I think you're preaching to the choir
While I still adhere generally to the concept of neutralization (not as a euphemism, but meaning to kill, detain indefinitely or convert), the option of conversion has never seemed to me - in and from the Vietnam era to the present - of much value in dealing with persons of strong ideologies (political or religious). Besides the "converts" are usually low-hanging fruit (lower rankers); and you can't really trust them.
The option of indefinite detention has the potential positive value of data gathering - we can discuss what techniques ought to be used ad infinitum. However, as the Gitmo cases show, indefinite detention has become a limited US option; and, perhaps, that is as it should be. I'm OK with that so long as the kill option is open.
The kill option has three parts:
1. The person killed did, or was involved in the doing of (including being an immediate or imminent threat, #3 below), a bad thing (so, the killing is "retribution").
2. The reasons for killing that person are articulated and absolutely no apology is made for the killing (our articulation is "reprobation").
3. By killing that person, we prevent future bad acts by that person; but we also have to kill those persons who are an immediate or imminent threat to do, or who are involved in the planning of doing, bad acts ("specific deterrence").
I'm not in favor of the US being the World's go to sniper; and personally favor non-violent action in all cases where it's likely to work. But, there are man-eating humans roaming the World; and after initial contact, the US should do onto them as they do unto the US.
NB: The theory of general deterrence (influencing a number of others not to do something by punishing a guilty person) is really an attempt at indirect conversion. Thus, I believe in general deterrence even less than direct attemps at conversiom. I'm also a hard sell on rehabilitation programs.
In reality, I'm a lousy singer - except when very drunk, or in the shower. :D I also confess to having used the metaphor "man-eating tiger" more than once at SWC and elsewhere. :)
Regards
Mike
PS: After posting this, I read Kilcullen's Westgate mall attacks: urban areas are the battleground of the 21st century - As the terror attack in Nairobi this week brutally illustrates, cities will be the war zones of the future (Guardian, 27 Sep 2013). I've been preaching about littorals for years; the Marine Corps has been preaching about littorals since well before I was born; and if anyone hasn't seen the population move to slum-cities (on or a vertical envelopment's distance from a coast), that person is blind.
Unless it is very implicit, Kilcullen does not offer an ideology to deal with the "urban problem":
Quote:
Understanding the new, highly connected nature of urban environments like Mumbai or Nairobi is an important first step in preparing to deal with this problem. Big data can sometimes help. Analysts can now track millions upon millions of data points (traffic patterns, say, or cellphone usage, or pedestrian movement, or prices in markets, or internet hits, or bank transactions, or numbers and types of cars in parking lots) to understand, through remote observation, how a city works. But how do we do that in enormous megaslums that are constantly growing and morphing and which don't have the street names and building addresses that allow geo-data to mean something?
Many of today's coastal cities, especially those in the developing world, are growing at breakneck speed. In a conflict, people's uncertainty arises from armed groups targeting the population; in a city that's growing exponentially – constantly outgrowing itself – the same terrifying lack of predictability can arise simply from the pace of change. Thus a megacity under stress can offer opportunities for conflict entrepreneurs (gang leaders, crime bosses or militant extremists) to control populations, provided they create a predictable rule set that makes people feel safe in the face of instability. This occurs because of the predictability inherent in the rules, whether people like the group or not, and regardless of the content of those rules. You don't have to like the cops, or agree with the speed limit, for the road rules to make you feel safe. Eventually, provided the group builds consistency and order, through a spectrum of persuasive, administrative and coercive measures, it may gain the loyalty and support of the local population.
...
As we dust ourselves off after a decade of war, community resilience, public safety and economic opportunity in crowded urban areas may turn out to matter more than counterterrorism or counterinsurgency. Designers and urbanists speak of participative development and human-centred design as key elements of a new approach to city development. Figuring how to co-design solutions in partnership with a local community, when the community is under threat and someone is shooting at you, may be the hardest challenge of all.
Whether you like it or not, "talion" (retribution, reprobation, specific deterrence) is an ideology. But in the US: here, yesterday; gone, today.
Unlike us, the "conflict entrepreneurs" are not shy about a talion ideology. They apply its principles and its moderators within their group (e.g., Taliban in Astan), but are at war with the outside groups that oppose their interests.
The only recipe Kilcullen offers in the article is "...community resilience, public safety and economic opportunity ..." Please, spare me more state building; excuse, city buliding.
I've cited "Eye for an Eye" in another thread; but here's the ideology that used to be - Hitesman, Setting the Stage for Justice in the Revenge Genre Film (2005) (a good short treatment).
Yup, by "conversion" (not my favorite),
I mean attempting to convert the bad guys to "our" ideology.
Regards
Mike
Let’s try to have a different angle
I will not disagree with Dr Kilcullen, cause he is the expert. But I would like to point 2 things:
1. Nairobi is no coastal city and it drags most of the people in Kenya. In Kenya, the coastal cities, like Mombasa, are the areas where AS and radical Islam find support.
2. Like for the radical Islamist from Uganda (Jamil Mukulu from ADF), Godane, the AS leader, studied in Pakistan and tied links with radical Islam in Pakistan. (See: Kenya mall attack mastermind studied in Pakistan: Report, http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...somali-militia)
The real question that comes is not so much what the hell Kenya is doing against Somalis but rather what the hell the world is not doing about Pakistan fueling and training radical Islamist in Africa.
Pakistan presence, like Indian one, in Africa is still under estimated and the role of Pakistani peace keepers in proselytism and black economy still not understood nor evaluated.
