The 'crusader' canard

By LARRY STIRLING
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
President Bush has decided additional infantry resources ("surge") will be committed to Iraq.


The notion of a "surge" seems to be sort of a last gasp, a rear-guard action to avoid the disgusting photo from Vietnam in which Americans were scrambling aboard helicopters to escape the victorious North Vietnamese.


Since the idea has been widely publicized, opposed by many Democrats, and difficult to achieve from the overstretched Army and Marine Corps, the murderous Muslims who are doing the killing in Iraq will have plenty of time to adjust.


The problem with fighting murderous Muslims is that they have been decivilizing the world for more than 1500 years. It is their thing. They are willing to blow up thousands of kids to spread their hegemony making them the real "baby boomers."


Not only are the Muslims excellent murderers, they are also superb propagandists. They even have a term for it: "taqiya," meaning "war is deceit." Sadly, the American press literally gobbles up Muslim disinformation then gleefully spreads it as gospel.


Muslim propaganda is designed to strengthen the resolve of Muslim fighters and demoralize us. Thanks to the AP and Cindy Sheehan, it seems to be working again, just as it did during the Vietnam War.


One of the great lies propounded by the Muslims is the Muslims are victims of "The Christian Crusades." They want you to believe they were gratuitously attacked for no reason whatsoever and they are simply victims defending themselves from Christian hypocrisy and aggression.


They claim their own invasions were simply recovering lost territory wrongfully taken from them by such evil Christians as Ferdinand and Isabella. Those Spanish monarchs completed a "Reconquista" of the Iberian Peninsula. The statue of El Cid in Balboa Park commemorates that war. How long before local Muslims demand its removal?


It would be helpful if the American education system actually told the truth about the Muslim "surge." Indulging in polite fictions that "Islam is a religion of peace" is certainly neither accurate nor helpful.


Remember: "When aggression encounters deference, slaughter ensues" -- anon.


Here is the timeline of the Muslim "surge:"


In 570 (570 years after the death of Jesus), Muhammad is born in Mecca; 610, the Angel Gabriel visits him and tells him he is the Prophet of Allah; 615, most of his own tribe, the Quraysh, rejects his teachings; 622, he claims "authority to war" was given to him "...until God alone is worshipped..." Qu'ran 2:193; 622, Al-Abwa, Nakhla, and other raids by Muslims on fellow Qurayshi tribe members, Muhammad orders beheadings; 623, Muhammed orders attacks on Jewish tribes Banu Qaynuq with whom he had a treaty, issues order "Kill any Jew who falls within your power;" 633, Muslims then conquer Syria and Iraq; 635 Muslims attack Persia and Syria; 635, Muslims capture Damascus; 636, Muslims defeat Byzantines at Battle of Yarmuk; 637, Muslims conquer Ctesiphon and subsequently all of Persia; 637, Muslims conquer Jerusalem; 638, Muslims conquer Egypt; 641, Muslims conquer southern Azerbajian, Daghestand, Georgia and Armenia; 649, Muslims attack Cyprus; 652, Muslims attack Sicily; 653, Muslims attack Rhodes; 654 Muslims conquer Cyprus; 655, Muslims win "Battle of the Masts" against Byzantines; 668, Muslims first siege Christian capital of Constantinople for seven years, hundreds of thousands killed; 669 Muslims attack Morocco; 674 Muslims attack India; 698, Muslims capture Carthage; 711, Muslims win the Battle of Guadalete, giving Islam control of most of Spain; 716, Muslims capture Lisbon; 717, Muslims capture Cordova; 719, Muslims successfully attack Southern France; 724, Muslims attack Nimes and kill all clerics and ransack Christian churches; 730 Muslims capture Narbonne and Avignon; 735, Muslims capture Arles; 813, Muslims attack Civi Vecchia near Rome; 816, Muslims support Basque revolt in Glascony; 827, Muslims invade Sicily to take control not just booty and slaves; 831, Muslims capture Solerno; 838, Muslims sack Marseille; 841, Muslims capture Bari, the main Byzantine base in Italy; 846, Muslims raid Rome; 849, Muslims attack Ostia -- only a storm saves the city; 850, Muslims begin to slaughter Christian clergy throughout Spain; 858 Muslims again attack Constantinople; 859, Muslims slaughter thousands in Sicilian city of Castrogiovanni; 869, Muslims capture Malta; 870, Muslims capture Syracuse, Sicily; 876, Muslims pillage Campagna, Italy; 902, Muslim capture Taorminia, Sicily inhabitants slaughtered; 1000, Muslim Turkish Empire created by Seljuk; 1004, Muslims sack Pisa; 1009, "Holy Sepulcher" in Jerusalem destroyed by Muslim army; 1012, Muslims order destruction of all Christian and Jewish houses of worship in the lands controlled by Caliph in Egypt; 1012, Muslim Berbers capture Cordova and slay half the population; 1015, Muslims conquer Sardinia; and 1064 Seljuk Muslim Turks conquer Christian Armenia (and deny killing Armenians ever since).


