Burned Again

“I can’t imagine that this video will be of any help in recruiting.”

These are the words (as best I could record while listening on 04 Feb 2015) of a media commentator concerning the ISIS propaganda video showing the murder by immolation of a Jordanian prisoner of war. But this was not just any talking head – this was a member of the US national security community for three presidents. This person has been an interpreter of our enemy’s behavior; a drafter of policy and response.  And their response stands as a shining example of why the strategic elite in this country just cannot get its act together in the fight against people who insist on going to war against us.

Our enemy makes a propaganda and recruiting film. We say it could not possibly work.  And yet it does, pulling money and fighters from around the world.  Burned again.  How could we be so wrong so consistently?

There are lots of overlapping answers, starting with our mistaken academic views of how the world works.  But for this brief article let’s focus on just one giant mistake in our thinking.

The torture, rape and horrific murder of captive men, women and children by ISIS is not, as our leaders apparently believe, unique behavior by a lunatic “death cult,” reviled by everyone everywhere. Instead, it is a current manifestation of the way war has been waged throughout recorded history, with the small exception of the last three centuries or so in the Western world, under the influence of Christian ideology and then Humanist philosophy.  People wage war this way because they like it – they enjoy the savagery – especially when loosed from tenuous moral constraints by religious assurances that they are serving god by feeding their inner monster.  Many are attracted to the power and the spectacle and the cruelty, and they want to join.  Believing otherwise makes it harder to fight ISIS, and confuses us about what we need to do to win.

History is littered with examples of combatants who not only treated captives horribly, but saw such action as the privilege – even the reward – due those who won the battle. This behavior was not restricted to one religion (Islam) or one area (the Middle East). The Hawaiians did it. So did the Incas, the Mayans, and Native Americans in the US, from the Iroquois and Seminole in the east, to the Apache and Comanche in the west. The Vikings, Celts, and other “barbarians” based their personal reputations on their viciousness toward enemies. In southern Europe, the “civilized” Romans murdered captured Carthaginian soldiers, sold the women into slavery and threw the children from the city walls. Crucifixion was the Roman solution for local rebellion. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and later Persians made their reputations by similar behavior.  ISIS attitude toward captives is the same model earlier Islamic armies adopted as they expanded west, and Crusaders copied as they pushed back to the east. The Ottoman navy that terrorized southern Europe was crewed largely by Christian slaves chained to their oars. To the south, the Zulus were distinguished by their military effectiveness, not just their cruelty which was stock in trade for many African tribes and clans. In Central Europe, “Vlad the Impaler” (later recreated in fiction as Count Dracula) earned his name for his treatment of Muslim armies in the defense of Christian lands.  Further east, the Tartar invaders, Genghis Kahn’s Mongols, the warlords of China, the various Rajas of India, and the warrior class of Japan creatively burned, boiled, flayed and disemboweled their prisoners and their subjects. The lucky ones were simply beheaded.

Never in this whole long history of man’s inhumanity to man is there an example of an army that could not recruit because potential followers rejected the opportunity to inflict pain and suffering on others. Instead the opposite has consistently been the case. People rape, murder and torture because they like it. And when given moral permission to do so (by religious or political or ethnic ideology) they participate with enthusiasm. Ask the people of Bosnia and Rwanda what happened when the moral and legal barriers came down.

So why do our leaders misunderstand this, and what difference does it make?

Our strategic leaders think that recruits will be repelled by violence against innocents because after 1500 years of effort by Christian, then Humanist, and now Human Rights philosophers, we have achieved a social standard that rejects such behavior. And that’s good. I am glad that both national and international laws (primarily generated in the West) covering the conduct of war exist, and I am happy to see them enforced – even when that occasionally means prosecuting US personnel who violate the norms.

The danger comes when we convince ourselves that people have evolved past their old nature, and actually embrace these artificial norms worldwide.  That kind of thinking leads to the conclusion that violence is abhorrent to everyone, old religious beliefs are irrelevant, and differences can always be bridged by rational discussion. This mindset then becomes the basis of our approach to ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc. “Violence doesn’t solve anything,” the mantra goes.  Except it seems to be solving problems quite handily for ISIS.  Their recruiting is up and their funding is up, while we reassure ourselves that if we just find the right words, or share the right shocking image, or bomb precisely the right target, logic will be restored, and the beast that is the human heart will retreat back into the cage we designed for it. 

The challenge posed by ISIS is a complicated one. No single magic bullet will solve this problem, be it economic improvements, boots on the ground, or religious reconciliation between traditionally hostile tribes. But by now we at least ought to know one thing that WON’T work – depending on an innate human revulsion to violence to rob the perpetrators of power and support.

