Political Leadership 101

There are a couple of things that have popped up in Canadian politics recently that probably require some comment. Maybe not require, but since I use this to vent, that’s what is going to happen regardless.

First and far lower profile is the minor flap over the “no-good bastards” remark made by Conservative MP Gerald Keddy recently. He was saying what a lot of people think about the chronically unemployed in the context of migrant labour, in other words it was a defensible opinion, albeit rather crudely presented.

He should certainly not have said exactly that in a public forum, but what’s done is done. What bothers me, and lowers his credibility with people who otherwise agree with him, is the cringing end to his apology in the House of Commons the other day:
Later Tuesday, Keddy stood in the House of Commons and once again expressed his regret. "I apologize to anyone who was offended by my remarks," he said.
Keddy said what he was thinking, and although it badly needed to be qualified somewhat, some people NEED to be offended sometimes. A blanket apology (to me) shows a lack of backbone unless it is used for something you said impulsively but don’t actually mean. We all do that, and there is no value in backing up random stupidity that pops out of your head. Admit it was stupid and move on, but do it with some class.

You’ll piss certain people off no matter what you say if you’re saying anything of substance; that’s the price of doing business. If you flip-flop and react to that by apologizing all the time you’ll lose the respect (and support) of the people who DID agree with you.

Next, the main event in the Commons right now: the prisoner hand-off/torture fiasco.

The government has done a terrible job with this, full-stop. Today’s headlines include a poll done that shows that more people believe Diplomat Richard Colvin’s assertions that he warned the government about the fact that prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by our troops were routinely abused by those authorities.

We have been hearing these allegations in the news for several years now, and I’m quite certain that this is the case. The Defence Minister’s attempts to discredit Colvin have backfired badly, as they should have, because they were dishonest smear tactics. Transfers have been put on hold several times in-theatre because the Afghans were abusing prisoners a bit too obviously.

This is a dirty war in a crappy but deadly serious part of the world. Ask the Russians; if you were captured, you were lucky if they only ass-raped you within an inch of your life. Hell, go even farther back if need be:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I read something yesterday about someone interviewing a “former” Taliban Imam in Kabul about these torture claims being propaganda. His response was apparently a shrug followed by “We would do the same to them”.

Where does this connect to the Leadership theme I claimed in the title? The first of the Canadian Forces Principles of Leadership is: “Achieve professional competence.” Do your homework so that you come out of the gate with the right information. This of course may have been the case; Mr MacKay likely knew a great deal about what goes on over there. In that case this has just been poorly handled.

Credibility was the basis of the government’s attack on Colvin, and it was a poor choice. The way to handle this was to say “Yes, we have heard about this. At any time when we had grounds for concern about the treatment of prisoners we handed over to the Afghans, we suspended transfers until they straightened out again.”

Give the opposition no traction, but DO IT WITH THE TRUTH. This reinforces your credibility, and from there you can brush off the gnat-like buzzing of disgruntled diplomats and take the wind out of the sails of your political opponents. I notice that the government is starting to move in this direction now, but the damage has been done.

Calling politicians “leaders” is a stretch the vast majority of the time. The strength of personality required to stand by your principles (heck, to have some principles as a politician in the first place) is rare, and even more rare is that coupled with enough charisma to pull it off. Preston Manning, for example is very principled, but lacked the charisma to break out into the mainstream. His opposite is sitting in the White House right now; all charisma, no leadership or firm principles, and people are starting to notice.

That I suppose is the point of diminishing returns that you hit if you have firm opinions on things. Far more damaging than merely disagreeing with someone is having no respect for them, and trade-offs must be carefully calculated if you’re to have a successful run as a politician that people feel that they can trust. A rare breed, but the only true Leaders in politics, or anywhere else for that matter.

“You can’t handle the truth!” is a famous admonition (albeit from a work of fiction) about what the public can digest. The public will understand what needs to be done as long as you explain it succinctly and consistently. It works with kids, and we all were kids once so it still works. Note that “succinctly” doesn’t mean “dumb it down”; many people are simple, but the majority of them are not actually stupid and that is an important distinction. And yes, I know I’m repeating myself on this topic, but hey, I’m fairly consistent!

