21-years

If it seems like a long time ago, I guess it was. For me at least, it seems not.

As I do every year, this is how I saw it.

 

The Islamic State Was Defeated; Long Live the Islamic State

 

If you haven't clued in yet, the Islamic State may have lost its caliphate in Syria and Iraq, but it is far from done. A solid comparison would be to call it a franchise, like its Al Qaeda forerunner.

As we will continue to remind everyone here, you need to keep and eye on Africa - the Islamic States more active franchise. 

Great article from Critical Threats. 

Maj. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of US Special Operations Command Africa, gave a sobering assessment of the increasing security threats posed by al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their ilk in Africa in an AEI webinar on September 9 (see the video and transcript here). He warned of African al Qaeda affiliates’ growing responsiveness to their parent organization and highlighted al Qaeda’s “methodical” playbook for coercing and controlling local populations in West Africa while remaining under the US policy radar. Maj. Gen. Anderson acknowledged the US military’s small footprint in Africa and the centrality of non-military challenges in stoking Salafi-jihadi insurgencies, underscoring the need for a clear strategy and more coordination with international partners and the US interagency to combat the Salafi-jihadi threat.

The background problem is that Islamic fundamentalist organizations will take advantage of a continent soaked in poor governance, corruption, unsustainable demographics, environmental devastation, and economic systems that cannot support a modern standard of living for the surging masses.

There are islands of hope here and there in sub-Saharan Africa, but those trend lines are not outpacing the advance of the Islamic State.

The US needs a policy framework for Africa that enables prioritizing and scaling US responses to prevent local conflicts from spiraling into regional crises, as well as rolling back the crises that have already passed this threshold. US Africa Command (AFRICOM) is resource-constrained and likely to face further cuts. In any circumstance, AFRICOM should not be the sole or lead actor for a US approach to African security. The factors that underpin the Salafi-jihadi movement are political, not military. Addressing the fragility that feeds extremism requires a new holistic strategy, and preventing or reducing inflammatory proxy interventions requires both diplomatic leadership and leverage. The US needs to rethink its engagement in Africa — quickly — before the continent’s developing threats are more immediate and more difficult to address.

The USA military cannot "fix" this area of the world, only help. Ultimately, those nations will have to fix themselves. Unfortunately, many of their best and brightest are not staying and working to build a better future, but are moving to Europe and the Americas. The brain drain is a challenge no one really has good metrics on, but it is there.

That too is part of the problem - and a much harder one to fix.

Long War in Africa is Tomorrow's War Too

Let's stick with the long war in Africa today, as last night I came across this jewel from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, The Islamic State’s Strategic Trajectory in Africa: Key Takeaways from its Attack Claims. 

This heat map is superb and shows that the issue in northern Mozambique is a side show.

From the IS point of view, their main effort is Nigeria and the Sinai.

The Sinai is almost an, "of course..." but everyone should remember that it is the Egyptian military is the only thing keeping Egypt from falling to the Muslim Brotherhood again. As we've seen in Turkey, the West putting faith in modernizing military leadership can only get you so far.  

Nigeria is where the prize is, and not just for oil. Are you up to speed in Nigerian demographics? Let's start with just religion. 

In 2010, the population was 49% Christian and 48% Muslim.  Now?

Where will that stand at 2050?

Now let's look at numbers.

Where will that be by 2050?

~410 million - larger than the United States.

History is far from over and the future has all sorts of horrors it will visit on the planet.

Know the intersection of demographics, economics, and religion and how they relate to future conflict ... and they will all lead you back to Africa.

Drones and a New Age of Economic Terrorism

5% of the world’s oil production is knocked out … and days-on no one has any evidence who and from where.

The assumption – and I think it is a good one – was that the Yemeni Houthi rebels launched the attack using either drones or a combination of drones and missiles.

What we don’t know right now is what kind of drones and/or other weapons were used, where they were launched from, or really if it were actual Houthi who did it.

Whatever delivery platform(s) they used, you have to give a professional nod to those who carried out the operation. What an incredible bang for the buck.

This is not a “new” threat. Attacks against economic targets are as old as history – but to do it effectively usually took overt displays of nation-state military forces … or mercenary/piracy that were easy to track back to their benefactors. No more.

What to do?

1. Well, to start with, we need to “learn to code.” The threat is from the air, and we are not ready for it. I am reminded here one of the interesting accidents in the development of the Israeli Gabriel ASCM. When they were trying to develop a seeker head, they made a math error. As a result, they “over-engineered” their seeker head making it incredibly accurate for its time.

