Reaping the Wahhabi Whirlwind

Where do I even start with this?

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- The king of Saudi Arabia has warned that extremists could attack Europe and the U.S. if there is not a strong international response to terrorism after the Islamic State group seized a wide territory across Iraq and Syria.
While not mentioning any terrorist groups by name, King Abdullah's statement appeared aimed at drawing Washington and NATO forces into a wider fight against the Islamic State group and its supporters in the region. Saudi Arabia openly backs rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, but is concerned that the breakaway al Qaeda group could also turn those very same weapons on the kingdom.
"If neglected, I am certain that after a month they will reach Europe and, after another month, America," he said at a reception for foreign ambassadors Friday.

The Saudi royal family has done more than any other agency in the world to spread the Islamic vision (Wahhabi) which brainwashes and spawns tens of thousands of jihadi head-choppers the world over, so this is pretty rich, coming from them.  For any who don't know how this works, Saudi money pays for the Wahabbi missionaries and madrassas (religious boys' schools) to spread the fundamentalist strain of Arabian Islam to the corners of the planet.    

Things are pretty dire in the region  still, but it looks like we are now in a combined rollback ("our side") and consolidation (IS).  This is a bit of good news, as taking key infrastructure back from IS, especially revenue generating stuff like oilfields and refineries, is vital to any kind of a coherent strategy to smash them and limit their ability to hurt people.

Too bad the Americans don't have a strategy.  The question of how much blood and treasure to devote to this conflict is not a simple one, but it is mostly a question of materiel (mostly JDAMs and Hellfires) which as I mentioned earlier you can get the Saudis to pay for, likewise fuel costs and maintenance.   As for the rest of it, I have a strategy for dealing with this as I'm sure the Planning elements in the Pentagon do, so this is just political incompetence. Obama's mantra for his second term seems to be "No, We Can't."

Of course they may also be distracted by the widening war in eastern Ukraine, but really that's Europe's problem.  The NATO side of it (i.e. existing members) is getting attention to tell the Russians unequivocally where the buck stops, but Putin is exploiting the EU grey area that is Ukraine.  It's a stretch to say that IS and the proxy (and increasingly direct) war for "Novorossiya" are connected, but the IS situation is certainly a distraction to the US and to some extent for NATO.

I guess it would be too much to ask that the various regions sort their own issues out, at least as long as the USA retains the global capability it still has.  This "multipolar" world still have one pole that sticks up more than the others, but it could stand a bit taller still under (sensible) decisive leadership, though that also appears too much to ask. 

Kill 'em all

I don't feel that yesterday's post was particularly coherent, a result of distractions and trying to fit it to the catchy title I came up with. This time I'll do what I usually do and write the title to fit the post. OK, cleverness failed me, but this one at least is to the point.

Western leaders are making dire pronouncements about doing something to ISIL/Islamic State, so something will happen, but two questions leap to mind. The first is "what"; the second is "how". There is already concern about mission creep, and the mission hasn't even been defined yet. The follows is my thumbnail sketch of the strategic problem posed by those assholes.

They are smack in the middle of the Middle East, straddling the increasingly irrelevant border between two failed or failing states. Their pernicious medieval nihilism, rated by at least one local resident as "worse than Genghis Khan" (who was at least religiously tolerant) is also drawing in like-minded psychopaths from around the world, like the one (apparently a Brit) who executed James Foley, constantly swelling the ranks.

I have heard the terms "counter-terrorism" and "counter-insurgency" in peoples' attempts to put a name on what needs to be done, but I have a simpler word: War. The self-proclaimed "Islamic State" is setting itself up for failure, a victim of its' own success. By making a functioning state, with its' own economy and services, you give us things that we can attack. So far it's been artillery positions, vehicles and checkpoints, but with an expansion of effort it can be a whole lot more.

