re: "September 11"

The DiploMad at The DiploMad 2.0 ("long time US Foreign Service Officer; now retired") speaks to some basic truths many are unwilling to face.

Money quote(s):

"We in the West refuse to understand that simple fact, to wit, when Islam says it seeks to conquer us, it means it."

&

"It seems from the  limited reporting on it, that we are successfully pursuing a policy of turning large numbers of AQ, ISIS, Al Shabab, etc., into bloody jelly. As we have always known, the Islamists are good at torturing and killing flight attendants and other unarmed civilians,  but they don't do well when confronted by Western military know-how employed as it's meant to be employed."

Ping

Just to be clear, CAA is not dead, injured, committed to an asylum, nor otherwise being held incommunicado.

Nor have the Tigers (or Black Dragons) eaten me.

CAA has been the victim of a horrible plot to "upgrade" my Blogger/Blogspot experience.

Oh joy.  My "experience" is now so upgraded that I'm seriously considering giving up on the whole thing entirely.

In other news, there's been lots of goings-on ongoing in CAA's world.  Which is your world, come to think of it.  So you likely have heard all about most of it.

There are many conflicting reports about the events of this year's 9/11 attacks.  Which is what I'm calling them.  Because that's what they were.

CAA has no special knowledge of those events, privileged or otherwise.  CAA's clearances and accesses simply don't run to those areas these days.  So if I opine just a bit, it's not like I'll be betraying any confidences.

So if, between my cranky home computer and this annoying-as-Hell "upgrade, I can manage to sketch out a more topical post, well, don't hold your breath.

Marking 9/11

CAA's observances of the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 began much like that fateful day itself. It was a normal, pleasant, sunny September day in Washington begun with the usual morning routine and ablutions, followed by a fairly typical commute involving sluggish traffic and/or crowded Metrorail cars.

That day, as did today, a brand-spanking-new A-100 class had just commenced the day before at the Foreign Service Institute: the 169th today and the 104th back in 2001. So the not-particularly-cloistered hallways and common spaces, not to mention the over-burdened parking lot and cafeteria, at the Schultz Center were clogged with the shiny, smiling faces of the newly-annointed.

By the end of today's workday, reports from two of our Middle Eastern posts, in Libya and in Egypt, would bring news of angry mobs, damaged or looted buildings, and casualties.

Back on that fateful day, the trouble came much closer to home.

Even at this decade-plus remove, it is still difficult to put the 9/11 attacks into a bloodless, intellectual perspective. It's just too soon, the wounds are perhaps scabbed or scarred over but remain all too fresh.

So we remember our fallen, remember that many of them did not fall but had to jump to their deaths rather than burn alive, and are thankful for the many who survived. We remember the fire fighters and other first-responders, the police, the veterans-turned-private-citizens, and the passengers and crew of Flight 93 and while we mourn their loss we also celebrate their sacrifice and count ourself fortunate that such men and women yet live among us.

We also look at the last eleven years and marvel at the hundreds of thousands of American and allied soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and others who rallied to their colors and fought (and still fight) the wars their countries asked them to fight. CAA will take quiet (okay, sometimes not-so-quiet) pride in having once been among their number.

Are there lessons we should have learned from our experiences of the last 11 years? Almost certainly. But today the lesson that's over-shadowed my every interaction has been rage.

CAA isn't done being angry. While that's undoubtedly a huge personal failing on my part and something I should pray upon to Jesus most sincerely, it's not simply that I'm stuck somewhere between denial, grief, and acceptance. There's a bit more there that the subconscious is trying to get the intellect to comprehend.

America's enemies are still trying to hurt, humiliate, and if they can manage it, kill us. That much is clear.

What's also clear is that our enemies have a really hard time managing that anywhere close to our home shores and cities. Our enemies best efforts seem to be possible only in those places where we're trying to make nice with Janus-faced local government whose most impressive accomplishments seem to be their marvelously exact calculation of just how much mayhem they can plausibly get away with perpetrating against us.

CAA reads the news every day and wonders how anyone not blindered by wishful thinking can imagine the war is over yet. That's yet another reason he's so angry today.

re: "The Rebirth of Birthers?"

William Sullivan at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") considered this news from Arizona.

Money quote(s):

"Two years, three months, and seven days after his inauguration, Barack Obama finally offered evidence to prove his eligibility for the presidency. On the White House website, officials posted an electronic document purported to be a scan of Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate. It was a grand "I told you so" moment for the media and the left, which had worked feverishly to marginalize "birthers" as the radical counterpart of the zany "truther."

Of course, there was never really any parity. Truthers constructed silly conspiracy theories about George W. Bush being an international super-criminal that orchestrated impossibly complex measures to frame al-Qaeda on 9/11. Birthers, on the other hand, merely demanded that the president, who is required by the Constitution to be a natural born American citizen, show proof of his eligibility. And in reality, that is an entirely reasonable expectation, albeit unprecedented." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Sherriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, at the behest of a petition presented by the Surprise, Arizona Tea Party organization, organized a "cold case posse" and completed a six-month examination of the released birth certificate in order to determine its authenticity. The results are in, Joe says, and they point to the document being a fake."

&

"Lord Christopher Monckton, who has experience investigating high-level fraud as a policy adviser under Margaret Thatcher, has given the claim added veracity.

According to World Net Daily, Monckton said that "it appears that the document was cobbled together in layers, pointing to evidence that three date stamps and a registrar's stamp were superimposed on it from another document." If there were a single, original document to verify the president's Hawaiian birth, why "go to all that trouble, he reasoned."

Monckton's conclusion? "My assessment is that they are right to be worried... That document is not genuine." "

CAA's expertise, however limited, in estimating the genuine-ness of vital documents such as birth certificates and travel documents (i.e., passports and visas) does not extend to digital photographs of said documents.