We have great AAW defensive sensors weapons – many we’ve exported to Saudi Arabia … but they are not designed to find and defeat this threat from small RCS and slow “drones” – especially if they come in low launched from nearby locations. You can transport drones for these type operations in a backpack on the small end, to the trunk of a car on the more capable end. There are some EW issues – but none that we’ll discuss on this net – but there are ways around it (you need to pony up some consulting fees for this advice). In any event; advantage to the aggressor, as we’ve seen.

We and the Saudis have good kit, but it is not optimal for this threat.

2. Diversity and disaggregation is the key. If you think the Saudi’s have a lot of refining eggs in a few baskets, you should look at the USA. That and our electrical grid…but I’ll try to focus on the topic at hand.

The cult of efficiency and NIMBYism resulted it a lot of critical capacity packed in to just a few locations. We are one natural or man-made disaster from having problems that will make the Saudi attack look small.

There are also military vulnerabilities to this threat.

Case in point – look at this pic.

Now, instead of oil storage tanks - here's your oldie-but-goodie - think ships lined up at Christmas in Norfolk. Think subs at Kings Bay or New London.

You get the idea. And no, you don't have to sink anything ... you just have to make a point. 

“We’ve” been chatting about this threat for a very long time, and the technology is reaching the point of where the chatting needs to move towards action.

In the attack, you don’t need a lot of money. You don’t need a big footprint; all you need is will and imagination. Do it right, and no one will even know how to retaliate.

In the defense, you do need a lot of money. You need more real estate. You need leadership, vision, and persistence. Do it right, and you will still be vulnerable, but not to the point of strategic risk.

There is a very good chance that this is simply an opening of a new type of global threat. I’ve had my Red Hat on too long this AM, I’m going to take it off – I’m scaring myself.

Race is not a Social Construct - it is Targetable

Yesterday's post reminded me that we are well past that point where it is impossible to think that there are entities out there that would, if they had the ability, plan for the murder of hundreds of millions of souls.

In the Cold War, the USA & USSR did - with an after thought by a few others - with nukes, chemical, and biological weapons.

The last one was mostly, but not exclusively, looked at in detail by the Soviets ... but they learned that there is a big problem with biological weapons as a strategic weapon - blow back.

A human is a human, and odds are any weaponized biological infection would cross in to the nation who deployed it first.

Science marches on. Designer babies, custom DNA based treatment programs, chimera, and that interesting CRISPR technology, had to lead to a dark place where we know people reside.

It tickles the tribal brain; kill the other tribe.

Scale up tribe in to ethnicity ... and ... well ... we know more than one group who would like to eliminate certain groups - humans have been doing this to other humans for over a hundred thousand years.

BEHOLD

Biological weapons could be built which target individuals in a specific ethnic group based on their DNA, a report by the University of Cambridge has warned.

Researchers from Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) said the government was failing to prepare for ‘human-driven catastrophic risks’ that could lead to mass harm and societal collapse

This has been a topic for futurists of long standing. As Derb pointed out, Irwin Shaw in 1967 wrote about it in, "The Mannichon Solution."

Each year it gets closer.

Keep your eye on the sky and move indoors

The socialist president of Venezuela almost became Victim-0 this summer, and I am not sure we really know how to deal with what is not just coming, but already here.

What started in Iraq with quad-copter dropping small explosives with badminton shuttlecocks glued to the end are long gone.

This has been a long time coming. There was some silly British movie in the late-70s that had people using RC aircraft to not just smuggle something I don't recall, but also countering those RC aircraft with other RC aircraft. It's been almost 4-decades, but I still remember it.

It is helpful to remember that "RC aircraft" is just a less sexy way of saying "drone" which is what a quad-copter is which is just an entry level UAS. 

Though their Achilles heal is their vulnerable control links - that can be fixed even for recreational COTS. This event will ensure it will be fixed next time someone goes for the king.

As Jeremy Kryt at The Daily Beast tells us, the day of the drone assassin has arrived;

In November of 2017, The Daily Beast broke the story of the first illegally weaponized drone found in Mexico. It was a relatively primitive version that sported a homemade shrapnel bomb and was found in the back of a vehicle belonging to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), in the state of Guanajuato.

Then, about a month ago, evidence surfaced that CJNG had already advanced their drone designs considerably.

On July 10, the house of a Mexican public safety officer was targeted in a drone attack in Tecate, Baja California—a border city in the larger Tijuana-San Diego municipality that falls within CJNG’s established territory.

