Great speech at the UN

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuel speaks inconvenient truth to the UN Human Rights Council. The response of the Council's president is all too predictable.



Pathetic.

Electronic Jihad Part 3: Great Information Operation

This video was just sent to me by a friend. It is extraordinary how sophisticated AQ's propaganda is. Do we do Information Operations this well? This is very professional work

The Fall of Modernity

I have been discussing two things in class lately: the nature of the 'Long War'; and how progress in it can be assessed. On top of that I have been preoccupied with the topic of 'strategic narratives' as I'm writing an article on how social media is used to generate and sustain compelling strategic narratives which I would argue constitute the real centres of gravity in this conflict. Probably this makes me unduly susceptible to this article by Michal Vlahos in the latest American Conservative, 'The Fall of Modernity'. There's a lot of food for thought in it. (And, incidentally, observe the footnotes--that's how it should be done). But what caught my attention particularly was this:

So we are, as our own government tells us, in a war of civilizations—a national testing in which we will emerge triumphant, the true beacon and best hope of humankind or else find ourselves destroyed, the detritus of history. This is not simply inflated rhetoric. It is avowed American policy.

In the president’s own words, it is nothing less than “the unfolding of a global ideological struggle, our time in history,” pitting “progress” and “freedom” against a “mortal danger to all humanity,” the “enemy of civilization.” Moreover, “the call of history has come to the right country,” and “the defense of freedom is worth the sacrifice.” Ultimately the “evil ones” will be destroyed, and “this great country will lead the world to safety, security, and peace,” a millennial world where “free peoples will own the future.”2

Here inevitably, rather than reflecting actual conditions, it is more important for reality to fit the sacred narrative. So for nearly four years, it has been “the Iraqi people” vs. “the killers,” or more broadly in the world of Islam, “good moderate Muslims” vs. “evil.”

Does it matter whether we pursue grand drama for wholly narcissistic reasons, as long as we win? What if we don’t? Failure might lead to the collapse of friendly tyrannies like Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia or even to economic crisis and an expansion of the war. Longstanding alliances could come apart. But even then our military power, our vast economy, and the strength of the American people would still be intact. Strategic recovery should still be possible. The old narrative might be in tatters, but that might turn out to be a good thing because we could then build a more modest national story.

Such recovery is foreclosed, however, in a script of civilization and its enemies. Not only did American leaders go for the existential War of History instead of dealing with reality, they chose the worst possible dramatic vehicle for restaging the national passion play. For what we are experiencing is no war of civilizations. It is not even a war.

Because the national narrative is a sacred retelling of God’s message and His American mission, its periodic restaging always assumes the form of a great war—revolution, civil war, world war. But after 9/11, there was no great war to be had, so we created a simulacrum. Up to a point, we might keep it looking like a war. But at last it will not perform for us. It cannot support the demands of the drama we require. What we needed was a grand yet simple story with easy enemies and a ringing ending called victory. But our drama has shape-shifted from a war into an uncontrollable force accelerating larger world transformations.

The “war” is revealing the distant contours of the end of modernity.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

She's got my vote!

Well, if I had a vote that is. From the New York Times, 'If Elected ...Clinton Says Some G.I.’s in Iraq Would Remain':

WASHINGTON, March 14 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

This is almost exactly my view with the caveat that I would aim by fair means and foul to actively destabilize, subvert, and undermine Iran rather than merely to 'deter it' (the deterrability of Iran being open to question, I think). It perfectly encapsulates the least-bad-response to what seems to me the case that:

1. The counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq is probably beyond recovery; but,
   
2. the consequences of packing it in leaving Iraq a failed state maelstrom which sucks in the rest of the region (even more than it does already) are too high a price to pay.

Electronoic Jihad Part 2

According to this Times On-Line article 'Al Qaeda plot to bring down UK internet'. In my earlier post on this I speculated that AQ's cyberwar innovation looked to be combining physical coercion with cyberattacks. This is a slightly different, but rather more ambitious, variant: physical attacks designed to take down information systems. Clearly, somebody's been reading up on Effects-Based Operations.

