re: "The Muslim Brotherhood's American Defenders"

Caroline Glick re-posted her Jerusalem Post article at CarolineGlick.Com ("the most prominent woman in Israel"), regarding America's current mis-comprehension of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Money quote(s):

"On Wednesday, John Brennan, US President Barack Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, made a quick trip to Israel to discuss Hezbollah's massacre of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last week."

&

"Unlike previous US counterterror officials, Brennan does not share Israel's understanding of Middle Eastern terrorism.

Brennan's outlook on this subject was revealed in a speech he gave two years ago in Washington. In that talk, Brennan spoke dreamily about Hezbollah. As he put it, "Hezbollah is a very interesting organization."

He claimed it had evolved from a "purely terrorist organization" to a militia and then into an organization with members in Lebanon's parliament and serving in Lebanon's cabinet."

This is what comes of having a "war on terrorism" and "violent extremism" rather than responding directly to the organizations and movements which have employed those tactics against us.

Namely the MB and her sister- and daughter-organizations like Hezbollah.

"Brennan's amazing characterization of Hezbollah's hostile takeover of the Lebanese government as proof that the terrorist group was moderating was of a piece with the Obama administration's view of Islamic jihadists generally.

If there are "moderate elements," in Hezbollah, from the perspective of the Obama administration, Hezbollah's Sunni jihadist counterpart - the Muslim Brotherhood - is downright friendly."

&

"On February 10, 2011, Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made this position clear in testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Clapper's testimony was given the day before then Egyptian president and longtime US ally Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign from office. Mubarak's coerced resignation owed largely to the Obama administration's decision to end US support for his regime and openly demand his immediate abdication of power. As Israel warned, Mubarak's ouster paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood's ascendance to power in Egypt.

In his testimony Clapper said, "The term 'Muslim Brotherhood' is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaida as a perversion of Islam. They have pursued social ends, betterment of the political order in Egypt, etc."

Watching Clapper's testimony in Israel, the sense across the political spectrum, shared by experts and casual observers alike was that the US had taken leave of its senses."

DNI Clapper is not a working-level intelligence analyst. He has to function in the political realm and that can be expected to color his public remarks.

One does have to wonder what the non-public recommendations and assessments look like.

(CAA has no direct experience regarding the DNI but there are people CAA respects who have, and they respect him.)

"The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Koran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the path of Allah is our highest hope."

How could such a high-level US official claim that such an organization is "largely secular"?

Every day Muslim Brotherhood leaders call for the violent annihilation of Israel. And those calls are often combined with calls for jihad against the US. For instance, in a sermon from October 2010, Muslim Brotherhood head Mohammed Badie called for jihad against the US."

One can always blame bad policy decisions on bad advice, but you then have to shoulder the blame for choosing bad advisors.

"The obliviousness of Brennan and Clapper to the essential nature of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood are symptoms of the overarching ignorance informing the Obama administration's approach to Middle Eastern realities."

&

"(I)n October 2011, according to the Beirut-based Arabic news portal al Nashra, Dalia Mogahed, Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, blocked a delegation of Middle Eastern Christians led by Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai from meeting with Obama and members of his national security team at the White House. According to al Nashra, Mogahed canceled the meeting at the request of the Muslim Brotherhood in her native Egypt.

The White House canceled the meeting days after Rai visited with then French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. During that meeting Rai angered the French Foreign Ministry when he warned that it would be a disaster for Syria's Christian minority, and for Christians throughout the region, if the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is overthrown. Rai based this claim on his assessment that Assad would be replaced by a Muslim Brotherhood- dominated Islamist regime.

And nine months later it is obvious that he was right. With Syria's civil war still raging throughout the country, the world media is rife with reports about Syria's Christians fleeing their towns and villages en masse as Islamists from the Syrian opposition target them with death, extortion and kidnapping."

See my comment above about choosing bad advisors.

"Why is the Obama administration shunning potential allies and empowering enemies? Why has the administration gotten it wrong everywhere?

In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, and perhaps to cause the administration to rethink its policies, a group of US lawmakers, members of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees led by Rep. Michele Bachmann sent letters to the inspectors-general of the State, Homeland Security, Defense, and Justice departments as well as to the inspector-general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In those letters, Bachmann and her colleagues asked the Inspectors General to investigate possible penetration of the US government by Muslim Brotherhood operatives."

Silly idea, right? Because of course none of America's enemies has ever tried to infiltrate our government for purposes of influence and espionage before.