According to a new report co-authored by Dr. Robert Bunker, of the U.S. Army War College, the Tecate drone managed to drop its payload ISIS-style on the officer’s residence. Although the attack was apparently meant as a warning—since the grenades still had their safety pins intact—it also showed a clear step up in cartel-drone enhancement, including a second unmanned aircraft that conducted reconnaissance on site.

“Of the two drones, the Tecate one has far better lethality than the one in Guanajuato—we are comparing military grade grenades versus an IED,” Bunker told The Daily Beast.

“This is still an evolving global threat,” Bunker said. “The next firebreak, now that earlier ones have recently been broken in Mexico and Venezuela... would be weaponized drone incidents taking place in either Western Europe or in the United States. You can’t get much closer to the U.S. than Tecate, Mexico for an incident like this.”

Michel agreed with Bunker about the international risk posed by evolving drone technology.

“We're definitely going to see more attacks of this kind, be they assassination attempts against a specific leader or indiscriminate terrorist attacks,” Michel said. “Part of the appeal of drones for terrorists groups is that they make great cable news fodder. Showing that you have weaponized drones is an excellent way to draw attention to your organization and to incite fear.”

Unfortunately, anti-drone jamming devices lag far behind UAV offensive capabilities, Michel explained.

“In a nutshell, no single counter-drone technology is one hundred-percent effective against one hundred percent of drones in one hundred percent of cases,” he said. “And that’s before you even get to the countermeasures to the countermeasures. There are already drones in development that would be entirely resistant to the kinds of jamming systems reportedly used to protect Maduro.”

While everyone has the quad-copter top of mind as a delivery platform (a delivery platform BTW that is slow & fragile enough to be defeated close in via hard kill with any 3.5" 12-ga loaded with B to T sized shot), it is not the platform that concerns me.

No, there are much more frightening delivery devices out there you can buy off the shelf with little care. With a few modifications, if any - here is your threat. Old school RC aircraft, upgraded and reinforced.

You don't need a huge payload, just enough. Here is your entering argument to ponder. MotionRC's F-86 with a 80mm 12-blade EDF engine. Electric, so a lot more quiet and quicker to get in the air compared to wet-fuel mini-jets. There are larger and faster ones than this example. Just an entering argument here.

Ponder.



Now ponder that power plant(s) in a bespoke design to carry ordnance on a one-way flight.

Hezbollah, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and What's Next - on Midrats

As the Syrian conflict enters what looks to be its end game, one old player on the scene is emerging stronger than it has ever been, a point of concern for all the nations in the area.

How has the Syrian civil war changed Hezbollah and her allies, and what does it signal about the post-war order?

To discuss this and related issues will be our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm, Sulome Anderson.

Sulome is journalist and author based between New York City and Beirut, Lebanon. An alumna of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She writes regularly for publications including Newsweek, The Atlantic, New York, Harpers, Foreign Policy, VICE, Village Voice and Vox.com. Her first book, The Hostage’s Daughter was published in 2016.

We will use her latest article, Hezbollah’s New Strength Leaves Israeli Border Tense, as a starting off point for our conversation.

Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Why Should a Warship Worry About a Chevy SUV?

There is actually a lot to worry about.

I'm pondering over at USNIBlog.

Come on by and give it a read.

The Attack on the Saudi Frigate, RSS Al-Madinah

I'll try to keep the commentary to a minimum today, as I think these videos tell the story quite well. A story in three videos, as it were.

First, everyone should be up to speed on the first video; the one the Yemeni forces took of their attack on the RSS Al-Madinah in the Bab Al-Mandab Strait.



Next is a video of the attack taken from the ship. Now, don't be like Sal and be distracted by the gear adrift (unmanned lawn chair on the flight deck), but look at the attack.



This was a clear, bright day. These waters have seen attacks over and over. This is a littoral zone at war. These waters are thick with small boats. Small boat attacks, solo or swarm, are decades old.

Think about a few things: watchstanding; number and diversity of weapons; etc. What are the top lessons you bring from it?

This next video was of the Al-Madinah's return to port. From the band at the opening to the formation discipline at the end, what are the details that you see and how does that inform your opinion on why this ship was successfully attacked - if at all?

Anjem Choudary; Not Free, at Last

One of the great blights on the Mother Country in recent years has been how long she was played by that hateful Islamic Radical, Anjem Choudary (Peas be Upon Him). 