It was not until 1059 that the very first of a series of ill-fated "Crusades" were undertaken to stem the slaughter.


So, exactly who is the victim?


?

Stirling is a retired judge who authored the book "Leading at a Higher Level." He is a former Army officer, member of the San Diego City Council, the California State Assembly and the State Senate. Send comments to larry.stirling@sddt.com. Comments may be published as letters to the Editor.

Dan,

There were enlightened remarks throughout your blog; I enjoyed reading it.
Most of your arguements spoke true to me and I commented (below) on the
first ten-points that caught my eye.

I‚ll give you a call this weekend,
Jess

1. Unemployment leading to IED‚s: Destitute Iraqis, seemingly without hope,
cannot pass up the funds offered to lay IED‚s, especially those whose
families have suffered since the American invasion.
2. Tribal solidarity remains: Iraq will continue to adhere to its cultural
sense of tribal justice; those roots are so deep. Our General Officers
missed the opportunity to permanently „attach‰ or „imbed‰ small military
units with each tribal sheik in order to enlist and wield local support.
Not only did we fail to utilize tribal institutions, we essentially tried to
replace „tribal culture‰ with the precepts of our American economy and its
hierarchy. It was historically reminiscent of the American government
dumping money onto Native Indian reservations and destroying their
traditional way of life.
3. Iraqi Military still lacks strength: I did not regard the young Iraqi
troops as incompetent because inherent weakness of spirit or strictly
because of tactical ineptness. I felt the issue was more a case of will:
that they had little confidence in American conduct and wisdom, and that
their allegiances remained solidly to with tribal priorities (they were not
willing to die for a Green Zone concept of National unity).
4. Shiite and Sunni hostilities are deep and will remain: The only way,
originally, to prevent civil strife was to have so many American infantrymen
on the ground, that no Sunni or Shiite community could be attacked without
also attacking American troops who were quartered in their neighborhood.
Babil province, where I was, had an 80/20 Sunni/Shiite mix; both wanted
protection and peace of mind and I could not provide it. We had too few
troops, too many operational commitments, and by order, we were forced to
spend far too much time guarding our Forward Operating Base (FOB).
5. Americans seek instant gratification: This is painfully true. One
memoir of the Iraq invasion titled, „The Last True Story I‚ll Ever Tell,‰ is
almost a cover to cover complaint about a Sergeant in a National Guard Unit
who felt his unit was kept in Iraq too long. Once again, our General
Officers and leaders provided no conceptual expectation that Iraq would be a
long insurgency war. When I tried to volunteer back in 2003, I was
essentially told war was over and would be over very quickly. The colonels
I spoke with sincerely believed it.
6. Iraqi Leadership will continue to jockey for advantageous position:
Peter Galbraith, author of „End of Iraq‰ and former US ambassador to
Croatia, stated a year ago that the Shiite-led government will not force the
Shiite-led Army to take on the Sunni insurgents or Sadr‚s militias until the
Americans leave. They are biding their time, taking American arms, money,
and getting stronger, while allowing US troops to incur the primary combat
risks. He says the Marines in Anbar are „being used.‰
7. The war planning incompetence bordered on criminal negligence: No, it
was criminal; I hope there are trials. The books, „Cobra II‰ and „Fiasco‰
are too agonizing to read.
8. Jay Garner and his team were treated unfairly: Next time you are in a
bookstore, pull the book, „Armed Madhouse‰ off the shelf and look-up Jay
Garner in the index. Garner was fired on the very same day he arrived in
Baghdad and it was largely for being to pro-Democracy.
9. Iraqis will create their own security zones and some level of civil
warring runs its course: That country has already partitioned itself
naturally. I think that there would have been less bloodshed if we had
facilitated the formation of three autonomous countries with a sharing of
oil revenue. Even the Turks (who were so opposed to an independent
Kurdistan) have effectively conceded that separate Sunni, Shiite and Kurd
nations is a likely avenue to peace.
10. Your notions of Fifth Generation Warfare are enlightened. The Muslim
masses are peace loving and are yearning for information/education. We can
easily win the war of ideas over the Al Qeaida types. There is very little
need for gunfire when an effective war of ideas and information is waged.

