The Enemy of My Enemy

The below article provides perhaps the clearest view from the troops in Iraq, that I’ve seen in some time. It also provides a better understanding of the actuality of the regions people. I do wish to say though, that I FIRMLY support our troops, though I despise the current government that has placed them there. I served in the military during the first Gulf War Period. I did not come close to the area and will not claim moral high ground on the matter. From my personal service and through discussion with two brothers who also have served in our military, I believe that our troops are some of the finest and most decent people in the worlds military. It is for that reason that I so thoroughly despise the current government that permits and encourages actions from various ‘groups’ such the C.I.A, that bring such shame to these brave women and men. I am very proud that I have a beautiful 19 year old niece who is currently in the Air Force and may quite likely be sent to serve in Iraq. I live in fear of her being killed or maimed for life from the actions of the barbarians that inhabit so much of the middle east.

Despite the rhetoric, the people of much of the Middle East are less than two generations removed from warring tribal factions. The people of the region are not forgiving and do not forget. One wonders how someone could walk into a group of children and set off a bomb, killing dozens of innocent kids. The answer is simple. The people who are doing the bombing are not killing, they are doing what we in America would consider pest control. Do you stop and feel pity when you spray for cockroaches? The ‘Insurgents’ feel the same about the Iraqi people. Under the guise of fighting the Americans, they can kill the Nits that become the Lice. If Americans were told that in the process of spraying pesticide to kill West Nile Virus carrying Mosquitoes would likely kill off larger numbers of Tick Fever carrying Ticks, would we be greatly concerned? Not likely. The people surrounding Iraq are not their allies. Many of them lost family or friends in various Iraq related war. Where as we may provide some small protection to Iraq with our troops, we also provide an excuse for the Insurgency. Once we leave (assuming that Bush & Co. ever let us) the truth of the insurgency is revealed. Oddly enough, the Insurgency and our military are in a symbiotic relationship. We both justify our presence by the presence of the other.

There is an old saying; ‘The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend’. A more modern take is ’The Enemy of My Enemy is just another Enemy’. The question is... Do the people of Iraq really have any friends... or just a lot of enemies?

Originally posted at Defense Tech:

http://www.defensetech.org/

Captain America in the Forever War

American troops in Iraq are near-suicidal. Or maybe they couldn’t be happier. It all depends on the flavor of blog you read, I guess. But what I found in my time in Iraq didn’t cling to any neat political storyline.

Over three weeks in and around Baghdad this July, I spoke to dozens and dozens of soldiers about their views on the conflict. For the most part, morale among these infantrymen and engineers and bomb-disposers was high. Shockingly high, given the fact that they didn’t buy the Bush administration’s rationales for the war.

“Democracy? Here? Are you fucking kidding me?” one sergeant laughed, as we drove near the Abu Ghraib prison. This was from a guy from helped safeguard the January round of elections. He figures the place will collapse into civil war as soon as U.S. troops leave.

But he’s glad he’s in Iraq, regardless. Mostly, because of the insurgents.

The guerillas in Iraq have been brutal, killing way more innocent bystanders than American occupiers or Iraqi collaborators. While I was in Baghdad, a group of soldiers in a nearby neighborhood were handing out candy to bunch of kids. Until a suicide bomber stepped in, and killed 27.

“It boggles my mind, how someone can go into a crowd of kids, and kill them all. I’ll never understand it. But that’s why I’m here,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Palmer, with the 717th Ordnance Disposal Company, an Army bomb squad. “Yeah, it’s still fun to blow stuff up. But it’s not the core thing. Figuring out how this shit [the bomb] works. Stopping it from hurting people. That’s the main thing.”

U.S. troops are highly trained. So they’ll do what they’re ordered. But in order to feel good about their mission, they need a cause. They need a bad guy, a villain, so they can play Captain America. The insurgents have been only too happy to step collectively into the role of Dr. Doom.

The result is a cycle of attack and reprisal that has nothing to do with WMD or drafting constitutions – but can easily drag on for years. Most of the soldiers I spoke with didn’t expect the deadly feedback loop to stop any time this decade. “I’m staying [in the Army] until I retire, which is another ten years,” one non-commissioned officer told me. “So I figure I’ll be back here, what, another five or six times?”