(Well, not if you don't consider World War I, World War II, the Cold War..... )

"(T)he lawmakers made clear that when they spoke of governmental penetration, they were referring to the central role that Muslim groups, identified by the US government in Federal Court as Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, play in shaping the Obama administration's perception of and policies towards the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied movements in the US and throughout the world.

That these front groups, including the unindicted terror funding co-conspirators, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), play a key role in shaping the Obama administration's agenda is beyond dispute."

Do I really have to link to the Holy Land Foundation trial documents again?

I guess so.

"There is an ample body of evidence that suggests that the administration's decision to side with the hostile Muslim Brotherhood against its allies owes to a significant degree to the influence these Muslim Brotherhood front groups and their operatives wield in the Obama administration.

To take just one example, last October the Obama administration agreed to purge training materials used by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies and eliminate all materials that contained references to Islam that US Muslim groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood had claimed were offensive. The administration has also fired counterterrorism trainers and lecturers employed by US security agencies and defense academies that taught their pupils about the doctrines of jihadist Islam. The administration also appointed representatives of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned US Muslim groups to oversee the approval of training materials about Islam for US federal agencies."

She concluded:

"It is clear that the insidious notion that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate and friendly force has taken hold in US policy circles. And it is apparent that US policymaking in the Middle East is increasingly rooted in this false and dangerous assessment.

In spearheading an initiative to investigate and change this state of affairs, Bachmann and her colleagues should be congratulated, not condemned. And their courageous efforts to ask the relevant questions about the nature of Muslim Brotherhood influence over US policymakers should be joined, not spurned by their colleagues in Washington, by the media and by all concerned citizens in America and throughout the free world."

7/27

re: "Negotiations"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor (" The Original Blog and Daybook. ") posted some thoughts on the Middle East and the Occupy movement.

Money quote(s):

"The Israelis have traded 1,000 well treated prisoners for one mistreated sergeant.

I once told then Israeli President Weizman that I didn’t know how to govern his country. Of course that was preparatory to my suggestions on what I thought they were doing wrong. I still don’t know how to govern Israel, nor do I have the stake in the outcome that the Israeli government does, but that doesn’t stop me from suggesting a different course of action.

Were it up to me to negotiate for the return of a soldier kidnapped by Hamas, I would simply ask how many Hamas officials they wanted in exchange for my sergeant. “I need to know the number, because I have Mossad standing by to make up the list of Hamas officials we will have the IDF take as prisoners. The sooner I have the number the quicker Mossad and our special forces can do their work. We can then have the exchange. Please tell me the number.” "

I rather like the way Dr. Pournelle thinks.

"I have some sympathy for those who have a lifelong debt in exchange for some years of their lives acquiring an education that is in essence worthless. They learned no history, no economics, and little else of any real value, and they have little prospect of a job until the economy revives. They saw a $Trillion spent on stimulus and bailouts with not much result other than enormous bonuses paid to people whose contribution to the world is to move money around in circles. Not much of it seems to get down to the levels where they live.

Their view of the world is somewhat distorted but their education didn’t show them how to see it all more clearly."

A university education used to mean (correct me if I'm wrong) at least a core curriculum that should have been grounded in some basic humanities (English lit., composition, world history, Western civilization, &tc.) that would at the very least given college graduates the factual and analytical basis from which to think about things and make more-or-less rational decisions.

The proliferation of hyphen-studies courses crowding out the old-fashioned syllabi have lead to this.

"(I)t does seem a bit odd that the NATO air power including a US killer drone were waiting for the cavalcade out of Sirte. It’s unlikely that they stumbled on it, or that they were maintaining air patrols there. This appears to be a reasonably well planned kill operation. As to whether it conforms to the directive of protecting the civil population of Libya I have no idea. One wonders how the Presidents of Syria and Yemen understand the messages here.

Khaddafi’s body has been subjected to practices not permitted under the Quran, so it is clear that Sharia law does not yet govern Libya.

The execution of Qadafi was no more than he deserved, and the desecration of his body echoes that of the founder of united Libya, Benito Mussolini." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Iraq will probably break up into its component provinces; almost certainly the Kurds will refuse to accept the sovereignty of Baghdad and the Shia. It is not likely that Baghdad has the means for the conquest of the Kurdish province, which may well proclaim its independence and apply for membership in the United Nations. Libya was united under the Italian rule under Mussolini. Just how strong the union between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania has been forged is not clear. There are plenty of reasons for conflict. The stakes are high, and the US has considerable interest in the matter, but it is not clear that the US has any strong influence over the outcome." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

10/24

re: "What Lies Beneath"

Richard Fernandez a Belmont Club critiqued the Administration's habit of pre-emption.