The pesky History that refuses to end.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the loudest and most terminal death-knell of the Communist empire. Virtually nobody much under the age of 40 today (especially in North America and outside of Europe in general) recognized the significance of the event at the time, and correspondingly don't care too much today.

Indeed, today the Cold War is scarcely even on the radar as a historical period for most people. Since we avoided WW3 I suppose that's unavoidable, but the USSR didn't collapse because we ignored them and hoped they'd go away. Gen. Patton didn't get his wish in 1945 to re-arm the Germans and head east, but they were pretty aggressively contained from that time forward.

Stalin to this day still doesn't have the bad rep of Hitler even though he killed a lot more of his own people than Adolf could ever have dreamed of doing. That said, the generation that had just beaten the (arguably) best military machine in history into the ground knew a threat when they saw one. The political will to fight another major war in Eurasia after six (or 3.5) years of war was simply not there, but the sacrifices made to rid Europe of a blighted ideology would not be completely squandered. If there is anything positive to remember about American foreign policy, it is from that period immediately after WW2.

The USA is broken, and I'm not sure it will ever reach the heights it had the potential to. It did keep the Commies from taking everything over, and that was a great service to the world even if no-one appreciates it now. All of the future tech, space travel, flying cars, etc. should have come from the US, but they are strangling themselves in bureaucracy, political correctness and entitlements.

In the meantime, history marches on. Sorry Francis Fukuyama, you were incredibly wrong, and anyone who actually paid attention to history and current events, 20 years ago as much as today would have known it. I sure did. I read something a long time ago about it being possible to kill pessimists, but optimists would take care of themselves for you. Neoconservatives are a special kind of optimist, the kind that gets a lot of other people killed for their good intentions. They are not alone in this, but I'm not big on labels and categories and these guys are just a big, obvious target.

There was a certain atmosphere that night in November 1989 when the TV images of people smashing the Berlin Wall with sledge hammers started showing up. I was just old enough (and historically aware enough) at the time to be amazed at it, as I knew I was seeing a turning point in history. I was a young soldier back then, and it was until that moment theoretically possible (however unlikely by the late 1980s) that I could get dragged into WW3 in Europe. Knowing that something as big as that had moved from a possibility to an impossibility, just like that... well, I guess you had to be there.

I have good days and bad days like anyone else, but my crystal ball is on the blink and I have no idea where things will go from here. The one thing I do know is that they will go somewhere, but my ability to predict things is pretty much limited to the tactical level, "Gods of the Copybook Headings" kind of things.

I observe (with apprehension, quite frequently) the world that I can see, and history is the keel ballast that keeps me from tipping over completely. As dark as things have ever been, (and things are no worse in that regard today than most times in the past) it never stays like that for good or ill. Will Islam conquer the world (my biggest personal concern)? On balance, not likely. It is the new "Other", and with good cause, as it is as soul-suckingly backwards as Communism in it's worst incarnations, but it has only ever conquered in a relative vacuum. As long as we have the will to fight it, it will not be able to take over.

Are there other things that threaten us? The climate worries some people, but I'm not one of them. It's going to do what it's going to do, and all we can do is make things worse for ourselves if we try to fight it. Nature is BIG, and we are not, so adapt. That, after all is what humanity is best at, and for the record adapting to warmer is easier than adapting to colder.

I saw the Taliban described somewhere today as deranged "fanboys", and it is the most spot-on description of the sort of guy who is attracted to Salafist, etc. Islam I can remember. It's a gang, and it attracts the disaffected and damaged, the simple and the brutal. Communism at least aimed for the intellectuals.

Another historical lesson for those who care to learn it: moderates always get their asses kicked by those willing to go all out for what they believe. The rare case where relatively moderate ideals beat fanatics was (partially) met by WW2. The "partially" is due to the fact that most of the damage was done on the Eastern Front, and we forget that at our peril. The lesson to learn from that is to have some "true believer" allies to do the dirty stuff. Back them with everything you can, but if they'll fight harder than your nationals, let them do it since they're motivated. Think of Ethiopia vs. Somalia.

