There are several basic assumptions shared by most of us who consider ourselves anti-Jihadis, and several disagreements on how to wage the fight. How we discuss these differences is important; although I prefer a reasonably rational discourse, all of us descend (regress) to invective and hyperbole from time to time. When I took issue with the post on GOV concerning genocide, I described the post as evidence of societal regression. (This is not a diagnosis; it is a description of a universal human tendency to return to less mature mental states and processes when under stress. As noted in my original post on Terror and Societal Regression, the processes involved in societal regression can, if misunderstood and mismanaged, lead to the worst kinds of excesses such as those made familiar during the last century.
Yesterday, Siggy noted that those of us who are on the same side must be careful of maximizing differences; he expressed his concern that Gates of Vienna has been banished from Pajamas Media:
From The Author Of SC&A; Plaza San Marco And Blog Wars
LGF, Pajamas Media and the Gates of Vienna are on the same side of the political aisle. They differentiate as to degree. Thus, it was very disappointing to see GOV tossed overboard by LGF and Pajamas Media. That those bloggers took umbrage with the ideas at GOV does not concern me. That they dispensed with the authors of GOV is troubling.
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Perhaps the authors at GOV are guilty of not understanding that most Americans do not share their understanding of Europe and Europeans and are therefore lightning rods for their inevitable critics. We assume this to be the case with LGF and Pajamas Media.
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This writer would hope that Charles Johnson of LGF and Roger Simon of Pajamas Media would reconsider their decisions to marginalize GOV. Europe, like Venice, is sinking. GOV may not have all the answers and in fact, they may have none but when it is all said and done, they want to help save Europe. To make them an issue is to take your eye off the ball- a critical mistake.
Siggy's post is important, and his discussion of Venice illuminating and worth reading in full. At the same time, it is important that those who defended the GOV post and viewpoint (or their reading of the inevitability of an existential clash of the West and Islam) understand the danger of treating genocide as an inevitability or a possible outcome, when such an outcome would be a devastating failure in the war on Islamic terror and remains very far in a future which is path-dependent to the extreme.
Austin Bay, who knows as much about the war on terror as anyone, commented on What Powers — And What Weakens — Terrorist Organizations? His comments are instructive for the war we all agree we are involved in: [HT: Glenn Reynolds]
THE COUNTERTERROR FIGHT
The first article in this two part series, How to Run a Terror Organization suggested nine dynamic, inter-related elements or “factors” that sought to answer the question “What does it take to create and run an international terrorist movement?”
Writing for Pajamas makes it easy to review those nine factors in depth, but here’s the list:
1- Grievance
2- Ethnic or Sectarian Antagonisms
3- A Recruitment Base
4- Crime
5- Money
6 -Training Facilities
7-Communications
8- Media
9- “The Terrorists Tool Kit” (Materiel)
Now take the list in reverse order from Materiel (weapons, explosives, etc, found in the Istanbul tool kit) and track back to Grievance. Reverse order generally reflects “easiest to hardest” factors for a counter-terror organization to combat.
A strategically effective counter-terror war, however, is not a sequential fight (eg, get their killers’ weapons then move to “Media”). Stopping terrorists requires waging multi-dimensional, synergistic warfare, so in some manner each of the factors must be engaged simultaneously.
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The Counter-terror fighter must also combat terrorists via the Media, destroy or deny Training Facilities (which could include attacking nations that harbor terrorists), and monitor and attack terrorist Communications. Fighting an effective counter-terror war requires squeezing and denying terrorists Money (financial support); monitoring, using, or eliminating criminal activities that aid and support terrorists (Crime); shrinking and perhaps co-opting terrorists’ Recruitment Base, and mitigating or resolving exacerbating Ethnic and Sectarian Antagonisms. The counter-terror fighter must address the terrorists’ claimed Grievances or expose the alleged Grievances as a political tool used by a self-interested, corrupt terrorist leadership cadre. [All Emphases mine-SW]
[For those who are interested, Austin Bay adds this note:
(NOTE: These articles are drawn from Chapter One of the new edition of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War (Paladin Press, 2008), by James F. Dunnigan and Austin Bay. Jim and I turned in the manuscript three weeks ago. Jim is editor of www.strategypage.com. I’d also like to call attention to “Consequences: A Rapid Military Withdrawal From Iraq,” a new television/internet-video pilot program produced by TheArenaUSA, featured on their beta-portal, austinbay.thearenausa.com )]
I cannot add much to most of his post but the information theater is clearly part of this fight and the area where there is the greatest disagreement among the counter-Jihadis. My resistance to discussions of genocide rests upon two important factors and should not be misunderstood as an endorsement of the State Department and European refusal to call Islamic terrorists either Islamic or Jihadis; they are both and we should repeatedly emphasize that violent Jihadis and Islamists who do not ascribe to democratic ideals are, in fact, our enemies.