Money quote(s):

"Pre-emption was also in evidence in foreign affairs, but this Pearl Harbor was not directed against America’s supposed enemies, but at its allies. Mark Perry at Foreign Policy writes an article strongly implies that the Obama administration is pre-emptively leaking Israeli military cooperation arrangements with Azerbaijan to protect Iran from a potential strike. Perry says officials told him that Israel was acquiring airfields on Iran’s northern border, something that may not have been common knowledge."

&

"Well if the Iranians didn’t know about Azerbaijan, they know now. Lee Smith says that this may be a blatant tip-off. “A number of Israeli journalists, led by Ron Ben-Yishai, one of the country’s esteemed security correspondents, claimed that Mark Perry’s article was clear evidence the White House was leaking critical information about Israel’s strategy in order to pressure Jerusalem to abandon its war plans and wait for the administration’s sanctions to bring the Iranian regime to its knees.” Maybe they’ll have to wait a long time. But for what it is worth, John Bolton believes the administration is alerting Iran, the administration acting as their Chain Home system, so to speak."

Omitted from my selective excerption were the passages that suggest the information about Azerbaijan may not have been correct, and the whys of that.

About half of Wretchard's post had to do with the Supreme Court's then-pending health care reform decision.

4/4

re: "What You Need to Know About the CIA Getting Rolled Up in Lebanon. That, and Larry Munson."

Andrew Exum at Abu Muquwama examined a major intelligence setback in Lebanon.

Money quote(s):

"As some of you may or may not already know, Hizballah, together with the Lebanese government, has rolled up what is believed to be the vast majority of the assets of the Central Intelligence Agency in Lebanon."

As Dr. Exum implies, Hizballah and the Lebanese government are sufficiently interpenetrated as to be considered unitary at this point. I suppose a Venn Diagram might show the Lebanese government as comprising two overlapping circles: the circle belonging to Syria, the circle belonging to Hizballah, and a mutual zone which serves two masters.

"I know about as much about clandestine operations and running agents as I do about playing linebacker in the NFL, but I do know a little about Lebanon, and I also know something about what my boss John Nagl likes to refer to as "learning organizations," a concept I believe to be relevant here. I first heard about this story from a journalist over lunch last week, and I'll relate to you what I told him and some of what he told me.

1. As many of you know, Hizballah and Lebanese intelligence have been quite good at rolling up Israeli intelligence assets since 2006. (Contrary to what I would have thought, Israel managed to keep a pretty good human intelligence network alive in Lebanon after its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.) Our intelligence assets were vulnerable to the same counter-intelligence methods that did in the Israelis, but we apparently blew off the warnings."

Be sure to read the rebuttal comment as to what the CIA did or didn't manage to do.

"2. Given that negligence, if I am a member of the U.S. Congress, I am going to ask if it is really true that the station chief in Beirut was subsequently promoted within the ranks of the CIA. If told this is in fact true, I am going to ask who, if anyone, is being held accountable.

3. I am also, if I am a member of the U.S. Congress, going to be asking whether or not CIA tradecraft has eroded over the past decade as the agency has chased the bright shiny ball we'll call "drone-strikes-in-Pakistan". (A question that, quite frankly, needed to be asked afterthe 2009 bombing in Khost.) It's great to have an intelligence agency with a knife in its teeth, but the primary mission of an intelligence organization is to gather and analyze intelligence, not to thwack bad guys. If you fail in that primary mission, questions have to be asked as to why you are failing."

Sometimes you lose. Consider that in an environment like Lebanon, you're not just running an intelligence operation. You're simultaneously trying to run intelligence operations, counter-intelligence operations to protect your intelligence operations, and counter-counterintelligence operations (against your targets counterintelligence) as well.

And it only gets worse from there. Lebanon is a hostile, if not actually completely denied area for U.S. intelligence.

"In the same way that the U.S. Army has an institutional interest in convincing policy makers that every general officer is equal to another, the CIA has an interest in convincing outsiders that external evaluation will compromise valuable tactics, techniques and procedures and will endanger operational security. (This is not a good recipe for an organization that learns from its mistakes and solicits external criticism in an effort to be more effective.) All organizations resist criticism, but intelligence organizations resist criticism and then wrap themselves in the cloak of all-important operational security to avoid it."