The Rescue of Islam

Strategists, policy makers and political pundits of all persuasions have questioned President Obama’s strategy for the threats in Iraq and Syria. So perhaps a good place for this strategy blog to begin the New Year is with the best explanation of that strategy I have seen.

               Curiously (or perhaps tellingly) that explanation is not from a Presidential speech or official document, but from a news article in the Wall Street Journal.  Dated Dec. 27, 2014, and titled The Weekend Interview with John Allen: Inside the War Against the Islamic State ,  it identifies five “common purposes” shared by the 60 international partners supposedly dedicated to the defeat of IS:

·        Winning the military campaign,

·        Disrupting the flow of foreign fighters,

·        Countering IS finance,

·        Providing humanitarian relief, and

·        Delegitimizing the ideology of IS as a movement.

This is far from a COMPLETE strategy, as the partners must operationalize and then accomplish each “purpose.” HOW, for example, are we going to win the military campaign against 30,000 fanatics now carefully mixed in with a civilian populace? HOW are we going to disrupt the flow of fighters from Western nations sensitive to civil liberties and careful to protect individual rights? But it does offer a framework for thinking about what set of causes might result in the desired effect – the defeat and destruction of the Islamic State in a way that prevents its resurgence.

Allen, for those who do not know, is a retired four-star Marine, and President Obama's "special envoy" to the several-score nations and groups who have joined in opposition to the Islamic State. To his credit, reporter Joseph Rago pressed Allen for an explanation of the planned “end state,” and received an instructive answer.

The central threat of IS, Allen argues, is not just to the people of Iraq or even the US, but to the interpretation of Islam. If the radical IS vision takes root, then every more moderate interpretation in the world becomes the target of conquest and subjugation. As a measure of the extremist nature of this vision, the global terror group Al Qaeda is on the IS list as too moderate. Thus it goes without saying that governments with which the West regularly cooperates (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Pakistan, etc.) would ultimately be targeted as enemies.

Allen’s solution – which is to say, the solution proposed by President Obama and his partners – is “to delegitimize Daesh [Allen refers to IS by an Arabic term], and expose it for what it really is.” Presumably this means to demonstrate that the violence and intolerance demonstrated by IS is counter-Islamic in its ideology and its actions. The problem with this approach is that the violence and intolerance is not being hidden – it is in fact a major point of attraction for new adherents. The central message of IS is that their extreme vision of Islamic belief and practice is the correct interpretation; enforcing it pleases Allah by doing his will. 

               The strategic logic here leads to a striking conclusion: “that the war the US is waging against IS in Iraq and Syria ‘belongs to a larger intellectual, religious and political movement, what [Alan] describes as ‘the rescue of Islam.’"  Ultimately then, the strategy of our President and his partner nations is to buy Muslims and Muslim regimes enough time and space to develop a convincing explanation of why the Islamic States’ interpretation of Islam is wrong, and why a more tolerant vision that can strike peaceful accommodations with other believers and non-believers is correct.

               Kudos to General Alan for his coherent explanation, and to reporter Joseph Rago for putting these critical concepts together in a single short article.  Now at least the American people can debate the Administration’s approach to IS with an objective understanding of the intent, and without political baggage and invective. I remain skeptical. But at least we have a place to begin a useful debate.

Police Need More Choices

Regrettably, Thinking Enemy has been off line for several weeks. Writing strategic analysis of major long term issues with a minimum of political commentary, is a difficult job. Recently, the combined burden of teaching graduate courses in homeland security and working out some family health issues at home has prevented me from delivering a high quality essay on a regular basis. I will try to return to regular publication now that the semester is drawing to a close.

            I did not anticipate that my first posted essay in several months would concern the highly politicized issue of police use of force. But the issue has been manipulated into a national debate. And as it happens, I have a unique perspective on the recent death of NYC resident Eric Garner, apparently stemming from the inappropriate use of a choke hold by police.

            As research for a novel I am writing, I began two years ago to train toward a Black Belt in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). I quickly learned that street fights almost always go straight to the ground, and that the most effective move to control an opponent is “the Sleeper.” With a slight variation, that move becomes a killer called “the Choke Hold.”

            The Sleeper is applied by wrapping your right arm around your opponent’s neck from behind, placing his chin and neck in the crook of your elbow, with the bicep on one side of the neck and the forearm on the other side. Your right hand goes on your left bicep, and your left arm is bent behind the opponent's head, with the left hand pressing the head and neck down and into the V made by the right elbow. Tightening the muscles of your right arm while pressing the head forward with the left squeezes the carotid artery on the sides of the opponent’s neck, restricting blood flow to the brain. The air passage remains unobstructed, and seven seconds later the opponent passes out. Release the hold and the opponent awakens without injury. It is a good move for subduing a dangerous threat without permanent damage.

