America is a divided nation. We do not have the necessary unity to engage in a Long War with a militarily weaker but ideologically fanatical asymmetric enemy. They are more intensely devoted to our subjugation than we are to theirs. Things are looking up in Iraq, but that can only be acknowledged and accepted as true by those whose ideology does not blind them to favorable developments. There can be no praise from the blind for what is going right, either because we took too long to get it right, or because Iraq was a peace-loving sovereign nation-state with no WMD’s and no links to terrorists.
In several comments over at The Belmont Club are distilled some nuggets that I invite Civilian Irregular Cheerleaders to consider when planning their efforts.
Wretchard said… I don’t think Islam is the problem. Islam is as it has ever been. Nothing about it has changed. Yet in the recent past it posed no difficulties to the West. Why the danger now? What’s changed is us.That global sharia law should want all of Western patrimony atop one monstrous bonfire is to be expected. That’s after all its nature. But what is surprising is the endless number of Western “intellectuals” who are stumbling all over themselves to cast the first books into the flame.Islam is perfectly well equipped to deal with people like al-Qaeda. They have their knives, swords, stones, anthills and whips. It is we who are helpless against them. One fellow asked me how I proposed to solve the Muslim insurgency in Mindanao. I answered, “give it to Malaysia.”The real problem is internal to Western society. It is implicit in its political contradictions, for which Political Correctness has become a shorthand. The War on Terror will never be won by bombing Muslims. It can only be won by changing ourselves. Islam hasn’t changed from its inception. We are the deviants; we are the ones who have been untrue to our roots. 12/02/2007 04:49:00 PM
Societal evolution has been trending the wrong way in America since 1967, from the perspective of many who are vocal in support of the troops and their mission. Others of my fellow citizens seek to accelerate America’s retreat from global hegemony and would punish those who stand in their way if they could for politically incorrect thought. This is not a conflict resolvable by Regular Strategic Communicators and Information Operators, nor should it be. They have polite fictions to maintain. This is a Domestic Internal Defense mission that only those political operatives and Civilian Irregular Information Operators sympathetic to American Exceptionalism can accomplish.
Those of us with unimpaired 1st Amendment rights will need to ratchet up the intensity of our opposition to the domestic “Loyal Opposition” if we expect to reverse the trend.
Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group 
A very good point. Our country’s malaise of being politically correct is is stripping us of the 1st Amendment little by little. It is a lib tool to chip away at our rights as citizens. And to me, one of the worst effects of our PC tendencies can be seen in the military where, after the fiasco of Haditha, we have warriors who will now do some mental gymnastics about how their response on a battlefield half a world away will play out in the Enemedia here at home. It’s thoroughly despicable, this PC mess. We need some good old WWII era calling the enemy the enemy.
The Good Old WWII era wasn’t so good for most progressives, Star. We had segregation back then, and we nuked innocent Asians, and it was all just so disproportionate and triumphalist.
But their hero FDR did have an Office of War Information and a hammer to drop on hostile press, and his “Loyal Opposition” WAS loyal.
What’s the matter with being triumphalist? 🙂
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What’s the matter with being triumphalist?
Because you can’t win if there are losers around you. Thus, trying to “triumph” over others is not going to produce social harmony, according to the Left. Without social harmony, what you get is endless warfare and despair. Therefore, sourced from nihilist philosophy, the only way to permanently end warfare, suffering, and hunger is to remove the primary cause for warfare, suffering, and hunger. Which is, people competing and trying to make others into losers by winning. Like the US and capitalism, for example.
The Ayrabs do not have a chance to win, at least according to the Left and their fellow travelers. Thus the primary danger is those that do have a chance at winning, and thus making other people losers. People that lose inevitably starts the cycle of war, suffering, and hunger all over again. Thus the primary danger to the world is the United States and that danger must be counter-balanced.