From gaming the welfare system, to radicalizing who knows how many people and injecting fear every time he spoke, etc - you should all know his background. If not, shame on you.

For those who know this sad tale - this is a good day. Years past from when there should have been action taken, but a good day none the less.

One of the UK's most notorious radical clerics has been convicted of inviting others to support the so-called Islamic State, it can now be reported.

Police said Anjem Choudary, 49, had stayed "just within the law" for years, but was arrested in 2014 after pledging allegiance to the militant group.

Many people tried for serious terror offences were influenced by his lectures and speeches, police said.
Choudary was convicted alongside confidant Mohammed Mizanur Rahman.

Counter-terrorism chiefs have spent almost 20 years trying to bring Choudary, a father of five, to trial, blaming him, and the proscribed organisations which he helped to run, for radicalising young men and women.

Let's see how long they put him away. We have room in Gitmo.

Do know this; the horrible delay in holding this guy to account has cost lives. This PC cancer has blood of the innocent all over it him.

Trans-national Terrorism and the Long War with Bill Roggio - on Midrats

When the BREXIT dust settles one thing will remain – the Long War against Islamic terrorists. In a wide arch along its bloody edge, Islamic extremism continues to look for new opportunities for expansion, and within the borders of Dar al-Islam seeks to impose a retrograde view of Islam by destroying religious minorities, secular governments, and Islamic modernizers. 

Join us this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern with returning guest Bill Robbio for the full hour to discuss this and more. 

Bill is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, President of Public Multimedia Inc, a non-profit news organization; and the founder and Editor of The Long War Journal, a news site devoted to covering the war on terror. He has embedded with the US and the Iraqi military six times from 2005-08, and with the Canadian Army in Afghanistan in 2006. Bill served in the US Army and New Jersey National Guard from 1991-97.

Join us live if you can with the usual suspects in the chat room and offer up your questions for our guest, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Bad Sulu Moves to Pakistan

There may be an asterisk in that "Thousand Ship Navy."

I'm pondering over at USNIBlog. 

Come on by!

Terrorists on the Ocean with CAPT Bob Hein, USN - on Midrats

When does the Long War go feet wet?

Given the track record of the preceding couple of decades, it was expected shortly after the start of this phase of the war after 911, that terrorists would take the war to sea. There was an incident now and then, but the threat never really played out to the extent we thought early on.

Recent events point to the possibility that this may be changing, in perhaps ways not originally thought.

What is the threat? Where is it coming from, and how do you deter and defeat it?

Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss this and more will be CAPT Bob Hein, USN. We will use his latest article with CIMSEC, Terrorists on the Ocean: Sea Monsters in the 21st Century, as a starting out point for discussion.

Captain Hein is a career surface warfare officer. Over the last 28 years, he has served on seven ships around the globe and has had the privilege of commanding two of them: the USS Gettysburg (CG 64), and the USS Nitze (DDG 94),

He completed two tours as a requirements officer on the Navy staff for combatant modernization and for future logistics capabilities. He also served as the current operations officer for U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Additional tours include as an action officer on the Joint Staff, Joint Operations Directorate, and as Chief of Staff to the NATO Mediterranean Fleet.

He is currently the Branch Head for Strategy on the OPNAV Staff (N513) Captain Hein graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor's in physical science. He also holds a master's in national security affairs and strategic studies from the Naval War College, is a graduate of the Joint Forces Staff College, and a former Navy Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is also the proud father of two Surface Warfare Officers; it's a family business.

Join us live if you can with the usual suspects in the chat room and offer up your questions for our guest, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

The Wages of Decades of European Delusion

There is a nuance to the attack on Brussels last week that is already well understood by long-time readers of CDRSalamander. Yes, on the whole the most recent attack in Europe was a well-executed tactical operation by the enemy in the course of The Long War.

Brussels, as the HQ of the EU and NATO is the premier target in Europe along with Paris and London, closely followed by Rome and Berlin. The backstory to the attack in question; this was an inside job. That is the nuance.

The attackers were not part of wave of million+ military aged males from radicalized Islamic nations that crashed over the borders of Europe in the last two years. No, these were native born Belgians, the end result of decades of wrongheaded national policies that had no historical record of success. Just the opposite, all of written history showed where polities being supported in Belgium would lead, but history was ignored in the arrogance of the now.

Over at TheNewYorkPost, Amir Teheri does an outstanding job filling in the caps of why this latest attack was very much part of The Long War, with some distinct local characteristics;

What happened in Brussels was a co-production by adepts of two sick ideologies.