Hitchens on Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I am currently reading (devouring rather) Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book Infidel. I highly recommend it. Which is why I found rather underwhelming Timothy Garton Ash's not terribly favourable review of it in the New York Review of Books. Christopher Hitchens takes on the critics much more eloquently than I can in this Slate piece 'Ayaan Hirsi Ali is no Fundamentalist.' Have a read.

Update: Good article here at the Wall Street Journal covering the 'Secular Islam Summit' in Florida, 'Islam's Other Radicals'. The author mentions Irshad Manji, the Canadian-Lesbian-Muslim-Feminist (how's that for identity politics?) whose book The Trouble with Islam is also good reading.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- At this landmark Summit on Secular Islam, there are no "moderate" Muslims.

There are ex-Muslims: People like Ibn Warraq, author of "Why I Am Not a Muslim," who doesn't want an Islamic Reformation so much as he does a Muslim Enlightenment. There are ex-jihadists: people like Tawfik Hamid, who, as a young medical student in Cairo, briefly enlisted in the Gamaa Islamiya terrorist group and who remembers being preached to by a mesmerizing doctor named Ayman al-Zawahiri.

There are Muslim runaways: People like Afshin Ellian, who in 1983 fled Iran -- and the threat of execution -- on camelback and is now a professor of law at the University of Leiden in Holland. (Now threatened by European jihadists, he lives with round-the-clock police protection.) There are experts on Islamic law: People like Hasan Mahmoud, a native Bangladeshi who, as director of Shariah at the Muslim Canadian Congress, was instrumental in overturning Ontario's once-legal Shariah court last year.

There are even a few practicing Muslims here, such as Canadian author Irshad Manji. Ms. Manji, whose documentary "Faith Without Fear" airs on PBS next month, describes herself as a "radical traditionalist" and draws a sharp distinction between Muslim moderates and reformers: "Moderate Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam but they deny that religion has anything to do with it," she says. "Reform-minded Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam and acknowledge that our religion is used to inspire it."

The difference is not trivial. For more than five years, the Bush administration has been attempting to enlist the support of the so-called moderates in the war on terror -- its definition of "moderate" being remarkably elastic, to put it charitably. To take one example, administration emissary Karen Hughes has "reached out" to such figures as Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, head of al-Azhar theological university in Cairo, with whom she had a "wonderful meeting" in September 2005.

Sheikh Tantawi, adept at talking out of both sides of his mouth, had earlier approved a fatwa calling on the Iraqi people to "defend itself, its land, and its homeland [against the U.S. invasion] with all means of defense at its disposal, because it is a jihad that is permitted by Islamic law. . . . The gates of jihad are open until the Day of Judgment, and he who denies this is an infidel or one who abandons his religion."

Undersecretary Hughes is not at this summit, of course, nor is anyone else from the State Department, nor is the U.S.-funded al-Hurra Arabic TV station -- facts archly noted by the conferees. In the quasi-official U.S. view, the speakers at this conference amount to an exotic, publicity-seeking fringe group, with whom close association is politically unwise.

Al-Jazeera, however, is here, suggesting that the real Arab mainstream better appreciates the broad interest the conference's speakers attract in the Muslim world, as well as their latent power. Perhaps this is the flip side of the appeal of extremist Islam, an indication that what Muslims are mainly looking for are radical alternatives to the unpalatable mush of unpopular autocratic governments, state-approved clerics like Sheikh Tantawi, and Saudi-funded "mainstream" organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Radicalism, at least of a kind, is certainly what this summit provides via Wafa Sultan. Dr. Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist now living in the U.S., came to widespread public attention last year after she debated a Sunni cleric on al-Jazeera. "Only Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches," she observed. The televised clip, translated by Memri, has been downloaded on YouTube more than a million times.

Dr. Sultan, whose outspokenness has forced her and her family into hiding, is here to receive an award from the Center for Inquiry, the summit's organizer and lead funder. She accepts it by saying: "I don't believe there is any difference between radical Islam and regular Islam."

The view is shared by some, though by no means all, of the conferees. "Salafists cannot imagine Islam without the killing of apostates," says Dr. Hamid, who also now lives in hiding. "To them, the religion is a house of cards: Remove one element, and the whole structure collapses." Another conferee subscribes to the Salafist logic, though he dissents from the religion as a whole. "Truth is," he admits, "to be a Muslim democrat you have to be a bad Muslim."