Insurgencies Rarely Win – And Iraq Won’t Be Any Different (Maybe)

By Donald Stoker

Posted January 2007

Vietnam taught many Americans the wrong lesson: that determined guerrilla fighters are invincible. But history shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different. Now that it finally has a winning strategy, the Bush administration is in a race against time to beat the insurgency before the public’s patience finally wears out.

STR/AFP/Getty Images

Not invincible: The that insurgents can’t be beaten is a myth, because history shows otherwise.
The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of “surging” additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. Iraq’s various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But they’re likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term. Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes.

Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were lucky—they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States. When the Vietcong went toe-to-toe with U.S. forces in the 1968 Tet Offensive, they were decimated. When South Vietnam finally fell in 1975, it did so not to the Vietcong, but to regular units of the invading North Vietnamese Army. The Vietcong insurgency contributed greatly to the erosion of the American public’s will to fight, but so did the way that President Lyndon Johnson and the American military waged the war. It was North Vietnam’s will and American failure, not skillful use of an insurgency, that were the keys to Hanoi’s victory.

Similar misunderstandings persist over the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan, the other supposed example of guerrilla invincibility. But it was not the mujahidin’s strength that forced the Soviets to leave; it was the Soviet Union’s own economic and political weakness at home. In fact, the regime the Soviets established in Afghanistan was so formidable that it managed to survive for three years after the Red Army left.

Of course, history is not without genuine insurgent successes. Fidel Castro’s victory in Cuba is probably the best known, and there was the IRA’s partial triumph in 1922, as well as Algeria’s defeat of the French between 1954 and 1962. But the list of failed insurgencies is longer: Malayan Communists, Greek Communists, Filipino Huks, Nicaraguan Contras, Communists in El Salvador, Che Guevara in Bolivia, the Boers in South Africa (twice), Savimbi in Angola, and Sindero Luminoso in Peru, to name just a few. If the current U.S. administration maintains its will, establishes security in Baghdad, and succeeds in building a functioning government and army, there is no reason that the Iraqi insurgency cannot be similarly destroyed, or at least reduced to the level of terrorist thugs.

Insurgencies generally fail if all they are able to do is fight an irregular war. Successful practitioners of the guerrilla art from Nathanael Greene in the American Revolution to Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War have insisted upon having a regular army for which their guerrilla forces served mainly as an adjunct. Insurgencies also have inherent weaknesses and disadvantages vis-à-vis an established state. They lack governmental authority, established training areas, and secure supply lines. The danger is that insurgents can create these things, if given the time to do so. And, once they have them, they are well on their way to establishing themselves as a functioning and powerful alternative to the government. If they reach this point, they can very well succeed.