Intelligence organizations, for reasons good and prudent, find it abhorant to "solicit external criticism."

(Frankly, "external criticism" is not much in short supply, particularly that of the uninformed variety.)

Now, CAA is perfectly aware of a tendancy towards over-classification on that part of those who would wish to shield themselves from the criticism which they are due, but that's as much a trait of political leadership as it is of the professional intelligence cadre.

"(T)hat's what it really comes down to: poor tradecraft. This is not a matter of some Lebanese Karla lurking out there, out-smarting us. This is our premier intelligence agency getting sloppy, resulting in the death or incarceration of some brave U.S. allies."

Might could be. Or they simply were better or luckier, on their home turf, than we were with our away game.

A commenter rebuttal included the following:

"1. Your statement that the CIA "apparently blew off the (counter-intelligence) warnings" is overly harsh. CI penetrations emanate from multiple vectors - whether from poor trade-craft or an asset that is posing as a double agent - and the problem is augmented when attempting to infiltrate a highly secretive and closed organization such as Hizballah. Rightfully, in a scenario such as this, the maximum amount of defensive CI measures should be implemented in order to thwart the efforts by the hostile intelligence services. Because of the "cloak of security," we will most likely not be privy to the efforts (if any) that were taken to mitigate the CI threat and protect the assets."

11/21

re: "On Capability vs. Intent, Part II"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") examined the significance of uncertainty in intelligence analysis.

Money quote(s):

"(I)n my World Politics Review column this week, I tackle the intelligence problems related to intent, which are normally much more difficult than those related to capability. Specifically, I tackle the (understandable) failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to determine whether or not Israel will attack Iran -- a failure that matches my own inability to do so." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

He fleshed that out a little bit more with reference to reading and conversation.

(It'll only take a moment to read.)

4/18

re: "Born to American mom, in-vitro twins denied citizenship"

Scott Stump at MSNBC.Com reported on one of the hard cases in applying citizenship law.

Money quote(s):

"Ellie Lavi, an American citizen living in Israel, wanted her children to be American as well, despite the fact that they were born in Israel. But her twin daughters, Maya and Shira, now 2 ½ years old, are unable to gain status as U.S. citizens. Lavi, a single mother in her 40s, used a donor sperm and egg from a clinic in Israel to conceive her children through in-vitro fertilization. Now, the U.S. State Department is refusing to grant citizenship to her children because she is unable to prove that any of the donors are American citizens."

Lots of American live overseas, in lots of places, including Israel. And in U.S consular sections, American consular officers work diligently to provide U.S. citizens abroad the citizenship, passport, and other consular services they require, to the fullest extent allowed by law.

But as CAA has remarked before, we have to implement the law as it's written, not as we might have written it ourselves.

Not to get my quill pen too deeply into the Tel Aviv consular section's inkwell, but they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do, what you and I pay them to do.

"When Lavi went to the U.S. Embassy in Israel to register her children, she said she was asked over a loudspeaker in a crowded room by an embassy official how she conceived the children.

“It’s an outrageous question,’’ she said, recalling the experience. She later left the embassy in tears after more questioning."

CAA is calling "bullshit" on the play right now.

Consular officers, due to (justified) security concerns, are no longer able to conduct consular business across their office desktops, sharing coffee or tea with their customers and clients.

(Not to say it can't or doesn't sometimes happen, but the sheer volume of work in most places makes it highly unlikely.)

So consular officers conduct interviews at what are called transaction (or "teller") windows, rated to resist forced entry and "ballistic" (i.e., bullets) resistant attack.

As you might imagine, trying to conduct any sort of meaningful conversation through ballistic glass requires a little help, so a microphone and speaker arrangement is used, much like that used by bank tellers (or fast-food workers) at drive-up windows.

In a "crowded room" in Tel Aviv, I bet the background noise from all the customer's conversations gets kind of loud. So perhaps the volume on the speakers gets dialed up a bit, just so consuls and citizens can converse over the ambient noise of the waiting room.

Two other thoughts:

First, in many places, consular officers have a "privacy room" available in which more delicate conversations can be held. Citizens whose situations require that sort of handling should request a more private setting, if available. Since consular officers aren't mind readers, you have to ask for it.

Second, it is possible that the consular officer may have, presumably accidently, had their transaction window's speakers set to the public address (PA) option.

(It happens sometimes.)

"Children adopted by U.S. citizens or born to foreign citizens in the U.S. are granted status as Americans. However, as Lavi was informed, children born to Americans overseas through in-vitro fertilization are denied American citizenship unless a donor can be proved to be a U.S. citizen. The laws were created to prevent people from fraudulently attaining status as Americans."