The logic is pretty clear, you know. It explains why fake liberals don’t feel an Islamic JIhad threat more than a Bush Hitler threat. It explains why the fake liberals focus on criticizing the US to the exclusion of anything else. It also explains why the fake liberals think they are the ones championing human progress and prosperity.
Islam is perfectly well equipped to deal with people like al-Qaeda. They have their knives, swords, stones, anthills and whips. It is we who are helpless against them.
Personally, I think he overstates the point. While it is true that such societies, tribal more or less, focuses more on ruthlessness and punitive punishments against entire families/tribes (the way the Gauls/Celtics did in order to maintain order before Julius Caesar came along), it is not true that they do so because they have all the “tools” they need to win. Such societies focus on primitive weapons because they are primitive. That includes military tactics, strategy, logistics, as well as philosophy. They don’t know any better, thus they do not have to worry about some kind of “moral high ground” so to speak. Because Western civilization is advanced and has advanced pretty far in the science and art of warfare, we do know better. Although that doesn’t really help us, does it.
This is like the psychological difference Shrinkwrapped wrote about. The difference between having intelligence and inborn benefits, to having grit and determination. Read this for a background of what I am refering to. Anyways, the tribal world has the “will” primarily because the tribe is always living on the threshold of extinction. Luxury produces decadence, which produces a concurrent decrease in will and fortitude. This is the natural life process in nature. Species that aren’t threatened, that have a secure ecological niche, don’t need to change or grow or adapt. When a better species comes along, the safe and decadent species goes the way of the dodo. Survival of the fittest. Such is true for humanity as well, regardless of what Global Warming believers claim.
The best combination is if you combine tribal fortitude and energy with the fruits of civilization. This way, you get to nullify each culture’s weak points and fortify each culture’s strong points. Iraq does not have the resistance to taking casualties that we do. We also don’t fear that our families will be taken out and executed, like the Iraqis do. These differences can be used to crack open any attempt at teamwork. It also can be used to solidify a Band of Brothers bond.
Course, the Left has no use for the band of brothers bond, not when it can simply order people to cooperate against their will. (UN employees offering food for sex as a fair “trade”, for example)
Rome was able to protect her territories primarily because in the Res Republica and the Roman Empire, Rome made large use of auxiliary troops that were local to the land they were garrisoning. Although Augustus professionalized many of the local allied armies, disbanding them and incorporating them into the Roman legions. The Augustian Legions would be very similar to the British Gurkhas then. Local fighters with their particular exotic brand of fighting combined with British officers, paid by British quartermasters.
To get back to the point, Islam is not perfectly well equipped to deal with Al Qaeda. If it was, AQ wouldn’t need us to blow them back into the stone age. But that is only a superficial example. The real reason why Islam can’t deal with Al Qaeda is because Islam has no proper counter-acting balance to Al Qaeda. Until the US showed up. The best Islam could do as a counter-balance until then was the Royal Saudi government and other dictatorships. Not very good all in all.
Oh btw, COIN and Western methods of fighting can break the cycle of tribal violence. Just as Khusrau broke the back of the Aryan aristocracy, thereby eliminating the need for civil wars everytime the seat of Emperor became open. COIN and Western methods of fighting, just as the Imperial system Kushrau developed, had to come from the West. Meaning Roman-Greco civilization and its fruits.
Roman-Greco philosophy and military might inevitably trickled down to the Germans, in the form of Prussian Clausewitz. Only Sun Tzu was independent of this long chain of interregums and civilization cycles.
The fact that the West teaches people how to shoot well, in comparison the Arab and Iraqi spray and shoot style, is a good example of why Islam is not perfectly suited to fighting an insurgency. Nor are we, really. However, two problems can solve itself sometimes.
Islam has the tools. Islam doesn’t have the will. The holier-than-thou death to the infidels schtick paralyzes the less fanatic.
Political Correctness, Multiculturalism, and radical environmentalism all make the available pool of potential Defenders of Western Christendom question whether the world might not be a better place if if the West fell.