That’s why the real question in Iraq is not whether the insurgency can be defeated—it can be. The real question is whether the United States might have already missed its chance to snuff it out. The United States has failed to provide internal security for the Iraqi populace. The result is a climate of fear and insecurity in areas of the country overrun by insurgents, particularly in Baghdad. This undermines confidence in the elected Iraqi government and makes it difficult for it to assert its authority over insurgent-dominated areas. Clearing out the insurgents and reestablishing security will take time and a lot of manpower. Sectarian violence adds a bloody wrinkle. The United States and the Iraqi government have to deal with Sunni and Shia insurgencies, as well as the added complication of al Qaeda guerrillas.

But the strategy of “surging” troops could offer a rare chance for success—if the Pentagon and the White House learn from their past mistakes. Previously, the U.S. military cleared areas such as Baghdad’s notorious Haifa Street, but then failed to follow up with security. So the insurgents simply returned to create havoc. As for the White House, it has so far failed to convince the Iraqi government to remove elements that undermine its authority, such as the Mahdi Army. Bush’s recent speech on Iraq included admissions of these failures, providing some hope that they might not be repeated.

That’s welcome news, because one thing is certain: time is running out. Combating an insurgency typically requires 8 to 11 years. But the administration has done such a poor job of managing U.S. public opinion, to say nothing of the war itself, that it has exhausted many of its reservoirs of support. One tragedy of the Iraq war may be that the administration’s new strategy came too late to avert a rare, decisive insurgent victory.

Donald Stoker is professor of strategy and policy for the U.S. Naval War College’s Monterey Program. His opinions are his own. He is the author or editor of a number of works, including the forthcoming From Mercenaries to Privatization: The Evolution of Military Advising, 1815-2007 (London: Routledge, 2007).

January 17, 2007
Gulf Allies Support Goals of New U.S. Strategy in Iraq

By THOM SHANKER
KUWAIT, Jan. 16 — America’s Persian Gulf allies on Tuesday endorsed the goals of President Bush’s new Iraq strategy. But even one of Washington’s staunchest partners in the region, Saudi Arabia, indicated deep concerns about whether the Shiite-led government in Baghdad had the capacity and will to halt sectarian violence and protect Sunni Arabs.

The six foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, along with those of Egypt and Jordan and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, issued a statement that “welcomed the commitment” of the United States to stabilizing Iraq, but made no commitments to help stabilize or rebuild the country.

The Bush administration’s blunt warnings to Iran in recent days echoed throughout the session, and the official communiqué broadly criticized any nation that interfered in the internal affairs of Iraq — a clear reference to Iran, although the official document never mentioned it by name.

Kuwait was the final stop of a diplomatic swing by Ms. Rice across the Middle East to explain the president’s new military, diplomatic and economic initiatives for Iraq, and to build support among the region’s Arab states, most of which have majority Sunni populations. The meeting in Kuwait was held 16 years to the day after a United States-led coalition began an offensive to drive the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait.

But it was the threat of rising sectarian violence following a second American-led invasion that was the topic of Tuesday’s meeting.

“Nine foreign ministers are meeting in Kuwait today to precisely prevent Iraq from sliding into civil war, and that speaks volumes,” said Sheik Muhammad al-Sabah al-Salim al-Sabah, the foreign minister of Kuwait.

“The participants welcomed the commitment by the United States as stated in President Bush’s recent speech to defend the security of the gulf, the territorial integrity of Iraq and to ensure a successful, fair and inclusive political process that engages all Iraqi communities and guarantees the stability of the country,” said the communiqué, in language that the Bush administration could cite to prove broad regional support for its initiatives.

But earlier on Tuesday, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, issued a more guarded and carefully worded endorsement of the new Bush strategy.

“We agree fully with the goals set by the new strategy, which in our view are the goals that — if implemented — would solve the problems that face Iraq,” he said.

Prince Saud said he could not comment on specifics of the plan, which Bush administration officials acknowledge relies heavily on the actions of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, a Shiite political leader who has shown a reluctance to crack down on violent Shiite militias. Yet he also declined to be drawn into a discussion of possible Saudi action to protect Sunni Arabs in Iraq in the event of a full-blown sectarian civil war.