"Anyone calling Obama's birth certificate into question will have to entertain the notion that perhaps the forgery was made because the president does not have legal proof of his American birth. And anyone carrying that message will have the stink of "right-wing birther" on him, and he will be swiftly devoured by the attack dogs in the media and marginalized. So in a way, I don't blame conservative lawmakers and pundits for treading lightly around the issue."

&

"Reasonably, it should never have been incumbent upon Americans to prove that Obama is not a natural born citizen, but rather it should have always been incumbent upon Obama to prove to the American people, verifiably and indisputably, that he was born in the United States."

Anyone with actual proof of someone having committed passport or citizenship fraud should get in touch with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Criminal Investigative Division.

4/6

re: "Our America"

LC 0311 Sir Crunchie I.M.H., K.o.E. at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") shared some 9/11 remembrances.

Money quote(s):

"Do not allow the emasculated wimps of our so called ruling class to tell you that 9/11 was “a horrific event”, a “disaster” or a “tragedy”. It was a deliberate act of war, nothing less. In those 10 years many have moved on and forgotten what happened that day. Others wish only to remember the dead, and downplay the evil cult of Islamofacism that killed them."

Just like the recent shootings in Aurora are not a "tragedy." They are an atrocity, a crime. A tragedy is if the theater's roof collapsed on the movie-goers.

"We are told that we must embrace those who hate us. And the gains of the Long War, paid for with the blood of our nations finest, are squandered"

&

"(T)hese arrogant elitists who sneer at our national character, the bureaucrats who write the regulations which have kept the rebuilding from being done 10 years later, the academicians who belittle our exceptionalism, they are not the real America. They do not represent our greatness, our strength. These people, raised in a safe world, are kept free by those they demean. They are safe and secure to spout their anti-American ideals because the true Americans sacrificed and bore the heavy burden. And even when they are smacked in the face by the ugly reality that there are those who wish them dead, they still maintain their utopian world view. That they live in a country secure enough to do so is a testament to those who stepped up when our nation called. It is a testament to you, the real Americans." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

9/9

re: "Hagmann & Hagmann Report tonight 8 pm: Special guest IQ al Rassooli"

Northeast Intelligence Network ("Pursuing the truth to preserve our nation") promoted The Hagmann & Hagmann Report.

Money quote(s):

"A decade after the attacks of 9/11, there are many Americans who still cannot bring themselves to comprehend the threat that Islam represents."

&

"The(y) don’t understand that Sharia gives non Muslims only three choices: convert to Islam, be subjugated to Islam through humiliation and degradation, or be exterminated at the hands of Muslims."

10/22

re: "Credit Where It's Due"

Spook86 at In From the Cold ("MUSINGS ON LIFE, LOVE, POLITICS, MILITARY AFFAIRS, THE MEDIA, THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAPTURES OUR INTEREST") recognized a good call by our former president.

Money quote(s):

"George W. Bush and his advisers deserve our lasting thanks for deciding to hold terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, and conducting their trials through military tribunals, instead of a federal courtroom.

The wisdom of this approach was on display yesterday, during the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, and two other senior Al Qaida figures. According to The New York Times (and other media accounts), the proceedings were a study in confusion and obfuscation"

Don't think the confusion, sown liberally by the defendents, wasn't intended. It's part of their playbook, after all.

"Instead of a global stage, KSM and his fellow killers will have to make due with pool coverage from a handful of reporters at Gitmo. Instead of a battery of ACLU lawyers, they have a small defense team which they may (or may not) cooperate with. And instead of a federal judge trying to ride herd over a legal circus, the Al Qaida defendants have a no-nonsense military judge, Colonel James L. Pohl.

Of course, the antics that unfolded yesterday at Gitmo were utterly predictable."

See above. Key word: playbook.

"KSM and the terrorists at Gitmo were nabbed overseas, and with their designation as combatants, military tribunals became the most viable option. The prosecution of Al Qaida terrorists at Gitmo will likely drag on for years, but without the media circus that terrorists crave and in a secure environment. Security costs for a trial in a New York federal court were pegged at $300-500 million a year, with the interruption to normal traffic and commerce costing millions more."

CAA suspects the average (i.e., non-Al Qaeda sympathizer) New Yorker would be perfectly happy to host the public execution of the defendents, so long as the whole process took-up only one business day, but the kind of media and security circus a civilian trial process would entail for them is right out.

"On the issue of trying terror suspects, Mr. Bush was correct in opting for military tribunals, and the wisdom of that approach will be affirmed in the months and years that follow."

5/6

re: "Terrorists sightseeing in San Antonio"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") correctly described our enemies.

Money quote(s):

"It has been a long time since foreign terrorists successfully perpetrated anything heinous on US soil. That is partly due to the fact that our enemies are losers, but eventually they will pull something off."

There are, after all, quite a few of them making the attempt, and quite a large bankroll behind them.

"(W)e are fortunate that these scumbags are dumb as dirt, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then and it's only a matter of time. Anyone up for a little profiling? I would say some "country of origin". age, sex and religious affiliation selection points might narrow down the search a bit, eh?

Nah, instead we will rely on the ignorant incompetence of those who wish to slaughter us."

Not to raise too big a fuss, but our criteria, post-9/11, for extra "administrative processing" for visa applicants who meet just about all Uncle Jimbo's listed selection points had this covered.

Not sure if it currently does.

10/19

re: "If You're A Terrorist Abroad, the Fact that You're an American is Only Incidental"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") explained, as you would to a child, what you do to enemies in wartime.