The first one is Islamism in its many versions, including Khomeinism in Iran, Talibanism in Afghanistan, Salafism in Arab countries, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and ISIS and its offshoots across the globe. It will remain firmly in place until it implodes under the weight of its savage contradictions, as did the old Soviet Union, or is defeated in a war as was the case with Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan.

The other co-producer, the mushy and politically correct “liberal” ideology that has seduced segments of opinion in Western democracies, can and must be combated by all those who wish to protect the democratic system in an increasingly dangerous world.

Since most factories were located in the Walloons’ area, the owners were careful to import workers from French-speaking lands which, at the time, made French-controlled North Africa an attractive source of labor. The Walloons also had a low birth rate, while the Flemish had large families. One source of concern for French speakers was the capital Brussels, with its 19 districts divided across linguistic lines. The Walloons feared that their depopulated districts would be repopulated by Dutch-speakers. They offered rent-free or subsidized housing to immigrants from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia who knew no Flemish but could plod along in kitchen French.

By the 1990s, most of the factories had disappeared, but the immigrants remained. By then Islam was Belgium’s second-largest religion, now accounting for over 700,000 people or 6.2% of the population. Of these, almost half live in Brussels, counting for 28% of the total population of the city, and guarding the demographically declining districts from “falling” to the Flemish.
...
The Belgian multiculturalist elites, making a fetish of the concept of “otherness” corrected that lacuna by financing courses in Islam, encouraging the building of mosques and Koranic schools and even subsidizing pilgrimages to Mecca. The welfare industry also had an interest in protecting the “otherness” of the immigrant community where unemployment was rising, reaching over 40% by the end of the 1990s. In some cases, four generations of a family could be found on the welfare register in the context of their cherished “otherness.”

Radical Islamists of all ilks were welcomed to market their ideological wares.

In 1993 when France and most other Western nations banned the Algerian terrorist groups, Belgium welcomed them with open arms. For example, the so-called Islamic Armed Group (GIA), responsible for tens of thousands of killings in Algeria, maintained an office and published a magazine in Molenbeek, while the Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb al-Tahrir) which campaigns for the revival of the caliphate, transferred its leadership to Belgium.
...
The Belgian multiculturalist elite, helped by political allies in France and Germany, also secured European Union subsidies for Islamist propaganda in the shape of seminars and conferences and, ultimately, the creation of a European Fatwa Council headed by the Muslim Brotherhood televangelist Sheikh Yussef al-Qaradawi.
...
After the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks against the United States, Belgium, though member of the North Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO) and host to its headquarters, kept a low profile when the allies acted against the Taliban to dismantle terrorists bases in Afghanistan. In the US-led liberation of Iraq that followed in 2003, Belgium joined France’s President Jacques Chirac in denouncing “George W Bush’s illegal war.”

So open, so accommodating, not unlike the evil US or Britain. Belgium was sure it wasn’t a target for jihadists.
...
They even wrote to the king of Belgium inviting him and his family to convert to Islam as soon as possible.

Petty domestic identity based political concerns by a small but active political party, throw in some fluffy useful idiots from the multiculturalism cult, and there you go.

... the European Union’s foreign policy representative, the Italian Federica Mogherini, happened to be on an official visit to Amman, the Jordanian capital.

Fighting back tears, she cut short a news conference saying: “It’s a very sad day for Europe, as Europe and its capital are suffering the same pain that the Middle East has known and knows every single day, be it in Syria, be it elsewhere.”

She then mused about the role that Islam may have played in the tragedy, dismissing “the idea of a clash between Islam and the West.”

“Islam,” she said, “holds a place in our Western societies. Islam belongs to Europe…I am not afraid to say that political Islam should be part of the picture.”

Mogherini’s statement offers an insight into the mentality that has helped produce the situation in Western European societies, where fear is woven into the fabric of daily life. It is a world of illusions and false identities.
...
Brussels is the result of this thinking. It’s what happens when immigrants are allowed to construct their own state within a state, not pushed to become part of a nation.

In a sense, Mogherini is right. Islam in its most violent form is already part of Europe just as much as a cancer belongs to the body it attacks.

Mogherini’s crocodile tears remind one of the German Nazi anthropologists Sigrid Hunke, another grand lady of misguided European Islamophilia. In her book “Allah’s Sun Shines Over the West,” Hunke claims that Islam, not Judeo-Christianism, created modern Europe by shaping the Andalusian model and must at some point return to resume its work. Well, may be the prodigal son has returned, invited back by Europe’s multiculturalist elites.