Europe 20 years after the Wall came down is the canary for Western civilization. There was a time when it was the West, but now it's merely the front line. The Muslims have started to make themselves really unpopular in most European countries. This is still a problem, as 300 years ago they would have been fought on the frontiers, and 200 years ago they were getting booted out of their footholds. The shame is that the Greeks screwed up in 1919-22 and didn't take back Constantinople, then at least the front line would be on the other side of the Dardanelles.

Knocking over strongmen to try to implant democracy is not the future, as it isn't the past; if it didn't work before in some recognizable form, it won't work in your version of it either.

'When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

Sound anything like "Change you can believe in"? I like the fact that the Yanks have a lot of nukes; I'd like it even more if I thought they were willing to use them if need be. That sounds frightening, but if you're willing to go to the wall, the other people who have nukes will make sure they don't end up in the hands of people who'll piss you off. THAT is what I believe in; si vis pacem, para bellum . If you follow that, you're covered no matter what.

I like solutions to things, but many solutions are rather more "final" than our society would find acceptable so we half-ass a lot of things. The gap between the intellectual elite and the disappearing middle and working class is wide, and I think my opinions are more in sync with the latter group. That says something (assuming that I'm not out to lunch), but I'll let you tell me because I'm not even sure what I really think about a lot of things anymore! It's not like we'll ever try to SOLVE the big problems; we'll just hope that the elephants in the room don't sit on us.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...

Between being busy and being out of action with the current pandemic disease (unpleasant for sure, but not up to the hype of earlier this year), I've put off saying anything about the Ft Hood shootings. In a way this is a useful tactical pause, as it allows the dust to settle a bit and gives an opportunity to temper my knee-jerk reaction to it.

That time having passed, I'll start with the positive; Sgt Kimberly Munley of the Killeen Tx PD (I hope that's correct) stepped up and shot the murderous Islamic zealot down at risk of her own life. She is as of this writing recovering from being wounded in that encounter, and I can't imagine she'll have a problem finding childcare help while she's getting back on her feet. Her actions (e.g. doing her job) have apparently re-opened the debate about allowing women into combat roles in the US military. That's a moot point on this side of the border as we do it already, and women like her are the justification (if not the impetus) for that.

She shot the fucker 4 times, and you would hope that was enough, but it seems not. One way or another (albeit far more expensively now) Nidal Hasan will go to his jihadi reward, but sooner is better than later.

Yes I said it; Nidal Hasan (I refuse to use his rank) is another religious wacko who thinks that you and I should die because we don't do things his way. He's a radicalized Muslim, and that is what this attack was all about. I don't want to hear any more bullshit about PTSD that he supposedly absorbed by osmosis from his psychiatric patients (Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder maybe?). He's a Muslim, and since that's his primary identifier, he had no place in any Western military.

There are an estimated 3500 Muslims in the US armed forces. That is a pool of 3500 people who feel that Islamic law is above any oath they can take to a secular organization. I'm sure not all of them are all that hard-core about it, but it's a risk factor that shouldn't be ignored.

Fifty years ago another ideology posed an existential risk to Western society, and it's adherents were ruthlessly expunged from anywhere sensitive, hell, from Hollywood even. Yes I'm talking about Communists. They too took their orders from a higher authority, in that case and time Moscow, and they would not have been tolerated within the armed forces.

Political correctness has a lot to do with this happening in the first place (there were previous complaints about his ideas) and will have a lot more to do with sanitizing and covering it up. He'll be another generic "lone gunman", and all of those soldiers will have died and been maimed without the benefit of any (re)awakening to the treachery that lurks within our societies.

Here's what Barack Hussein Obama had to say about the motivations of Nidal Hasan:

"This is a time of war. And yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle," Obama said to a crowd estimated at about 15,000. "They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great American community. It is this fact that makes the tragedy even more painful and even more incomprehensible."

Emphasis in the above is mine. I would be curious to know how many of those in attendance at the memorial service at Ft Hood find it so "incomprehensible". Diversity can bite my ass if this is what it leads to.