Most of these GIs were ready to whoop ass, when they first get to Iraq. They’re part of America’s professional, increasingly-permanent military class. Which means they’ve been training for years to go to war – with precious few full-out battles to fight. “For a solider, this is like the Super Bowl,” Captain Greg Hirschey, the 717th’s commanding officer, said.

But the Super Bowl is only one day long. To keep going for years and years, they need a mission, a reason to stay and fight. Washington isn’t providing. The insurgents are.

And make no mistake, soldiers are staying. I’d say three in four of the GIs I spoke with were planning to reenlist. The new, fat bonuses are one reason, of course. But another is the sense that there are real-life psychopaths out there that need to be stopped. It may sound corny. It may sound dumb. But that’s what I saw.

THERE’S MORE: Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw in a few caveats here. These soldiers we all stationed at Camp Victory, the poshest military base I’ve ever seen. It’s also one of the safer places would could be in a warzone. Which means better morale. Could soldiers and marines feel differently out in the sticks, where it’s MREs three times a day and mortars all night? You bet. Also, I was in Iraq in July. Since then, 233 American troops have died over there. That could have been a major morale-changer, too.

AND MORE: Chris is embedded with the 2-2 Batallion of the II Marine Expeditionary Force in the Anbar province. Which means you go read his blog, now.

AND MORE: Joe Katzman's response is really worth a read.

One of the more frightening sign of the changes in our society occurred recently. It seems to have received very little attention, but deserves much more from the terrifying things it hints at.

http://progressive.org/mag_mc100405

A high school student expresses in art his opinion of the Bush Reich in rather mild terms. No profanity, no threats, simple imagery. His teacher notes and does not disapprove nor, per most school policies, report the student for possible violent tendencies. An employee of a public business took a minor’s photographs, brought in good faith to be developed and turns him in to law enforcement. Where as they are permitted to refuse to print obscene images and they may report criminal photographs if brought for processing, such as child pornography, the photo does not fir either definition. The Secret Service takes rather extreme action. They bully a young boy over political & artistic expression. The young mans view on the Bush Reich seems to have been all to correct here. This story frightens me on so many levels that I can barely try to articulate them.

The Story of 1984 with everyone informing on everyone has occurred.

From the NYT Opinion piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/opinion/16ziad.html?pagewanted=print

Thi article provides an interesting alternate view on the rise of Modern Middle Eastern society and politics. I'm not sure I can view it as simple a way as the author, but certain elements are worth note.

 Jihad's Fresh Face

By WALEED ZIAD

Washington

OF the many questions surrounding Egypt's presidential elections last week - Were opposition candidates unfairly removed from the ballot? Did the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak cheat at the polls? - a more general query has gone largely unmentioned: Did this election, or the other recent democratic experiments in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, really further American aims in the Muslim world?

The answer is troubling. The post- 9/11 prevailing wisdom has held that military force and exporting democracy are the West's twin weapons against terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is the product of a "medieval" mindset, we are told, and if we can deliver elections to the Arab world, our enemies will cower before the spirit of the Enlightenment.

Yet the establishment of the first popularly elected governments in Iraqi and Afghan history has been followed by more suicide bombings and unabated violence. And nobody expects real change, in terms of political freedoms or human rights, any time soon in Saudi Arabia or Egypt. What are we missing?

While there is no doubt that elections are a worthy goal, we will not be able to change the Muslim world or dislodge the militancy until we gain a better understanding of the roots of the problem. While these conflicts are often painted as millennium-old, they are essentially modern phenomena, bred of postcolonial politics, social upheavals and territorial struggles.

And as we look at the causes of anti-Western jihadism, we tend to overlook one major contributing factor: the absence not just of democracy but also of grass-roots representative institutions like a free press and independent political, cultural and social-welfare institutions.

Today's jihadists - I call them "neo-fundamentalists," because they are a world apart from earlier fundamentalists - are not throwbacks to the crusades, nor are they, as President Bush unfortunately put it, just "a group of folks." They are a singular and recent byproduct of decades of oppressive rule.

Yes, the Muslim world had an unfortunate introduction to post-Enlightenment ideals, which came in the context of invasion, colonialism and exploitation. But the Arab philosophical and political movement that came out of that experience was not inherently anti-Western. In fact, in traditional Islamic thought the concept of violent resistance against an unjust ruler was virtually unheard of; for classical jurists, tyranny was preferable to the anarchy that accompanies revolt.