Money quote(s):

"The way you word things matters and I've become more and more annoyed over the past few years as many on the Right have increasingly adopted the phraseology of ardent Leftists. People who only a few years ago were die hard supporters of the war on terrorism today use phrases to make it seem that the same policies carried out under Bush are now leading to jack-booted-thuggery.

....

The particular wording I'm annoyed at today is the description of drone strikes as the "targeted killing of American citizens"."

Read on, MacDuff.

"We're at war. In a war, you kill your enemies. The fact that your enemies who are members or leaders of a foreign terrorist organization operating overseas are American is only incidental to the fact that they are terrorists.

We didn't kill Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan because they were Americans. We killed them because they were terrorists.

This wasn't a case of the President of the United States killing a criminal in lieu of a trial. These were enemy combatants. You kill your enemies, you don't bring them to trial.

The fact that your enemy is an American citizen is irrelevant." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Simple truths. It's troubling that they need to be stated, and re-stated (and re-stated yet again) but that's why they pay us bloggers the big (non-existent) bucks.

(After all, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.)

"The idea that we are going to fly FBI agents to Yemen, read members of al Qaeda their rights, and then bring them to Virginia for a trial is sheer fantasy. It's completely and utterly disconnected to reality.

Yet that is what you are arguing for if you oppose targeted assassinations or military trials. Unless, of course, you are arguing that the US should do nothing about jihadi terrorism, even when that terrorism is directly targeted against the United States.

Before 9/11 the policy of the US was to treat terrorists as criminals. After the USS Cole and African embassy bombings, President Clinton sent in the FBI to investigate.

Yeah, that did a lot of good. 9/11 was an outgrowth of that policy position.

So, if you want to go back to that model then, by all means, keep advocating for an end to drone strikes and military commissions.

And when we're hit on a mass scale like we were on 9/11 again, I'll blame you and your legalistic ideology in regards to notions of civil liberties for the atrocity." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

2/1

re: "Con Ed Says It Will Evict Ground Zero Mosqueteer For Non-Payment of Rent"

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs ("Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction.") only asked the obvious questions.

Money quote(s):

"How does this guy continue to get a free pass? He expected infidel taxpayers to foot the bill. Clearly he was counting on that $5.5 million from the taxpayer 911 fund he requested, but didn't get :)

Here is the truth about the Ground Zero grifter, the story that the media never tells you. This lowlife has defaulted on two bank loans, hasn't paid his back taxes, was busted for prostitution. Gamal not only beats people up and threatens Muslims who speak out against the mosque, but he is also a tax cheat, owing a quarter of a million in taxes while defaulting on not one, but two bank loans. All this while being evicted from his Soho offices for non-payment of rent."

&

"What did this hustler do other than disrepect, offend and degrade millions of Americans with his 15-story triumphal mosque on Ground Zero?

Now Con Ed is planning to evict him for non-payment of rent. Go Con Ed! I will happily send my check off early to the electric company this month."

10/16

re: "These things happen for a reason"

Lemuel Calhoon at Hillbilly White Trash ("Commenting about politics, religion, firearms, food, Celtic music, beer, science fiction and the Asheville Vortex. Home of the Hillbilly Ecosystem.") is experiencing some existential-level cognitive dissonance. And with good reason.

Money quote(s):

"America went to war with two nations in response to Islamic terrorism and we have killed or captured most of the top leadership of al Qaeda, including bin Laden himself. However our failure to identify the nature of the problem (which is nothing more or less than Islam itself) and our suicidal fealty to the culturally lethal ideologies of multiculturalism and political correctness have rendered us almost defenseless against this kind of home grown jihad and seriously hampered our ability to deal with the problem on an international level.

Right after Sept. 11 president Bush hosted Islamic religious leaders at the White House to prove that the US was not at war with Islam. Then it came out that most of those imams were tied to terrorism in some way. TSA screeners at airports are told not to pay any special attention to people who look Arab/Middle Eastern for fear of being accused of profiling."

Islam's problem seems to be either that it never underwent a reformation (which might have shifted it from its medieval moorings) or that the reformation it has undergone took it in the wrong (from Western perspective) direction.

I understand that Pres. Bush took pains to emphasize that the West, and the U.S. specifically, was not at war with Islam so as to head-off initiating the sort of Huntingtonian "clash of civilizations" that Osama Bin Ladin dreamed of waging. Not playing into what Al-Qaida wanted is a pretty good argument for Bush's policy there, whatever else you may think of the former president.

As for TSA screening guidance.... from a security perspective, you don't want to necessarily exempt non-Arabs/Middle Eastern persons from security screenings since that sort of loophole creates a security vulnerability that just begs to be taken advantage of.

But that doesn't seem to be how things are actually done; TSA gives the appearance of being more afraid of CAIR's press releases than is healthy or helpful. Going out of the way to avoid paying attention to the patterns and indicators of likely terrorists is a losing proposition and indicates a lack of courage of conviction.

That's a recipe of losing the larger war.

"Christian and Jewish clergy must be banned from the 9/11 memorial service at Ground Zero but a building ruined by wreckage from one of the 9/11 planes (making it as much a part of Ground Zero as the WTC site) must be torn down so that a giant Islamic Victory Mosque can be built.

The United States has helped to bring about regime change in Egypt and Libya (actually going to war in Libya's case) to replace governments that were bad but not currently supporting Jihad terrorism with far worse governments that are connected with organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda.

The United States and Western Europe (that part of the world once known as Christendom) has seemingly lost faith in itself. In its value to the world. It is very likely too late for Europe but not for the US. That is if we screw up our courage and face facts and take appropriate action."


8/28

re: "How Will It End?"

Dymphna continued hosting Zenster's guest-posting, Part the Third, at Gates of Vienna ("At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe.We are in a new phase of a very old war.").

