We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

[Bob's World]

Originally Posted by Bob's World
But without insurgent populaces who are both very dissatisfied with their own systems of governance, and who equally perceive that external Western influence, money and manipulation is a major factor in why their governance is so out of step - there would be no AQ.

Dayuhan counters:
You keep saying this, but you provide no evidence or reasoning to support the contention. It's simply laid out as revealed truth. The problem with this is that it's not consistent with what we see on the ground. We know that populaces aren't turning to AQ for help in getting rid of their own governments because every attempt by AQ to raise an insurgency against a Muslim government has failed to draw anything close to a critical mass of popular support. What we actually see is that while Muslim populaces are happy to fund and support AQ as long as they're fighting infidels far away, that support stops as soon as AQ tries to bring the jihad to their neighborhood. Interview-based studies on foreign fighter motivations have not revealed any hint that people are traveling to fight in order to affect governance in their home countries: the motivation is consistently to end the oppression of Muslims and expel the infidel in the place where the fight is going on.

The contention that AQ s driven by populaces who oppose their own governments and believe that support for AQ will change those governments has to be supported by convincing evidence and reasoning to be accepted. It can't simply be decreed.

We are looking at the exact same evidence, just as a city person, an occasional hunter and an experienced woodsman all look at the same sign in a forest. Just because the first two "see no evidence" of the many things the woodsman sees does not mean the woodsman is just making stuff up. He sees nuances that the others miss. This is true in all walks of life. We are talking about the nuance here, and I realize nuance is hard to describe, and equally hard to appreciate. One has to rely on a bit of faith.

AQ's message has always relied heavily on the pillar that Muslim populaces dissatisfied with their own situations of governance (under "apostate" regimes -i.e., regimes that have sold out to the West), must first break the sources of that corrupting external influence and support before they can find success at home. This is a bit part of their UW campaign message. They use this to recruit individual fighters and to solicit economic support and to find "sanctuary" for the nodes of their networked operations.

People contribute to this for many reasons, but if it is hard evidence you seek, if you much touch the holes in Jesus's hands, look simply at products such as the report on foreign fighters in Iraq prepared by Dr Joe Felter several years ago, and then compare where those "foreign fighters" came from with where the "Arab Spring" later burst into action. AQ drew upon the the very high conditions of insurgency in those states and drew upon the sub-populaces who were most dissatisfied with their own governments. They traveled to Iraq not to help make Iraq part of some "Caliphate," but rather to help defeat this source of foreign influence so that they could finally find some success at home.

Now, when those insurgencies did finally go active at home (with AQ support and influence), did the people all rally under an AQ flag and attempt to elevate AQ into the governance of their country or to join some "Caliphate"? Of course not. Again, revolution is not to bring some specific form of governance seen as good, revolution gains popular support to remove some system of governance widely deemed as bad. With success finally at hand after so many generations, why would anyone want to submit themselves to the extremist view of the world offered by AQ? Revolution, perhaps more than any other condition, makes for strange bedfellows. We need to stop judging people by who they associate with in times of great crisis and need, and instead appreciate the nature of all the relationships in play, and the primary purpose for action by the various parties.

Bill says

"governments have a right to defend themselves"

This is very true, but in life as in law, for every right there are reciprocal duties.

We are too quick to jump in and help certain governments exercise their "rights" to defend themselves from their own insurgent populaces when we are in hot pursuit of the handful of AQ operatives working among those populaces conducting UW. We are so consumed by our own pursuit of our "right" to exact our revenge on AQ and to render them unable to conduct future attacks on the US and our interests that we forget our own reciprocal duties as well.

It is time for governments under attack by non-state actors, be they insurgents at home, or regional UW/terrorist actors from abroad to stop using the "right to defend themselves" as rationale for acting in ways counter to their own principles and in ways that are so abusive of the sovereignty of others. It is time for governments to equally hold themselves to task for the "duty" part of that equation.

