Paper: Rethinking Role of Religious Conflict in Doctrine

Copy of "Religion and Resistance: Examining the Role of Religion in Irregular Warfare" by Matthew A. Lauder, Defence R&D Canada – Toronto available for download here (26 page .pdf).

Abstract

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The US counter-insurgency manual (FM 3-24) has been criticised by several theorists for a lack of attention paid to the issue of religion. For example, critics of the manual indicate that religion is mentioned only a handful of times, and merely in-passing or as a secondary factor within a broader appreciation of the cultural context of the operating environment. The superficial treatment of religion in counter-insurgency doctrine, and a trend of dismissing the grievances of religiously-inspired antagonists as illegitimate, serves to illustrate a general lack of appreciation for the mingling of the religious and the political that exists outside of Western society. In other words, there is an overall lack of recognition of, and appreciation for, the ways in which religion underlies social, cultural, political, and economic discourse and action, and, more specifically, the role of religion in conflict. The aim of this paper is two-fold: (1) it will critically examine the treatment of religion and religious concepts in US and Canadian counter-insurgency doctrine; and (2) by drawing upon Religious Studies scholars, and by comparing historical and contemporary examples of religious conflict between states and non-state actors, it will argue that spiritual insurgencies are forms of violent new religious movements. The objective of this paper is to encourage the re-thinking of the problem-space and a reassessment of how we classify and treat religious conflict in doctrine and engage religious antagonists in the contemporary operating environment.

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Originally Posted by milnews.ca

Copy of "Religion and Resistance: Examining the Role of Religion in Irregular Warfare" by Matthew A. Lauder, Defence R&D Canada – Toronto available for download here (26 page .pdf).

Abstract

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That link for the download isn't working for me. Is it available for download anywhere else?

I personnaly think that focussing on labelling war as religious or ethnical or what ever else than political is just missing the target.
It's basically a way to simplify the problematic by putting it in a box. There are two kind of problematic in war: politic and legallity of the action...
Religion is too often used to undermine the legal aspect of it. Especially when it comes to war in Muslim countries.
Recently, most of the Darfur politic analist I have been meeting just conceded that probably Bashir did not have much choices with what was going on. Based on the fact that he wanted to stay in power and we did not want to have the Muslim Brotherhood or worst to come back in power. :eek:
Somehow, the bad muslim and the nice african animists tend to disapear...

But I have to read the paper once I found it as the link you gave did not work either for me.

M-A

Found Milnews.ca's link here.

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(101.99 kB - downloaded 10 times.)

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A very wise mentor once told me "Islam is politics", and I would argue it applies to religion as a whole. Any religious leader worth their salt can whip their followers into a murderous frenzy over the most miniscule issue. Why? You start pulling the threads that are attached to someone's beliefs in how the Universe functions and you can watch them start frothing at the mouth. Same thing goes for ethnic/cultural aspects. However, I would hesitate labeling conflicts as purely 'religious', or 'ethnic', or 'political' because they all come to bear and all are a part of human culture (I'm having flashback's of Gadamer's Truth & Method now).

Religion, culture, and ethnicity are used as political currency every day- even in America and Europe. And the arguments I saw on the other forum of 'It's not rational- only emotional' 'It's a crutch' are weak. Marx is dead. The Enlightenment is over. Let the Post-Modern java flow :D

MA- I'm not really sure what you mean by legalities. Can you explain a bit more for me please?

I remain in awe of Grand Ayatollah Sistani's moral conviction not to engage in politics if at all possible. Must be the hardest thing when battle rages, or threatens to rage all around.

Same with those in Iran. Sometimes you wish they would jump in, but it must be a very high and hard road.

But the same COIN criticism could be raised about politics.

Personally, I wish folks in the field had a basic primer in the practical and administrative aspects of political organization and operation (at the internal and sub-national levels, not foreign policy/nation state stuff) It would make life easier.

But how much can you pack into a Field Manual?

Steve

Well, I will just go for the Jus in Bello and Jus at bellum stuff (as usual).
The legacy (judicial and/or moral) of going at war and the legality in conducting war.

Would be interresting to see the difference between Shia and Sunny and how this could affect COIN operations. I'm not convinced a classical COIN operation as the Surge would work in Iran or with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah was one of the first to do the shift in Lebanon to gain people support by providing social services. They do actually still challenge Lebanese state on that issue.

Shia seems to be more organised to take care of their people. Also, their tradition of dissimulation would make them in apparence more easy but in fact much hardcore and difficult to rally. But I might be wrong.

I finally managed to download it.

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Originally Posted by Steve the Planner

I remain in awe of Grand Ayatollah Sistani's moral conviction not to engage in politics if at all possible.
Steve

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This reminded me of something Carl Schmitt said in The Concept of the Political..."To define something as non-political is itself a political act"

Sistani's decision to not engage in or lend his support to the Iraqi Shia insurgency, the Mahdi army and parliament was a political decision. Let's not forget that the overt political participation in political affairs was almost purely due to the innovating ideological acrobatics of Ayatollah Khomeini. When he wrote Kashf Al-Asrar (The Revealling of Secrets) in 47(?) he was still adhering to the traditional Shia' position (for mujtahids that is) of quietism wherein the Ulema did not overtly participate in the political process instead prefering to remain aloof and influence events through the processes of "emulation" and their monopoly on Shaira' law (and the fact the Shah didn't want a head on confrontation). Those Shia that did participate in politics did so by supporting authority to preserve Shi'ism and even, on the rare occassion, threatened revolution (1906 and the Tobbacco Revolution/Constituional Revolution) but always only to protect the status of the cerlicical establishment and the role of Shi'ism and never to further a political/transformational (modernist) project (that right properly belonged only to the Hidden Imam/Imam Mahdi). It was only in the sixties with the rise of the likes of Ali Shariati (especially his Red Shism wherein he castigated collaborationist clerics as traitors to the revolutionary spirit of Ali) that Khomeini's views began to change. By Wilayat-e-Faqih (the rule of the Faqih) he abandoned the traditionalist position (of quietism) in favour of "red shi'ism" (though he himself would have deinied that given Shariati's socialism/marxism). It was Khomeini who broke with tradition and stated that the Shia' had no need to wait for the retrun of Imam Mahdi. Our view of the role claerics have in politics is coloured by the Iranian/Islamic revolution. Nonethless, for a weltanshauung/lebenswelt that defines itself as din-wa-daula (loosely translated as religion and "state"/ or more properly the spiritual and secular authority) the commentators here are correct in that segregating lived experience into phenomenoligically discreet entities is unhelpful at best (although some academics, who make their living by dividing up the world into intellectual categories would disagree).

Have to rush, need to pick up best friend's daughter from nursery...
(apologies for the grammar, slepping, syntax and)

Having now caught my breath allowme to finish off my thoughts above with a caveat. As I was saying our view of clerical action in the political sphere is coloured by ther Iranian revolution. Interestingly the Khomeinite position (wilayaet-e-faqih) was rejected overwhelmingly in the important shrine cities/theologicalseminaries in Iraq. To this day Ayatollah As-Sistani is viewed with suspicion by his cousins across the border especially Ayatollah Ali Khameinei whose attempts to influence events in Iraq to Iran's favour were fillibustered by As-Sistani, especially with As-Sistani's intervention against Muqtada As-Sadr. As-Sistani is a "charismatic" threat to the Iranian "revolutionary" clerics but is adored by those who still adhere to the old queitist modus operandi (of which there are many). As-Sistani is a "charismatic" (i.e., Weber) rather than "ideological" alternative because using words like "ideology","religion",etc. separates the unity of the field of action within which the shia' and other Muslims act. As-Sistani is thus an alternative pole of authority in the widest sense rather than just in termsof narrow theology/jurisprudence (as conceieved by us Western types).

Wait, does that even make sense...?

Must go, best friends daughter has now said that she is hungry over 50 times without taking abreath...:o

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Sistani's decision to not engage in or lend his support to the Iraqi Shia insurgency, the Mahdi army and parliament was a political decision.

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I'll just add in that I don't think this is really accurate. Sistani was instrumental in forming the UIA in 2005 and they used his face on their posters. He not only vetoed the CPA's original plans for Iraqi elections in 2004-2005 (intended as a sort of caucus process), but outlined exactly what form legitimate elections and constitution-writing should take. He specifically did not lend any legitimating authority to the CPA in this process, instead selecting the UN as the proper overseeing authority.

Sistani has repeatedly indicated that the clerisy should take an overseeing role with regards to state affairs, and indeed this is the role he has arrogated for himself in Iraq. But he does not endorse Iranian style institutionalization of this i.e. with the office of Supreme Leader, Guardian Council, etc. But he certainly not a pure apolitical "quietist", a title that better fits the al-Khoei family. Reider Visser has this excellent paper about Sistani's views on politics.