Know your enemy, October 2009 edition.

This is absolutely breathtaking, reading as this guy circles back to make the point that Muslims want to conquer the entire world. What’s amazing is that he does this in the context of telling an interviewer that the UK’s policies aimed at curbing radicalism in and fostering better integration of the “Muslim” population there are so appalling. I quote:

‘We should be clear, "Prevent" is not a policy that will detect and deter future bombers. It is an ideological agenda built on the false premise that the more Islamic a person is, and the more politicized, the more chance they have of becoming a security threat. This may sound utterly ridiculous, but that is actually the strategy.

Earlier this year, a leak to the Guardian newspaper exposed that the government's definition of "extremism" which should raise suspicions includes belief in the implementation of sharia or Khilafah/Caliphate - anywhere in the world; belief that it is legitimate for the Muslims of Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan to resist occupation; and belief that homosexuality is a sin. So you can see its real aim is to start a coercive assimilation of Muslims - "converting" them to Western values, and subduing them to the will of the state.’


Well yes, I rather think that IS the aim of the policy! Read the first highlighted section and consider the “falseness” of that premise. I’d say he’s pretty much defined the prime candidates for jihad, but I’m profiling, aren’t I? Interesting how it looks from the other side, and if anyone thinks that there aren’t people who think like this (Islam will cover the world, universal Caliphate, etc.) I hold Dr. Abdul Wahid up as an example.

There’s another bit further on:

MA: Even mainstream British politicians have declared "multiculturalism" to be as good as dead; how will this impact British Muslims at local and national levels?

AW: I think the demise of the policy of "multiculturalism" has made it easier to vilify Islam. Things can be written and said about Islam and Muslims that could never be said of other races or religions. The net result is that more of the wider society, who are fed this diet of lies and misinformation, view Muslims as a suspect community or with hostility.

I would have to ask why anyone would go out of their way to be concerned about Muslims, as opposed to any other particular religious group; that is, if I didn’t already know. The Hindus don’t have plans to take over the world, ditto the Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, Zoroastrians, etc. The Christians are largely past that, at least as a group, and the last I checked none of these groups riot and run amok en masse every time someone says something they don’t like.

Multiculturalism as official policy is an absolute disaster, as it says that everything is as good as everything else. The moral-relativists out there might not see the problem with this but I do. There has to be a hard centre that people can look to for continuity, a base for civil society. The constitution of that centre can vary by time and place (culture, etc.), but people have to know there are standards, and what they are.

Assimilation is best for domestic stability, but integration works quite adequately too. I like the food options, etc. that a diverse population brings, and I don’t care if there’s a temple or a mosque down the road any more than a church, as long as it’s there for the same purposes. I will not stand for our Common Law being changed by people from vastly different legal traditions, and Rule of Law (another cornerstone of civil society) can have only one set of rules for EVERYONE. Sure sharia has that too, but I don’t want to live under it, so it can stay where it is; anyone who wants so badly to live under it can live in those places.

The death of Multiculturalism is the only chance that the UK has to survive in any recognizable form, and at some point a decision will have to be made in a lot of other places too. There are rumblings in much of Europe that people are fed up with being forced to kowtow to the Islamists, but I’m not sure they’ll manage to stabilize things.

Time will tell, as always, but the above interview gives the informed a good idea of what the stakes are. For reference, consider living under witch-burning Puritan fundamentalists in the 16th Century. That would be a progressive regime by comparison with the Abdul Wahids of the world taking over.

It's inconvenient when the enemy makes a good point...

I am of course passingly familiar with the form and function of propaganda, and this Taliban press release is certainly a bit of it. That said, I have to say that it is quite free of the usual jihadi crap, and whoever is doing this for them is doing a good job. This part in particular I cannot disagree with:

“At the beginning, they were promising they would withdraw within three months, in their words, after eliminating the so-called terrorism. Contrarily, today eight years from that time have passed, but they have built up hundreds of military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. They say that they will raise the level of their troops to almost 110,000 troops. It is clear from this, that they have occupied Afghanistan for the execution of their expansionist plans in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Southeast Asia.”