The governments where the insurgent populaces live must (IE "have a duty") to listen to and seek to govern their entire populaces fairly and in a manner consistent with fundamental aspects of human nature (which manifest uniquely in every populace). Instead they cling to the status quo (not to be coerced by terrorism), and seek simply to "enforce the rule of law."

When any nation seeks to vigorously enforce rule of law that is perceived as unjust by those that law is enforced against, it is tyranny. Doubly so when the government seeking to enforce those laws is perceived as having no legitimate right to do so by those they affect.

We do not need to fix the national governance of others, but neither should we enable others to ignore their duties to their own people. What the US needs to focus on is updating our foreign policies so that we operate under the same principles abroad that we operate under at home. Our problem is not a domestic one (though that is growing as well), but rather a foreign one. Governance does not stop at borders, and US governance affects people around the globe. We have a duty to ensure to the degree possible that our governance does not provoke others to bring illegal violence back against us. Excessive pursuit of our right to defend ourselves does far more damage to make those perceptions worse, than the killing of a few particular actors serves to make things better. We celebrate our tactical victories, while we ignore our growing strategic failure.

But boy do we love tactics. No nuance to interpret there. Dead is dead. Success, next target.

We still have those rights, but we must tailor how we pursue those rights into the larger context of how we pursue our duties. You can't hand some one a gift with one hand, and then punch him in the face with the other and expect a positive result. We must subjugate all of our tactical actions of every nature to the larger strategic effects we seek to achieve. Currently we just measure tactical successes of tactical actions and then assume they will add up to strategic success. That does not work in this type of conflict.

[Fuchs]

When any nation seeks to vigorously enforce rule of law that is perceived as unjust by those that law is enforced against, it is tyranny. Doubly so when the government seeking to enforce those laws is perceived as having no legitimate right to do so by those they affect.

That's a horrible kind of definition.
The political opposition (minority) in a country often perceives rules given by the majority (and enforced through rule of law) as unjust, and very much ideology-driven minority partisans question the legitimacy of such acts at times (there's a prominent example these days).

This doesn't mean there's tyranny at work. It requires very different criteria to be met.

[Dayuhan]

People contribute to this for many reasons, but if it is hard evidence you seek, if you much touch the holes in Jesus's hands, look simply at products such as the report on foreign fighters in Iraq prepared by Dr Joe Felter several years ago, and then compare where those "foreign fighters" came from with where the "Arab Spring" later burst into action.

That's not evidence. It's not even a very compelling correlation.

AQ drew upon the the very high conditions of insurgency in those states and drew upon the sub-populaces who were most dissatisfied with their own governments. They traveled to Iraq not to help make Iraq part of some "Caliphate," but rather to help defeat this source of foreign influence so that they could finally find some success at home.

And you expect us to take this statement, unsupported, on faith? As revealed truth? Sorry, but that's stretching faith beyond the breaking point. Just a few of the problems with that formulation:

1. The "foreign fighter" phenomenon is not limited to Iraq, or to places where the fighters are fighting the US. Foreign fighters have appeared in numerous conflicts, most of which have no plausible connection to conditions in their home countries. Are you suggesting that foreign fighters who traveled to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan or the Russians in Chechnya did so to defeat foreign influence in their home country? That Arabs who fought in Bosnia or the Tajik civil war were trying to affect governance at home? Or that foreign fighters in conflicts where the US is involved have a completely different set of motivations than foreign fighters in other conflicts?

2. Many foreign fighters who fought came form countries where foreign influence in general and US influence specifically have no meaningful place in sustaining the regime that ruled their home country. There's no imaginable reason why a Libyan or a Syrian would fight Americans in Iraq to remove a source of support for a government he disliked at home. These governments were not in any way supported or sustained by the US, but they still provided foreign fighters.

3. Studies based on interviews with captured foreign fighters do not reveal any hint of the motive that you suggest. In fact this idea is notably absent from every study of foreign fighters that I've seen. Now maybe it's true that everybody else looking at the problem is just a dumb city slicker wandering around in the bush missing all the signs that are clear to you alone... but is there not at least a chance that some of them aren't so ignorant? It would be useful if you could describe these signs nobody else sees in specific detail, not in generalities.

