Afghanistan: On 14 October, on the eve of the Muslim observance of Eid al Adha, Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar published his annual greeting for this occasion. Omar always uses his greetings for religious exhortation as well as political guidance. Excerpts on political guidance follow.
This is probably an even mix among traitors trying to start a war with Iran (USN), patriots refusing to obey illegal orders (Benghazi), and plain incompetents (nuclear) or industrial era jerks (sexual misadventure). Given the number of incompetent flag officers still serving — over 800 of them, one can be skeptical about these particular firings. The nine generals that have been fired are:
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
Major General Michael Carry, from Commander 20th Air Force
UNITED STATED ARMY
General Carter Hamm, from CG Africa Command
Lietenant General David Holmes Huntoon Jr. from 58th Sperintendent of West Point
Major General Ralph Baker, from Task Force Horn (Djibouti, Africa)
Brigadier General Bryan Roberts, from Fort Jackson
There are two kinds of countries or societies or places to live. In the first kind, decent, fair, kind, and respectful treatment of every person takes precedent over anyone's preferences for how a culture changes or how much effort is expended trying to slow the change of a culture, or which cultures mix with each other, or which groups intermarry. In this first type of society — admittedly a nonexistent ideal — people identify with humanity and welcome any member of humanity into their group of associates, their neighborhood, and their family. Desire to keep some corner of the globe inhabited by people with a particular skin color or language isn't just slightly outweighed by diligent observance of individuals' rights. Instead, such sectarian or tribal desire doesn't exist. And its absence leaves room for concern over war, environmental destruction, hunger, poor healthcare, illiteracy, and all sorts of problems not involving the exclusion of some people from a group.
In the second kind of society, importance is placed on creating or maintaining a population that is exclusively or predominantly of a particular appearance or background, religion or ethnicity. Such a society strays, mildly or moderately or extremely, from democracy, as its demographic project conflicts with people's rights to immigrate, marry, practice or abandon religion, and speak and behave as they choose.
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Valuing some types of people over others leads toward anti-democratic positions and leaves a society open to easy manipulation through fear and prejudice, distracting energy away from real problems that might appear harder to solve. In extreme cases, this type of society becomes fascist. Hatred and violence become admirable. Lynchings and apartheid and Jim Crow and mass incarceration and sadistic punishment follow.
The nation of Israel claims to be both a democracy and a Jewish state. It can't be. Similarly, the United States cannot be a Christian nation or a white nation and a democracy. A poll in Israel in 2012 asked, “Israel is defined as both a Jewish and democratic state. Which is more important to you?” 34% said Jewish, while 22% said democratic, but 42% said that both were equally important. People in that 42% misunderstand the necessity to choose, as they no doubt do choose every day. The same poll asked, “Speakers should be prohibited from harshly criticizing the State of Israel in public … ,” and 20% agreed, while another 29% strongly agreed. Hmmm, is that the democracy or the Jewish state talking?
Max Blumenthal's new book, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, is 400 pages of fascistic horrors, a dystopian vision of where the United States or most any other country could go and where Israel has gone.
The attached article is a very important and informative essay. Patrick Cockurn describes how the media echo chamber warps the Orientation* of the public, as well as that of a government, to unfolding events in the so-called global war on terror that triggered by 9-11 and the continuously metastasizing instabilities the GWOT is unleashing. I regard Cockburn** to be one of the very finest if not THE finest observer now operating in the Middle East. I urge readers to study his analysis very closely … almost every sentence contains a nugget of wisdom. Then think about how this kind of reporting is messing with your mind — e.g., a good place to start is to work through the Orientation-related ramifications of his reference to “embedding.”
Chuck Spinney
Alexandria, VA
* Explanatory note for new readers: The American strategist Colonel John R. Boyd explained why Orientation is the most crucial yet most vulnerable part of any decision maker's Observation – Orientation – Decision – Action (OODA) Loop. The OODA loop lies at the heart of his influential strategic theories about the elemental nature of any form of conflict — i.e., the interaction of opposing MINDs. Readers unfamiliar with Boyd or his synthesis of the OODA Loop can find brief introduction in my essays Genghis John and Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George. More comprehensive but accessible and accurate descriptions can be found in the books by Robert Coram and James Fallows, and Chet Richards. For those readers who are interested in heavy intellectually lifting, I recommend Franz Ozinga‘s analysis of Boyd's strategic thought or even better, they could study Boyd's original presentations, which can be downloaded from this Archive.
** Truth in advertizing: I am proud to call Patrick Cockburn a friend.
The four wars fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the past 12 years have all involved overt or covert foreign intervention in deeply divided countries. In each case the involvement of the West exacerbated existing differences and pushed hostile parties towards civil war. In each country, all or part of the opposition have been hard-core jihadi fighters. Whatever the real issues at stake, the interventions have been presented as primarily humanitarian, in support of popular forces against dictators and police states. Despite apparent military successes, in none of these cases have the local opposition and their backers succeeded in consolidating power and establishing stable states.
More than most armed struggles, the conflicts have been propaganda wars in which newspaper, television and radio journalists played a central role. In all wars there is a difference between reported news and what really happened, but during these four campaigns the outside world has been left with misconceptions even about the identity of the victors and the defeated.
Know the human environment as operations are predominantly conducted in urbanized terrain.
Understanding the environment is fundamental in either conducting operations and analyzing any threat.
Performing operations from a marketing perspective means that you have to:
Review of the operational environment.
Try to analyze a country as you would analyze an organization.
Study the countries’ inhabitants at every level, opponents at every level and the overall economic, political, cultural and technical environment; covering developing trends, as well as the current situation.
What do the people want and why do they want that?
