ignoring our way to victory (II)

[drewkitty]

When challenged to identify an alternative to the War On Terror, I quickly surfed back through my recent posts and found this gem, "Ignoring Our Way To Victory."

It occurs to me that I should probably go into detail.

What is a terrorist organization? A group of like-minded fanatical people who have decided that killing innocent people covertly aids their political, religious or ideological objective.

So how do we stop terrorists? One approach suggests that we find some of these fanatical people and kill them first. This approach, popularized by fiction such as "24" and the justifications for the invasion of Iraq, is commonly called the "War On Terror."

Out in the real world, however, terrorism is at its core a sociological phenomena. And I at one time, am ashamed to admit that I was a sociologist. So I should be able to give a detailed prescription for eliminating terror.

A terrorist organization consists of a collision of people, money and an ideology, typically built on a foundation of hate. This immediately opens three prongs of attack:

People, Money and Ideology

Each of these can be separated using criminological theory into three time axes: prevention, deterrence, and incapacitation.

This gives nine (9) strategies for our non-war on terror.

Non-War Strategies

[ ]	People	Money	Ideology
Prevention	Cultural Exchange	Charitable Alternatives	Public Relations
Deterrence	Criminalization	Asset Forfeiture	Effective Assertion
Incapacitation	Target Cells	Cash Rewards	Target Leadership

I can flesh out each of these at greater length, but I have to go now. Real life intrudes.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Your happy little ship of peaceful counter-terrorism crashes headlong into the rocks of the Terrorist States. When a state shelters a terrorist organization, you cannot do anything against the organization save those tactics listed under "Prevention," and not even very much of that. Not unless you are willing to commit acts of war against that state, which comes under the heading of the "War on Terror."

You are also ignoring the issue of what the targeted terrorist organizations are doing against you in the meantime.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Your command of logic is as poor as your command of international law and of the operational arts.

We have declared several states to be supporters of terrorism. We in fact do criminalize the conduct of their citizens and allies in territory we control. We certainly do seize the assets of these states on a regular basis. We definitely assert the will of the United States government towards these states, and have compelled quasi-civilized conduct from the likes of Libya and Syria on a number of occasions.

We have, again on a number of occasions, operated both clandestinely and covertly in such states and targeted both leadership and terrorist cells. I am talking about Pakistan here. We routinely offer cash rewards for the heads of terrorists and to interrupt the hawala system of funds with respect to terrorists and their funding sources.

I am neglecting the tactical issue of what the terrorists have been doing against us in the meantime, because they have not been able to actually do jack. Certainly nothing that will prevent their ultimate and final destruction. The best defense is a good offense, especially in a game of eggshells-armed-with-sledgehammers. Our eggs are laid out neatly in little rows on the other side of a wide field. Their eggs are concealed amidst rocks and boulders and huts. And we have a lot more sledgehammers . . .

The acts of war committed against Iraq had nothing to do with the War on Terror. This is where we get into the "dangerously deluded" part of the discussion. You are welcome to present whatever arguments you like, with citations as least as extensive as I provided in a prior post regarding the Bush expansion of power, and I will read them and maybe even answer them.

However, personal attacks coupled with stubborn insistence will not persuade me that the sun sets in the east. Nor will it persuade me that Saddam Hussein's nominal support for terrorism was in any way the cause for the war in Iraq -- although certainly it has been trumpeted by the self-serving (Administration) and the ignorant (people like you) as the causus belli.

My goal is to eliminate the terrorist threat. War against nation-states has very little, in fact almost nothing, to do with eliminating terrorism. I titled this essay "ignoring our way to victory" for a reason.

Until you convince me, through reasoned debate and intelligent argument, that you actually know something about terrorism, counter-terrorism, and/or counterinsurgency, I'm not going to dignify your mouthings with a reply.

I'll settle for the history of Iraq's support for terrorism, as contrasted to the support provided to terrorists by other Gulf region states. You will find that quantity and quality given by Saudi private citizens, for example, far exceeded that given by Saddam. Let's not even talk about CIA.

You may find the following link helpful in amending your ignorance.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-07-22/

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Let me briefly outline several additional lines of strategy. Briefly because it promises to be a busy week.

On the defense side, we have such measures as counter-intelligence, target hardening, civil defense, building design, public education and responder training. However, much of this is locking the barn after the horse has been set on fire.

On the access control side, we have improved customs screening, better control over temporarily resident aliens, much better control over illegally present persons (i.e. "illegal immigrants"), and last but certainly not least, a revamping of our entire mode of thinking about security screening. We are not looking for guns and bombs and knives. We are looking for dangerous PEOPLE, and that means carefully conducted but quite explicit profiling. Get over it.

On the foreign relations side, we are concerned with building the relations between peoples of the world in a way that is favorable to America. This is almost the weakest side of our present effort, but the one in which we have the most potential to be strong. Ordinary American citizens are our greatest strength, whether they are host families in Kansas for little Ahmed or visiting Egypt and being goodwill ambassadors not between nations, but between people.

On the diplomacy side, we have direct relations between nation-states. These are worth considerable time and effort to invest in. Good relations equates directly to captured terrorists.

I won't touch the various forms of intelligence yet, except to note in passing that America is uniformly regarded by the other national intelligence services to be utterly incompetent in this most vital form of national defense -- with considerable supporting evidence.

Yes, there is still indeed a role for military operations. However many of them will fit under the dreaded rubric of "Operations Other Than War" for which many military forces are unsuited by training and equipment. The military police and Civil Affairs units need to be expanded immediately on an emergency wartime footing -- by draft if necessary. Other civilian equivalents need to be created; think of the Seabees under civilian command and control but carrying defensive weapons as necessary.

Direct military combat operations would be limited in objective and ruthless in execution.

Example: It is believed that there are WoMDs in a country in Africa. Therefore, we invade and take over.

WRONG. Start over.

Therefore, we assemble powerful and well-armed forces with adequate air cover and logistics support. These military units escorting WoMD recon teams demand access to any facility where WoMD is suspected, and set out to take physical custody of any person with knowledge, whether he is a lab tech or the head of a nation-state. If resisted, they immediately employ overwhelming force. If attacked, the attackers are themselves annihilated.

No attempt is made to interfere with or replace existing civil government (if any). This is not a humanitarian mission, this is a WoMD hunt and anyone standing in the way will be gunned down. Such side actions as may be prudent will be taken to support these forces (such as the incidental destruction of national air forces, seizure of ports, annihilation of enemy divisions, etc.) but these are clearly secondary objectives to be abandoned when no longer useful to the WoMD hunt.

Invading countries is so World War Two. Treating nation states as if they do not exist, sweeping aside their feeble attempts to interfere as we seize weapons of mass destruction . . . that is what we should do, the next time someone like Saddam is suspected of a pocket nuke or two. Lest we wait too long and allow another North Korea with nukes. One was too many.

If the Iraqis had overthrown Saddam themselves, perhaps they would realize what a precious and valuable gift freedom is.