“Why speculate on such dire consequences?” he said, urging unity among Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis, Turkmen and Kurds. “Why not speculate on the positive side? I cannot for the life of me concede that a country like that would commit suicide given the good will and the desire of all to help in this.”

Ms. Rice acknowledged the legitimacy of those worries within powerful Sunni-majority states, where the Baghdad government has remained either unwilling or unable to stop Shiite death squads from murdering Sunnis, in what appeared to be a campaign of ethnic killings.

“There are concerns about whether the Maliki government is prepared to take an evenhanded, nonsectarian path,” Ms. Rice said. “After all the years of deep grievance in the region, within Iraq, it’s not surprising that that’s the case.”

But Ms. Rice stressed that each of the Middle Eastern leaders with whom she has met “wants to give this a chance,” adding, “That’s the position of people in the region, and there is, in fact, a burden on the Iraqi government to perform.”

The communiqué contained no specific reference to Mr. Bush’s order for adding more than 20,000 troops to the Iraq mission. But Sheik Muhammad, the Kuwaiti foreign minister, said, “We expressed our desire to see the president’s plan to reinforce the American military presence in Baghdad as a vehicle and a venue to stabilize Baghdad and to prevent Iraq from sliding into ugly war, the civil war.”

The statement never challenged the Maliki government directly, but it used standard diplomatic code to make the point: it called for disarming militias and ending sectarian violence. “The ministers expressed the hope that the Iraqi government will actively engage all components of the Iraqi people in a real political process and act in a manner that ensures inclusiveness and paves the way for the success of national reconciliation,” it said.

Asked about regional worries over Iran, Sheik Muhammad said the other ministers had agreed to a “call for all countries to refrain from interfering in Iraqi internal affairs.” He added, “This is something that we are all concerned about.”

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25455,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

Don't Ban Your Instincts, Ban Ki-moon


By John R. Bolton
Posted: Tuesday, January 16, 2007

ARTICLES
Washington Post
Publication Date: January 14, 2007

Ban Ki-moon, the new U.N. secretary general, has done some unusual things to kick off his tenure. At the recent annual dinner of the U.N. Correspondents Association in New York, for instance, he entertained the guests briefly by singing, to the tune originally written for Santa Claus, his own arrangement: "Ban Ki-moon is coming to town."


Senior Fellow
John R. Bolton

On Tuesday, Ban is coming to this town, his first visit since assuming office on Jan. 1. The former South Korean foreign minister has already made it clear that he intends to be a different kind of "SG" from his predecessor. The United States backed Ban for his new post, largely with such a change in mind. Nonetheless, his first few days in office have already raised some questions. The struggle is underway to determine what sort of leader Ban will be: Will the status quo of the U.N. system overwhelm him, or will he follow his instincts and those of his supporters, including Washington?

Consider the following issues:

First, responding to Iraq's recent execution of Saddam Hussein, Ban said that the decision of whether to invoke the death penalty is a matter for each U.N. member state to decide for itself. This provoked howls of outrage from the international high-minded, who over the past decade had successfully encouraged U.N. resolutions opposing the death penalty from the U.N. Human Rights Commission (a body that eventually was abolished because it had only an incidental relationship with human rights). "The U.N. is against the death penalty!" the high-minded complained, arguing that Ban's comments amounted to a retreat from Kofi Annan's public outspokenness for the so-called U.N. position. Shaken by this barrage, Ban partly backed down later, urging the Iraqi government to stay the execution of the two men sentenced to death along with Hussein.

But his first instinct was the right one. The real controversy here is not about the death penalty, but more fundamentally about the proper role of the United Nations itself, and especially of the secretary general. The United Nations as an institution cannot have a legitimate position on a domestic issue such as the death penalty when there is such fundamental disagreement among its sovereign members--and especially where democratically legitimate governments have different views. To say that the secretary general must mouth the position adopted by a majority of countries in some U.N. body, whether legitimately or not, is a prescription for endless trouble. Were earlier secretaries supposed to declare routinely that "Zionism is a form of racism," as the General Assembly solemnly and overwhelmingly decided in 1975?

