Castle Argghhh! Style Manual Change

i never would have guessed that someday Harry Tunnell and HR McMaster would be considered the "academics" of my class....

First, comment that I read from several mil bloggers, particularly major K of strength and honor, that the Iraqis call them "arhabi" which loosely translates to something like "murderous criminal" (someone with better translation skills could clear that up). They refer to the thieves and kidnappers (non-murderous variety) as ali-baba (yes, as in the Arabian Nights tale). Secondly, dark rider, there are several goals in a counter insurgency: 1) Separate the "insurgents" (terrorists, arhabi, etc) from the civilian populace. Mao said that if the insurgents could not win the population, they could never coalesce into an organized army which he believed had to happen for the "insurgents" to win. He said, specifically, that, if guerillas failed to win the population and coalesce, the population would simply consider them to be nothing but bandits and murderers. In which case, if the general population believes that a jihadist has pure intentions, is on a holy mission, will be a martyr or any other ENNOBLING concetps, then they will more likely support those men, even in the face of horrific murderers (they live a much tougher life than we do and are much more pragmatic about what God does or does not allow in order to accomplish HIS will and protect the people). Also, think about how we use the words "knight", "honor", "sacrifice", "hero". We honor those we believe embodies those ideas and thus, so do Muslims in their own language and ideas. Since this IS applied to a wide strategem of people in modern and historical Islam, we need to be able to separate the acts of true Muslim heroes and those of the common terrorists. This seems like an excellent start. Which brings me to 2) We need to beat these folks at their own game. We need to control the discourse, the language, the description of acts of warfare. We don't. Generally because we do not understand that your average mujihadeen has little political ideology and lots of religious, tribal and traditional ideology grounded into him. Thus, he sees things as his duty even if he doesn't completely understand the strategy of the leadership. He does not see himself as the ONE that will change all things, he sees himself as a small part of this epic battle. An epic battle that has historical context. I don't mean our few modern years of history with the middle east, I mean, these men see themselves as Salah al Din or Mohammed or Hussein (as in descendent of Mohammed not Saddam), etc, etc, etc. They often see themselves in a romantic light like a young man might see himself as Lancelot or King Arthur or some other mythical embodiment of knightliness that sometimes joins the miliatary or police (I noted in air ports, particularly San Diego, than many a young recruit was carrying around sci-fi books with men and women dressed in knightly garb). These men are not so much "recruited" straight out as they already have these ideas implanted in them and they seek out ways to join or express those ideas. Since the public discourse makes out the terrorists as "mujihadeen" and going on "jihad", then these young men start believing that this is how they can express those ideas. that is why you hear continued references to the "crusaders" (us). That is where you get these little pop up cells that recruit their own cell and THEN try to contact the main base of AQ to join. 3) So our job is to redefine these other men who lead these terrorists as something less than honorable, noble or holy. Probably very late in the came to come to this idea, but still important and something we can do by using simply terms that resonate with the general Muslim populace and define the men as criminals, murderers, thieves, kidnappers, etc, etc, etc. It's not about what we think of these terms, mind you, it is how Muslims use them. That is the purpose of this article (which I hadn't read yet, but wanted to respond because I've been thinking about it for sometime). It's a reason why I stopped talking about Islam as a whole and its "problems" and started talking about the specifics that these terrorists use and abuse to create their unholy ideology. I recall Prince Fiesel al Turki once talking about these groups as being part of a cult. I dismissed it at the time because I was ignorant of Islam and the region, thinking that he was seeking to mitigate the Saudi responsibility in the creation of salafist wahhabi extremists. But now I believe we should not have been so quick to dismiss the Saudi classifications and language. They have been dealing with these extremists for not just decades, but centuries. When Saudi Arabia was created by dent of Abdul Aziz al-Saud who went to war with many tribes to subjugate them to his will and create the state, he used "mujihadeen". After he had created the state, he realized he had little resources or money to create an army or hold the territory so he began working with the British and others to sell oil and get funds to do so. A group of the men who had followed him and helped him secure Saudi Arabia decided that he was now entertaining apostate ideas and went to war with him, declaring Jihad. This is at the turn of the 20th century mind you; 100 years ago. It wasn't the first time it happened. The beginning of the al saud clan and the wahabist collaboration of 1774 had the very same events occuring. Both times, the al Saud leaders had to go to war with an element that had assisted them in their own goals. Both times, the al Saud leaders used their influence and connections with other clerics and scholars to declare themselves to be the arbiters and protectors of Islam and the wahabist "mujihadeen" as apostates. They did not let these men take and use such an important term. We could learn a thing or two from reading their history. I would be comparing the acts of Salah al Din to the arhabi or mufsidun we are fighting now, just as they do, but instead of denigrating such a man and Islam, we should point out everything that he was that they are not. We can't do this ourselves, but we should be watching how the ME deals with their own. I will return later to comment on this further, but that is how I see it without even reading the rest of this article.

It makes a lot of sense to use the correct words to define these people. The terms we use have been defined through what they call themselves except for 'terrorist'

FYI I really am going on hiatus until around fourth of July. I swear this time I am going. Ry, I sent you the info on how to get on the blog and post. If you do you do if you don't, no sweat. I may be able to stop by on very short appearances since the only thing I'll have available is dial up.

IT still ain't ready, but I'll see if I can get what I'm working on onto the board. Maybe someone will point me in the direction I need to go for it to be solid. Thanks Kat, enjoy your trip.

YOu'er not helping Larry! ;0) All kidding aside. That doesn't help end the conflict you know. That gives the Holy Warrior types exactly the google fodder to feed the normal populace to make them think we are wagging a war on Islam. Not good. I want my buddy to come home and be the greatest daddy ever to his little girl(little red headed girl down in Sandy Eggo). Best way that's gonna happen is if we get the normals on our side. Human costs may matter.