In the global view, it's an ideology, really a nihilistic death cult and as an idea you can never eliminate it. Some form of Islamic violence has been around for centuries and it will continue, the issue is to minimize the damage it can do. We need to kill them in heaps and the only way to do that is when they bunch together, like they are now. We also need to limit their resources, so follow the money.

Apparently for some time now ISIL has been selling oil from seized oil fields to the rump Syria controlled by Assad. This represents the first thing I'd take away from them, even before liberating territory. You then pump that oil and sell it to finance your operations, but I can't imagine Obama'd have the stones to do that when even Bush II didn't. Concurrent with that wreck every bit of military hardware and transport you can see to weaken them militarily. Give reliable local auxiliaries (read: the Kurds, possibly Jordan) whatever they need by way of armament and logistic support. The Iraqis have Iran to backstop them, so they can sink or swim.

Osama bin Laden's grand plan was to "bleed to bankruptcy" the USA, and he did a fair job of it, but it wasn't fatal. Knocking the current set of idiots in ISIL back to a manageable local menace will require a large investment, but as opposed to Operation Iraqi Freedom there is a clear and undisputed reason to pitch in for this job. I'd be leaning on the Saudis to underwrite a lot of this and use self-interested local troops to minimize your boots on the ground.

Even in decline, the USA remains the only power capable of driving this bus, mostly due to the airpower requirements. Whoever is coordinating operations, there has to be a coherent plan, and mine already represents the 70% solution. You'll never actually kill them all but they need a serious culling and disrupting, so bring on the A-10s and Apaches, and keep the weapons and ammo flowing to Erbil.

Ebola Haram and war in al Sham

The #bringbackourgirls bullshit has of course failed the test of real-world effectiveness and Boko Haram continues its' depredations in northern Nigeria. Some of the girls "escaped" (read: were quietly ransomed) but the rest face an unpleasant future.

Today's topic lead-in was triggered by reports from a couple of sources about Nigerian soldiers refusing orders to deploy against/fight BH, the reasons given being general lack of support (mostly weapons and equipment). Groups like Boko Haram are notoriously difficult to eradicate, but if events in the "Islamic State" are any indication (and Afghanistan c. mid-2001 is further evidence if needed) they have to be at least severely disrupted before they metastasize into countries of their own.

Sticking with West Africa, the latest Ebola outbreak is the worst (on record) to date with over 1300 fatalities and counting and the baffling sack of an Ebola quarantine ward in Liberia raises the possibility of rampant infection in a crowded urban slum. Ebola is currently complicating everything, extending into Nigeria and slapping travel restriction all over the continent and beyond. The point was raised in one of the articles I read that Ebola is only one of umpteen deadly diseases in the region and the disruption in the healthcare system will lead to knock-on effects as immunizations are neglected, etc.

All of that, and with much more attention on ISIL/IS these days, means that Boko Haram will remain a threat for the foreseeable future. This brings up the meat of any of my rants here, the "So what?"

West Africa, sub-Saharan Africa in general, is in objective terms of no great import to Canada's national interest and the same goes for the US. Europe will have an uptick/surge in migrants, but that is a local problem, albeit one that the EU bureaucracy will prevent any effective measures to counter. In any event, the situation in Syria and Iraq has their attention, as does that in Ukraine.

"Far called our Navy slips away, on distant headland sinks the fire,

Lo all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre"

A century plus in the future from Recessional and NATO is finally waking up to what is going on in the world around it. France (OK, technically not NATO) is still in Mali, and that requires essentially a constant European troop presence. Libya is a vortex of armed disorder for which NATO has no-one to blame but themselves, but Algeria and Egypt can help keep that localized. Turkey is slipping from NATO and anything one might consider "Western" interests as Erdogan tries to recreate the Ottoman Empire. The former Warsaw Pact members of NATO are nervous about Russia, and Ukraine is either headed for a general war with the latter and/or some sort of Finlandization. Whatever the result of that contest, in the near to medium term NATO needs to place a viable conventional deterrent in the territory most threatened, e.g. the Baltic States, Poland, Romania.