In this view, the baggage of Shariah and hadith -- the traditions in which some of the most violent Islamic injunctions are to be found -- are as central to Islam as the Quran itself. Hasan Mahmoud disagrees. "Most Muslims don't even know what the Shariah laws are," he says. "The moment you actually show them what the laws are, they can understand they're unjust." Mr. Mahmoud illustrates the point by observing that, under Shariah, a husband does not require a witness to divorce his wife. "But the Quran says that if you want to divorce your wife, you need two witnesses. With Muslims, this kind of thing works magic."

Mr. Mahmoud spreads his gospel partly by way of cheaply produced DVDs, which seems pretty crude until one recalls that Ayatollah Khomeini, during his exile in Paris, spread the gospel of Islamic revolution by way of audiocassettes. Other conferees also have their Web sites: Alamgir Hussain, from Singapore, has islam-watch.org; Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, the conference's moving spirit, puts out IranPressNews.com; other conferees write for MiddleEastTransparent.com and so on. These are the "frugal chariots," to borrow a phrase from Emily Dickinson, that bear the Muslim reformer's soul.

A fair bit of U.S. government money is being spent on conference security, including from the FBI. Still, it's remarkable that the government, given the huge resources available from places like the National Endowment for Democracy, provides no funding or support for this conference or its various participants.

Here are two questions for the government: If Mr. Warraq, Dr. Sultan et al. are really irrelevant to the larger Muslim debate, why are the jihadists so eager to kill them? And if the jihadists want to kill them, don't they deserve support as well as security?

Think Beyond War

'Don't send a lion to catch a mouse' Says Shankar Vedantam in The Washington Post in summarizing the thrust of a recent study by Col Isaiah Wilson III of West Point and Jason Lyall of Princeton University of some 250 conflicts since the Napoleonic era:

Two political scientists recently examined 250 asymmetrical conflicts, starting with the Peninsular War.

Although great powers are vastly more powerful today than in the 19th century, the analysis showed they have become far less likely to win asymmetrical wars. More surprising, the analysis showed that the odds of a powerful nation winning an asymmetrical war decrease as that nation becomes more powerful.

The analysis by Jason Lyall at Princeton University and Lt. Col. Isaiah Wilson III at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point shows that the likelihood of a great power winning an asymmetrical war went from 85 percent during 1800-1850 to 21 percent during 1950-2003.

The same trend was evident when the researchers studied only asymmetrical conflicts involving the United States. The more industrialized a powerful country becomes, the more its military becomes technologically powerful, the less effective it seems to be in an asymmetrical war.

Essentially, what Lyall and Wilson are saying is that if you want to catch a mouse, you need a cat. If you hire a lion to do the job because it is bigger and stronger, the very strength and size of the lion can get in the way of getting the job done.

"A lion is built for different prey," Lyall said. "A lion is built to take down an antelope, and a cat is designed to take down a mouse. Now [in Iraq] we are a lion trying to take down a mouse.

We were lucky enough to have Colonel Wilson visit the Department of War Studies at King's College London last week to make his case, and am impressive case it was. Wilson cuts an impressive figure intellectually--and tellingly he more than held his own in the debate which followed in the pub afterward (the true test of a scholar, IMHO). I suspect and hope that we will hear very much more from him. Have a look at his website Think Beyond War which I recommend highly.

I very much buy his argument so far as I have seen it thus far. And I'd like to see more. What's the future for the 'lion'? Is it all mouse-catching from here on? If so the lion better give birth to some kittens asap. How to make that happen is something that interests me greatly.

Update: Reading it over that last sentence seems an invitation to a bunch of bad jokes. Fire away in comments.

Warning: Graphic!

Have you ever wondered what flies look like close up after they've hit your windscreen? Wonder no more.

Guardian report on Iraq

The Guardian yesterday posted a gloomy assessment of the situation in Iraq, 'Military chiefs give US six months to win Iraq war', based on an unnamed sources insight into the allegedly pessimistic views of the 'Baghdad Brains' Trust', Cols Kilcullen (ret), McMaster and Mansoor, brought in by Gen Petraeus to advise him on a new counterinsurgency strategy. This morning I see that Kilcullen has strongly refuted the article in the Small Wars Journal 'Guardian article misrepresents the advisers' view'. Extract:

And yes, there is a risk that home-front political will might collapse just as we are getting things right on the ground. Given some commentators’ overall negativity, one suspects that their efforts may be directed to precisely that end. You may not like the President, you may be unhappy about the war. But whose side are you on? The Iraqis trusted us, and this is their fight. They deserve our support.