Mogherini and the Belgian left, specifically the Walloon Parti Socialiste, are almost cartoonish weak-horse representations of may be a terminal illness of the EuroLeft - and even significant portions of the American Left; a personal self-loathing projected to a national cultural scale. Like a pretty girl who doesn't believe that she is pretty and deserving of being respected who makes herself unattractive, hurts herself, and then partners with lovers who abuse and debase her because she thinks she is somehow deserving of it.

Yes, it is a mental disorder.

The next question is; will the Belgian people hold their government accountable? Can they? As we outlined during the 2007 Belgian crisis, the entire nation can be held up by less than 25% of the nation's voters - specifically in this area by the Walloon Parti Socialiste. This sub-plot in the general European disaggregation in the face of waxing Islamism will only get worse.

Watch this space.

Brussels is Calling ...

Can everyone hear this time?

I'm discussing over at USNIBlog. 

Come by and let me know what you think.

... and then there was Paris

No thinking person on either side of the Atlantic should have been surprised by the attack in Paris. There were simply another in a line of smaller attacks on France this year. This one just was better manned, trained, and equipped than the others.

For decades, despite evidence and experience, Europe in general and France in particular has allowed the continued immigration of a people who do not, as a body, assimilate and are hostile to their host culture. They do not wish to become part of it; they first want to feed off it it, then destroy then replace it.

There are individual exceptions to that general fact, but the exception does not disprove the larger reality. Just wander the streets in Malmo, Rotterdam, Brussels, and on the edges of Paris, London, Frankfurt ... I could go on and on. It is all there for those who are brave enough to see it.

The violence that is coming with this mindless openness to invasion is just a natural byproduct of the source nations’ culture. It is compounded by the fact that we are in a waxing phase of Islam that is characterized by radicalism and violence - as have other waxing phases Islam through history. Their religion calls for it, and when the moment is right, the call is answered by millions. Always has been, always will be.

There will be more attacks, and deadlier attacks. Most will be in Europe because they have more "water" that the terrorist "fish" can swim in. They will attack again here as well. Never be shocked, but ask - will the politicians take serious action this time, or will they simply make their decisions based on what those self-preening leftists who live behind gated communities and secure walls will write about them, and hopefully will invite them to all the right parties and conferences.

I will repeat this often; nations and cultures are not required to commit suicide – no to allow leaders to drive them in that direction.

As for France's response to this attack, we should give them time. Though initial reactions are strong, history tells us not to expect much follow through.

The attacks on Madrid in 2004 only resulted in Spain doing exactly what the terrorists wanted - they withdrew from being a surprisingly strong leader in the war against Islamic radicalism. They voted Socialist and that produced the expected result, as always.

The London attacks of 2007 resulted in little more than a horrible eye sore of a memorial in Hyde Park that generations that follow will despise their ancestors from putting up.

France has the lead on how they want to respond, and we should do all we should to support and encourage them - but there are some structural items that should dampen anyone who is hoping for a vigorous response from the West.

1. France is led by the Socialist Party. Faster than any other party, after the initial cohesion, Socialist parties will soon fracture as their anti-war and petty internal politics start to disaggregate a united front. Hollande may try to rally his party to the flag, but it won't have much sticking power.

2. The USA is led by Barak Obama. His presence and leadership in such matters are a powerful as soaking wet Wonder Bread. France has limited ability to do much expeditionary by itself in Syria without USA standing shoulder to shoulder. France's only other option is Russia. That would be if France's Socialist government wants to do anything but a month of posturing and lobbing a dozen bombs every other day for a week or so. One would hope we would act shoulder to shoulder with France, but hope is not a plan and Obama’s Biden-spun track record is clear.

3. It will need to get worse until it gets better. Europe still has not come to terms with the army of hundreds of thousands of military aged young men from the radicalized Islamic world who are already inside her borders - with thousands of more coming every day. This is what you need to watch. Until they start taking measures to stop and reverse the flow - and sharply reduce incentives for more to come - then they can do all they want in Syria, the terrorist threat will only grow.

The primary responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. Especially in densely populated Europe with already high structural unemployment, the role of government is not to let hundreds of thousands of non-citizen, undereducated, unemployable, radicalized, young men of military age from a violent, misogynist rape culture soak in their cities to live off of public welfare. Governments that intentionally tax their citizens, and create a less safe environment for their citizens will not last.