(Advisory to readers: The following excerpted passages incorporate several prime examples of "thinking-about-the-unthinkable." Old "Cold Warriors" will be familiar with the concept. Others may have difficulty wrapping their minds around the idea that not thinking about something may actually increase the likelihood of that "unthinkable" something actually coming to pass.)

Money quote(s):

"Islam has cozened its way into Western civilization and, parading under false colors as an alleged religion, it flies a counterfeit Liberal standard of interfaith Multiculturalism. Besotted with its own temporary successes and newfound “purity” ― through a recent reformation leaving it even more violent, intolerant, misogynistic and puritanical ― Islam is in the process of infiltrating Western civilization to an unprecedented degree."

More and more in the West the reality that Islam more than simply a religion, as we in the West have come to understand what a religion is.

"Islam imprudently brings itself into proximity with danger and eventually this will prove its own undoing. Suffused with delusions of adequacy, Muslims think nothing of constantly antagonizing Western powers who long ago perfected industrialized warfare to an extent that Islam can only dream of, despite its supremacist fantasies."

Writers and thinkers such as Ralph Peters ("Uncle Ralph" would smile to see himself so characterized.) have explored the possible consequences of an Islamic "misunderestimating" of Western ruthlessness in the scientific application of industrialized violence.

"Islam casts outsized shadows which too many in the West mistake for genuine military potency. The exact opposite is true and it is only by using the asymmetrical warfare of terrorism that Islam holds any sway."

Terrorism, like sarcasm, is the weapon of the weak.

"One glimpse of how Islam remains almost entirely reliant upon Political Correctness to drive its Western agenda reveals that this parasitic entity’s success wholly depends upon the frailty of a civilization debilitated by Multiculturalism and self-doubt. This is underscored both by the physical compulsion and violence that lies beneath so much of Islamic doctrine and the fact that no nation in history has ever voluntarily adopted Islam without an application of force being involved."

Don't believe that last part? Read history.

"Little do Liberals understand how they will be among the first who go to the wall should Islam prevail. Nor, in their haste to disarm the world, do they understand that such military ineptitude on their part will see them left with few responses other than nuclear Armageddon when confronted by WMD terrorist strikes. Through appeasement and facilitation, Liberals are Islam’s most dangerous “friends”."

Conventional warfare, particularly if waged on a global basis, is simply too expensive a proposition (for even a continental power with a population in the hundreds of millions) if it has the already developed and weaponized a nuclear capability.

The start-up, R&D, and production infrastructure costs are huge, but once they become sunken costs, the unit costs for nuclear weapons are, relative to mass conventional armies, smaller for a larger "bang."

"This inordinate cost of conventional war needed to obtain even a modicum of peace is, perhaps, the grimmest thing about Islam’s future. As the mask slips and “radical” or “fundamentalist” Islam are revealed to be mainstream and fully compatible with regularly accepted Islamic doctrine, Total War ― something Muslims continue to boast of declaring against the West ― looms evermore probable. However, the economic factors alone point directly away from conventional war.

Truth be told, in the absence of that $96 trillion dollars, there is only unconventional warfare left as a survival option. Nuclear weapons represent the sole existing and cost-effective way of managing hostilities with some 1.6 billion people. Like a proverbial trout in the milk pail, this one simple fact is difficult to ignore. Basic economics dooms perpetually hostile Islam to utter annihilation.

Any expectation of Islam pacifying, moderating or reforming itself must be dismissed out of hand. Islam has already undergone a recent reformation from which it emerged as an even more intolerant, more violent, more puritanical and more misogynistic creed. Those Muslims who do seek any pacification or sincere moderation of Islam’s violent doctrine are usually put to death by more devout believers." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

The figure of "$96 trillion dollars" is arrived at by Zenster through a calculation, based upon the costs of the conventional campaigns waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, if extended to the other fifty Islamic countries.

(CAA does not vouch for the math either way.)

Those hoping that Islam will, in a parallel with the history of Christianity in the West, undergo a moderating reformation have obviously missed how Islam's reformation had already taken place within the past two generations, and representated many awful steps backwards.

(CAA's knowledge of Orthodox Christianity is, alas, somewhat spotty and imperfect. Did the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches undergo anything paralleling the Western Reformation?)

"Recent events in Norway show that long before Muslims manage to demographically displace native Europeans there will begin a serious backlash against the Multiculturalists who have imposed this lethal burden upon the West. It is rather doubtful that American and European culture will go quietly into the Politically Correct Islamic night.

Ironically, as Muslims continue to financially drain the West ― through exorbitant military campaigns, increased security measures, petroleum sales and abuse of social benefits in host countries ― they only increase the eventual appeal of cost effective measures that will be required to subdue Islam. There will also come a time when Western nations begin to recoil at the prospect of sending any more soldiers to die for the sake of letting Muslims erect yet another shari’a government and terrorist production facility.

Complicating all of this is how the concept of military deterrence is essentially nonfunctional as regards Islam. A culture that glorifies and worships death is more than difficult to deter. For every bit that the West shrinks from waging Total War, the necessity of posing an existential threat to Islam only increases. When it comes to the ineffectuality of deterrence, no better example exists that of modern day Iran. The ramifications of Ahmadinejad’s tutelage under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pose some serious issues."

CAA does not fall into the analytic bias that suggests Iran (more precisely, Iran's governmental and non-governmental leadership) is an irrational actor.

Nonetheless, CAA holds that any deterrence analysis of Iran must consider that the rationality of Iran's leadership is not based upon the sort of academic and think-tankery games theory so-beloved in Western capitals.

Mirror-imaging is not your friend!

"(M)ost of his cabinet have little to no military experience. With their being so unlettered in war fighting doctrine, could it not be possible that these appeasers might abruptly discover ― after repeated military budget cuts ― that massive nuclear retaliation was their sole playing card? Again, pro-disarmament Liberals rate as the most dangerous kind of “friends” that Islam could have.