I'm not sure that even a well-written 2006 paper fully encompasses the Grand Ayatollah's position, role or intent.

Defining his role in the body politic is perhaps more complex and nuanced than evaluating his role as a politician or in politics.

I don't have those answers, but, to date, as a man, an Iraqi, and a civic leader (and possibly as a religious community leader), he has stepped in where he believed necessary, but, it seems, in general, prefers not to engage directky in influencing the outcome of "Ceasar's due."

During the run-up to the 2009 Provincial elections, folks were jumping up and down to get him to break all the ties in the competing election rules. Finally, and only finally, he indirectly gave a small nod which, while others bit their nails as to the outcome, did, in fact, generally follow the direction of his reluctant nod.

That, to me, but not necessarily to his many followers, suggests a man and religious leader that did not, and still does not, wish to see Iraq's government follow an Iranian path, and with appropriate deference to the "quietist" tradition.

Without dispute, his nods have more effect than any US President has over a circumstance. But, unlike most folks who, if they have power, use it. He is fully invested in the religious and spiritual implications of his followers, not the political ones (within a reasonable range), but will, under extreme circumstances, use the temporal power scarcely.

That might not fit our objectives, but I have tremendous personal respect for the restraint he shows.

Steve

I've found the following simple diagram (credit: Geoff Corn) useful:

Attachment 1020

In the Islamic take, the Dip/Pol Ring and the Law Ring will be influenced by the Koran, etc., to a greater or lesser extent.

In this particular diagram, the intersection of the three rings defines the acceptable ROEs (what is done in war). The same rings also come into play in defining the bounds of going to war in the first place.

One recognizes a bit of CvC's Triangle (Government, Military, People).

Regards

Mike

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Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange

I personnaly think that focussing on labelling war as religious or ethnical or what ever else than political is just missing the target.

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Agree with that. Stepping way outside of my tactical-level approach to things...

There are no "religious wars" or "information wars" or "wars of attrition" or "proxy wars." Replace the word "war" in each one with "campaign." The campaigns are not waged to assert a religion, obtain information dominance, eliminate the other military, or defeat a friend's enemy as ends in themselves. They are supporting efforts in a larger war and that larger war is fought for a political end.

Schmedlap,

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There are no "religious wars" or "information wars" or "wars of attrition" or "proxy wars." Replace the word "war" in each one with "campaign."

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you took my academic words to turn them in technical/practical words. If I can say so.
For me, religion will influence the context in term of how far and how easily you will penetrate in the opponant society/structure/network...

It will also give you a global idea of the direction to take for your cimic/psyop operations. But not much more.
The tribes I am dealing with are catholic but their culture is as far from mine than those of the afghan or somali could be. It's even amazing to see how close in fact some catholic/animist tribes are "culturaly" close to Muslim tribes in East Africa. All pastoralist have the same approach: my cows, my grazzing land and my water. My clan against the world.
After it's just a complexe political game on the one who will get the biggest part of the cake.

Mike,

I'll go with your diagram but I wonder how far it applies. With Shia, no doubt, the separation between administration and religion is there. With extremist... I somethimes really wonder. What would be the demarcation line between politic and law if it's the same religious leader who defines both?

Anyways, in operational terms, it always comes back to the fact that we need to find something that applies to it to re-establish dialog links with something that looks like us. It seems easier.

PS: yes I came back from my excursion in the bush. Was good by the way.:)

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Personally, I wish folks in the field had a basic primer in the practical and administrative aspects of political organization and operation (at the internal and sub-national levels, not foreign policy/nation state stuff) It would make life easier.

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Steve,

I agree just with you. I think that Kilcullen pointed it in a past article in SWJ: we always try to find a "new elite" to replace the one we want to go. In nation building, it's too often not functioning as we place guys who basically do not have the same understanding than us of what "being in power means". But this is rarely due to religious believes and even less to religious cultural background. My experience tells me it is rather pretty much closer to economical greed.

MA:

"All pastoralist have the same approach: my cows, my grazzing land and my water. My clan against the world.
After it's just a complexe political game on the one who will get the biggest part of the cake. "

I keep trying to avoid falling down the economic/geographic determinism well, but, sometimes, a lot of this can be made too complex. I have mouths to feed is a pretty standard human motivator even if some of the nuances change.

My Paris socialite friend always says it is about money or SEX, and even that gets overlooked sometimes.

Steve

the Dip/Pol Ring and the Law Ring could become one in the extremist case:

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from MA
I'll go with your diagram but I wonder how far it applies. With Shia, no doubt, the separation between administration and religion is there. With extremist... I somethimes really wonder. What would be the demarcation line between politic and law if it's the same religious leader who defines both?

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But, some measure of secular input will enter the picture because of the external constraints - e.g., relations with the rest of the World.

An extreme example would be an all-encompassing dictatorship which ignores all external constraints - a North Korea on steroids - where one man calls all of the shots in all three rings >>> a single ring. Again, that construct would be theoretical, not real.

Regards

Mike

Agree with this:

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from STP
Personally, I wish folks in the field had a basic primer in the practical and administrative aspects of political organization and operation (at the internal and sub-national levels, not foreign policy/nation state stuff) It would make life easier.

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re: local governance (which covers a lot of bases) in villages and districts and their interface with provinces.

But, more so than the primer (which could be compiled from numerous "lessons learned"), is developing the basic capabilities (organized people, whether military, civilian or mixed) who will use the primer.

For example, looking at MG Flynn "guidance" on intelligence, I saw many items that would be useful to me if I were advising on a local (village or district) level re: local governance, civil and criminal justice systems, etc. E.g. (p.7):

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... census data and patrol debriefs; minutes from shuras with local farmers and tribal leaders; after-action reports from civil affairs officers and Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs); polling data and atmospherics reports from psychological operations and female engagement teams; and translated summaries of radio broadcasts that influence local farmers, not to mention the field observations of Afghan soldiers, United Nations officials, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

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Even Legrange could get into the act. :)

I suppose many of the same items would be useful to a combat commander in the same environment. Our military effort (in some places) reaches down to the district and village levels, in sufficient force projection to make a difference. E.g. (p.13, 14):

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The tide began to turn in Nawa on July 2, when 800 Marines descended in helicopters and began sweeping across the district on foot, establishing nearly two dozen patrol bases in villages and cornfields along the way. Five months later and with few shots fired by Marines after their initial operation, the situation in Nawa is radically different. Insurgents find it substantially more difficult to operate without being ostracized or reported by farmers; government officials meet regularly with citizens to address their grievances, removing this powerful instrument of local control from the Taliban’s arsenal; the district center has transformed from a ghost town into a bustling bazaar; and IED incidents are down 90 percent.
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To be sure, various chips had to fall the right way in order for our forces to enable this positive turn of events. Nawa was lucky to have a charismatic governor and a modern battalion commander who, together, ran their joint effort like a political campaign as much as a military operation. The robust presence of security personnel (there was one Marine or Afghan soldier or policeman for every 50 citizens) was also vital. [6]

[6] 6 following report: Seth G. Jones, Jeremy M. Wilson, Andrew Rathmell, and K. Jack Riley, Establishing Law and Order after Conflict (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2005).

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Note also the force ratio 1:50. The 2005 Rand monograph is interesting (Astan is one of the countries considered); but have we gotten any better than we were then with respect to the political effort being made at the local (district and village level). At that level, the military (as part of the military effort) is an intelligence consumer. Where is the equivalent consumer organization, at that level, to implement the political effort ?

The political effort would include religious considerations where they are material; but also goes beyond that into my "law" areas, STP's mapping and records area, and "Commandant" (;)) Surferbeetle's development area. I see a "whole of government" approach at national and provincial levels (less so there); but don't see it at the lower levels.

Regards

Mike

An interesting note from McCreary's Nightwatch (01/11/2010):

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Iraq-Saudi Arabia: For the record. Iraqi President Talabani has asked Saudi King Abdullah to intervene in stopping Saudi criticisms of Iraq's Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Mehr News Agency reported 11 January. In a letter to King Abdullah, Taliban(i) wrote that insults to al-Sistani cause "division and quarrels that spark the flames in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other countries.

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To recap the action, a Kurd – Talabani – made an argument to a Sunni Arab King to protect Arab Shiites. That’ll work, right."

Politics, religion? Go figure.

I recently was engaged by man who "has several Ph.D.s" in Theology" who was intrigued by a paper of mine (Published here on SWJ) on the role of ideology in insurgency. He was fascinated by the paper but was adament that I had made the issue far too secular due to my background and approach to the problem.

"Are you sure that it is not you making the issue far too religious based on your background and experience" I countered?