Now, when those insurgencies did finally go active at home (with AQ support and influence), did the people all rally under an AQ flag and attempt to elevate AQ into the governance of their country or to join some "Caliphate"? Of course not.

I see little evidence to suggest that AQ support and influence had anything to do with the Arab Spring. Looked more to me like AQ was taken by surprise and failed to capitalize to any significant degree, largely because their message was simply inconsistent with the desires that drove the Arab Spring.

AQ's most notable failure to inspire revolution, of course, had nothing to do with the Arab Spring. Throughout the early to mid 1990s AQ tried desperately to provoke revolution in Saudi Arabia. Circumstances should have been ideal for this effort: he was coming off what was perceived as a great victory over the Soviets in Afghanistan, he had drawn extensive support within Saudi Arabia during that fight and had a deep network of contacts. Conditions in Saudi Arabia looked ripe: the oil glut had caused massive dislocation and the presence of American forces was a major irritant. Still the effort fell flat on its face. Osama was unable to generate anything even remotely approaching the critical mass needed to challenge the government. His message just didn't resonate: Saudis were more than willing to support his jihad against the Soviets, but when he took it home they weren't interested. It's not plausible that his failure was caused by exile and repression: the Ayatollah Khomeini, for one, had inspired a revolution from exile in an equally repressive environment bys mailing cassette tapes. His message resonated with Iranians, and repression failed. Osama just didn't have the support. That doesn't mean Saudis loved the royal family, it meant that they don't see AQ as a viable alternative.

Again, AQ has certainly tried to push the narrative built around opposition to apostate regimes. That narrative hasn't really worked for them, though: they've only been able to draw widespread support when they've opposed foreign invaders in Muslim lands.

We are too quick to jump in and help certain governments exercise their "rights" to defend themselves from their own insurgent populaces

Again, other than in Iraq and Afghanistan, where are we helping a Muslim government to fight an insurgent populace, or enabling a Muslim government to oppress its populace? They don't generally need our help or ask our permission, and they aren't going to stop because we want them to.

Your argument would be more effective if it referred to specific policies and specific countries, and gave examples of policies that you think are counterproductive and the policies you believe should replace them.

[Entropy]

Bob,

AQ drew upon the the very high conditions of insurgency in those states and drew upon the sub-populaces who were most dissatisfied with their own governments. They traveled to Iraq not to help make Iraq part of some "Caliphate," but rather to help defeat this source of foreign influence so that they could finally find some success at home.

I think you need to revisit what AQ did in those countries. Yes, they wanted to kill the foreign infidel and drive them out of "Muslim lands." But more than that they wanted to purge the apostates. Look at the actual operations conducted by AQ-in-Iraq - they killed so many Muslim Iraqis that even UBL got pissed off at the carnage they caused. I'm not sure how bombing a market full of Shiites helps to defeat the "foreign influence," but maybe someone can explain it to me.

[Bob's World]

Bob,



I think you need to revisit what AQ did in those countries. Yes, they wanted to kill the foreign infidel and drive them out of "Muslim lands." But more than that they wanted to purge the apostates. Look at the actual operations conducted by AQ-in-Iraq - they killed so many Muslim Iraqis that even UBL got pissed off at the carnage they caused. I'm not sure how bombing a market full of Shiites helps to defeat the "foreign influence," but maybe someone can explain it to me.

AQ did not go to Iraq until we did, and they went there because we were there. It was, for AQ, primarily a battle field against foreign influence in the region. Their battlefields for taking on "apostates" were in all those other Muslim countrie around the region where they were recruiting fighters to come help them against us in Iraq, while at the same time conducting UW to support those insurgent movements at home.

The fact that they killed many Muslim Iraqis is immaterial to their goals there, just as the fact that we killed many Muslim Iraqis was immaterial to ours.

But for our operations to remove Saddam, there would not likely be any AQ in Iraq today, and very little Iranian influence as well. We need to own that.