U.S. nationality laws require a "blood relationship" to a U.S. parent in order for citizenship to be transmitted to a child born overseas. Period. Full stop.

"Lavi does have one option to get citizenship for her daughters – by living in America for six months and completing the paperwork there. But Lavi and her children still live in Israel, and what she believes is an automatic right – that children born to an American should be considered American – is just more complicated for in-vitro babies."

If I understand this account correctly, the writer is talking about the parent, Ms. Lavi, having to reside in the U.S. for six months in order to be able to file an immigrant visa petition. I think. Maybe. It's hard to tell what it meant here.

Ms. Lavi is correct that things are more complicated for in-vitro babies, but mostly because it has to be shown that they have a blood relationship to an American citizen.

(Had Ms. Lavi done a little research beforehand, rather than blithely assuming her personal conveniences were actually supported in law, she might have arranged to give birth in the U.S. itself.)

"There are 200,000 U.S. citizens living in Israel, many of whom have dual citizenship. Fertility treatments also are free in Israel, so they are used more frequently, according to a report by USA Today. Many pregnant Americans living overseas come back to the United States to give birth in order to ensure their children are Americans, or they lie to officials at overseas embassies, the founder of Parents Via Egg Donation told USA Today.

In a statement released to NBC News, U.S. State Department officials say they are sympathetic to the Lavi family’s situation but are following the law." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

4/17

re: "The Republican Debate; Assassinations; and more"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("The Original Blog and Daybook.") spoke of the shadow world.

Money quote(s):

"They’re not calling it an assassination yet, but it sure looks like one. The son of an important Iranian official has been found dead in a Dubai hotel. It’s all remarkably similar to what happened to a Hamas official not all that long ago. It’s possible that this wasn’t a strike by Mossad, but I sure wouldn’t bet much money on it.

Note that this happens as there is news of explosions in Iran at bases connected with the Iranian nuclear program."

Not that high energy physics or explosive-related facilities or bases might not have a tendancy to go 'splody all one their own, but this seems to go beyond the normal distribution curve, even when factoring in for the Third World.

"As to what’s going on:

Iran has long had a policy of providing strong incentives – positive and negative – to its smartest kids to study nuclear engineering and go into the Iranian nuclear program. It has long been thought that one way to make sure there is no nuclear program is make sure there aren’t any really bright nuclear engineers.

This rather drastic policy has been applied in the past, and neither Syria nor Iraq ever got nuclear weapons. Note that hostility toward Iran having nuclear weapons is universal in the Arab world with the single exception of Syria. The obvious author of the Iranian explosions and the death of the smart young man in a Dubai hotel is Mossad, but Israel is not the only country happy with these recent events, nor is Mossad the only intelligence agency capable of using these techniques. Welcome to the shadow world."

When look for those with motive, the operative question must always "come from the Latin." To wit: cui bono or "to whose benefit?" Dr. Pournelle gives a nice precis, although he thoughtfully omits the U.S. from those who might have a claim check in this particular dead pool.

11/13

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: "NBC: Israel and MEK Responsible for Murdering Iranian Scientists"

Kevin Jon Heller at Opinio Juris ("a forum for informed discussion and lively debate about international law and international relations") explored the legal and political ramifications.

Money quote(s):

"(P)recisely because it is a blockbuster that makes Israel and the MEK’s vast number of Democratic and Republican supporters in the U.S. look bad, (it) has been basically ignored in the “liberal” media"

A surprising number of very prominent politicians and former high government officials have come out in favor of "de-listing" the PMOI. It's something of a puzzlement to me.

"(I)n a rational world it should complicate efforts by the MEK’s U.S. friends to have the MEK de-listed as a terror organization"

So one would imagine.

As I've mentiond, I think, before, one of my major objections to de-listing the PMOI is that it's never come clean about the terrorism that it's known to have committed; in particular the assassinations of U.S. personnel in Iran.

"(B)ombings conducted by a civilian intelligence service such as the Mossad are not excluded from the Convention’s definition of terrorism. So yes, the Mossad’s actions in using MEK to kill the Iranian nuclear scientists qualify as terrorism."

Prof. Heller is referring to something called the "Terrorist Bombing Convention," of which CAA is completely (if momentarily) ignorant. To which the U.S. is a state party.