Repulsive in the extreme is how truly avoidable this looming Muslim holocaust really is. A far less costly program of “wetwork” style targeted assassinations directed at the top echelons of Islam’s clerical, political, scholastic and financial aristocracy could see global jihad quickly screech to a grinding halt." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Here you really see some more of that "thinking-the-unthinkable" about which CAA cautioned, over and above considering the nuclear possiblities.

Statecraft, and strategy, ain't beanbag.

The United States' proscriptions against assassinations are, essentially, self-imposed.

Furthermore, in light of the increasing popularity of "targeted killing" within the closed circles of our national decision- and policy-making elites, do not represent so much of a policy-reversal as a nearly-natural progression.

"It is more than safe to say that an industrially and militarily unlettered Islam is not going to take over the world using such a feeble tool as terrorism. As was also noted in Part II, Islam is assembling too many enemies too fast and that pace far outstrips any ability of theirs to perfect the mass production of intricate nuclear weapons nor muster fighting forces of even marginal proficiency. Chronic overreach is a hallmark of Islam and its habit of poking at the Western nuclear dragon with its terrorist pointed wooden stick bodes especially unwell for Muslims everywhere." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Like those who see declining fertility rates in North African (and other majority-Muslim countries) as signs that the Western demographic collapse need not mean replacement by an Islamic majority within the next several decades, this estimate may be overly optimistic.

"Remember that for eight long years, Iran and Iraq fought to a bloody stalemate using chemical weapons and even ten year-old boys as human minesweepers. Less conservative estimates cite up to a million Muslim fatalities with both nations sending the flower of their youth into an insatiable meat grinder. Now, consider how America rolled up Iraq’s sidewalks in two weeks. This is the “reality gap” confronting Islam and its delusory vision of world domination. No such thing will ever happen.

Given that the global caliphate is forever out of reach, whither Islam? What of its obsessive quest for global supremacy? Handily, Israel provides us with a micro synopsis of the macro global problem. Imagine a tiny nation like Costa Rica routinely beating America’s military posterior like a cheap dime store drum. That is the equivalent of Israel defeating the combined military might of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Please remember that, in Arab culture, humiliation is worse than death. Abandoning conventional warfare in favor of terrorism, the Arab nations intentionally selected a strategy of low-intensity conflict whose upper limit would not trigger direct intervention by the global community." (Emphasis in the original text. - CAA.)

CAA would quibble about that "upper limit." A repeat attack against U.S. targets on par with the death tolls from 9/11 seems to me to be as likely to invite a devastating and disproportionate response as one whose casualties were orders of magnitude higher.

CAA suspects that the American public's reaction, even in the face of presidential pronouncements about Islam's inherent peacefulness, would be more on the order of "fool-me-twice, shame-on-me."

"Few people understand that any sort of “negotiated peace” with Israel would serve to unravel the entire Islamic Arab consciousness. Reaching even the least sort of peace agreement would be a frank admission that jihad had failed. Furthermore, any recognition of a Jewish state would contravene the genocidal doctrine that is a cornerstone of Islam. Acceptance of Israel’s continued existence contradicts Islamic canon on so many levels that any such thing is unimaginable.

Piled on top of this is Israel’s continuous string of military victories against often overwhelming Arab forces. How then to explain that away without an indisputable annihilation of Israel tucked under their Islamic belt? Deprived of any concrete proof that Islam actually can prevail against the eternally hated Jew, please do not begin to imagine that there will be any near term cessation of hostilities, if ever.

Thus we are presented with the micro model of global terrorism. Withdrawal, surrender, in fact, peace of any sort with Islam is simply out of the question. In reality, Islam offers nothing that remotely resembles an actual “peace treaty”. Instead, there is only hudna, a temporarily cessation of hostilities that is specifically designed to permit Muslims the rearming needed to then break that “truce” at their convenience. Whither Israel … whither the global community where Islam is concerned.

So long as the West does not pose an existential threat to Islam’s continued presence on earth, there will be no accommodation of any sort. This is the bottom line. That degree of political will is sorely lacking in the West and, even if it existed, there is little likelihood that anyone involved would appreciate how any such pact with the unbelievers would be broken at the first instant of advantage for Islam."

9/21

re: "Action Figure Therapy"

Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes ("") remarked on a disconnect between civilian leadership (and military leadership at the policy-making level) and the troops.

Money quote(s):

"One of the objectives that it would be nice to see a SECDEF try to achieve, is to retain some semblance of respect from the troops. That is not a vital and minimalist goal, of course…you could say it is one for the Generals but not for the suits that hold civilian command over the armed forces…but it would be good if the working relationship was a good one, or if there was at least some effort expended to make it a good one."

Well, if you're planning to get-rid-of (i.e., "downsize," "re-engineer," or otherwise "rightsize" a lot of them anyway, what matter if you have a good relationship?

"I understand this argument about recruited-terrorists, how when these pictures appear it makes it look like the United States is declaring a war on Islam, which is not a perception we can afford to have out there. But there is something about this that I’m having a tough time figuring out: One, this would obviously be a vexing puzzle for us, and a dangerous one, far more important than many of the others. How do we expect to win at it, then, without discussing it more openly? Since 2004 the only rule that’s been in place about it is “just don’t do it” — with a strong undertone of don’t talk about it."

This has been an ongoing sore point with a lot of folks since just after the 9/11 national realization that someone is at war with us.

(And that we have real problems talking about or defining just who that someone might be.)