Buried in the article, though, are some references to real-world progress:

• Progress has been made on oil-wealth sharing legislation – a major development

• Joint operations are beginning in Baghdad, and are going well so far

• Iraqi community leaders are reporting somewhat improved morale and public confidence among the civilian population, though this is tempered by previously unmet expectations

• Numbers of political murders have fallen (precipitously) since the operation began, though these are still too high in absolute terms

• Iraqi forces are turning up, and performing well, though not always at 100% strength

• In al-Anbar, tribal leaders have realized extremists have nothing to offer them – a huge development, as influential community leaders have "flipped" from AQ's side to support the Iraqi government

• Regional diplomatic efforts, including with Iran and Syria, are apparently underway

Unfortunately most of these developments are buried in the last paragraph of a long article.

The Guardian is entitled to its own view of the war, and reasonable people can differ on these issues. But the Guardian’s view is not ours, and the anonymous source misrepresents our views. It is really too soon to tell how things will play out, though early signs are encouraging so far, and the advisers as a group remain cautious realists, not pessimists.

Actually I'd describe my own view on Iraq as cautiously pessimistic, my gut feeling is that the counterinsurgency is lost and we need to be think now about how to limit the fallout from that; but as ever I think Kilcullen is worth listening to. I am impressed moreover with the speed with which he got this rebuttal out because he hits the nail on the head when he says 'there is a risk that home-front political will might collapse...' Indeed I think that it has already here in Britain in no small part because of the relentless chipping away of the Guardian, and the BBC for that matter.

Peace beats War in the 'Tolstoy Cup'

I missed the game which was evidently a nail-biter.

Electronic Jihad

There's a good article in the Jerusalem Post on 'Cyberspace as a Combat Zone'. I have been following the literature on 'hacker war' with a skeptical interest for a while now--visit the excellent Information Warfare Site for all your IW needs. My belief is that the 'Electronic Pearl Harbor' (ie., catastrophic electronic-only attack on critical systems) threat is something of a cliche, more hype than threat. But what has been growing increasingly clear is that Al Qaeda makes excellent use of the Internet as a tool for, inter alia, mobilization, fund-raising, propagandizing, planning, training and communication. Indeed, I'd say that when it comes to the information war AQ is running rings around us. It inclines me somewhat to agree with Bruce Berkowitz who wrote

History will not portray Osama bin Laden as a mere terrorist. Rather instructors at West Point and Annapolis will cite him as one of the first military commanders to use a new kind of combat organization in a successful operation.[1]

Well, maybe that goes too far. I doubt Osama is blogging and YouTubing from his cave personally. Still it is the case that his followers and fellow travellers have grasped the impact of the Digital Revolution in a way which contrasts with ironic sharpness with their medieval thinking in every other respect. An interesting part of the Jerusalem post piece is this:

Reports posted by the mujahideen after attacks on Web sites indicate that these cyberassaults affect the Web sites only temporarily, if at all. In many cases the mujahideen themselves admit that their attack was ineffective and that the Web site returned to normal functioning only minutes or hours after the attack. In light of this, the mujhahideen often resort to another method in an attempt to completely eliminate the targeted site.

An Islamist hacker explained the method as follows: "We contact... the server [which hosts the target website] before and after the assault, and threaten [the server admin] until they shut down the target website. [In such cases], the 'host' [i.e., server] is usually forced to shut down the website. The battle continues until the enemy declares: 'I surrender.'"

Pure cyber attacks with no 'kinetic' element (to use the lingo) are not very effective, but cyber attacks combined with threats of violence and intimidation (good old-fashioned thuggery, in other words) work a trick. Perhaps there's a parallel here with the hoary old debate over air power's claim to strategic decisiveness independent of other arms?

[1] Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How War will be Fought in the 21^st Century, New York, NY: The Free Press, 2003, p. 17.