what you do.

Detroit's Paris Ainsworth Has Eight Bullets for Attackers

Detroit woman wounded in shootout with would-be robbers | News - Home

Egypt, Obama, and the Muslim Brotherhood

The snide tone of the National Geographic article is unmistakable, but whatever Peter Hessler's opinion of his interlocutors, there's a prevailing view that President Obama has been promoting Muslim Brotherhood power in Egypt. Here's Governor Salah Zeyada:

"They broke into six police stations in Minya and stole all the weapons," the governor said, describing the events of last August. "They burned 14 churches completely. And they burned four prosecution offices and courts, and they attacked the Mallawi Museum and stole all the antiquities. This was an American plot to turn Egypt into a new Syria, or a new Libya, or a new Iraq. This is the democratic America?"

Through my translator, I asked the governor to clarify who was responsible for the burned churches.

"It was Obama," he said. "And all of the American politicians who have divided all of the world. They are the only people who supported the Muslim Brotherhood, because they knew that the Muslim Brotherhood would destroy all of Egypt." ...

"Truly their [the Muslim Brotherhood's] numbers weren't more than 2 percent of the population. But they were assisted by gangs and criminals, by those who live in the desert. The Muslim Brotherhood gave them money, and they also had money from Qatar—which is funded through America—and they tried to ruin Egypt."

In the comments, Sharifa Zuhur addresses the author:

To the author: if you do NOT understand what has been going on in Egypt, and do NOT fully understand the perspective of your interviewee, then for heaven's sakes, don't superimpose your incoherent understanding of the events of last August in Menya, on its governor. You wrote: "It's difficult to understand exactly what happened in Minya last August, but the violence probably reflected frustration more than hatred." Sir, a policeman was lynched and tortured, a physician refused to treat him, a Christian man was tortured, then buried, and then dug up to be dragged around the town again - churches were burned and all of this did reflect 'frustration,' but murderous hatred.

The governors' references to Obama and the United States apparently baffled you, but most Egyptians reading the Western press currently believe that the U.S. govt., and many NGOs and Washington think tanks, as well as the NYT, WaPo, etc. had decided that the Muslim Brotherhood, as "moderate Islamists" were deserving of the West's support and the correct inheritors' of the Egyptian, Libyan, Tunisian (Ennahda is an MB movmt), Yemen (Islah is an MB movement), Syria (Morsi was a host of a jihad forum on Syria and people feared he would involve Egypt's military there. The West's obvious lobbying to support the overthrown Muslim Brotherhood in the name of 'democracy' is interpreted as dismay that carefully crafted programs going back for many years would undo this "plan." Whether you agree or not, respect your subject sufficiently so as to inform. Most of the death sentences were issued in abstentia & you even misunderstood his joke - "the comedy break" was Morsi.

Now here's Tera Dahl at Breitbart:

Having spent an extensive amount of time in Egypt since the removal of President Morsi last June, I can say with confidence that “anti-American sentiment” is currently at a dangerously high level, but not for the reasons many in the press cite. The animosity stems from America’s policies of not backing the Egyptian people and their war on terrorism. ...

There is a clear campaign in the Western media and in many Western think-tanks and policy organizations to turn the Egyptian military into the enemy and the terrorist organization of the Muslim Brotherhood into the innocent, democracy-loving victims. This narrative is deceitful and needs to be countered. The Egyptian military is America’s ally and has been since 1973, and the Muslim Brotherhood is America’s enemy. The Egyptian military is fighting against terrorism; America fights against terrorism. America and Egypt are fighting the same enemy with the same ideology that killed thousands of Americans on 9/11, thousands of Americans in Iraq, and is still killing our troops in Afghanistan today ...

UPDATE
Michael J. Totten has another perspective:

American politicians didn’t support the Muslim Brotherhood so much as they were duped by the Muslim Brotherhood and their apologists into believing the organization is moderate.