"(T)wo: Has it ever occurred to these geniuses that some may be reacting to situations like this with a quite reasonable attitude of “I’m not going to take you seriously if you don’t take yourself seriously”? There’s quite a lot to be said for a response, from the top, of: Look, if you don’t want your dead body defiled, don’t shoot at our guys."

Just so.

1/13

re: "We all know Saddam had no WMDs"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") understands that the major media (and much of your government) has been in major denial for years.

Money quote(s):

"The author got this info from the Duelfer Report and notes that most people only read the exec summary. There was plenty of nastiness, and while he wasn't linked to the 9/11 attacks he played with plenty of terrorists. The left loves to whine about WMD lies, false reports and no ties to terror. Yeah well that is just BS. He was a menace, murderous tyrant and a known user of chemical weapons. We were and truly justified in taking him out and the world ought to be thanking us."

If you have the opportunity to chat with anyone in, for instance, the EOD community who served in Iraq, you can get an earful about all the "no WMD in Iraq" they disabled.

9/15

re: "Civilizational War 10 Years After 9-11: Can the West Recover?"

Glen Tschirgi at Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") put things into historical context.

(Not enough of this going around, IMHO.)

Money quote(s):


"I would differ with Rubin that Al Qaeda did not succeed in becoming the leader in worldwide jihad. Clearly, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Al Qaeda was easily the most visible terror group and most heralded in the Islamist world. The fact that Al Qaeda has suffered a disproportionate number of decapitation operations by the U.S. does not mean that it did not accomplish its goal of jihadi leadership. In fact, it could be argued that Al Qaeda has succeeded brilliantly in this regard to the extent that the U.S. has been distracted from fighting other no-less dangerous groups which share the wider goals of Islamist domination of the West." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

In some cases, not only do we not fight them, we actively negotiate with and reward them. Smart diplomacy? Mebbe; but more like lack of clarity with the whole aims/goals part of Grand Strategy.

(Oh, and an inability to talk about or name ones self-proclaimed enemies.)

"While it is true that Al Qaeda carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001, those attacks were merely a manifestation of what has been a perpetual civilizational conflict between Islam and the West since the militant spread of Islam after 632 A.D. The militant strain of Islam has always sought to expand and dominate non-muslim peoples and it always will."

It's not a bug (in the Koran and in Sharia), it's a feature. The whole expansionist scheme constitutes an interlocking and reinforcing web of a reality-tunnel.

"We seem to be making a fundamental mistake in the West when we fail to see the broader context of the struggle. September 11, 2001 was not a “tragedy” but an act of war. A tactical strike by militant Islam at the financial, military and (it was hoped) political heart of the West. And it was not the first such strike. Militant Islam has been on the march in modern times since at least 1979 with the founding of the theocratic state of Iran."

The Iranian Revolution marked definitively the turning point from a century or so of Islamist decline; I suppose you could mark that as having, definitively, begun with Napoleon invading Egypt, but both those points are semi-arbitrary.

"(T)he muslim world is quickly turning (or, more exactly, re-turning) to militant Islam as a means of forcing an expansion of power, in the Middle East in the short term and in Europe and even North America in the long term. This is not some new phenomenon to any student of history but a continuation of a struggle between two civilizations: one based upon Greek and Roman thoughts of law and liberty with Christian overlays (Western democracy) and one based upon the all-encompassing rule of the Koran which sublimates the individual in every aspect of life. The two cultures are thoroughly incompatible and the history of the world has shown that peace has only, ever reigned between the two when Islam was too weak to force its will upon the West.

This, then, should be the take-away from 9-11: we are in a desperate struggle for civilizational survival that is being fought on the battlefield, certainly, but also in the courtroom, in the media, in politically correct driven government policy and think tanks, and in the very essence of our culture— how we view our basic freedoms and the means we are willing to employ to cherish and defend them."

Fortunately, our civilization's strategic thinkers do have an understanding that national power, and warfare, is multidimensional, even if our media and our politicians often do not. Do you suppose there's some way to get these people to talk to one another?

"It is too frightening. The risk of being called xenophobic, or Islamophobic or chauvinistic is too intimidating. So we will fight where we find it convenient to fight. Drone attacks that take out an Al Qaeda leader but leave in peace Iranian leaders who have killed far more Americans than Al Qaeda or the Taliban. We will look for the first opportunity to declare victory, as when Osama Bin Laden was killed, but ignore the mortal threats to peace and economic security posed by a nuclear Iran or a growing Hezbollah or Hamas. We will sacrifice precious blood and treasure gaining great victories in Iraq and Afghanistan only to throw it away in hasty withdrawals under the smokescreen of “transition.” "

Fighting where it's convenient isn't always a bad thing. Picking your battles is often a good thing. Still, declarations that victory has been won should be as quickly ridiculed as those which declared "Mission Accomplished!"

9/11

re: "Ten Years After"

Francis W. Porretto at Eternity Road aims to influence your opinions.

Money quote(s):

"I've received a fair amount of email this past week, inquiring about whether I planned to write something on the tenth anniversary of Black Tuesday: September 11, 2001, when Islam openly declared war on the United States. Yes, I said Islam, not "terrorists," "extremists," or "fundamentalists." We have it on the authority of a head of state -- Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey -- that there is no "moderate Islam;" there is only Islam. Any number of imams, mullahs, ayatollahs and so forth have said the same -- and have proceeded to justify the atrocities of Black Tuesday as a response to the "humiliation" Muslims have endured at America's hands.

What humiliation? Daring to rise and progress out of the seventh century. Proclaiming a doctrine of individual rights beyond what their scriptures allow. Treating persons of all races, sexes, and faiths as possessing a perfect right to be as they are and believe as they do. Letting women read, drive, and go about in attractive clothing, unaccompanied by a male chaperone.
We "humiliate" Muslims and Islam by being Americans: believers in freedom, a secular state, and an objective rule of law and justice." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

There're what, a billion muslims in the world? That's almost as many muslims as there are Catholics! Surely all of them aren't at war with the United States?