            But move the encircling arm slightly to the side and the bone of the forearm passes directly across the windpipe. This is the Choke. Tighten the arm muscles and the opponent begins choking. A bit more pressure and the windpipe collapses – the opponent dies.

            In a desperate struggle on the ground it is hard to distinguish the submission move from the killing move. This is why a referee watches MMA fights closely. There are no referees to judge police and citizens wrestling on the ground.

            Several months ago, I had a chance to try the Sleeper while sparring with an off duty policeman  who was 6’ 3’ and weighed 320 pounds.  (Sound familiar?) I’m an average sized guy (185, 5’ 10”). Even when he cooperated I could barely reach around his neck. My arms were too short to apply the Sleeper – I could only go straight to the Choke.

I’m also in pretty good shape – each week I lift weights 5 days and spend 8 hours in the MMA studio. My 300+ pound opponent treated me like a rag doll. He brushed me off, then rolled on top of me. He didn’t need any special moves – he just crushed me to the floor. I could not move or breathe. If he had not relented, I would have died. When he rolled off, he laughed.  “I was just playing with you,” he said.

All this is not to defend the seven policemen who swarmed Eric Garner while he cried, “I can’t breathe!” I don’t know what happened. I can only imagine the fear and adrenaline that coursed through both Mr. Garner and the police. The incident deserves another close investigation.

But I do know that even when several police take a huge subject to the ground, it is a life and death situation for all concerned. And so, based on my personal experience, my question is this:  With all the technology available today, why are police engaging potentially dangerous opponents in a wrestling match on the ground? Is there no way to immobilize a threat and return to talking? Must the choice always be stun guns, pistols, or mano-a-mano?

I see why it benefits politicians to turn such issues into passionate arguments that divide and energize political bases. But wouldn’t it benefit the rest of us to look for a technical solution to this problem?

Just for the Record – ISIS and the US Texas Border

            Recently I was asked on a TV interview to comment on the threat posed by ISIS crossing the southern border of the US (specifically in Texas). If you have not ever done such an interview (I have done more than 1000 since 9/11), you usually get 3-4 questions and 3-4 sentences to answer each one. Prep time, travel time, return time – all together it usually takes 4-6 hours to do a 9-16 sentence interview. If the interview is taped, they may use a single sentence.  Which is what happened to my recently taped comments about ISIS and the border.

            So just for the record – and before knowing what ISIS might have in store for the anniversary of 9/11 – here are my thoughts on the subject.

1) ISIS is really dangerous. They are vicious killers, driven by religious fervor, who see innocents as the enemies of God, and especially hope to hurt America and Americans. They will kill a lot of us in this country if they get a chance.

2) Our open southern border is really dangerous. Despite efforts by dedicated Border Patrol agents (frequently working under the handicap of senior officials hostile to the idea of US security), and extensive assistance from the governor of Texas, the Department of Public Safety, and other agencies ranging from the Texas National Guard to local police and sheriffs – the efforts (and especially the federal efforts) to close and protect our border are totally inadequate. The border is constantly penetrated by thousands of illegals, led by professional human smugglers.

3) The danger that ISIS might cross illegally and enter the US to murder and destroy is serious.

4) BUT – if I were ISIS, I would not risk sending agents through US border defenses, in the hands of cartel guides. I would take the easier route of sending radicals with US or European passports through regular ports of entry (by air or sea).  Less dangerous, less chance of discovery, greater chance of success.

That’s my answer in ten sentences.

And now a brief explanation. The cartels own every inch of the US border to the south. Nothing crosses without their permission and participation. So if you were trying to get terrorists into the country, would you

·       Option A – put your operatives, who do not know the language, culture or geography, into the hands of cartel smugglers for transport?  Or . . .

·       Option B – send operatives who know the language and culture, through safe crossings with legal documentation?

            Well, I pick “B”. 

Of course I think those who guard the borders should be on tiptoe as we approach 9/11.  An unsecure border is inherently dangerous, and we can’t afford to ignore any possibility. But I would focus priority on the air ports and sea ports in the weeks leading up to 9/11.

            Today I would focus most of all on safe houses, and radicals who might be harboring attackers within the US – as well as venues where they might attack (business sites, shopping malls, etc.). If international or homegrown terrorists are here, they have been present, training and conducting surveillance for weeks.

            Those who attacked us on the original 9/11 entered the country legally. I think that is still the most likely way for bad guys to breech our defenses today.