Okay, yes, the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate compared with Al Qaeda, but so what? That hardly tells us anything useful. Benito Mussolini was moderate compared with Adolf Hitler. The Ku Klux Klan is moderate compared with the Spanish Inquisition. Fidel Castro is moderate compared with Pol Pot. Vladimir Putin is moderate compared with Ivan the Terrible. Colombia’s FARC is moderate compared with Peru’s Shining Path. But none of those individuals or organizations are moderate in any real sense of the word. The word “moderate” in American English generally refers to conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, not the likes of Fidel Castro and Vladimir Putin. And not—not really—to the Muslim Brotherhood either.

President Obama and his advisors truly believed that if they reached out a hand to the Brothers that Islamist hostility to the United States would diminish, at least among the relative “moderates.” They believed the same thing about Russia and Vladimir Putin and to this day think the same about the Islamic Republic regime in Iran. They’re missing that hostility toward the West is based primarily on a rejection of Western ideas and culture. The Mr. Nice Guy routine that plays well in Berlin, Paris, and Ottawa fails utterly in Moscow and Cairo. It might work in Tehran when the Islamic Republic regime is no more, and it will work wonders in Havana when the Castro regime is out of power, but the only time it works with ideological hostiles is when a greater enemy that threatens us all must be confronted. (Recall the American alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.)

Americans suckered by the Muslim Brotherhood should have known better. ...

Read the whole thing at the link.

State of Georgia (US) Passes Sweeping Gun-Rights Laws

According to this article,

While Georgia lawmakers have opened up the ability to carry guns throughout the state, they will still not be allowed in the capitol building.

Which may make it hard for them to do their jobs, but then again maybe that's the idea.

Egypt and the Jews

With Passover behind us, it's appropriate to take a look at anti-Semitism in modern Egypt. Michael Totten at World Affairs Journal writes:

Egypt is by far the most anti-Semitic country I’ve ever visited. It’s off the charts even compared with the rest of the region.

Everyone who posseses even a passing familiarity with Egyptian politics knows this is a serious problem, but the reasons why aren’t as widely understood as they should be. The three main theories—that Egypt’s Jewish problem is a result of the Islamic religion, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and state propaganda to deflect anger away from the government—are partly correct, but they don’t adequately explain what’s actually happening. There are other deeper reasons that should be more widely known than they are. ...

Totten refers us to Samuel Tadros in The American Interest for a better understanding:

To understand the roots of anti-Semitism in the Arab world in general and Egypt in particular, we must look much deeper. We must explore both the crisis of modernity in the Arab world and the importation of European ideologies and ideas.

The crisis of modernity in the Arab world began with the sudden realization of the West’s advancement and the miserable state of Arabs and Muslims by comparison. Isolated for centuries from developments in Europe, Egyptians—first their rulers and intellectuals but later on the general population as well—were shocked to discover that the Frenchmen led by Napoleon who had landed on their shores were not the same Franks they had defeated during the Crusades. The shock of the discovery of Western technological, material, and military superiority shattered the existing political order and demanded a response. The initial approach of simply importing and copying Western technology proved inadequate, as the gap between Egypt and the West grew wider. Occupation by European powers only aggravated the crisis. The crisis revolved around two questions: What went wrong, as Bernard Lewis accurately framed it; and how can we catch up.

For a while, copying the West in practice and appearance carried the day. This was the triumphant moment for modernization, liberalism, and Westernization in Egypt. Ahmed Lutfi El Sayed formulated an Egyptian nationalism, and the struggle for independence from Britain united the nation. But cracks started to appear. Egypt never managed to catch up to the West; the West, represented in Britain, proved unwilling to uphold democratic and liberal values in Egypt; and most importantly modernization was tearing society apart with little to show for it. The introduction of mass education, industrialization, and urbanization was breaking up traditional society, while modern society had not yet been created. Thousands were coming to the cities in search of a better future only to be shocked by the lack of opportunities available to them. This was the generation of Nasser, a generation described in Egyptian historiography as “the new Effendis.” The last straw was Western disillusionment with the promises of liberal democracy and the rise of communist and, more importantly, fascist regimes in Europe.