King of the Pecos - a Movie Review
I've watched Unforgiven and Seven (each top notch), two of the three movies reviewed by Hitesman, several times each. The first and oldest movie in the review is King of the Pecos (Wiki - King of the Pecos), which I watched last nite on Youtube, Youtube - King of the Pecos (1 hr). This is a morality play in black & white.
I'm following Hitesman's review for the movie's scenes - the "quotes" below are mostly my summings of his facts (so, whatever errors are mine). The brief comments are entirely mine.
1. The Basis for John Clayborn's Personal Revenge-Retribution
Quote:
Alexander Stiles, an ambitious land grabber (he envisions a million acre empire), and his lawyer Brewster, visit the Sweetwater homestead of the Clayborn parents and their son John. Stiles offers $1,000 for the land (probably fair for the land, but ignoring the strategic value of its key watering hole which controls the route between Texas and the Kansas cattle markets ). Clayborn pere refuses the offer. Stiles calls in his running gun Ash and his men. The parents are shot and their son is beaten and left for dead. Stiles then homesteads Sweetwater himself !
I follow Bill Miller's revenge = retribution equation; but I point out that there is a wide spectrum between (1) a one person vendetta; and (2) a society based on talion principles and having mediators to regulate the process.
2. John Clay's Insurgency - Non-Violent Action
Quote:
Ten years pass. John Clayborn (having taken the name, John Clay) has grown up into a gunslinger and lawyer - don't laugh; recall Andrew Jackson (successful as lawyer and duelist; and not a bad tactician). J.C. (are the initials a coincidence ?) moves to Stiles' county seat, and takes on a group of independent cattle owners as clients in a lawsuit against Stiles. The county judge is an honest but timid man; and Stiles intimidates him from coming to the court house. Clay keeps to non-violent action, but safeguards the judge's passage into the courtroom with an armed force he has mustered. There, Stiles, represented by Brewster, has to sit in a civil trial aimed at voiding Stiles' water hole claims because they are public domain; and thus requiring re-payment of the exorbitant tolls he got from the independent cattle owners. The Court finds for Clay's clients on all counts, except that Stiles is entitled to Sweetwater (which Stiles homesteaded himself after killing Clay's parents). Brewster is fired by Stiles for losing the trial; paid off by Stiles (a "fair cut"); and later killed by Ash at Stiles' behest with recovery of Stiles' money.
Note that this result, besides being non-violent action (Clay employs defensive armed force to protect the judge), is not retribution for Clay or for his clients. It is restitution for the clients, but not for Clay (Clayborn). So, the movie still goes along with the moral sentiments of the 1930s political elites in eschewing revenge-retribution and substituting the idea of restitution. A more touchy-feely segment of today's political elite would require, in addition, reconciliation - with a truth and reconciliation committee facilitating "making nice" between Clay (Clayburn) and Stiles.
3. John Clay's Insurgency - Violent Action
Quote:
Despite his losing of the legal trial, there is a inadequate legal system to enforce the Court's order, and even to prevent Stiles from using force. No longer able to control the other rancher's cattle by means of the watering holes, Stiles orders Ash and his men to gather all of their cattle by force ("rustle 'em"). To defeat Stiles and his men, Clay organizes the ranchers into a mass cattle drive that must stop in Sweetwater on its way to Abilene. When Stiles refuses access to Sweetwater, Clay (now revealing himself as John Clayborn) and the ranchers kill Stiles and Ash in somewhat the same fashion that Clayborn's parents were murdered years before.
But, before that happens, Clayburn offers Stiles the option of returning (with Ash) to the county seat to face trial for the murder of his parents. Stiles had set up an ambush of Clayburn, but Clayburn had set up a counter-ambush. Stiles decided it was better to live and fight from a fortified position, and waved off Ash and his ambushers.
So, in the end, Clayburn gets his personal revenge-retribution, but only because Stiles refused to take a chance on a murder trial - where a conviction in those days (19th century Texas) would have resulted in group revenge-retribution against the bad guys.
But, we have more. I've cast Clayburn in the insurgent's role to give viewers some mind exercise. Actually, he is the counter-insugent who employs the strategies and tactics of the insurgent. Stiles is the insurgent who takes over Sweetwater and the rest of the Pecos by Lawfare (Brewster) and Warfare (Ash). So, Clayburn responds by neutralizing (options are to kill, detain or convert) Stiles, Ash and his crew; Clayburn goes from non-violent to violent action, when necessary.
That kind of response spans John McCuen's spectrum - see thread for John McCuen, RIP. As Ken White points out in the thread, McCuen's principles work better in cities ! As Cavguy points out in his OP on McCuen:
Quote:
(1) You must secure your urban centers. I agree with John McCuen that you don't uncover your semi-secure urban base to chase insurgents in the wild. The enemy wants you to do that so he can infiltrate and begin building the political and operational cells in the now-undermanned cities while you chase his bands in the bush, and then look back to find your cities on fire. ...
My 19th century morality play is addressed to the 21st century, but I don't expect its political elite to take notice.
Regards
Mike
Kenyan priorities, profits and losses
For African "hands" I doubt the allegations made in a Kenyan newspaper will come as a surprise; the sub-title:
Quote:
It can now be revealed that the KDF stole cash and other miscellaneous items worth millions of shillings from the westgate mall. This happened during a rescue operation to end the recent siege by Al shabaab militants.
Link:http://www.nairobiexposed.com/2013/0...westgate-mall/