The first wave of modern Islamic fundamentalists, which crested primarily in Egypt in the late 19th century and included such figures as the Iranian-born reformer Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and his Egyptian disciple, Muhammad Abduh, opposed colonialism but saw no incompatibility between Islamic and Western philosophy, law or scientific method. These men called for political reform and the revival of free inquiry.

The big change did not occur until the middle of the 20th century. In states like Egypt, Iraq and Syria, colonial governments were replaced by military, Arab-nationalist, royalist or Soviet-sponsored socialist regimes. All deteriorated quickly into dictatorships, emracing the institutions of colonial subjugation.

A host of political parties and civic institutions were founded to challenge the autocrats; many combined Enlightenment concepts like public participation with Islamic ideals of popular consent and justice. Even Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1928) was not a militant revolutionary group; instead it promoted social-welfare programs, democracy and land reform on the Western model. When the mass movements became influential, however, they were answered not by reform but by persecution, ranging from the violent crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1950's to the massacre of more than 10,000 dissidents by the dictator Hafez al-Assad in Hama, Syria, in 1982.

The story of Sayyid Qutb, the father of neo-fundamentalism, exemplifies what happened next. Qutb was an Egyptian teacher trained in the Western system. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, it was not his trip to America in 1948 that radicalized him. While he was shocked by some aspects of American culture, like women dancing in public, he returned to write about the importance of emulating the educational, economic and scientific achievements of the West.

BUT in the 1950's, he was jailed and tortured for speaking out against Gamal Abdel Nasser's autocracy, while scores of dissidents were executed. Only then did he decide that violence could be used against an unjust government. He spoke as a Muslim, but his rhetoric was grounded in Western-nationalist and leftist revolutionary principles. His call had great resonance, and thus was neo-fundamentalism born.

As persecution continued across the Arab world, the neo-fundamentalist rhetoric became more Manichean and xenophobic. With mainstream opponents silenced, ultraradicals became the loudest voices of dissent. In Egypt, for example, those who emerged from prison in the 1970's formed militant organizations, including Al Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is now chief lieutenant for Osama bin Laden. These men were not thinkers or theologians; rather, many were disillusioned Westernized professionals, former leftists and nationalists.

This new wave of fundamentalism, unlike all the others before it in the Islamic tradition, is inherently anti-intellectual and reactive; it is more reminiscent of the anarchical movements of 19th-century Russia. This "Islamism" is nihilistic, expressing a lack of faith in all political systems, in history, and in all past social developments. The jihadists justify their actions by claiming that they are returning to "pure" Islamic sources to establish a "government of God." Of course, the paradox here is that the Koran does not lay down a mode of governance. What perhaps we in the United States do not understand is that in rejecting the status quo, these groups demonize not just the West, but mainstream Islamic culture and philosophy as well; they pose perhaps the greatest existential threat to 1,400 years of Islamic tradition.

So how does this history help us reverse the trend? It requires that we look at the jihadists not as an ancient foe, but as yet another contemporary terrorist group. Recent history - in northern India, Sri Lanka, Kurdish Turkey - has taught us that grassroots democracy and allowing the aggrieved group a public voice can be effective weapons against terrorism. A good strategy would be to support groups across the Muslim world, both secular and religious, that provide social services where the government falls short; they range from women's rights organizations like the Union for Feminine Action in Morocco to trade groups like the Lebanese Businessmen Association.

We must foster these organizations - along with a free press and educational and cultural institutions. At the same time, our corporations should guide local entrepreneurs to promote a free market, the backbone of democracy. If anything is going to come of the neoconservative hope of making Iraq into a beacon of our values, it will be along these lines.

It is vital, however, that we not be put off from helping organizations tied to Islam - faith-based parties calling for peaceful democratic reforms are emerging across the Muslim world as the main political opposition. They are the necessary counterweights to central governments, and without them, autocratic rule, and the neo-fundamentalism that it breeds, will remain the norm.

Waleed Ziad is an economic consultant and aprincipal in the Truman National Security Project.

Interesting to think that "Fundementalism" in what ever religion, seems to cause greater strife and foster divisive action and attitude. Odd to think that  the 'Fundemental" aspects arebeing used as excuse for hatred and murder.