CENTCOM and the US State Department can say what they want, but this is the truth. The US is WAY out of their sphere of influence in Central Asia, and one has to ask why they would plunge these sorts of resources into that part of the world. Containment of Russia and China could be reasons, but if so it's a stupid idea. Pipelines? It would be a hell of a lot easier to run one through once the dust settles and Afghanistan is running it's own show (for good or ill) and that will happen a lot faster if they pull out than if they fight an endless guerrilla war.

Please note that this doesn't represent a change in my position on Afghanistan. I have said from the get-go that we should have smashed the real problem children, established some bases in the Northern Alliance territory to guarantee no recurrence and to keep the Taliban away from the people who really didn't want them there.

I have to say that I believe them when they say that they have no designs on terrorizing the West. They figure that they can run Afghanistan better (read: less rampantly corruptly) than anyone else, and as long as you don't account for the enforced backwardness and misery, they probably can. The reason is that they keep things VERY simple, and punish transgressions mercilessly.

An earlier post of mine mused about just taking over the government. I'll showcase my incredible arrogance by saying that if you put me in charge I would do a better job than Karzai and his cronies. This assumes a mere Division of first-rate troops (10-15,000 depending on organization) with attendant air power and tactical transport. I'd be making deals left right and centre, and cracking heads in a big way when the deals were not held up. Walk softly and carry the biggest stick around. In other words, to run Afghanistan you have to be the biggest, baddest Warlord of the bunch.

I rather like not living in constant fear for my life, so this is completely academic, not a job application. One thing remains salient to this whole debacle: you can't make Afgthanistan into a stable democracy by any means that I see available to us. Exterminating the entire population and colonizing the place with less intransigent groups might be a start but isn't an option. People talk about an "exit strategy", but this is only important in terms of logistics. We have to bring our stuff home when we leave (tanks, guns, planes, etc.) but I guarantee if we told the Taliban tomorrow that we were leaving, there would be no attacks or bombs on our route.

The recent election showed the population what they can expect from Democracy, and they don't see a lot of difference from the old way of doing things. Karzai has the biggest stick (NATO) so he wins. That stick is not fully his to control so he can't hold the country. It would be interesting to see what Karzai would do if he had full tactical control of the NATO forces, but for now he plays us against the populace, reaming us every time we inevitably kill some "civilians".

A lot of people think Gen McChrystal is out-to-lunch with his COIN strategy, and a lot of others think this is the way forward. I think that if you need to double the number of troops in-country to even try this you should be thinking very clearly about the stakes involved. Again this is a time to "man up" and admit that we bit off more than we could swallow. We've lost the south, and we're losing parts that were initially friendly to us. We can recover the non-Pashtun parts, support them militarily to keep the Taliban from taking them over, maintain a presence to keep the pulse of the region, and it's but a matter of drawing some lines.

Pakistan you say? I don't have any answers there, but I will postulate that if they can't manage their internal security, nothing we do is going to help them. Get involved directly and we make more "Taliban", but a solid and dynamic military force to the north of "Talibanistan" would be a sword of Damocles over the Talibs in government to keep them (mostly) out of it. We can knock over their government any time we want to, the one lesson both sides should have learned from the "three month raid" we started out with eight years ago.

Logic and realism

If everybody subscribed to this philosophy the Dalai Lama would be right, but shit ain’t like that:

"Peace is not just the mere absence of violence. . . . Genuine peace is genuine restraint," he said.
The Dalai Lama pointed to former United States president George W. Bush, a man he called a "straightforward" and "nice" person.
But he said the "violent methods" used in Iraq and Afghanistan only give way to "violent consequences."
Only compassion and dialogue can solve differences, the Tibetan leader urged.
"Peace through compassion is logical," he said. "External, long-lasting general peace must come through inner peace."

In the absence of jerkwads wielding sticks, the carrot is indeed all you need. For the longest time I always wondered why the “good guys” are so frequently getting their butts kicked. We don’t always lose, but if good intentions are enough we should be doing better.