At this point he called, and apparently it was table stakes and I didn't have adequate sheepskin to cover the bet so he felt he won that hand...

It was a good coversation though. What I told him in essence is that religion and culture are absolutely critical to ones understanding of the environment in which insurgency occurs, and it is these environmental factors that make every insurgency unique. That the goal of my work was to delve past these environmentals and attempt to get to the pure essence of insurgency at a fundamental level; and that to my thinking at that level ideology is simply a tool requried of every insurgency, and selected for its utility in rallying the populace to the cause, while at the same time taking positions that the sitting government was either unable or unwilling to adopt. But that a wise insurgent would discard any ideology that either failed to rally the populace or that was compormised by the counterinsurgent; and pick a new one to continue on to his political ends. That religion was used so often simply because it works.

It also works for expanding colonialism around the globe (be it christian or Muslim, or whatever); and for conventional warfare as well. The ultimate multi-tool.

Bob's World, Marx kinda thought the same way as you. Find a contradiction between the classes and exploit it (propaganda) until you create an armed conflict.

Steve

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I have mouths to feed is a pretty standard human motivator even if some of the nuances change.

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I'll say it's a full universalism in the Levis Strauss sense of the term. We all live on that.
My point was rather than religion will give you a color but environment will be a strong determinant in the way you build a society. At little as Montesquieu (If I do not mistake) definition of environment influence on society. Or object anthropology in some extend. Those people are managing risks and environmental insecurity. Sometime my field approach is closer to US anthropology than French one.

Mike,

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An extreme example would be an all-encompassing dictatorship which ignores all external constraints - a North Korea on steroids - where one man calls all of the shots in all three rings >>> a single ring. Again, that construct would be theoretical, not real.

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As usual you dragging us back to reallity. In some extend, Mugabe is close to North Korea on Steroids. What we witness is the capacity of a man to virtually control everything and when it's not working (Like the ZAPU or MDC) just manage to get them included in his machine.
Zim has changed but when I was there, military, judiciary, political powers were all in his hands openly or through underground grovernment. He even tried (and almost succeded) to get his hands on economy. Bob (Mugabe) had almost the capacity to terrorise anyone, even the vice president and the head of security departments.
But he was no religious. Or, as some may say ;), he was religious has he is a hardcore communist.

In the process of Nation Building as we do implement it, I see more and more room for a single ring society controled by a party and not a man.

For all the talk about religion and tribes, I know they were underlying factors---as were clans, families--- but if you looked at a lot of what the Kurds, for example, were focused on, it was almost purely political/administrative in nature---shifting political and voter balance one nahia at a time.

That conveys a very sophisticated and highly directed administrative and political understanding.

What were the reactionaries doing? Mostly focused on disruption of economic and infrastructure systems.

Was their affiliation and focus religious in nature? No. It was administrative/political.

By contrast, I am trying to follow the events in the many Afghanistans to understand the nature and purpose of the different actors.

At the risk of over simplification:

At present, the national government seems to be focused on controlling the structure and direction of international aid flows, and does so with support/cooperation of drug manufacturing/distribution systems; which have grown to become some of the largest in the world. I'm not reading a lot of religious zeal behind that.

A lot of knowledgeable people have described the various opponents as (1) competing sets of organized opposition whose internal differences are not marked by religion; (2.) an overall diminished focus on harsh religion (Sharia) to the extent that it reduced public support; and (3.) an overall and very sharply focused administrative/political purpose, including the targeting of elections, the appointment of shadow governments, and the "exercise" of power in areas like RoL, security assurance, and economic activity flows.

OK, Mullah Omar has, behind all this, a religious intent, but the focus, ways and means, all seem overwhelmingly driven by administrative/political purpose.

If I was just a dumb political strategist, I would think about what I can control, and what isn't worth the effort right now.

Leaving the central government and its drug systems aside for a moment, can I, through intimidation and asymetrical efforts, gain credible administrative/political control in other areas?

If I launch a "nationwide campaign," say through shadow government, can i define the scope of my support in different areas, and, from that, develop the next plan for, say, a spring push to consolidate gains?

If I avoid the central cities, but establish sufficient functional control of regions, corridors, etc..., do I have everything I need at this stage, to lay the foundation for the next?

Maybe also, through skillful negotiation and profitable business arrangements, I can prosperously co-op the drug folks, and/or partner with them so we can all work together (even if my religious convictions abhor drugs)?

One of my big assets, unlike my opponents, is that I can pop-up at will (since I am not burdened by their administrative/political/security baggage, and, I have no regard for the "democratic" effort to win their hearts and minds. If my stick is big enough (civilian deaths), they will side with me out of fear vs. free choice (Who cares?).

Besides, I am a stateless person anyway, as my Pashtun lands (the real Afghanistan) were long ago, and arbitrarily carved up by the big powers who play the big game over our heads (Who cares about their versions of nations and power structures anyway?).

Moreover, the arbitrary national lines are a substantial asset to my operational strengths as my associations, allegiances and lines of operation are beyond them, while they pose major constraints on my opponents.

Despite my religious opposition to these technically sophisticated and amoral foreigners, I will also use technology where ever I can if it works for me. Streaming video, pop music, Drone feeds, GoogleEarth, etc...

But, because I am much more like one of the people, it is very easy to use their backwardness and distrust of foreigners and new things as a wedge between us. I'll even pull out the Quran card if I have to, and blame the peoples' deaths on the inevitable and holy struggle against the infidel foreigners. (It seems to work well).

XXXX

Again, a great generalization that could be 180 degrees different in any particular place, but, like Iraq, I see a great deal of administrative/political purpose, and not a lot of religion going on.

Now, if I was serious about undermining that, I would not have religious intents, just a huge respect for the role of religion in those people's lives, and try to fit my efforts into their frameworks and narratives.

But my focus would be the same as theirs--administrative/political/economic. And max out the use of technology and education.

Two bits on religion in this conflict.

MA:

this:

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from MA
In the process of Nation Building as we do implement it, I see more and more room for a single ring society controled by a party and not a man.

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but, even in SovCom and ChiCom governance, you can distinguish between the Dip/Pol, Law and Op rings. Though the Politburo, legal system and military were all supposed to be based on Communist party principles, each had their own take on how those principles should be applied in their particular arena.

No doubt Communist principles shaped all three rings; but again those principles had to yield to reality. For example, in law, two areas were never resolved during the SovCom era: (1) International law is primarily based on nation-state interaction; whereas Marxist-Leninist theory calls for the "withering away" of the State; and (2) Russian legal history (actual) proved that the development of property law and contract law arose from individual transactions; whereas Marxist-Leninist historical theory called for a "primitive communism" in both property and contracts.

The Putin-Ivanov duo (both lawyers) dumped Marxist-Leninist theory in both of these areas, but not in others - their own synthesis, so to speak.

I certainly do agree that autocracy (whether by one person or one party) remains with us; particularly in unstable societies, because it is the quickest short-term way to get things done - and also satisfies the egos and greed of the one person or members of the one party.

An interesting fact is that a strong autocracy (with an effective state security service) is as (or slightly more) strong against insurgencies than a strong democracy. The strong autocracy can be established with a generation; a strong democracy takes generations. Since we like to see our desires implemented within our own lifetimes (not too many real futruists out there), you can see why "nation-builders" tend to autocracy.

COL Jones:

It is much easier for autocratic "nation-builders" to use religion (or other strong ideologies) in furthering their goals. As Bob says:

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from BW
That the goal of my work was to delve past these environmentals and attempt to get to the pure essence of insurgency at a fundamental level; and that to my thinking at that level ideology is simply a tool requried of every insurgency, and selected for its utility in rallying the populace to the cause, while at the same time taking positions that the sitting government was either unable or unwilling to adopt. But that a wise insurgent would discard any ideology that either failed to rally the populace or that was compormised by the counterinsurgent; and pick a new one to continue on to his political ends.

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I would call this "manipulation of the slogan" (rather than "manipulation of the ideology") because often the proponent of the slogan has either no real ideology; or, more important, a different underlying ideology than the slogan that is used and discarded.

E.g., Mao and the ChiComs used many slogans (in their "from the people, back to the people" agitprop campaigns). But, their brand of Marxist-Leninist ideology did not change. Dave Galula goes into this briefly in his section on "Manipulation of the Cause" (Mao is the example). John McCuen goes into more detail in many places.

I conclude, Marse Robert, that you and I use different terminology for many of the same things - which is why you drive me up a wall. :D

Regards

Mike

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Originally Posted by jmm99

The Putin-Ivanov duo (both lawyers) dumped Marxist-Leninist theory in both of these areas, but not in others - their own synthesis, so to speak.