In the political elite's desire to have all the usual leftist media, arts, and organizations say nice things about them, they are creating the conditions for strife, violence, and civic disharmony. For years, the European people have been looking for establishment politicians to listen and act on their concerns. That cry is getting louder. If it continues to be unanswered, the people will turn to anti-establishment politicians. Those will be outside the center-right and center-left consensus that has ruled Europe since WWII. Since the self-loathing voter-importing left actually has been the driving force in supporting the policies that created the situation they find themselves in, that means the people cannot find their answers in the left. If the center right will not provide it, then the people will continue to search the radical fringe.

Maybe the French Socialist government will prove me wrong, but I'm willing to bet not. One thing I do know, there will be more and deadlier attacks, and more people will wonder - when will the governments react to protect their people?

What must be done? Simple, really. Two things must be done in parallel;

- First, help the Arab world and the Muslim world host their own refugees. 
- Next, stop all refugee migration and return those who have already arrived. 

Europe will have their hands full the rest of this century with native born radicals, there is no reason to make it worse by importing more.

For the USA? Learn from Europe. Act accordingly.

---

UPDATE: No comment needed.

Saturday Music Stop

I'm still pondering the attacks in Paris. I've done a little on twitter, and less of FB.

I think I want to bring something here from FB, as I used to do a music bit most Saturdays.

As if we need any more reason to hate terrorists, maybe this will help some understand the mindest of evil.

Most people have heard that the largest death toll in Paris was in a concert hall where and American band was playing. It was the band, "Eagles of Death Metal." The people who were slaughtered were the types who would go see a band like this. My people.

The civilian types who just want to live their lives and listen to their eclectic bands. You know, they type we wear/wore the uniform to defend. In a way, when the enemy kills them, we have failed in our job.

It won't let me embedd it, but if you click here, you can see them from 2011 live with Leno. The next video is of some of their more recent work.

Slaughtered by religious fanatics just because you wanted to see a quirky American band. 

Rational Enemies Require Rational Responses

Over the weekend, I am sure you have read many of the responses to the attacks in Chattanooga. This is a good moment to take a measure of not just possible solutions to prevent more repeats of such attack, but of our leaders as well - and we'll get to that in moment.

As for the specifics of the attack, we need to be very clear and honest with ourselves about what they were and the person who conducted them. There was nothing senseless about them, nothing mindless, nothing that should have been a surprise. 

Though unquestionably a person with a warped world view, the attacker was quite sane. We have already seen people try to make excuses, but I'm not buying it. We have millions of young men who have debt, smoke weed, are depressed, and are trying to find their way in this world - but they are not growing beards and attacking the US military.

The attacker was very clear headed about what he was doing, why he was doing it, and the long-view context of his role in a global, religious war.

This was just one in a series of attacks of this kind. If you have forgotten, Streiff has a nice summary for you. Oh, and yes; there will be more.

We are engaged in a long, global war - it just happened to come home for a day. From a professional standpoint, it is useful to stand back and see that the enemy conducted a very good operation - one that not only should have been expected, but one that we should expect to be replicated. Effective and efficient techniques, tactics, and procedures are used and improved upon until they are no longer useful. Put on your red hat for a moment and review this attack. Same as the 911 attacks, professionally - using their way or war and ROE - you have to respect it.

William Saletan over at Slate provides some perspective if you need it;

Are trainers and recruiters noncombatants? If so, we’re killing noncombatants every week. According to the Pentagon’s latest published data, our coalition in Syria and Iraq has struck more than 2,000 enemy “buildings” and nearly 500 “staging areas.” A “staging area” can be almost anything—according to the U.S. military glossary, it’s “a general locality established for the concentration of troop units.” Scan the Pentagon’s daily reports on the campaign, and you’ll see accounts of strikes against “barracks,” “compounds,” “structures,” “manufacturing workshops,” and “logistics hubs.” If you’re an ISIS foot soldier, it hardly matters where you are or what you’re doing. You’re a target.

Recruiters are standard fare. In February, we sent a drone to kill an ISIS recruiter in Afghanistan, even though, according to a Pentagon spokesman, the recruiter had “decided to swear allegiance to [ISIS] probably no more than a couple weeks ago. And he didn't have a whole lot of depth to any network resources or manpower when he did it.”

