Nemesis

Con George-Kotzabasis

In the beginning was the deed… ‘war’. As strife is the fate and glory of mankind, to paraphrase the illustrious philosopher Heraclitus

The following text is a slightly modified reply to Colonel Dr. David Kilcullen, the Australian advisor to General David Petraeus commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, on his paper New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflict, published on June 23, 2007 in Small Wars Journal blog.

In the sad “roll call” of the heavy casualties that your brave soldiers are sustaining as a result of the initial mistakes of the occupation, your paper is most encouraging and sanguine with its fecund and rich crop of ideas and its attempt to “split the atom” of the conduct of war in the age of godly inspired global borderless anarchic terror. As you correctly point out, all the paradigms of past wars, in an era when one is fighting a shadowy not easily identified enemy clad in civilian clothes and not less frequently in women’s, with a deadly belt around their bi-gender midriffs, and whose mode of warfare is not to fight its foes openly and directly but stealthily, are completely obsolete. This is why the “ancien regime” of war paradigms must be overthrown, since the line of their success has reached the end of its tether.

The new regime of paradigms must have as constituent parts the art of diplomacy, political virtuosity, and military might. But its parts will not have equal value. The enemy we are engaged with is not a rational enemy, but an irrational one of whose fighting fervor and suicidal attacks emanate from his perceived special relationship with his God. Hence, he is not prone to listen to the calls of “earthly” reason, since he only listens to the calls of an “afterlife”. He cannot be pacified by diplomatic and political concessions or by economic rewards, and he will accept the latter only as a respite that will enable him to build his forces for future attacks. Nor will he be “contained” in his aggressive actions by the threat of overwhelming military force, and indeed, not even by nuclear deterrence, as a rational actor would. In such a conflict, diplomacy and politics will play an auxiliary part to the primary and vital part of the military. And in this “unholy” trinity, it will be the military that will be calling the shots. If in past, more transcendental philosophical times, the goal was for philosopher-kings to rule, in our, more down to earth and dangerous times, it will be soldier-savants in the major part that will determine the strategies and the course of war. Political elites will have the important quest and duty of (a) bringing together a notable alliance of nations against the jihadists and the states that support them, (b) supplying their military the material and spiritual wherewithal to wage war, and in the case of America, the Commander-In-Chief by exercising his constitutional right wisely in his selection and appointment of the best commanders on the ground render to them the freedom and the discretion to use the appropriate methods and armaments, that will defeat the enemy, as it’s the vocation of soldiers to wage and win wars not the politicians, and (c) along with the media, will have the historical responsibility to unify their people behind the great and Herculean task of their armed forces.

The primary and pivotal role that the military will have in this conflict rises from the nature and characteristics of this, unarguably, long war. First, the latter is not only global but also borderless. Strategically, it’s the ultimate absurdity when the terrorists or insurgents can find safe haven by crossing the borders of the country where they are waging war, that the nations that are engaged in war with them should continue to respect the national sovereignty of nations that allow their enemies to enter and use their own territories as safety zones and conduits of military supplies. (The strategic mistakes of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian sanctuary must not be repeated.) Those who are fighting them must pursue them over the border and destroy them. If international armed outlaws can cross the borders of sovereign nations then the lawful nations who are trying to apprehend them and punish them, have every right to cross these borders too. And the commanders on the ground will decide when to do so on the spot and expeditiously without being obstructed by the dilatoriness of political and legal deliberations. The nations that ostensibly are against terror, must sign a covenant with those nations whose armed forces are engaged in war against it, that they will allow these forces to cross their borders whenever their commanders on the ground consider this to be necessary.

Secondly, because of the simplicity in launching their lethal attacks-it takes only a “girdle” to spread havoc-this is an anarchic terror with no central command to plan its attacks. Every ordinary humdrum fanatic can find few brothers in their desire to pursue the seventy-two virgins. The Islamist fanatics like bin Laden and Zawahiri are not leaders in control of their forces, but sorcerer’s apprentices who have released the genii of terror without being able to control its actions that politically and strategically would have maximum impact. This is illustrated by many examples, the latest ones are Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon, and the terrorist group in Palestine who hold the British correspondent and who refuse to obey the orders of Hamas. And, indeed, this anarchic element of terror could be its Achilles’ heel. As strategically commanders who lose control of their troops are bound in the end to lose the war.