"If you're a person of wholesome values and rational mind, you were as outraged about Black Tuesday as I was -- and you remain so, as I do. If we differ at all, it's in what would constitute the appropriate responses, short and long-term, and the enduring stance America ought to take toward the perpetrators, their enablers, their apologists, and their co-religionists.

Needless to say, even among men of good will, that's a wide spectrum of opinion. What I'm here to do, today and every day, on this and every subject of public import, is to pull your opinions toward mine. Anyone who writes op-ed is trying to do the same. " (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA.)

I know it's supposed to be a bad thing to hold onto anger all this time, but frankly I've come to doubt whether the veracity itself of that bit of modern-day folk wisdom. Anger isn't always a bad thing, it seems to me. It can help keep you focused on whatever, presumably important, thing that has angered you. After all, if the thing is still making you angry, maybe the fault isn't you after all.

Not to rule that out, you understand. Let's not rule anything out, let's keep an open mind to all the possibilities and then start to rule them out, based on facts and observations.

Regarding the bolded portion of the excerpt above, I have no quibble with Mr. Porretto's wording except the final three (including one compound-) words: "and their co-religionists." And I'll tell you why:

My issue, my anger, my "eternal hostility" remains with "the perpetrators, their enablers, (and) their apologists." And while I certainly don't limit that hostility to "their co-religionists," nor do I intend to categorically sweep them into the "eternal hostility" category unless, by their perpetration, their enablement, and their apologetics, they place themselves therein.

Frankly, those who are in essence accessories, before and after the facts of 9/11, constitute a sufficiently broad category within both the non-Muslim and Muslim worlds as to provide no end of enemies.

But, as we are in a war, not a criminal court, the object is not conviction of the guilty (including the accessories) but their defeat. So let not your heart be troubled.

"We are at war with Islam, and have been since Iranian "students" stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, took 52 Americans hostage, and kept them for 444 days.

Don't bother to argue with me about this. Either we are or we aren't. If we aren't, the evidence for the proposition demands a better explanation than any I've heard. Worse, there's no objective evidence that we aren't, and no Islamic apologist has dared to present any.

But we're not fighting that war. We're acting, in large measure, as if some other force were responsible for the crimes and atrocities committed in Islam's name. We're acting, in other words, as if Islam and Muslims generally are the victims rather than the cause and the perpetrators."

A couple of points:

First, while certain Islamic actors (including entire governments) have been at war with the U.S., indeed with Western civilization, for at least since the Tehran embassy takeover, we have not ourselves been at war back. At least not until 9/11 when the war which had been being waged against us abroad for all these years came crashing into the home front. No pun intended.

Second, the first (and last) victims of the Sharia-based ideology of militant, fundamentalist (and occasionally socialist) Islam are always muslims themselves. Muslims who disagree, muslims to aren't fundamentalist, aren't militant, aren't murderous enough; they are always the ultimate victims of our Islamist enemies.

This is not to minimize our role as an obstacle to a Sharia-controlled world where muslims may be terrorized and murdered without hindrance, since there won't be anyone else left to terrorize and murder; we're the Great Satan, after all. And with that greatness comes great responsibility.

"In part, it's because of the barrage of propagandization we've received about Islam, about American "imperialism," and about our duty to "tolerate" this totalitarian creed. Like it or not, people's attitudes and unconscious assumptions are shaped by the Legacy Media even today. They see, hear, or read a "news report" and accept it as undiluted, unpolluted fact. They read a bit of op-ed from some eloquent columnist with whom they agree on less weighty matters, and they accept his rendition rather than performing their own. They hear persons whom they admire, and whose good opinion they crave, declaim in this or that fashion, and they accept it and parrot it back to him for no better reason than their need for his approval.

And in part, it's because we've become uncomfortable with the concept of evil. We simply dislike the idea that there are persons in the world whose ultimate aim is our subjugation or destruction. And since it's an abstraction, not represented by any individual we have close at hand, we scowl and shrug it away.

Got a hot flash for you, sports fans: There is evil in the world. Now and then it's codified into a creed and set down between book covers. The Communist Manifesto. Mein Kampf. The Koran. Those who embrace such a creed are embracing evil.

Yes, it's a Christian's part to hate the sin but forgive the sinner and pray for his repentance. But it's a free man's part to fight the evildoer with all his power -- especially when at the end of the contest, one of you will be dead, and the other free to go on as he's done.

We are at war with Islam. We've been at war with Islam for forty-one years." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

See my remarks above. Islamic terrorists (including entire governments) have been at war with us for each of those forty-one years, but for much of that time we brushed aside the insults, the murders, the treachery, and the attacks against our military, our diplomats, and our civilians, as mere nuisances to be ignored or somehow bought off. Actual warfare, at least since the Jefferson administration, against Islamic terrorists, bandits, and pirates (but I repeat myself) has been quite rare, and more the occasional skirmish indicental to various rescue or other reactive and defensive missions.

"Try reading this concise report on Muslims' behavior in Western countries to which they've been admitted. Try rationalizing its evidence against any other conclusion than that Islam is an aggressive program of totalitarian conquest of the world, with a few theological trimmings as protective coloration.

Try imagining how "tolerance" for such a creed could eventuate any other way than in mass slaughter of the "tolerant" and the subjugation of the survivors."

Those with eyes to see need only observe developments in the erstwhile "Arab Spring" nations for a sneak-preview of what may be in store, Ralph Peters notwithstanding, for Western Europe.

9/11/11

re: "Remembering: On The Tenth Anniversary Of 9/11."