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Yep, this where I believe people are starting to get the idea of Corporate Communism. It can be powerful stuff to.....Tali-Bankster Board of Directors with Nazi CEO's:eek:

Mike,

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An interesting fact is that a strong autocracy (with an effective state security service) is as (or slightly more) strong against insurgencies than a strong democracy. The strong autocracy can be established with a generation; a strong democracy takes generations. Since we like to see our desires implemented within our own lifetimes (not too many real futruists out there), you can see why "nation-builders" tend to autocracy.

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You are right, we are in the process of supporting and creating "sustainable dictatorship" (Have to develop the concept with a friend who created the slogan). But somehow I stay an idealist and would like to build real nations based on a real democratic process. I would say a purely political process which is neither linked with religion nor with economy (why a socialist regime could not be democratic. I said socialist in the european way, not communist).

Enlighted authocracies have been put in place in West Africa by the French in the 60 and 70 for the same reasons as USA does it nowadays in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am not sure that it was a success: look at Ivory Coast and the use of nationalisn and religion to fuel the civil war. Mugabe mantra on the Brits are colonising us convince only him in Zim... Not even talking about Darfur and the pseudo muslim/christian animist/arab/african war.

I would be even worst than you, the problem of Nation Building (the all in one solution/plug and play of COIN) is that some would like to see it happen in the duration of a presidential mandat, 2 max.
The problem is certainly there in the first place.

M-A
PS: in my job, we are not smart enough to do intelligence, we do information gazering...:rolleyes:

I finally got a day off from work to read this paper (gracias to marct for e-mailing it to me) and I thought I'd just put out some of my observations as a Scholar of Religious Studies, but first a wee rant.

[rant on]
I did read the FM 3-24 not too long ago and I was somewhat surprised that religion/religious violence was glossed over. It seemed to be an awfully big disconnect- at least from my perspective. We're fighting a global religious insurgency and it gets passed by? It's one thing to say, "This is important, but it's out of the scope of our current study. Someone else with more funding needs to study it." vs "We're not sure what to do with it, because we're not really sure what it is, so we're gonna sweep it under the rug."

I found Kilcullen's statement against the critics who are falling for "the propaganda of the munafiquun" to be short-sighted, and frankly ignorant. No one likes it when their baby- I mean book, gets ripped on, but such is life. If you can't handle a critique of your work by peers, then a life as an academic was not a wise choice, Doctor.

You're dealing with an enemy that is banking on your ignorance of their religion. An Intro to Islam class and a few courses on the political/ethnic realities in the Middle East isn't cutting it. There are tens of thousands of perfectly reputable scholars of Religion in this country. I know some who tried for months to get involved in HTT's and were told their degree in Religious/Islamic Studies wasn't relevant. "They" wanted Anthropologists. Now, let me be clear here. I am not saying Anthropologists are not useful in this fight (someone has to do statistics and be anal about methodology :D) or that they are incapable of doing research on religion, but when Big Brother is turning away people with in depth knowledge on Islam- there is a big, big problem. Hell, if I got a call tomorrow that said, "Hey, you wanna go to Afghanistan and be on a HTT?" I'd put the Corps on hold and go.
[rant off]

Okay, now that I got that off my chest.

Lauder's article was fairly solid. One thing I didn't really agree with him on was his term "violent new religious movements". I would argue that there is nothing 'new' about these movements. They've been around for a very long time in one form or another. At one point early on when referring to Mircea Eliade on time, Lauder explains these insurgencies simmer for decades or centuries, and he is very correct. This current bout of religious violence in the Middle East has been simmering for roughly 200 years and calls of jihad have been fairly cyclical throughout. Many of these 'new' groups legitimize themselves by creating a link between their current efforts and those in the sacred, or mythologized (for those of you who dig Foucault) past. In other words, revival is a very big deal. There is this belief in Islamic thought that the best and most true Muslims existed in the first couple generations under the Rashidun (a.k.a. Rightly Guided Caliphs. The further you move away from that point in time, the more corrupt things become and the true believers must act to save the world. While all religions have some concept of this floating through, in the Abrahamic traditions periods of revival are often accompanied by violence. Ya know, gotta purge those bad influences before the Judgement Day rolls around.

One thing that I thought Lauder brought up that made me happy was the concept of the violence as an act of ritual performance (yay for Juergensmeyer). It really provides an insight into what we're up against and taps into Eliade's notion of the sacred and profane and is explained more on page 16. Defeat isn't defeat. It's a trial by God to see who is truly devout. Death isn't Death. It's a spiritual victory over the unbelievers and apostates. We're dealing with people who have totally rejected or have no concept of secularism. Treating them and this situation like just another political/ethnic insurgencies is like pouring water on a grease fire and demonstrates that we just don't get it. What happened to reading Sun Tzu's Art of War and knowing your enemy?

Great minds run in the same channels :) - as I was thinking of the Chinese Sun guy:

Quote:

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Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle.
—Sun Tzu

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before I got to the last sentence of this:

Quote:

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from graphei
What happened to reading Sun Tzu's Art of War and knowing your enemy?

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Perhaps, more people should invest some time in the Al Qaeda Reader ?

I wouldn't be in too much hurry to rush off to war, especially this one. It will be around for a long time. And, there is always room for "scholarly" Marine officers (even though they won't admit to that :) - hey, PBear ;)). One of them (Sam Griffith) gave me and others basic introductions to Sun and Mao with his translations from the early 60s.

Regards

Mike

Graphei:

"I am not saying Anthropologists are not useful in this fight (someone has to do statistics and be anal about methodology ) or that they are incapable of doing research on religion, but when Big Brother is turning away people with in depth knowledge on Islam- there is a big, big problem. Hell, if I got a call tomorrow that said, "Hey, you wanna go to Afghanistan and be on a HTT?" I'd put the Corps on hold and go.
[rant off]"

Wrong. Demographers, economists, financial managers and engineers do statistics. Anthropologists do...

As you will find when you get to some field somewhere, what MG Flynn reported is correct. You will be called to some VTC where all the experts are going to answer all your questions---and they have no clue.

You will be the one making the difference (and sometimes your battle will be with US, not THEM, to make the biggest difference).

It is a very gratifying experience to do a few times, but after a while, you relish and take comfort from some of the careers' worth of experiences from some of the folks on this Board to remember that these are the "routine" challenges to be overcome in any big endeavor. (We could be havimng the same organizational discussion at Harvard Business School about corporate activities, too).

It is not about right, wrong or woulda-coulda-shoulda, but what we are doing today and tomorrow that will create the final cumulative history.

What was that speech by Gates in 2008---it is the ones who break the mold that are responsible for the biggest historical successes and defining events. (Something like that).

Steve

Steve, the reason I included statistics in that was based off some of the 'ideal' traits listed for members of HTTs, and applied anthro has a certain amount of number crunching involved. I'm not saying Social Scientists shouldn't have a role or that they aren't valuable, it was more of a "Think outside the bun".

Quote:

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It is not about right, wrong or woulda-coulda-shoulda, but what we are doing today and tomorrow that will create the final cumulative history.

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What good is today and tomorrow if we can't see beyond yesterday?

Mike- The frustration that my colleagues and I feel is this: we're the missing piece of the puzzle, but they have deemed us 'irrelevant'.

Cheers,

Graphei

I was at a CNP roundtable on PRTs on Monday.

The presenter from the State Department's S/CRS was explaining about the "fuzzy" and evolving approach to PRTs by State. He explained that for Afghanistan, they had recruited every possible civilian available, were peaked out, and running full, but that the folks they deploy typically take six months to get up to speed.

The congressional aides were criticizing that approach as ineffective, and there were several in-your-face HASC type aides with knives drawn (and bloody) about nation-building stuff in general.

I asked a dumb question about staffing. Why, unlike Iraq where they recruited subject matter experts, had they limited themselves to governance generalists with foreign policy/poli sci backgrounds when the issues were subject matter-based?

If the folks they were hiring and deploying were taking six months to become productive (on a six month or one year tour), why not recruit/deploy people who were skilled and properly deployed/supported to become more effective, faster? Why not train them more stateside so they were ready to be more productive when they hit the ground?

All I could think about was the burden, security and logistics resulting from that deployment strategy, and how, after 2 years and some $100 million, S/CRS has, to date, produced only a new bureaucracy further staffed by non-professionals, and has on its guidon only a few scattered short-term exercises.

All of that, of course, became irrelevant with Haiti, which S/CRS is intended to be optimized for (Tsumanis, etc..). Within hours, though, General Honore was on the tube, and it was clear that the military needed to take over.

S/CRS's final exam probably started with Haiti. If they aren't the be-all-end-all in that crisis, and the military (again) has to do it all (again), their future is on the line at Congress (like HT).