2/11

re: "Israeli officials say IAEA's ElBaradei an Iranian agent"

Robert at Jihad Watch ("dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts") relayed Israeli revelations that are supremely unsurprising.

Money quote(s):

"This would certainly explain a lot."

It certainly would.

11/10

re: "The Poor Palestinians"

Ted Belman at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") considers the plight of the Palestinians without irony or insult.

Money quote(s):

""Palestinian" is a name given to Arabs after the '67 War, who lived or did live in the area known as Palestine during the Palestine Mandate and afterwards right up to the present, and includes their descendants, even if such descendants never set foot in the area known as Palestine."

Oddly, the name "Palestinian" as used after the '67 War, excludes all non-Arab inhabitants of the same geographic area, most notably (but not solely) the Israelis to whom it previously had applied to exclusively.

"United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency, providing education, health care, social services and emergency aid to 5 million Palestine refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. UNRWA was specifically created to maintain the refugee status, not to end it." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"The Arab League has instructed its members to deny citizenship to Palestinian Arab refugees (or their descendants) "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland." "

Fortunately, implementation of this instruction has not been universal.

"In Jordan, less than 20% of the refugees live in camps. This is because when Jordan purported to annex the West Bank after the '48 War, it granted all the Palestinians living there and in Jordan proper, citizenship. After the '67 War in which Israel regained Judea and Samaria, many more Palestinians fled to Jordan and over the years since, many Palestinians from the West Bank emigrated there. It is estimated today that the number of Palestinians in Jordan total in excess of 5,000,000 of which only about 2 million are registered refugees. They constitute about ¾ of the total population of Jordan. Given this fact and the fact that the West Bank has approximately 1.5 million Palestinians, one might rightfully argue that Jordan is the Palestinian homeland." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Perhaps the Hashemite dynasty might ought consider re-branding itself as protectors of the Palestinian people.

(Or not.)

"The Arab Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have the right to form a government and govern themselves within the confines of the Oslo Accords. Their government known as the Palestinian Authority (PA) has full autonomy in all matters save for a limitation on matters of security affecting Israel. How they govern themselves is up to them. In effect the Palestinians elect Palestinians to govern them. Whereas in Jordan, the Palestinians are severely underrepresented in the Chamber of Deputies where the minority Bedouin hold sway. If that weren't bad enough, all executive power is vested in the King.

It can safely be said that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are the authors of their own misfortune. In their past elections, they choose parties, whether Fatah or Hamas, that are wedded to the "resistance" which is a euphemism for terrorism. The result of this "resistance," whether in the form of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into civilian areas in Israel or the deployment of suicide bombers by Fatah in Jerusalem and Israel generally, Israel has placed restrictions on them such as a legal blockade of Gaza and travel restrictions in the West Bank. These restrictions are for security purposes only and not intended as punishment. Nevertheless, in the last three years, Israel has been easing these restrictions, and as a result, the Palestinian economy in the West Bank is experiencing an astounding 7% growth rate."

"(T)he Palestinians living in Jordan who have citizenship have no say in their present condition or in their destiny. Their fate is dependent on what the PA chooses to do yet they have no vote in PA elections. Nor do they have a say equivalent to their numbers in Jordan due to the gerrymandering above noted."

2/12

re: "Obama and Foreign Policy: Just Kidding"

Robert J. Avrech at Seraphic Secret examined the foreign affairs portfolio as the final year of presidential campaigning begins.

Money quote(s):

"The hard-left are unhappy because Obama has failed to close Gitmo, has not withdrawn fully from Iraq and Afghanistan, and has expanded George Bush’s excellent policy of assassinating jihadists by drone. The left, in a hissy fit, might stay home in November."

Fortunately (from their perspective), there are plenty of hot-button Leftist red-herrings, er, domestic issues that can be interjected into the campaign in an effort to a.) energize the Democratic base; and b.) attempt to split the Republican's various constituencies.

"Europe, a collection of welfare states, is melting; the Arab Spring is an Arab Winter; and China is building a such a formidable military machine that our Joint Chiefs are waking up in a cold sweat at four in the morning.

And of course Israel is being squeezed by the genocidal yearning Persians, the genocidal yearning Palestinians, and the Turks who have lots of experience with genocide having murdered 1 million Armenians in 1915.

(The Armenians are still waiting for the Turks to admit their guilt, apologize, and pay reparations. Good luck with that.)

American power and influence in the Middle East is negligible. Witness the Palestinian’s defiance of US policy in favor of the UN’s poisonous embrace." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

None of these items has improved particularly since being written.

9/20