John Bernard, 1st Sgt. USMC (ret.), at Big Peace prepared some remarks for this year's 9/11 remembrance.

Money quote(s):

"Ten years ago, today, 19 Al Qaeda affiliated hijackers stole 4 jets and flew them into the World Trade Center Buildings, the Pentagon, along route 95 and attempted to crash a fourth into some as yet unknown target. That fourth plane never reached it’s “reassigned” destination. In all, 2998 people perished at the hands of those 19 zealots of a seventh century, demonically inspired ideology.

I refuse to call them terrorists.

Terrorist is but one of many misnomers that has been associated with a segment of the world population that believe the actions of that day were righteous. Make no mistake about it; the nineteen men that committed that atrocity on American soil that we remember today were but the tip of the sword."

Soldiers of Allah (S.O.A.), just like Major Hasan.

"Since that day, hundreds of thousands of United States Service members, have been compelled, by this government, into harm’s way to hold responsible those who plotted those attacks. Tens of thousands have been wounded, some with life changing effect. Nearly five thousand have died doing the same.

Their combined sacrifices are a direct result of the actions of that day and yet, they are neither remembered nor their brothers, invited. We compound this injustice by perpetuating an insidious act of political cowardice by not naming the enemy who inspired those attacks, cheered the attackers and with whom we are still, presumably, locked in battle."

9/11

re: "Pearl Harbor and 9-11: Imagination, Deception and Audacity"

Austin Bay at Strategy Page explains how old lessons remain relevant.

Money quote(s):

"Imagination, deception and audacity, in combination, are the deadly acme of warfare. Japan’s Pearl Harbor ambush of America’s Pacific Fleet, which occurred 70 years ago this week, displayed these traits. So did al-Qaida’s 9-11 savaging of American cities.

Despite clues and suggestive bits of intelligence, both attacks caught America by surprise and thrust the nation headlong into ongoing global wars that it either tried to avoid or ignore. In other words, both imaginative and deceptive attacks, executed with audacity, leveraged American self-deception and lack of imagination.

Both attacks spawned critical re-examination of intelligence data and grim reflection on the complex process of intelligence assessment and political decision-making."

Self-deception is a somewhat harsher term, if still accurate, than the more neutral terminology surround the concept of cognitive bias. But it'll all get you there. Lots of very bright folks have studied, and continue to study, the best way to leverage our collection and analysis capabilities into an architecture that keeps us safer. Mostly it works, except when it doesn't.

"Operational and tactical intelligence data, however -- in 1941, 2001 and in 2011 -- arrive in fragments. A useful analogy is a pointillism painting or a Jackson Pollock drip painting. In the process of creation, the painting is random dots or disjointed splashes. Over time, a lucid pattern emerges; the viewer can step away from the canvas; what looked like chaos appears as a coherent design.

In the midst of events, the significance of an intercepted coded Imperial Japanese Navy radio transmission indicating a fleet can be missed, especially if it didn’t fit a logically convincing (though preconceived) pattern. American strategists knew an attack on Pearl Harbor by carrier aircraft was possible, and they believed Japan might well expand its war. Their imaginative insight, however, was incomplete. They underestimated Japanese imagination and audacity.

After Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. built a defense establishment designed to prevent another Pearl Harbor. America spent trillions of dollars spying on potential perpetrators of a surprise attack, building a security establishment to deter or defeat it, and engineering equipment to fulfill those missions.

Though the U.S. and U.S. allies suffered severe surprise attacks -- for example, Korea in 1950 and Tet (Vietnam) in 1968 -- in terms of protecting military capacities from pre-emptive attack, that effort has been successful."

Col. Bay hits a key point here: what used to be called our "second strike" capability has never, since Pearl Harbor, been successfuly attacked.

It's possible that 9/11 was genuinely intended as a decapitating strike against our economic, political, and military leadership. Which is a fascinating conversation unto itself; still, if it were, it failed. Even in (assumed) failure, 9/11 was plenty damaging enough.

"Al-Qaida declared war on the U.S., but American leaders preferred to treat the threat as criminal rather than military. Violent cults waging long-term cultural and theological struggles with the terms of social and technological modernity aren’t new. Their ability to employ massively destructive power at strategic distances is, however.

Al-Qaida used jumbo jets as ICBMs; all it lacked was a nuclear weapon. U.S. strategists had wargamed suicide aircraft attacks, but the conventional wisdom labeled the plot too Hollywood. Like Pearl Harbor, post-911 attack examination revealed that U.S. intelligence agencies had clues and facts, but failed to assimilate the data into a design -- the design of an audacious enemy."

Usually I've seen this argument phrased in terms of hijacked passenger jets being the poor-man's cruise missile, but Mr. Bay is still quite correct in his larger theme.

"A violent organization that announces it has declared war on America is no mere criminal problem."

And that is the lesson I wish more people would take to heart.

12/5

re: "Sandcrawler PSA: Jawa Report Official 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Editorial Post"

Howie at The Jawa Report remembered another infamous date.

Money quote(s):

"(T)o all my countrymen who lost their lives 10 years ago, we remember you and we made damned sure that payback was a motherf*cker."

9/11

re: "The Unfinished Business of September 11"

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club set out a learning objective.

Money quote(s):

"The story of September 11 must for all time become the story of how a certain date became unspeakable to al-Qaeda and its followers; a tale of how this day of all others, became the blackest day in the history of Islam. It should forever be a date that can never be mentioned without arousing a deep sense of shame throughout the Middle East so that in generations hence, people should still come up to strangers unbidden and say, “I’m sorry for September 11. “ Until then it is unfinished business."

To put it in other terms, this is a "teaching moment" for two civilizations.

One of them, ours, hasn't quite gotten the message across to the other one yet. Which is very unfortunate for both civilizations.

9/10