Of course, as you correctly point out, their leaders will use even these random actions of the terrorists in their propaganda to influence people in the West. And it might be true that their propaganda is on the winning side, but this not due to their cleverness but to the fact of the openness and transparency of democratic societies of whose political, media, and public response is so predictable. This multi-celled terror whose cells are spread in many parts of the world, both in Muslim countries and in the Muslim diaspora that has flooded the West, can only be dealt effectively by military and special forces led by their commanders on the ground improvising the best tactical responses and techniques that will cower and destroy this cellular body of terror. It’s therefore the nature and the long duration of this war that makes the paramountsy of the military the sine qua non for the defeat of this global menace.

THE BOOMERANG OF TERROR

Moreover, psychologically and strategically, it’s of the utmost necessity to transplant the fear of terror into the hearts of the terrorists themselves. As only this boomerang of terror can defeat terror. This can be accomplished, as I had suggested six years ago (This proposal was sent to the Whitehouse on November, 2001), by setting up a covert global operational plan that will enlist the best active and non-active soldiers from an international pool and deploy them as hit squads. This clandestine group of transnational condottieri will aim at the elimination of the jihadist leaders as well as the religious radical preachers, wherever they happen to reside in the East or in the West. In my opinion it’s a stupendous folly while your soldiers are fighting the insurgents and terrorists in the foreground of battle to allow your “rear” to be inundated by a proliferation of fanatic recruits that are sired in rabbit numbers in the background of the Mosques and the madrassas which continue to supply the ranks of the terrorists with new recruits in greater numbers than you can eliminate them. The unanswerable as yet question is whether the leaders of Western civilization will have the mettle and sagacity to use uncivilized methods and means to defeat this barbaric horde, whose eschatological goal is to put an end to civilized life. One must be “brutally unsentimental’ as to the use of the instruments of war, to quote Roy Jenkins from his magisterial biography of Winston Churchill, as the latter was in the use of poison gas in the First World War.

Finally, your concept of “anthropology”, that sheds like a beacon its light upon the turbulent sea of terror, searching not only for the causes of this turbulence but also for the social, civil, and political unrest and repercussions upon people who breath this terror day and night, and how the counterinsurgency should address them, is most interesting. And it’s cheering and heartening to see that your new tactics to clear and hold and isolate the insurgents from the civilian population show some positive signs in the al Anbar province. I would only couple it with its other half “anthropotheology”, since this martyr’s terror is mainly fuelled with the fire of Allah.

I also agree entirely with our confrere in this discussion, Hawkwood.

Well done, Dr. Kilcullen

Delenda est Carthago

A brief reply to: This Time We Were Lucky. This Time…by William Rees-Mogg in The TimesOnline July 2, 2007

Con George-Kotzabasis

Luck is a scarce visitor in the affairs of mankind and in the Age of Terror one scarcely would expect it to come the second time around. Sir William argues in his article, in the aftermath of the failed attempts of the terrorists in London and Glasgow, that “the danger will become greater” and therefore we need new laws to protect ourselves. He also contends, that there are serious flaws in our culture that hinder us from fighting effectively this external and internal foe.

As always Sir William pens his thoughts with wisdom and one would be a fool not to take them seriously. If the danger is going to be greater in the future, as he correctly points out, then the present “gaps” in our legal system must be closed. That means that the old regime of laws which are completely inadequate against religiously inspired terror must be overthrown and replaced with a new regime of laws that will apprehend and convict terrorists not on “solid evidence”, as he argues, which in the murky and shadowy world of terror is a will-o’-the-wisp search, but on reasonable suspicion.

