This topic is difficult to discuss for many reasons. The position I represent is not a mainstream idea. It’s unpopular to most established political figures and news outlets. In addition, hardly anyone is intimately familiar with this perspective, and most are unaware that it even exists. My goal here today: to introduce you to the existence of ideas that I believe are necessary to win this unwinnable war. You be the judge for yourself.
I say unwinnable because that is how this war on terror is approached in action, but not in words. In words we have redefined winning to the point where one has to take pause and wonder: Winning? By what standard?
We have established “pro-western” governments in Iraq and Afghanistan at a — and it’s impossible not to under state this — at a colossal expense to ourselves. Sit down some afternoon and attempt to look-up and measure the total expense in lives and treasure, and the individual rights we’ve agreed to violate here for the sake of these “pro-western” governments. Anyway, is succeeding in bringing about changes in these countries winning this war on “terror”?
History is helpful in answering this question because of the many cases it offers. Let’s look at the last American war that resulted in our uncontested victory: WWII.
During this war, were internal security and other inconveniences raised? They were, remember the Japanese camps here in the US and the rationing for the sake of this war. Did it stay that way? No, things returned to normal – and, by that I mean returning to conditions that existed pre-WWII.
During this war the enemy, both the Japanese Imperialists and Nazis, wanted to kill us. The end of this war was marked by their abandonment of their cause as hopeless — and this is the critical part — this was done in four years counting Pearl Harbor as day one. This is the only measure of victory that mattered, and only then did things return to normal.
How about today in our current war on “terror”? If you haven’t considered the parallels between the two wars, let’s do so now.
Were our internal security and other inconveniences raised since 911? The creation of the Patriot Act, TSA and its policies, and the largest department ever created DHS comes to mind. The continuing increases in security as terrorist discover ways to circumvent our efforts also comes to mind. So the answer is obvious, yes. And by all accounts these security actions are here to stay for our inconvenience, our violated rights, and our security. Forget about going back to normal. If you have been paying attention you would have noticed that we are constantly reminded by political figures and news outlets that this is the new normal.
Does our enemy today want to kill us? I think the answer to this question is equally as obvious, and our enemy shows no sign of getting tired. They see their cause — and rightfully so up to this point — as achievable. They have no reason to think their cause is hopeless, so why would they abandon it? Their cause is as alive today, if not even more so, than it was at 911.
The group that continues to harm us is a speck of dust compared to the two world powers we were facing during WWII. And just as significant to this equation is the fact that we are more powerful by an immeasurable magnitude than we were during WWII.
So I ask again: by what standard are we winning this war on “terror”? Certainly not by the standard that brought us victory during WWII. And that is part of the problem; we have no clear meaningful standard of victory. We are continuously told that these two wars are so essentially different that you cannot measure them both by the same standard. I challenge this ridiculous notion and you should too. If that notion were true then the comparison I just made couldn’t have been made. But I did make the comparison, which ought to be enough for you to wonder about the validity of that notion.
I am familiar with the greatest objection to making this comparison: we are dealing with an insurgency today and we were dealing with easily identifiable countries during WWII, so our enemy today is essentially different and cannot be defeated in the same way because they are difficult (if not impossible) to identify. That is part of the problem too; our enemy remains unidentified because we believe him to be these individuals who are practically unidentifiable until they literally blows up in our faces. Our enemy is more than that. Have you ever considered the reasons why, in spite of the objection, the enemies of WWII and today are essentially the same and why you should use the standard of victory during WWII for this war? That’s what I hope to cover today.
So hopefully you are beginning to see the reasons I think — and you should continue to judge for yourselves — why we haven’t demoralized these specks of dust to the point of abandoning their cause allowing us to return to normal. The two obstacles to this total victory can be summed up as us having no meaningful standard of victory and we haven’t identified our enemy beyond its fighters. This kind of victory is possible once we overcome these obstacles and we don’t have to settle for the results brought forth by 12 years of building “pro-western” nations in the Middle East and the cost associated with it. This victory is what my topic is about today: winning this unwinnable war.
We have just brushed on the solution to one obstacle that prevents victory: having a standard of victory that is meaningful. One obstacle remains, however, which is preventing us from completely hurtling over the first obstacle: properly identifying the enemy in terms essentially the same as our enemy during WWII so that we can act in accordance with the standard of victory that brings us back to normalcy. Most of you are probably wondering at this point, how are we going to properly identify this enemy in such terms?