Replacing the belief in liberalism was a diverse set of ideas. Some lost faith in modernity itself and attempted to return to traditional forms of identity and behavior. Others became enchanted by the totalitarian ideas emerging in Europe. Across the political spectrum people argued that liberal democracy had failed and that only the state’s forceful hand, often guided by a dictator, could save Egypt from its woes and help it catch up with the rest of the world. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy became models for many. Most importantly for our question here, disappointment led to frustration. Egypt’s continual failures led to resentment of the West and a search for an explanation. It was at this moment that an indisputably European ideology—anti-Semitism—began to find fertile ground. Responsibility for Egypt’s failure to catch up with the West did not lie with Egyptians; it was because Jews were conspiring against us to keep us backward. ...

Read the rest at the link.

Russia / Ukraine / Crimea: Latest Developments

Russa / Ukraine / Crimea: Latest developments. Debka calls it a pro-Moscow coup: 'The Russian defense ministry announced Thursday, Feb. 27 that fighter jets stood on combat alert along its western borders with Ukraine. Moscow repeated its commitment to protect Russian-speaking elements in the Crimean Peninsula. Earlier, armed men carried out a pro-Russian coup in the Crimean capital, by seizing government and parliamentary buildings and hoisting Russian flags – in response to the pro-European coup in Kiev. ...' Reuters reports that Ukraine has issued a warning:

"I am appealing to the military leadership of the Russian Black Sea fleet," said Olexander Turchinov, Ukraine's acting president.

"Any military movements, the more so if they are with weapons, beyond the boundaries of this territory (the base) will be seen by us as military aggression," he said, a day after 150,000 Russian troops near Ukraine were put on high alert.

Fox News reports that US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Russia that "Any kind of military intervention that would violate the sovereign territorial integrity of Ukraine would be a huge, a grave mistake."

RIA Novosti: 'A senior Russian defense official said Thursday that the country’s Black Sea Fleet poses no threat to Ukraine and its activities are in compliance with standing agreements between the two countries. “Currently all units are engaged in their daily routines, including combat training. These actions do not represent a threat,” Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters. ...'

RT: '[Former Ukrainian President] Viktor Yanukovich will hold a news conference in Russia's Rostov-on-Don at 1700 local time (1300 GMT) on Friday, reports Itar-Tass citing sources close to Ukraine's ousted president.'

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club:

So far this crisis has been characterized by mutual miscalculation. If the West did not anticipate that the previous Ukranian government would renege on the EU deal neither did Putin appear to recognize the power of the opposition. Both sides have blundered into this confrontation. The wild card are the Ukranians who will now be pressed to deal, but who may not deal. Another source of uncertainty is the effect of national pride, which so absent in the West, is yet a potent factor in Russia. The last source of uncertainty is Western leadership. It seems fair to say there are differences between the EU leadership and Washington.

Erickson, Sullivan, and Gay Discrimination

I don't read Andrew Sullivan very often these days, but here's a worthwhile piece on discrimination laws:

But the wording of the bills in question – from Kansas to Arizona – is a veritable, icy piste for widespread religious discrimination. And that’s for an obvious reason. If legislatures were to craft bills specifically allowing discrimination only in the case of services for weddings for gay couples, as Erickson says he wants, it would seem not only bizarre but obviously unconstitutional – clearly targeting a named minority for legal discrimination. So they had to broaden it, and in broadening it, came careening into their own double standards. Allow a religious exemption for interacting with gays, and you beg the question: why not other types of sinners? If the principle is not violating sincere religious belief, then discriminating against the divorced or those who use contraception would naturally follow. I’ve yet to read an argument about these laws that shows they cannot have that broad effect.

But here’s where Erick has a point:

It boggles my mind to think any Christian should want the government to force their [pro-gay] view of Christianity on another believer.

That’s my feeling too. I would never want to coerce any fundamentalist to provide services for my wedding – or anything else for that matter – if it made them in any way uncomfortable. The idea of suing these businesses to force them to provide services they are clearly uncomfortable providing is anathema to me. I think it should be repellent to the gay rights movement as well.