We’ll start with Israel. Which side of the good guy/bad guy fence they’re on is a matter of opinion, but on balance I’d say they’re “us” as opposed to “them”. When they show “compassion” (weakness) by pulling out of some contested area (South Lebanon, Gaza) this is not responded to with dialogue and understanding, but with rockets, mortars and attacks on outposts.

“Peace through compassion” is internally logical, but it is patently obvious to any rational person that if Israel ever totally drops its guard, it’s boned. The actual as opposed to theoretical logic of the situation is closer to “kill or be killed”. Restraint just encourages the terrorists and gives them time and opportunity to re-arm and reorganize. In fact, the restraint that they do show (not bulldozing Gaza and everyone in it into the Mediterranean) very palpably imperils Israel’s security.

“They make a desert and call it peace”. That, my dear exiled holy man, is as logical as it gets. If there are no people, there will be no conflict. Even if there are relatively homogenous groups there is relatively little conflict. People are NOT logical; logic is an overlay on our thought processes, and is a cultural artefact. If the Dalai Lama was correct, he wouldn’t be exiled, for example…

Bad guys will always have the advantage of having no interest in restraint. This can burn them in a couple of ways; people will turn against them and/or the other side will drop the gloves. The logic of these situations is also simple, and based on self-interest. Ideology starts wars and keeps them going, but people end them when they’ve had more than they can take. Most people like stability, which is a close analogue of peace, and will back whatever gives them the best prospect to achieve that. If the Taliban for example provide services where the government doesn’t, people will tend to back them even if they don’t like them.

As long as there are guys that are willing to commit atrocities to get what they want there is a completely different logic that applies. The Dalai Lama’s version is utopian, and the word “utopia” is Greek, from ou “no” and topos “place”. As long as we’re here and not there, war most certainly can be logical. Some people just need to die; it’s the only way to stop them since they don’t care about compassion or restraint.

How much restraint we should show in doing that is debatable, but I’ll put it out there that the last war our side won unequivocally was WW2, and then we used literally all the force that we could bring to bear. In modern conflicts you certainly have to at least be prepared to use more than the other side; if you kill them all, they can’t stop your development programs, again logical. Somehow I don’t think this is the logic the DL had in mind, but it’s simpler and makes no assumptions. Simple can be ugly, but it’s generally effective.

Put our money where our brain is, not our mouth.

A former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security calls it "regrettable" that Canada plans to withdraw from the conflict in Afghanistan.

He is certainly entitled to his opinion, and the following is undoubtedly true:

Chertoff believes the challenge of this century is "ungoverned space," where there is no government that can maintain order. Those areas of the world can give terrorists room to thrive, he said.

This is the part that I take issue with, not the concept, but the scale and the execution:

"It would be very short-sighted to stint on the investment now and face the consequences in five years," he said. "So I think President Obama is dead-right in what he is doing."

I read something a few days ago about U.S. Special Forces troops sweeping into Mogadishu with helicopters, hitting a specific target, killing him, and extracting with no losses; it's like "Blackhawk Down" except that it worked. The key phrase in the article was "specific intelligence" and THAT is where the investment that Mr Chertoff talks about should be made.

If the place is ungovernable, who are we to think that we can make it so? Even empires had a hell of a time subjugating barbarians; beating them in the field, sure, conquering the place, sure, but holding it? Iraq might have worked if the Yanks had just decapitated the leadership, but I've made that argument before. Superimposing government can work, but building one in a vacuum? Ask another question, what is the Aim?

Yes, "Selection and Maintenance of the Aim" is the foremost of most Principals of Warfare that you will find, although the exact terms will vary. End state is what? Terrorists have no safe havens to attack us from with impunity? I can think of a lot cheaper (in blood and treasure) ways to achieve that than bogging ourselves down and making us the fixed target as we wallow about trying to rebuild a failed state.

The people who live in these places have more pressing motivation than we do for their countries to function, and if THEY can't make it work that doesn't augur well for us to do so. Cynical for damned sure, but I'm still waiting for someone to prove me wrong.