Of course, one of the main reasons for keeping State out of post-conflict reconstruction would be that they have an important role in those Tsunamis and Earthquakes, and you can't just set aside a war to chase another crisis in another place. What are they going to do, reassign their Afghan staff to Haiti? Will it take them six months to become effective?

Unfortunately, like post-conflict reconstruction, Human Terrain is an important part of the toolkit. But these backoffice bureaucracies have a lot of obstacles between what they are doing and what is needed.

Steve

If this is Plan A and it is blocked (your judgment call):

Quote:

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from graphei
The frustration that my colleagues and I feel is this: we're the missing piece of the puzzle, but they have deemed us 'irrelevant'.

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then you go to Plan B, etc.

BTW: IMO - AQ is waging unconventional warfare vs us (US) and others on a global scale; in which, AQ support to insurgencies in various countries is only one of its tools. It is not a "global insurgency" (nor can that construct exist until we have a global government :eek:).

Best

Mike

Hi Graphei,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

I finally got a day off from work to read this paper (gracias to marct for e-mailing it to me) and I thought I'd just put out some of my observations as a Scholar of Religious Studies, but first a wee rant.

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Oooh! We get to RANT?!?! (too bad there's no "evil grin")

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

I did read the FM 3-24 not too long ago and I was somewhat surprised that religion/religious violence was glossed over. It seemed to be an awfully big disconnect- at least from my perspective. We're fighting a global religious insurgency and it gets passed by? It's one thing to say, "This is important, but it's out of the scope of our current study. Someone else with more funding needs to study it." vs "We're not sure what to do with it, because we're not really sure what it is, so we're gonna sweep it under the rug."

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You should have seen my comments on another piece of draft doctrine on how they defined "religion". All I can say is that the level of ignorance of religious studies is deafening.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

You're dealing with an enemy that is banking on your ignorance of their religion. An Intro to Islam class and a few courses on the political/ethnic realities in the Middle East isn't cutting it.

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Yup. Personally, I don't think there's much chance of understanding even 5% of the symbolic motivation unless you have at the minimum read al-Ghazali (who crops up in the weirdest places!).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

There are tens of thousands of perfectly reputable scholars of Religion in this country. I know some who tried for months to get involved in HTT's and were told their degree in Religious/Islamic Studies wasn't relevant.

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Well, don't you folks just sit around reading moldy scrolls :eek:?!?! Yeah, I know what you mean.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

"They" wanted Anthropologists. Now, let me be clear here. I am not saying Anthropologists are not useful in this fight (someone has to do statistics and be anal about methodology :D) or that they are incapable of doing research on religion, but when Big Brother is turning away people with in depth knowledge on Islam- there is a big, big problem. Hell, if I got a call tomorrow that said, "Hey, you wanna go to Afghanistan and be on a HTT?" I'd put the Corps on hold and go.

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First, we don't do statistics - that's what MA sociologists are for ;). That being said, the "we" I was referring to is cultural Anthropologists, and there actually aren't that many in the HTS. This, BTW, isn't a slam at the HTS, it's a slam at the hiring policies which, IMHO, are .... well, I can't say that in a public forum.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

Lauder's article was fairly solid. One thing I didn't really agree with him on was his term "violent new religious movements". I would argue that there is nothing 'new' about these movements. They've been around for a very long time in one form or another.

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Yup - the Fraticelli come to mind immediately for me at least, as do the sicarii and the Zealots. There are hundreds of other examples all older than 500 years.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

At one point early on when referring to Mircea Eliade on time, Lauder explains these insurgencies simmer for decades or centuries, and he is very correct. This current bout of religious violence in the Middle East has been simmering for roughly 200 years and calls of jihad have been fairly cyclical throughout. Many of these 'new' groups legitimize themselves by creating a link between their current efforts and those in the sacred, or mythologized (for those of you who dig Foucault) past. In other words, revival is a very big deal.

---

Personally, I dislike Foucault ;). Even leaving him aside, Elide's concept of in illo tempore ties in more closely with the symbolization they are using which, BTW, is why I mentioned in my email that Matt should have used the concept of Revitalization Movements. Don't need no Foucault to go there....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

There is this belief in Islamic thought that the best and most true Muslims existed in the first couple generations under the Rashidun (a.k.a. Rightly Guided Caliphs. The further you move away from that point in time, the more corrupt things become and the true believers must act to save the world. While all religions have some concept of this floating through, in the Abrahamic traditions periods of revival are often accompanied by violence. Ya know, gotta purge those bad influences before the Judgement Day rolls around.

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Yup, degenerationism is a key concept in all of them (including classic Marxism) followed by a radical purging leading to an inevitable salvation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by graphei

One thing that I thought Lauder brought up that made me happy was the concept of the violence as an act of ritual performance (yay for Juergensmeyer). It really provides an insight into what we're up against and taps into Eliade's notion of the sacred and profane and is explained more on page 16. Defeat isn't defeat. It's a trial by God to see who is truly devout. Death isn't Death. It's a spiritual victory over the unbelievers and apostates. We're dealing with people who have totally rejected or have no concept of secularism. Treating them and this situation like just another political/ethnic insurgencies is like pouring water on a grease fire and demonstrates that we just don't get it. What happened to reading Sun Tzu's Art of War and knowing your enemy?

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We see that it a fair bit of the ethnographic literature as well. Some of it is also tied up in the concept of blood sacrifice as a way to ritually purify an event-space. Or, to put it another way

Quote:

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Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius

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Personally, I dislike Foucault ;).

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Personnaly I don't like Foucault neither :rolleyes:, it's borring to read and extremely not well written, even in French. But it is usefull just to explain "our" approach of security and understand what western societies are waiting from secular state in term of security.
I still think that Foucault pointed out what is the western paradigm of security. :rolleyes:

Quote:

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It's a spiritual victory over the unbelievers and apostates. We're dealing with people who have totally rejected or have no concept of secularism. graphei

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It's untrue. Even if I did tease JMM on that point, there is a fondation of securlar state in most of the Muslim societies I have been working in, even in Somalia: the clan.
Then I would just throw you the Al Nadha periode or muslim renaissance which had for aim, for the muslims (the Sudanese and Egyptian in first place) to accaparate the tools of the british: education.
Not being a specialis of Afghanistan I cannot tel but the the actual Muslim Brotherhood is a deviance of the first Muslim Brotherhood. Understanding the effort of people as Taliban and reducing them to a banch of men who are just martian compare to us is, I think, dangerous. It is forgetting that they know or thing they know West and in deed had a lot of contact with us. They pretty good empiric cultural anthropologists in deed.

Somali pirates have been trained by western private security societies to secure boats before turning themselves to piratrie. And when I was in Somalia, they reminded me the old fation european barbarian with their f@%$#*&! honnor.

Talking of the religion, I agree with Marct that it is difficult to understand the symbolic dimension of sef destruction acts. But I would not make it a matrix to analyse Islam but rather a very specific minority of Muslims.
Madam, I think it's time for you to go on the field and face the great big world and all its contradictions. ;).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marct

Hi Graphei,

Oooh! We get to RANT?!?! (too bad there's no "evil grin")

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Quote:

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You should have seen my comments on another piece of draft doctrine on how they defined "religion". All I can say is that the level of ignorance of religious studies is deafening.

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Please don't tell me it involved the words 'worldview' or 'life philosophy'.

Quote:

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Personally, I don't think there's much chance of understanding even 5% of the symbolic motivation unless you have at the minimum read al-Ghazali (who crops up in the weirdest places!).

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Ghazali does crop up in weird places and I think it's because of his sufi-ness. There is a very big part of me that thinks this current snafu is a ripple from the Ash'ariyaa/Mu'tazila debacle, the gates of ijtihad being declared 'closed' and no one reading Ibn Rushd because they all fell in love with al-Ghazali.

Quote:

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Well, don't you folks just sit around reading moldy scrolls :eek:?!?!

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Nope, we lick them and stick them on our foreheads. Mold induced osmosis/hallucinations are all the rage.

Quote:

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First, we don't do statistics - that's what MA sociologists are for ;). That being said, the "we" I was referring to is cultural Anthropologists, and there actually aren't that many in the HTS. This, BTW, isn't a slam at the HTS, it's a slam at the hiring policies which, IMHO, are .... well, I can't say that in a public forum.

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Then please tell me what on God's green Earth applied anthropology is! My hunch is that it's the bastard child of anthropology and sociology...

Quote:

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Personally, I dislike Foucault ;). Even leaving him aside, Elide's concept of in illo tempore ties in more closely with the symbolization they are using which, BTW, is why I mentioned in my email that Matt should have used the concept of Revitalization Movements. Don't need no Foucault to go there....