This subject alone is very difficult to discuss due to the objection I stated earlier, which is deeply embedded into the minds of political figures and news outlets: we’re dealing with an insurgency. To broach this subject I would like to discuss how not to identify our enemies, to draw out how one does properly identify an enemy. Then I’d like to use an analogy to show how one goes about properly identifying our current enemy; so bear with me.
To begin, out enemy is not a tactic as most of you are familiar with. A war on “terror” is one of the worst declarations of wars anyone can make, if defeating the enemy is their goal. A war on “terror” makes as much sense as declaring a war on “blitzkrieg” — for those who don’t know, it was a German tactic during WWII. For one thing, a tactic is only a means to an end. To focus on a means to an outcome without the context of the outcome and those who wish to see it through is meaningless.
If terrorists succeeded in bringing about their ends — achieving world caliphate –without the use of terror tactics, the outcome would be equally as tragic. Not to mention, some tactics may be of poorer taste than others, but they can be good in the act of achieving something good — e.g., victory over our enemies. To give a real example, we caused terror to strike the hearts of Germans during the battle of Belleau Wood, to the point where the US Marines received their famous nickname, “Teufelshunde” or “Devil Dog” in English. Our tactics then were terrifying. Terror can be good, so declaring a war on something that is amoral until applied to a context is worse than meaningless — it’s confusing.
To consider this in a different light, neither is our enemy solely a group people divorced from their cause resulting in their means of achieving it. We stopped attacking the Germans and Japanese during WWII once they abandoned their cause, and therefore, also abandoned their means to achieve it. Why would that be if the Japanese and Germans, as a group of people, were our enemies? The reason is obvious; people as such are not our enemy.
Some of you may be beating me to the punch, but our enemy, as properly defined, is a group of people whose ends would violate our rights and destroy our way of life. Regardless of the tactic, or means, they use to bringing about this end, they are still our enemy and we should act to secure our rights through the most efficient means our appointed guardians see fit. By efficient, I mean the least cost of lives, treasure, and inconveniences possible to secure our rights. If our enemy wishes simply to spread their goal via words and ideas, then we may simply need to unleash counter arguments proving why they are immoral and wrong. If they upgrade from dialog to physically achieving their ends, then words are not sufficient anymore in stopping them — we need to act to defend ourselves and speak out against our enemy with moral righteousness.
So lets dive into the analogy in order to help apply this to our enemy in order to help us identify them. For this analogy there is country X, and a certain group is in power, which we’ll call the Nazis. Now these Nazis aren’t the Nazis of WWII. There are a lot of similarities, and a lot of differences between the two groups.
They each have a book that inspires them and we’ll call it, “Mein Kampf” (or “My Struggle” in English). Now this book in country X has different content than the book that inspired the Nazis during WWII. Instead of race, this new book targets those who lack a certain set of outlined ideas, and those who hold contradicting ideas. The old book talked about an Arian race ruling the world in a worldly utopia, the new book talked about a set of ideas ruling the world in a worldly utopia.
The Nazis of Country X support this goal of establishing their worldly utopia by supporting proxy groups representing this interest. They support them with equipment, money, fighters, training, and most importantly moral sanctioning of their actions. These Nazis have proxy groups in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. They now have officials in Iraq who support this interest. Since the Nazis took power in country X, they have been staunch supporters of Al Qaeda too. Other groups have since joined their cause who may or may not have any direct connection other than sharing the same goal, but these other groups view Country X as a shining example of how to act.
Country X and all of these groups have identified the United States as one of the biggest obstacles in establishing their utopia. Relative to their moral standard the US is irredeemable because our mode of government and the values of our culture are incompatible with the rules established in their book, which to them is the most important thing in the world. For them it’s either/or, either we go and they establish their utopia or we stay and their utopia is frustrated, which is an easy choice for them — we must go.
In their attempt to get us out of the way they have attacked us on multiple occasions: a US Embassy on 20+ occasions in different countries in 1979 x 2, 1983 x 2, 1984 x 2, 1987, 1998 x 2, 2002 x 2, 2004 x 2, 2006, 2008 x 2, 2010, 2012 and 2013; the World Trade Center twice in 1993 and 2001; Our naval ship, the USS Cole, once; countless occasions during our war in Iraq; and many other occasions foreign and domestic. Needless to say Country X and those they support have been actively making good on their goals.
Given this analogy, identifying our enemy is a no brainer. Our enemy is this country X. Their ends are getting rid of us to establishing their world utopia. Their means are physical via their proxies. We need to destroy Country X in self-defense and we have the moral high ground to do so.
To now apply this analogy to today Country X is Iran, and their book is not Mein Kampf, but the Koran.