Since that's not enough, back to the erstwhile, and at the moment de-facto Islamic State. Support is finally going to the Kurds so ISIS' gains (including the Mosul dam) are being trimmed back. The video beheading of and Anglo-American journalist by ISIS in the last couple of days appears to be one of those things that finally gets attention, the thousands of locals ISIS has already gruesomely executed somehow less important. What this results in will be at best more US and UK contribution to the fighting, further diluting the resources to deal with anything else.

Canada is already schlepping gear into that theatre with our CC-117 Globemasters (and maybe CC 130J Hercs, I'm not sure) so at least we're able to do something useful albeit non-kinetic. Whether or not Bismarck ever said that thing about the Balkans not being "worth the bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier" it's true, and it begs the question of what exactly is worth the risk of our blood and treasure.

Should Canada commit ground troops to Iraq to fight ISIS? As far as I know this is not being seriously considered so it's probably moot. I'd be surprised if none of our SOF guys have been at least in Kurd territory so far, but we can't even scrape up the mech brigade group we once had in Germany during the Cold War, so I don't see more than that happening. It would be good experience in ground support for our fighter jocks, but I see that as only slightly less likely than sending in a Battle Group a-la Kandahar. [27 Oct 14: this is why I don't put money on this stuff]

The same question could be asked about Nigeria in terms of keeping the Islamist threat down.  BH is no threat outside the area for now, and the Nigerians have the resources to deal with them if they can manage their corruption enough and overcome the government’s distrust of the Army.  Backing up our allies by providing credible kinetic forces (also known as “hard power”) to delineate our sphere of influence to the Russians should rank higher in geopolitical calculus than either of the above conflicts.  That said, the overlap is obvious when those same allies see a threat to all, e.g. Afghanistan, so horse-trading such as providing strategic airlift has its’ place in that math.

The Americans remain the lynchpin of international military action, so we’re not likely to do much if they don’t.  A new President might make a difference, but it might not so NATO will have to seriously consider its’ raison d’être which I would argue has been wandering since about 1991.  War with Russia is a worst-case scenario to be avoided, but not at the cost of the smaller fish around them.  Another way to send a message to Putin (besides the aid already going to Ukraine) is to send some EW (electronic warfare) aircraft to help out the Ukrainian air force and supress the heavy stuff that the Russians sent, like the one which shot down that Malaysian airliner. This scheme would keep troops out of direct contact but is still adding warfighting strength.  

With all of this going on, North Korea is sending tanks to the border with China, sure to slip under the general media radar, but a radical departure from past relations.  Not a NATO problem and certainly not Canada’s, but it’s not a boring world we live in at least.   

Thugs, Race-Baiting and the Police State

The recent events in Ferguson Missouri are displaying all of the hallmarks of the race-baiting grievance industry. For background (and in case this is being read well after the fact), an unarmed (black) teenager was shot by a (white) cop. These are the bald facts and the races of the involved are in parentheses because I personally don't think they were the driving force of events. Details are trickling out, the most recent (autopsy) that all shots to the victim were in the front, the wound pattern contradicting the "eye-witness" account of Mr. Brown's friend who was with him at the time.

There is pervasive racism in the USA, like there is everywhere else. Naturally, given the afore-mentioned racism grievance industry, any shooting involving an unarmed black man by anyone other than another black man, the vultures will descend. What follows is what I think the facts will eventually bear out in this case.

Michael Brown may have been 18 years old, but he was a hulking 18-yr-old who was captured on video only minutes before the shooting roughing up a shopkeeper and stealing a box of cigarillos. Petty theft and standard assault so far; definitely not capital crimes. Problem is, the cop who shot him didn't even know about this at the time; the initial stop was apparently for walking in the middle of the road blocking traffic.