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Interesting. It's been awhile since i've read Wallace, but a little bit of me is concerned with bring up revitalization/revival in a non-Christian context. I dragged Foucault in because of his connection between mythology and power. Otherwise, I'm lukewarm on French theorists. I'm a Gadamerian girl ;)


Cheers,

Graphei

My Dear Sir, Lagrange,

I would hardly call clans in that area of the world wholly secular, either. Customs regarding kinship relations are have long been reinforced by Shari'ah throughout the Islamic world, although there can be deviance in practice along cultural lines, downplaying the role religion plays is simply not accurate :)

The Muslim Brotherhood in Afghanistan is an offshoot of the one in Egypt, and if my memory serves me correctly the one in Afghanistan was established to combat the Soviet invasion and the secularism of Communism, which leads me to my next point. Please allow me to clarify my statement about Islamic rejection of secularism. It is not a reductionist statement attempting to cast them as wholly Other to us. Rather, it was meant to describe the virtually universal belief among Islamists that secularism erodes the foundation and morals of an Islamic society and must be eradicated. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood and every other Islamist movement in existence is the polar opposite of secularism. They flat out reject it and compromising with secularism is considered shirk because it is compromising on Islam. When farmers in the field of Afghanistan say "I want an Islamic government and Shari'ah" that says it all. When street vendors in Egypt say "Democracy is not an Islamic concept and constitutes bid'ah" what are you going to do, tell them they're casting themselves as Other? My statement was not intended to brand them as alien, intellectually inferior, or have any other pejorative connotation. It was describing a belief that many Muslims hold. In sum, my statement was descriptive rather than normative.

Now, the statement about the matrix. The problem is that minority of Muslims are drawing from the entire framework of Islam, and how can you know what they are altering without knowing the framework and placing them in it? While I wouldn't recommend those unfamiliar with religion tinkering with such things, it's what us scholars of religion do.

I would love to go out in the 'field' and face the world with all of its contradictions, but being neither funded or independently wealthy, I did the best with what I had, took out more loans than was probably wise to, moved to London for a year, and lived with Pakistanis, Afghans, Iraqis, and Saudi Arabians, Iranians, Moroccans, Algerians, and Egyptians- among others. I cannot even begin to tell you the lessons I learned by sitting back and observing how different groups interacted with each other that flew in the face of what was written in a book. However, if there is anyone here that would take me along for the ride and fund me to do actual field research, I'd gladly dust off my boots and go.

Now, let me clarify global insurgency. The Muslim 'ummah (community) does not recognize national boundaries per se. Regardless where they came from, all were part of the dar al-Islam (lit. The House of Submission) and the greater Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Muslims. That is what al-Qaeda and other international groups attempt to tap into especially when they posit us as dar al-Harb (lit. The House of War) where jihad is permitted. While neither dar al-Islam/Harb is mentioned in the Qur'an or Hadith, both appear early on in the fiqh as Islamic rulers sought to justify their expansion theologically.

Cheers,

Graphei

with this:

Quote:

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from graphei
Now, let me clarify global insurgency. The Muslim 'ummah (community) does not recognize national boundaries per se. Regardless where they came from, all were part of the dar al-Islam (lit. The House of Submission) and the greater Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Muslims. That is what al-Qaeda and other international groups attempt to tap into especially when they posit us as dar al-Harb (lit. The House of War) where jihad is permitted. While neither dar al-Islam/Harb is mentioned in the Qur'an or Hadith, both appear early on in the fiqh as Islamic rulers sought to justify their expansion theologically.

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Keep the "global" and take away "insurgency" and put it on its own special shelf as part of the toolkit.

The modern roadmap for a merger of the concepts of defensive jihad and offensive jihad began with Maududi (Jihad in Islam) in the late 1930s, setting out the need for both the political struggle (appropriately merged with religion - which is dominant) and the military struggle.

He recognized the unity of all Muslims globally as an end goal, despite the backsliding of most of them in his terms.

He also recognized the oil spot concept in using both struggles to create a Salafist governance in one area and spread out from there (not necessarily contiguously).

In his eyes, the Muslim House was corrupt and had to be restored to a pure Salafist state of affairs. To do that, a transnational effort would be needed - in effect waging unconventional warfare using many tools (including support of local insurgencies). That being successful, the Muslim military forces would include both unconventional and conventional elements

After that task is completed, the Non-Muslim House would be brought into the fold - as it is written. The military operations against it would include both unconventional and conventional forces. Victory would ensue from a juncture of the conventional forces attacking from the Muslim House and its unconventional forces operating in the non-Muslim House.

Basically, the "Comintern Plan" + a very strong input of religion.

Regards

Mike

I feel like I have learned more from the past five or so posts than I have at anything in the last month or two. The brain stretching is really valuable.

Thanks for all of you pushing each other hard.

Don't stop now.

Steve

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmm99

with this:



Keep the "global" and take away "insurgency" and put it on its own special shelf as part of the toolkit.

The modern roadmap for a merger of the concepts of defensive jihad and offensive jihad began with Maududi (Jihad in Islam) in the late 1930s, setting out the need for both the political struggle (appropriately merged with religion - which is dominant) and the military struggle.

He recognized the unity of all Muslims globally as an end goal, despite the backsliding of most of them in his terms.

He also recognized the oil spot concept in using both struggles to create a Salafist governance in one area and spread out from there (not necessarily contiguously).

In his eyes, the Muslim House was corrupt and had to be restored to a pure Salafist state of affairs. To do that, a transnational effort would be needed - in effect waging unconventional warfare using many tools (including support of local insurgencies). That being successful, the Muslim military forces would include both unconventional and conventional elements

After that task is completed, the Non-Muslim House would be brought into the fold - as it is written. The military operations against it would include both unconventional and conventional forces. Victory would ensue from a juncture of the conventional forces attacking from the Muslim House and its unconventional forces operating in the non-Muslim House.

Basically, the "Comintern Plan" + a very strong input of religion.

Regards

Mike

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But I also think they are not what we in the West need to obsess on.

Everytime in history that the Muslim Ummah has come together and torn apart, it has been at swordpoint. Muslim swords building the Caliphate, and Muslim Swords doing much of taking it apart as well.

This is the bright red cape that Bin Laden the Matador would love for you to fixate on and to expend your great sthength in the pursuit of, as he deals us a slow death of a 1000 cuts in the process.

Certainly people in the midldle east look at governance and states very differently than people in the West do. Certainly religion is at the core of governance in Muslim communities. Certainly Muslims seek more to be able to achieve their duty to god than their duty to self than Westerners do.

So, when Muslims seek "self-determination" it is a very different thing that they seek and different motivations that will encourage them to seek it than in the West.

What is seen as Despotism in one society may be seen as enlightened in another. To each their own.

I think the West needs to reflect on how much control we have exerted over the people and governance of the Middle East over the past few hundred years and focus our energies less on how we can keep things there as they are; but rather on how we can enable a relatively peaceful evolution to what they should be. On their terms. Sustain the Ends of our national interests, but take a long hard look at the Ways and Means that have been seen as successful over the years.

The differences in our cultures mean that "right" will look different for them than for us. That's OK.

Them thinking that we are an obstacle to them gettng to "right" is not OK.

When one's state department is more focused on developing CT and COIN capabilities than on developing effective foreign policy and diplomacy, that is a metric that you might be off course.

When the majority of one's military is not in deterrence missions and preparing for war, but is out enforcing foreign policy, that is a metric that you might be off course.

Not saying that we're off course, just that we might be...

Dear Madam Graphei

First of all, do not worry; I am sure you will go on field. We all started by being academic before being field people. :)

My use of the words "secular state" to qualify the clan organization (mainly in Somalia) is not the proper term as per say. I agree on that. My point being that the clans, despite having a religious backbone, are a, if I can say so, a universal human organizations/societies primal level. In all places I have been to (Christian/Animist/Muslim…) have the clan as the very core root of people organization to survive. In places like Somalia or Afghanistan where the formal State (as we describe it) has failed, the clans are the same as "villages" in Liberia between 1989 and 2004 or in remote places in DRC or tribes in Chad. It is the smallest structure of human organization. (The term village is abusive also for Liberia and DRC but here I am touching the boundaries of my scholar English).
As Steve reminded us all, the basic rule is: I need to live and feed my family.
In fact, in many places, you can basically witness what I would call the Nietzschean aurora in action.
The construction of organized societies for their self preservation: the defense of the core group of the extended family or what could feet in the classical definition of an ethnic group/tribe: the people with a common ancestor or group of ancestors.
The religion role in politic in such remote places (may be am I wrong with Afghanistan) is a top up. All societies have religion (to respond to too many unsolved question, the first ones being why me and what am I doing here?) and, as Marx stated it, religion is a political body. It's all a question of power, survive but also determine what is right to wrong… Where I am, they all are Christian animist but it is Ok to kill the neighbor to stole his cows and get married. (Not sure the Catholic Church would support that.) But in order to survive and perpetrate the survival of the group, it is morally acceptable.
(Culture comparison has its limits and I accept it. All scholars' fire on me…)

In a practical approach, knowing religious leaders and their personal philosophy is helpful to understand the politic and sometime the military actions that go with. But it is not the only ingredient. Knowing the economic resources of this warlord and his family connections will most of the time be more useful, in a purely military approach. In a global approach, as in small wars per definition, knowing each gang chief religious background helps a lot to understand why he is doing so or against you and conduct diplomatic actions. But it is not enough. (See rule nb1).