Our officials know the connections Iran has with their proxies and their actions. This information isn’t classified; it’s well know and all over the news over the years. Even knowing this information, when our President declared war on terror, and threatened to take action against anyone who harbors or supports terrorists, he had the gall to ask Iran to join his coalition in this effort. Of course they agreed in words, but their actions remain largely unbridled and they continue to become more daring, calling us “a paper tiger.” To date, this name has been accurate.
We need to target Iran, but they are not the essence of our entire enemy in this war; they are only its biggest member and its symbol, much like we are the shining star of western civilization and its values. Islam, the ideology driving their actions, is our enemy in the same sense that Nazism and Japanese Imperialism was our enemy in WWII. I refer you to Robert Spenser’s works in understanding Islam as described by the Koran.
The territory of Iran and its people aren’t our enemy as such for the same reasons the Germans and Japanese and their territory wasn’t our enemy as such during WWII. Remember, our enemy is people acting on their ideas that harm us. Once they abandon their ideas and goals, they cease to be our enemy.
Muslims as such aren’t our enemy either because most Muslims’ beliefs are inconsistent with Islam. I refer to them as non-Muslim Muslims and Bosch Fawstin wrote a good article on this subject, which is easily found using Google.
Muslims who are consistent with Islam, and therefore, wish to establish world caliphate, however, are our enemy because implied in this desire is our destruction. This is identifying our enemy in essentially the same terms as identifying our enemy during WWII. Our enemies during WWII were Nazis and Japanese Imperialists who wished to destroy us, and our enemy today is Muslims who wish to destroy us. Targeting Muslims who consistently follow Islam is not racist, as some mistakenly have argued. It would be just as racist as targeting the Nazis because Muslims and the Nazis are not a race; they are followers of a certain ideology.
Now that we have properly identified our enemies to be Muslims who are consistent followers of Islam all that remains now is to achieve victory against this enemy using the same standard of victory that we used in WWII. Again, that standard is the complete demoralization of our enemy to the point where they abandon their cause as hopeless.
You may be wondering or even have some ideas on how this can be accomplished. Again, refer to history to discover the answer. Victory has been achieved by all out war resulting in our enemy’s connection of their continued action to their failure and destruction. That means all we need to do is to make good on Bushes promise to take action against those who support and harbor terrorists (or identified now as consistent followers of Islam).
Here’s an example, when Al Qaeda and the Taliban took refuge in Pakistan, the Pakistani government wouldn’t remove them due to their self-professed “impotence” to control the area and they wouldn’t allow us to remove them either so as not to violate their sovereignty. Pakistan cannot have their cake and eat it too. Either they have the ability to maintain control over an area to possess sovereignty or they don’t have sovereignty. In either case we have a right to destroy our enemies in that area without Pakistan’s approval and they better hope we think they don’t know what the word sovereign means.
The tactics and strategies used in destroying our enemies need to be decided by the leaders of our guardians — military leaders. Their guiding principle, however, should be this: the most efficient means of achieving victory.
A quick word on collateral damage. Collateral damage will occur, but the moral responsibility for these tragic outcomes rightfully rests on the group who initiates force, and not on those who are defending themselves against the aggressor.
Some strategists have said that collateral damage will create more enemies than we destroy. Let’s refer to history to see if this assertion holds true. We nuked two cities in Japan and the collateral damage was the greatest compared to any other attack in the world, and how many more enemies did we create? None. The Japanese today don’t hold any resentment, and if you look at a picture of today’s Nagasaki and Detroit next to each other, you’d begin to wonder which city was previously nuked.
There is a reason this action didn’t create more enemies — the utter demoralization of those who believed in Japanese imperialism and then realizing that their goals are hopeless and will lead to their own destruction. They realized that the act in trying to achieve their goals had led them to this point; they blamed their goals and then rejected them. That is the demoralization we need to strike in the hearts of todays enemies.
There is no causal link between collateral damage and the generation of more enemies, especially since the glaring example of the largest collateral damage in history not only didn’t create more enemies, but it eliminated all remaining enemies left on the battle field. Had we not demoralized the Japanese to the point of abandoning their goal, however, you can bet nuking them would have created more enemies.
For these reasons, our major goal in achieving victory needs to be their complete demoralization of our enemy; not worrying about collateral damage. Obviously we should not indiscriminately create collateral damage for its own sake. And again such decisions in how to best demoralize our enemies need to be made by our guardians.
This is how we win the unwinnable war on terror.
Life Or Death Politics 