Furthermore, our culture is flawed because of our mutual respect for other cultures, for our tolerance, generosity, care, and kindness that we continue to exercise ceaselessly in these most unkind of times generated by the atrocious actions of the terrorists. It’s therefore necessary that we harden some of the soft features of our culture that prevent us up till now to take on this great and long challenge posed by global terror. By a set of stronger measures and imaginative concepts that will have a chance quickly and decisively to subdue this portentous danger that arises from an irreconcilable and undeterred enemy, who having been bred in the madrassas and Mosques has been anointed with his suicidal fanaticism. Western governments therefore will have to counter-generate the moral fortitude that in the legislation of these new laws the latter will make the most “unkind of cuts”, that is, deny suspects of home-grown terror of a spate of legal processes that normally apply in peaceful times but should never apply in times of war.

This is more urgent than ever because of the logic of this war. If unarguably the latter is going to be a long war with a remorseless, immoral, evil enemy who is not open to negotiation or to political or economic rewards and whose goal is the accomplishment of his godly mission, one does not have to be a prophet to foresee that with the inevitable further development in technology and its easier accessibility by people, the holy warriors of Islam will soon be armed with weapons of mass destruction, and indeed, with nuclear ones. And boosted by their religious fervor will unhesitatingly use them against the infidels of the West. Hence, these jihadists in civilian clothes with their deadly belts around their bi-gender, and indeed, children’s midriffs, will open the door to Armageddon.

Politically and strategically it’s always prudent to defeat such an enemy, by using against him both overt and covert overwhelming force, while he is still weak and before he becomes stronger. The question however is, whether the political leaders of Western civilization will have the wisdom and mettle to use “uncivilized” means and methods to defeat such a mortal foe, and will not overplay the fiddle of legal process when civilization is threatened with burning.

Brits “Play Act” Indictment of Tony Blair for Iraq Related Crimes
Washington Note, July 13, 2007

A brief reply by Con George-Kotzabasis

The political guru of the Washington Note Steven Clemons with a hate-riddled gusto of a liberal, informs his readers of a BBC radio programme that indicts Tony Blair as a war criminal for the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq. Hinting the same fate awaits the Bush administration. In the effusion of his gusto, however, he is completely mindless and cannot foresee that the cause celebre indictment of the twenty-first century will be the liberal intelligentsia’s accountability before history for its play act with the greatest threat Western civilization encountered in our era, i.e., Islamist terror and its state sponsors.

This will be the “Play Act” Indictment of the liberals’ crime for treating this stealthy and ominous danger with derisiveness and facetiousness, as this play act on Blair, and others, illustrates. On this stupendous irresponsibility of the liberals, history will place a gravestone upon their feeble moral and political stand from which they will never be able to disentomb themselves.

The following is a discussion with professor Steven Metz Chairman:Regional Strategy and Planning Strategic Studies Institute of U.S. Army War College, held on Small Wars Journal blog on June 8, 2007

Dr. Metz said,

I’m no Obama fan, but I’m uncomfortable with logic of this essay. Iraq–like all counterinsurgency–is not a two-way game which pits the United States against the insurgents. While I personally disagree with the set-a-time-definite-for-withdrawal crowd, I can understand their argument (even while I do not accept it): the Iraqi government is not fully motivated to do what it needs to do to resolve the conflict as long as the American presence remains what it is. Moreover, every conflict forces the participants to decide whether the costs of persisting outweigh the costs of disengagement.

Certainly an American withdrawal from Iraqi would be trumpeted by AQ as a victory, but the question is whether that is worse than the costs of persistence (in terms of blood, money, the erosion of the military, political prestige, etc.)Not sure if you wrote the essay or someone else did, but I also take great issue with the contention that Petraeus can or should defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Primary responsibility lies with the Iraqis; secondarily with the U.S. embassy. Petraeus, in military jargon, is the “supporting” participant, not the “supported.”

Kotzabasis said,

Dr. Metz, I would agree with you entirely that one has to count the costs of withdrawal with the costs of persistence if the Iraq war was an isolated one disengaged from the war against global terror. The fact however is that the war in Iraq now-whether it was so or not in the past is no longer the question-is an essential part of global terror. We see this not only in the pull that it has on the true believers of Islam from all over the world who fervently enter the ranks of the insurgency, but also in the imitation of the techniques of the latter, since they appear to be so successful against the coalition forces, by other jihadists, who are also waging war against the infidels in other parts of the world. Hence, America is involved in a long global war and not an isolated one, and must therefore count its costs on a mega-scale as they issue from its long term strategic interests, prestige, and indeed, its existence as the sole superpower that is the sine qua non of the stability of the world in these most dangerous times.