The first point is that despite the comments of those who insist that it is Islam itself that is inimical to democracy, even if that is accurate at the moment, it cannot be considered a fixed attribute of Islam unamenable to change. To decide at this early stage in the information war that we have no ability to impact the enemy population is nihilistic, not to mention inaccurate. While Arab democrats remain few and far between, primarily because Arab governments repress them so vigorously, the behavior of populations who have lived under Islamist strictures suggests they can be our most powerful allies in this war. If this report from Ed Morrissey is accurate, it would represent a major victory in the war, despite his caveat (update) at the end:
Muslim clerics to issue fatwa against killings and violence?
Could Muslim clerics of competing sects come together to issue a fatwa against violent jihad? The US and the Anglican church in Iraq hope that they can shepherd it into reality. After working together for months in places like Cairo and Denmark, Shi’ite and Sunni clerics will issue a religious ruling that violent jihad is anti-Islamic. The fatwa could force radicals to at least an intellectual defensive and hinder recruitment for suicide bombers and terrorists:
High-ranking Shiite and Sunni leaders are preparing to issue a religious decree condemning suicide bombings and other forms of violence, according to an Anglican minister who has led efforts to bring the two Muslim sects closer.
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Update: This fatwa specifically addresses Muslim-on-Muslim violence, our great friend Robert Spencer notes. However, I’d doubt that Muslims would start off by including infidels in such a fatwa. It’s still a start, and if Muslims would stop killing other Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, we could start addressing the infrastructure needs that could stabilize both countries permanently.
As the Arab world moves into the modern era, and the people of the Muslim world begin to have a stake in modernity and the services, goods, and opportunities it can deliver, we will have a growing cohort of Muslims willing to remain neutral or actively ally with us against those whose only promise is a return, a regression, to a time of constant war, peril, deprivation, and asceticism. This is a contest we can win.
The second point is that discussions of genocide have the effect of alienating potential allies, both within the West and within Islam. It does us no good for the MSM to label the anti-Jihadis as extremists, an appellation likely to stick if they can use our own words as examples against us. Further, it does us no good to hand our enemies a weapon which they can use to increase their reasonable sounding grievances (after all, if you are threatened with genocide, even if meant as a cautionary tale, such threats will do more to enhance Islamic solidarity with the extremists than to fight it.) A war that involves killing ands marginalizing that small fraction of the Islamic world ready, willing, and able to actively take up arms against us is a much easier war to win than one that involves an ever escalating portion of the Umma convinced we have genocidal aims against Islam.
Finally, note this e-mail I received this week (with the author's name elided at his request):
I am a Jew, attending a Conservative Synagogue. My wife is a Muslim, from Kazakhstan (and, fyi, she hates "Borat"). We attend services regularly at temple, she is learning the songs and has expressed an interest in learning Hebrew (which would put her one up on me); she says that the children will probably be Jewish and, at some point, she may convert.But she makes a point of her being a Muslim precisely to point out that her beliefs and - according to her assessment - the beliefs of her fellows in her home country are cosmopolitan and open. I know from searching the internet there is a Jewish community in Kazakhstan; what their status is I don't know, but her family has seemed to have no problems with my religion, nor with her being with me.
That gives me enormous hope. I keep arguing with moonbats who just want peace, peace, peace at any cost that peace can mean surrender. I argue that the West will, sooner or later, be faced with the stark binary question: Can Islam co-exist with the West (we can with them)? I think yes, and cite my wife as an example, but there are a lot of Jihadists whose fanaticism will reply "NO!" And sooner or later we're going to have to deal with them.
Shall we allow those of us who agree with the Jihadists to hand them ammunition? Or should be attempt to encourage the attitudes expressed in this note? The vast majority of Muslims remain on the sidelines, some neutral toward us, perhaps most antipathetic toward us, and a few positively disposed toward us. Our goal should always be to avoid creating more enemies who we will have to kill and to continue creating allies who will help us eradicate the virus of Islamism from within their midst and ours.
I do believe that Islamism, as currently promulgated, is incompatible with the modern world and Western values; this war is indeed an existential one. However, I believe we can and will win the war with minimal casualties (and thus far, despite all the hyperbole from the left, our casualties have been minimal) as long as we fight it intelligently; as much as possible we should strive to fight this as an information war rather than a kinetic war. Perhaps I am simply much more optimistic that if we adhere to our values and champion what is best about our culture, in the long run (and this war still looks to be a long one) we cannot lose unless we submit.
[If you haven't read the comments to Information War Strategy and Tactics, you have missed an excellent discussion with good points made on both sides, including some partially valid criticisms of my post; I was not clear enough in pointing out that regression is not a diagnostic statement but a descriptive statement. It does not mean anyone is sick; it usually means they have temporarily retreated from their optimal functioning. On a societal level, if it becomes a permanent, irreversible state, it is worrisome because it so readily leads to dangerous outcomes.]
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