Talking about the very complex notion of Jihad in Islam.
First, I would not translate Dar al Islam by the House of Submission (the literal translation) but by the House of God. The aim of Islam being to turn hearth into paradise, the land of God in reality. In opposition with the Christian aim that paradise is somewhere lost in the sky. (It is a little quick resume but it works by the way). The land of milk and honey is hearth after all humans have turned to Islam and Jesus comes back. (I like the farmer approach: 2 feet in the mud, simple explanations of complex intellectual stuff.)
Saying so, let's come back to the reality. Jihad is not only making war. You have the great and little Jihad. War is just part of the little Jihad. Humanitarian actions are part of the little Jihad. During Lebanon war, in 2006, I meet many Middle East guys who were on Jihad and were conducting humanitarian actions. They were performing both little and Great Jihad. Humanitarian actions were not perceived as war effort but as the duty of Muslim to help Human Being in danger (the Muslim first, Ok): this was their participation to the little Jihad. And also showing the world that Islam was all about compassion for those who suffer: this was their Great Jihad. You cannot exclude that the fact it was a war between Muslim and Israel was part of the equation but do not put it in first place of the analyze. On this, I would recommend the publications of Abdel-Rahman Ghandour.

But what I also witnessed is the political struggle between State, Saudi Arabia in first place, against "religious communities" as Hezbollah but also Sunni ones. The preservation of secular State legitimacy was high in the agenda of Middle East powers during that war.
Jihad is used as a political tool to challenge most of the secular States and basically contest the power of many autocrats in Middle East. You really have to integrate the Al Nadha ideology into the equation and also its complexities. Some apparently very radical Muslims are promoting both Burka and women education. Most of the radical Sunni organizations I have been working with are not challenging the world but challenging their national government.

In some extend, this radicalization of the opposition between secular and non secular State in Islam looks like the radicalization of the French Revolution against the Church and the King and its "Divine legitimacy". In the end, the Mullahs are a "problem" for the Checks. Power cannot be shared. So, in a military approach, you have to play on it.

Finally, knowing the enemy is a danger for most of the ideologist (on all sides). If you can understand the intellectual process of the enemy, then you start to question your legitimacy. This leads to internal chaos. :D

M-A
PS: keep on calling me Sir, this flater my revolutionary cultural ego ;)

Hi Graphei,

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Originally Posted by graphei

Please don't tell me it involved the words 'worldview' or 'life philosophy'.

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Got it in one; with added linguistic implications that it was all barbnarian superstition anyway since they weren't Christian.

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Originally Posted by graphei

Ghazali does crop up in weird places and I think it's because of his sufi-ness. There is a very big part of me that thinks this current snafu is a ripple from the Ash'ariyaa/Mu'tazila debacle, the gates of ijtihad being declared 'closed' and no one reading Ibn Rushd because they all fell in love with al-Ghazali.

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Could be. I remember taking a "course" on Islamic mysticism were the entire time was spent going through a single book of the ihya (the book on travel). Freakin' fascinating, although not my personal choice for mystical paths. Years later, i got into a discussion with one of my students who was Sudanese about the effects of al-Ghazali on Sudanese politics; she was stunned that I had not only heard of him, but also read most of his stuff that had been translated (my arabic reading level is slightly lower than 0).

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Originally Posted by graphei

Nope, we lick them and stick them on our foreheads. Mold induced osmosis/hallucinations are all the rage.

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Ah, THAT explains Elaine Pagels :D!

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Originally Posted by graphei

Then please tell me what on God's green Earth applied anthropology is! My hunch is that it's the bastard child of anthropology and sociology...

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Well, according to Wilson (1885), Sociology is a minor sub-discipline of Anthropology that got pretentions. More seriously, "applied Anthropology" is what we do when tenure track positions aren't available / desirable. It's a totally useless distinction that came about as a way of identifying the Anthropology that was practiced outside of the university (in theory, not practice). And, like most Anthropologists, we will grab any methodology or model that "works" and use it - after all, "Anthropology" is the science of humanity; which covers a lot of ground.

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Originally Posted by graphei

Interesting. It's been awhile since i've read Wallace, but a little bit of me is concerned with bring up revitalization/revival in a non-Christian context.

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I'm not particularly worried about bringing it up in a non-Christian context. then again, most of my fieldwork for my undergrad and MA was done with modern witches, and it's pretty hard to find a more diverse group of "revivalists" :D. More seriously, we do find a fair number of these groups operating in non-Christian contexts even if the terms used to describe the movement are, basically, "Christian". For example, and it's one of my favorites, the Zurvanite Heresy of the 2nd-5th centuries can actually be analyzed as a revitalization movement even though it involved a major, and radical, shift from mainstream Zoroastrianism.

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Originally Posted by graphei

I dragged Foucault in because of his connection between mythology and power. Otherwise, I'm lukewarm on French theorists. I'm a Gadamerian girl

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The myth that Foucault had power :D? Personally, I'm convinced that every generation or so, a bunch of French grad students get together, drink way too much vin ordinaire, and proceed to come up with a theory whose sole purpose is to confuse and frustrate the gullible anglophone world; Bourbaki comes to mind....

Personally, I tend to take a "pre-modernist" approach in most things. Find something that works and play with it ;).

Cheers,

Marc

Why on earth is anyone trying to differentiate Religion from Politics? Religion, in terms of a policy (what you wear, who you must worship etc) is Political. You can only have wars when you politics. Nothing else creates wars.
:mad:
What don't folks get?

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

Why on earth is anyone trying to differentiate Religion from Politics? Religion, in terms of a policy (what you wear, who you must worship etc) is Political. You can only have wars when you politics. Nothing else creates wars.
:mad:
What don't folks get?

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Wilf, it's a good point but I think the confusion is Politics are done by man whereas Religion is done by God using people as his vassals:eek: so it is harder to argue with God as opposed to a Politician. But you are right in that Religion is just man manipulating a population but supposedly with divine guidance given to a select few.

Hey, why I got you on the phone here is it true that it is immoral/illegal for A Jew to charge another Jew Interest on Money?

Okay, since I'm sure you were all pining for me while I was spending a day whopping ass at Mario Kart Wii, making snowmen, and generally being, to quote my 4 year old nephew, "The bestest auntie in the whole, wide Universe", I'll come play with you fine folks.

Anyway, what is religion? Here. I'll make it crystal clear. Religion is ...
You folks got that? Good. :)

One of my Professors of Religious Studies (Eliade was his advisor at Chicago during when he did his PhD) said that it is wrong to ask how many Christians or Hindus or Muslims there are in the world. It is much more accurate to ask how many Hinduisms, Christianities, and Islams there are because no two people believe in the exact same way.

Marc, when I hear definitions like that I weep the same kind of weep as when I'm trapped next to a televangelist follower on a 7+ hour flight who has figured out I study religion based upon my books. As far as Ghazali goes, I can take or leave him.

jmm, it is clear now. I completely missed the bus and thought you wanted to keep insurgency and remove global. Much confusion on my part. Wax on. Wax off.

Monsieur Lagrange,

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Finally, knowing the enemy is a danger for most of the ideologist (on all sides). If you can understand the intellectual process of the enemy, then you start to question your legitimacy. This leads to internal chaos.

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Quoi? Legitimacy in what sense?

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In a practical approach, knowing religious leaders and their personal philosophy is helpful to understand the politic and sometime the military actions that go with. But it is not the only ingredient. Knowing the economic resources of this warlord and his family connections will most of the time be more useful, in a purely military approach. In a global approach, as in small wars per definition, knowing each gang chief religious background helps a lot to understand why he is doing so or against you and conduct diplomatic actions. But it is not enough.

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I agree with you on many points. My issue is that when dealing with religion, it's effect is often greater than the sum of its parts. It is not the only thing going on behind the scenes, but when things start getting done in the name of God- little red flags need to go up because . People tend to ignore/dismiss/downplay the role religion has in current affairs. In 2000, one magazine cover declared religion dead. It's something you do at home. In other parts of the world, it is a mode of being.

In regards to the greater and lesser jihad. While there is a hadith that floats around where those terms came from, it contradicts a few verses in the Qur'an on the same matter. I'm not sure how that hadith checks out in terms of accuracy, but I might be able to get ahold of the 'isnad and check it that way. In sum, the jury is out theologically.