Taking a cue from John Fishel, the coalition forces are engaged in continuous major military operations against the insurgents with the goal to create the necessary security that is vital for the stabilization of the Iraqi government which is the linchpin of its ability to govern the country without American props. It seems to me therefore following this logic, that your question whether GEN Petraeus is the “supporting” or ” supported”, can be answered that he is both. Supporting the Iraqi government to stand on its own feet and supported by the political establishment (Ambassador Crocker) to do exactly that.

Hence, it seems to me to be obvious, that the paramountcy of resolving the conflict in Iraq, lies with the military and not with diplomacy. Especially when this conflict is drenched so heavily with religious fervour that is not open to the rational discourse of diplomacy, as we have witnessed lately of Hamas.

To your question whether I wrote the original article, the answer is yes.

Dr. Metz said,

Important points but to me the President’s logic seems somewhat like the “domino theory” as applied to Vietnam. That turned out to not be true.In terms of Iraq, we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Disengagement will bolster the morale of Islamic extremists and reinforce the point that they can defeat the U.S.; persisting will erode the morale of the American public and do damage to the U.S. military. Which is the lesser evil? I myself am not sure. I am worried, though, that Iraq becomes a pyrrhic victory–the costs of success there so weaken us that we have failures elsewhere. To take one illustration, I think a case can made that if American morale and prestige had not been so weakened by Vietnam, we would have been able to act more effectively in Iran in the last 1970s. I’m concerned by that by so devoting ourselves to Iraq, we allow other, perhaps bigger, problems to fester and grow worse.

While an argument can be made that the foreign fighters in Iraq are not amenable to any sort of political resolution and simply need to be killed, if their support network among Iraqi Sunni Arabs is taken apart, killing them becomes much easier. Plus, I don’t think AQI can, on its own, attain anything like “strategic success” without its allies in the Iraqi Sunni Arab community.Personally, I’m just hard pressed to imagine a military outcome that totally prevents suicide bombers. You can’t guard everything and everyone all the time (unless we want to reinstate the draft and deploy a few million forces).

Kotzabasis said,

It’s certainly true that the U.S. is in the unenviable position of being damned if she does and damned if she does not. But I would still argue, in the face of the great and ominous dangers that the West is facing and America being the only power that can defeat global terror, it’s better to be damned for doing something than for doing nothing. (“Nothing comes out of nothing” King Lear.) This despite all the errors that inevitably are committed in all wars as a result of human limitations. And before the daunting huge scale operations involved in war, it’s nigh impossible to probe and foresee all the unknowns embedded in them.

Con George-Kotzabasis

The latest attempts in London and in Glasgow by home grown terrorists to strike innocent civilians and kill them in their hundreds that failed only because of the clumsiness of the terrorists, despite their godly-inspired guidance, are a dress rehearsal of the mise en scene that home-grown terror is staging for the cities of Western civilization. The car bombs of Baghdad that are being such successful deadly instruments in killing hundreds of civilians at a time, are now being imported into the shopping and leisure malls of the West by the western ensconced terrorists. This will be the greatest danger that city commuters will be facing in the very near future by the suicidal fanatics who while burning alive will still call “Allah, Allah”, during the execution of their murderous deeds.

The use of car bombs is not only effective in inflicting widespread carnage, but is also economically cheaper and most of all harder to detect. And because of the greater difficulties that terrorists are encountering in hijacking aircraft as a result of the greater security in airports, they will opt therefore for the car bombs and bomb belts that are by far more elusive in being identified as such, and hence, “leapfrog” this greater security that has been set up by governments. It’s therefore for the above three reasons that we will be seeing home grown terror emulating the copycats of Baghdad, spreading death and havoc in the metropolises of Europe, America, and Australasia.

Governments must no longer shilly-shally with this ominous and impending danger lurking in our midst, nor overplay the fiddle of legal process -which the would-be terrorists and their mentors use as a protective screen to slip through, just as they use women and children as a shield behind which they commit their barbarous atrocities- whilst Western civilization is threatened with burning.