According to the U.N. Charter, the secretary general is the institution's "chief administrative officer"--not its chief moralizer. Those who complain that Ban's comment forfeited the role that Annan so ardently played should understand instead that Annan's proclivities were not ultimately helpful to the world body. If he had spent less time moralizing and more time doing his day job, the United Nations may have been spared the oil-for-food scandal, procurement fraud and widespread sexual exploitation and abuse by its peacekeepers.

Even more problematic than the death penalty debate was another matter Ban raised during his first week on the job. In an interview, he argued that "if the issues with the conflicts between Israel and Palestine go well," other issues, such as Iran and Lebanon, "are likely to follow suit." This position is unquestionably the received wisdom in Turtle Bay, and also reflects the view of Ban's predecessor.

It is unclear whether Ban was articulating his personal view or was merely following the talking points provided by the U.N. secretariat. The idea that Hezbollah's efforts to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected government of Lebanon might be curtailed or eliminated by progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front is hard to take seriously. Similarly, believing that peace and stability would emerge in Iraq if only those troublesome Israelis could be brought into line is more a matter of faith than of logic.

Ban's reliance on this favorite U.N. cliche, however, is more than simply a lapse in judgment; it may well reveal his intentions for future involvement in the Middle East, an involvement embodied in the "Quartet," an ungainly occasional gathering of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the secretary general. U.S. policymakers should start working overtime now to correct the misimpression that Ban may have obtained from his briefers. In the even worse case that Ban's comment reflects his own views, the need for corrective action is even more acute.

Much to his credit, Ban has already made history early in his tenure. He announced last week that he will make public his financial disclosure report, the first U.N. secretary general ever to do so--and something that Annan repeatedly refused to do. Ban has stressed that he wants to restore trust and confidence in the United Nations, which it sorely needs. And although much more must follow to even approximate the recommendations of the Volcker Commission in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal, Ban's disclosure will be a good first step.

Accountability begins with transparency, and within the U.N. system, the secretary general is especially well-placed to lead by example. That Ban's decision was even newsworthy underscores how much work still remains, and how easy it was to start. As a longtime civil servant in South Korea, Ban is likely to offer a short and boring financial report, as one may have also expected from Annan, a longtime U.N. civil servant. In fact, Annan could go a long way toward regaining trust and confidence even now by disclosing his U.N.-era finances.

Finally, Ban also made the courageous decision to call for the resignations of all senior secretariat officials, about 60 altogether, except those chosen with the concurrence of other U.N. bodies. This was a change that Washington had urged, one that can make clear that high-level U.N. jobs are not entitlements, either for the individuals involved or their countries of origin. Because this sort of transitional "cleaning house" is unfamiliar to the U.N. system, U.S. advocacy of the concept raised questions, and Ban's decision to implement it will undoubtedly raise more.

Ban need not accept all of the resignations, although he should accept the vast majority, for the same salutary reason why incoming U.S. administrations bring in new people at the top levels of government. The key is to shake up the secretariat's entrenched baronies, and to let them know that new management is in charge. Although it may not be noteworthy to Americans, Ban's decision on resignations was striking within the United Nations. On the hiring side, he has not made enough appointments to judge whether he is assembling a team with the right stuff--this obviously warrants close U.S. attention.

No one of these four incidents, nor all of them together, tell the complete story of Ban Ki-moon. Where he has followed his instincts--deferring to member governments, supporting U.N. reform and demonstrating personal integrity--he has done well. When he has followed the conventional wisdom inside the U.N. bubble on First Avenue in New York--on matters of U.N. theology such as the death penalty and the Middle East--he has not. In Washington this week, the president and others will again have the chance to take his measure.

Based on what we have seen so far, I hope they encourage him to let Ban be Ban.

John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at AEI. He served as permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006.

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