In terms of some radical Muslims wanting the burqa and women's education, I don't see what the big deal is. Many of Muhammad's wives were literate, Khadijah ran her own freakin' business for crying out loud, and all were modest to the nth. Who knows, maybe those groups spent a lot of time reading the sunnah? yes i know wishful thinking on my part, but the prophetic example is there.

Alright- I'm off to bed so I can catch a few precious zzz's before a 4 year old boy comes springing on my bed at 5:30 for cereal :wry:

Cheers,

Graphei

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Originally Posted by slapout9

Hey, why I got you on the phone here is it true that it is immoral/illegal for A Jew to charge another Jew Interest on Money?

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Immoral or illegal??? Never heard that one, but there's a very active banking industry here in Israel.... :) - with a lot of religious folks working in it - so it's probably moral if done in a moral way = sensible rates.

Graphei,

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Quoi? Legitimacy in what sense?

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Well, you just question the moral legitimacy of your action. People start to wonder: am I right, is that right to do what I am doing, does god/gods allow what I am doing… just questioning the moral legitimacy of your action and that's basically what politicians (politic and religious leaders) do not want.
The only real defense then becomes: you're different so you cannot understand. Basically turning to "obscurantisme" (in French in the text).
If you do not understand you enemy that means he is wrong because normal people do think like you. Once again, back to Foucault and the dictatorship of the Norm. See Deleuse also on this. Some interesting thoughts on Culture as a weapon and tool to diffuse American way of life as the unique Norm in Atlani-Duault too.

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In terms of some radical Muslims wanting the burqa and women's education, I don't see what the big deal is. Many of Muhammad's wives were literate

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Most of the educated Muslim I know would say that Jihad is first the internal war in each man against his evil side. But as you say, there is almost as many Islam as there is Muslims. I am met people who were qualifying them selves as "the slaves of Allah" and pushing to have men and women equality. (You find the same crazy way of thinking with Christians. I know doctors who will tell you that AIDS is "a plague that God sent on earth to eliminate the sinful"…)
Khomeiny was saying that Human Rights were a western creation and therefore could not be applied in Muslim world. Unfortunately, Islam promoted women rights long before the Man and Citizen Rights declaration (which addressed only male rights at the very beginning by the way).
My point was just to point some contradictions you encounter. Religious text are a base but they are also interpreted. And with Sunny Islam, what complicates all is the fact that any Mullah can come with his personal interpretation. Sufi from West Africa are far away from Sufi from Turkey who are not that close with Sufi from Sudan…

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In regards to the greater and lesser jihad. While there is a hadith that floats around where those terms came from, it contradicts a few verses in the Qur'an on the same matter. I'm not sure how that hadith checks out in terms of accuracy, but I might be able to get ahold of the 'isnad and check it that way. In sum, the jury is out theologically.

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I am not qualified enough to say if you're wrong or right. All I know is that Jihad is not just making war in a literal sense of the term, what ever surate/verses/hadith may say.
My point was just to say that reducing Jihad to a "Crusade" (a military operation legitimated by a religious end and conducted according a religious policy) is too restrictive.
Focusing on lesser Jihad leaves room to "obscuratisme" and the basic argument: you cannot understand.
Taking Jihad as a whole and having an intellectual understanding of it (imperfect and with limits) reinforce your position and the legitimacy of your arguments. But you need to know the texts before for sure.
Also, what I have experience is that in many places, people just do not know Qur'an. They know what they have been told is the right interpretation of a book they can not even read. (it is unfortunate but true in many places out of Middle East).
So you face a total communication breakdown as you are trying to argument and debate with people who will just speak of something completely different, which sometimes does not even exist out of their village/clan/family/members of their Mosque.
And good luck if you try to change that... ;)

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

Immoral or illegal??? Never heard that one, but there's a very active banking industry here in Israel.... :) - with a lot of religious folks working in it - so it's probably moral if done in a moral way = sensible rates.

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Thanks, I was doing some research on money and that came up, but wasn't sure how accurate it was. Basically the Christians and Muslims outlawed interest on Money and so did the Jews to other Jews.... but no to Christians and Muslims. Again not sure of the accuracy of that:confused:

Lagrange,

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Well, you just question the moral legitimacy of your action. People start to wonder: am I right, is that right to do what I am doing, does god/gods allow what I am doing… just questioning the moral legitimacy of your action and that's basically what politicians (politic and religious leaders) do not want.

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For me personally, when I chose these types of studies I knew it it would rattle my cage so to speak. In my opinion, that's how you know you're doing it right. A certain amount of questioning is normal, expected and healthy. However, if this line of work results in an existential crisis on a weekly basis- you're not cut out for it. I'm confident enough in my own faith, culture, etc. to do comparative work. Are my constructs of religion, culture, tradition, society perfect? No. Nothing is, but they are mine. While I'm not a Doctor of Religious Studies (yet), I have had enough education and professional training to be able to draw some lines.

I always thought it was rather pretentious of human beings to state that "God is on our side". Shouldn't we hope that what we do is on Its side?

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The only real defense then becomes: you're different so you cannot understand. Basically turning to "obscurantisme" (in French in the text).
If you do not understand you enemy that means he is wrong because normal people do think like you.

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I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. It's a cop out and a poor one at that. I'm more inclined to following Levinas and Gadamer's trains of thought; The only two wholly Others are the Divine and Death. Everything else can be worked upon and in no way results in the Self or the Other being conflated. Understanding occurs via a Fusion of Horizons, which is ultimately part of the larger Hermeneutic circle. I will spare you all the dissertation on it, but if anyone is interested in hermeneutic theory, start with Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth & Method. Well, maybe start with the wikipedia and then read Gadamer :D

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Most of the educated Muslim I know would say that Jihad is first the internal war in each man against his evil side. But as you say, there is almost as many Islam as there is Muslims. I am met people who were qualifying them selves as "the slaves of Allah" and pushing to have men and women equality. (You find the same crazy way of thinking with Christians. I know doctors who will tell you that AIDS is "a plague that God sent on earth to eliminate the sinful"…)

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I'm not talking about mainstream Muslims. The Muslims I have been talking about are Salafis, Islamists and Jihadis who only acknowledge one jihad and that is war. The 'lesser' jihad, by it's usage in the Qur'an, is a violent 'struggle in the path of God'. Since every action is dictated by divine mandate laid down in the Qur'an and Shari'ah, and embodied in the Hadith and Sunna, struggle/war has a layer of 'religiousness' to it. I would not define jihad in a mainstream context as 'holy war', but in the context of the Taliban/al-Qaeda defines it in, it is exclusively Holy War.

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Khomeiny was saying that Human Rights were a western creation and therefore could not be applied in Muslim world. Unfortunately, Islam promoted women rights long before the Man and Citizen Rights declaration (which addressed only male rights at the very beginning by the way).
My point was just to point some contradictions you encounter.

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Well, Khomeini was technically correct. Human rights really took off after the Enlightenment when more focus was placed on the Individual. Rights in Islam, according to prevailing fiqh only extends if one upholds certain conditions set out in Shari'ah. The individual is also downplayed and the welfare of the 'ummah is far more important.

I would like to note, however, the idea of 'everyone is equal' doesn't really float too well in any monotheistic religions, which are built around exclusion. While Islam certainly had the idea of women's rights long before the West caught on, in practice they were rather difficult to enforce. I would also argue that women in ancient Egypt and Persia faced a serious downgrade in terms of their rights in Islam.

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Religious text are a base but they are also interpreted. And with Sunny Islam, what complicates all is the fact that any Mullah can come with his personal interpretation. Sufi from West Africa are far away from Sufi from Turkey who are not that close with Sufi from Sudan

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Any Mullah can technically, but if he has half a clue about his religious tradition, he'll attempt to find a tafsir to back himself up. Innovation (bid'ah) is considered a grave sin in those circumstances. Sufis typically have much more leeway, but even they have prevailing schools of thought and orders to draw from. I've found that some mystic orders can be far more restrictive in their interpretations than mainstream theological schools.

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Also, what I have experience is that in many places, people just do not know Qur'an. They know what they have been told is the right interpretation of a book they can not even read. (it is unfortunate but true in many places out of Middle East).

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Unfortunate, but true.. Fatima Mernissi's book The Veil and the Male Elite explores that development because it wasn't always that way. Although her book is primarily about women's rights in Islam, I would highly recommend you guys check out the first chapter in the book called "Muslims and Time". It's phenomenal.

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And good luck if you try to change that.

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No, I cannot change it and I am not naive enough to think I even could. Only they can and they'll change only as much as they want, when they want.


Cheers,

Graphei