Last I checked that type of behavior constitutes Probable Cause for a police stop, being at least a misdemeanor. What happened next is speculative, but based on the limited sample of Brown's (anti-social) behavior available it is probable that he threatened the cop in some fashion, and at 6'4" & 290lbs and not alone, that is a clear and present danger to anyone. The friend (accomplice) claimed that the officer shot Brown in the back and that Brown's hands were up and he was running away, which is disproved by the autopsy results. What is consistent with the physical evidence is that Brown was charging at the officer.

At this point however, most of the damage has been done. Days of rioting and looting have resulted in the National Guard being called out and a curfew imposed. In the process leading up to this there have been many discussions of militarized police forces which is also a problem, albeit not the one which precipitated the violence.

The problem is thugs, specifically black ones. Treyvon Martin was a teenager too, but again a big one with an aggressive attitude. Big guys who are "unarmed" are still capable of deadly or crippling physical violence and I have no doubt that if Zimmerman hadn't shot him Zimmerman would be dead or brain-damaged today.  Big thugs of any other complexion are of course just as dangerous, only no-one would riot if Brown were white, even if a black cop shot him.

It comes down in situations like this to "Better tried by 12 than carried by 6", optics be damned. I will yell as loud as anyone about police abusing their power, and there is a lot of that, just not in this specific situation as far as I can tell. Cops in assaulter gear shooting dogs, SWAT teams hitting the wrong houses, reporters and the public being intimidated and arrested for filming police in public areas; these are real problems requiring a vigorous public response. Said response should constitute political action, possibly civil disobedience, but smashing burning and looting is merely opportunistic crime.

This will be investigated, and is being so already. As long as the Attorney General can be kept from interfering (it's happening again) something as close as we can get to the truth will eventually come out.

Robin Williams, R.I.P.

I took some time off and discovered that I had better things to do for a while than comment on the mess that things are. For all the good such commenting does me this is really the default position, but occasionally I feel obligated to regardless. I'm getting much better at controlling those impulses, but they have to come out somewhere. Although it isn't the direction I was planning on going, a few words about the late Robin Williams (d. 11 Aug 14).

Anyone who is profoundly surprised that he took his own life while actively and productively engaged in the world to an extent that few of us can imagine, let alone achieve, know nothing of depression and how it messes with your worldview. Howard Tayler who does Schlock Mercenary (highly recommended btw) hit it on the head with the tweets he posted in relation to this event. He noted two critical points for understanding real depression (direct quotes):

The tragic thing about depression is that all these lovely, warm tributes to Robin Williams probably wouldn't have cheered him up.

Note from the depressed: "I love you" & "you have done wonderful things for me" help a lot more than "cheer up" and "count your blessings."

I suspect that Robin was what I still call (because it's the right term) at least somewhat manic-depressive. With past experience with these problems, I can tell you that even if you have a mild case of it you can't really understand what goes on in the heads of those afflicted with a serious case. The real problem is that things change as you get older, and the direction of change seems to be more in the "depressive" direction. We'll never know what drove him that day, but the only thing which would have saved him is someone actively interrupting him.

He was one of the most popular entertainers on the planet, loads of money and lots of work, so he had the world by the throat or at least by the scruff of the neck. I remember a friend of a friend who killed himself at 20 or so who also had all the material advantages of relative affluence, which completely mystified me at the same age. I was struggling slightly to get by and I remember thinking "Why, when things re so easy for you?" I've learned a lot since then, and I can relate it to a military equivalent. If you have an impregnable position or some other sort of massive material advantage, the only way you can lose is if you beat yourself. Robin's death was "an inside job" which you may have seen coming (though I doubt anyone really did) but "when" "where" and "how" was never set.

I liked him when he was funny; the dramatic roles never did much for me, but it's a rare bird who is so talented. He fought it for years, but when you're fighting yourself the best you can hope for is a draw and that wasn't in Robin's cards. Unlike many others at least he won’t be forgotten any time soon.