That’s where we’ve changed. Way too many of us are no longer certain that our way of life is a good one and worth defending.
>>Way too many of us are no longer certain that our way of life is a good one and worth defending.>>
But we’re learning. I think history will condemn OBL for acting too soon – before the islamic forces necessary to create the chaos that would cause the fall of the west were fully in place. I regret the fact that the Iraq conflict has gone on so long – but in the end, I have an inkling that it will turn out to be a good thing for two reasons: first, it counters the “Great Satan” propaganda that dominates the islamic world by bringing a large number of civilians into direct contact with westerners, and secondly it raises the awareness of the west towards the intent of the islamists. Both of these are necessary for us to eventually learn to live in peace. We have to understand the latent hostility of islam in order to keep it under suppression and allow those who are _not_ hostile to flourish, and we have to prevent the isolation of the muslims so that the propaganda of the islamists can be recognized as untrue by those they are trying to control. Both goals are long term projects. The 4-5 year Iraq conflict is just the beginning, but it’s also been a necessary education for us. It has also brought the roaches out of the woodwork at home and that’s a good thing. They won’t do so well when they’re out in the light.
The history I’m working towards will condemn bin Laden for ever having been born and everything he ever did since.
I don’t know that we couldn’t have done it better, sooner, but the choir incessantly excoriating the decisions made by people who are now gone from the Adminstration or not up for reelection doesn’t need my voice.
I do want the roaches stomped. I hope the next war is formally declared the old fashioned way empowering the C-in-C to deal with disloyalty the old fashioned way.
I do want the roaches stomped. I hope the next war is formally declared the old fashioned way empowering the C-in-C to deal with disloyalty the old fashioned way.I could not agree with that statement more.
ymarsakr said: Therefore, sourced from nihilist philosophy, the only way to permanently end warfare, suffering, and hunger is to remove the primary cause for warfare, suffering, and hunger. Which is, people competing and trying to make others into losers by winning. Like the US and capitalism, for example.
The thing is, just because you are trying to win, it doesn’t mean you are trying to make others lose. Please forgive me, because I may be recalling the names incorrectly, but I believe that in economics it was Keynes (sp?) who basically said there is one size of a pie. If I get a bigger piece, you automatically get a smaller one — or at least someone does. There’s only so much to go around. In reality though, that pie is not a stable size. It grows and as my piece increases, so might yours.
When you look at it in terms of the topic at hand, our country, in it’s efforts to help other people gain freedom and security, is not looking to take a bigger piece of the pie. We want to increase our own, but help others increase theirs as well.
The thing is, just because you are trying to win, it doesn’t mean you are trying to make others lose.
That only applies to the long term for when wars are conducted and ended well, a record Americans have been very good at maintaining. Obviously the Left, aka parasites, do not have a very long range perspective.
In reality though, that pie is not a stable size.
As you can see with Global Warming, nihilism is premised upon the assumption that resources are finite, so why not live the high life of an Al Gore while trying to save a world you are planning to trash first anyways?
Class warfare is based on creating resentment about a zero sum economy that does not exist.
When you look at it in terms of the topic at hand, our country, in it’s efforts to help other people gain freedom and security, is not looking to take a bigger piece of the pie.
To use the Gore Model, the reason why people object to Iraq in terms of the money poured into it, is that they believe resources are finite so they might as well loot as big a piece of the government pie as they can get while it lasts.
People that can make their own wealth, don’t try to loot other people’s goods.
Btw, the Left only recognizes the short term goals of war, which is to defeat the enemy. Since the Left has no ability or competence in using violence, they obviously always will fauk things up like Sanchez did.
Class warfare is based on creating resentment about a zero sum economy that does not exist.
That is why much is invested into making such an economy a fact, Cannon. Socialism and Communism must inevitably crash the economy, otherwise their justification for existence and sacrifice goes up in smokes.