Training facilities aren’t just fair game. They’re prized targets. President Obama has repeatedly bragged about hitting them. In February, White House spokesman Josh Earnest proudly informed reporters that coalition airstrikes had “succeeded in taking out at least 20 training camps.” Two weeks ago, Obama indicated that the tally had increased: “We’ve taken out thousands of fighting positions, tanks, vehicles, bomb factories, and training camps.”

When we target a training facility and kill its inhabitants, we don’t call that terrorism. We call it moral success.

He is, of course, exactly right.

As he and others have pointed out, we have a huge leadership problem at the very highest levels, leaders who seems to be going out of their way to signal a weak horse. Done for internal political reasons best known to those making the statements, you can not understate the degree they are creating undesired negative effects from an INFO OPS and PSYOPS perspective - a veritable cavalcade of unforced errors. 

Just a couple of examples of what I am talking about, and before we start pointing fingers elsewhere, we should examine our Navy-Marine Corp team first. From the SECNAV;

While we expect our Sailors and Marines to go into harm's way, and they do so without hesitation, an attack at home, in our community, is insidious and unfathomable.

Really?

insidious
adjective in·sid·i·ous \in-ˈsi-dē-əs\
: causing harm in a way that is gradual or not easily noticed

We have been under terrorist attack for almost a decade and a half inside our national borders. Review Streiff's summary again if you need to. That does not even cover all those attacks we have managed to stop. The Chattanooga attack is only insidious if you have not been paying attention, or unnecessarily distracted by less important thing ... like ... well ... "green" energy, naming warships for shameless political reasons, and contributing to sectarianism and division by actively supporting segregation of Sailors and Marines by race, creed, color, and national origin. That may be part of it.

unfathomable
adjective un·fath·om·able \-ˈfa-thə-mə-bəl\
: impossible to understand

If this is impossible for you to to understand, then, well ... I've got nothing more to say. The original statement speaks for itself.

The discussion concerning if our military should have the ability to defend itself has been amazingly daft. You can barely breath for all the straw men people are throwing around.

At one end is, "this is the job of the police, the military should not be armed while in the USA in shopping malls and on Main St.." Amazing cognitive dissonance. If there was ever a situation that proved the darkly humorous phrase, "When every second counts, the police are only minutes away." this is it. 

On the other end are some who think that people are asking for everyone in uniform to be armed. GMAFB. No serious person is asking that. To make that argument is to not know how the military works, and to demonstrate an embarrassingly patronizing view of those who serve.

We have Duty Officers, Petty Officer of the Watch, etc etc. You can also keep people at Condition 4 if you really want to be safe, but I'll tell you what - I will take a negligent discharge once a month over the slaughter we saw last week - and so will 98% of those in uniform.

This incredible fear by leadership about having the logical move to allow at least some in each space to be armed comes from one place - fear. Not fear of the enemy, but fear for some safety incident on their watch that might hurt their career. They fear their own FITREP cycle than they fear going to a funeral of a Sailor or Marine gunned down at their desk. 

Make no mistake, some people are more than willing to put their Sailors and Marines in a defenseless position playing the odds that it won't matter, just so they don't have to deal with the potential risk of having armed Sailors and Marines in their UIC. That is nothing new, and the safety-uber-alles in the myopic PT-belt era is a headwind that must be fought. 

Let's also look back at the default excuse, these post-Cold War, Peace-Dividend era instructions from FEB92. Yes, we are operating under 22-yr old instructions that don't even have the word "terrorism" in it. Read it all here.

Specifically, Para D.1 is where the meat is - and opens the door to having more people armed, but;

The authorization to carry firearms shall be issued only to qualified personnel when there is a reasonable expectation that life or DoD assets will be jeopardized if firearms are not carried. Evaluation of the necessity to carry a firearm shall be made considering this expectation weighed against the possible consequences of accidental or indiscriminate use of firearms.

It is the last part that is the problem. That was put in as a catch-all point to destroy any commander who had a safety incident. Anyone can say in hindsight, "You did not properly evaluate the necessity ..." etc. Poor leaders will use this to throw subordinate commanders under the bus, so those commanders will not take the chance. Reason? They have no faith or trust in their Chain of Command to support them. When you create a zero-risk culture, don't be shocked when you have no one taking any risk.  Better a thousand die than to receive one bad FITREP, dontchaknow.

We mentioned the lead Navy civilian ... so to be fair and balanced, let's look at a uniformed Army leader;

"I think we have to be careful about over-arming ourselves, and I'm not talking about where you end up attacking each other," Odierno said during a morning breakfast. Instead, he said, it's more about "accidental discharges and everything else that goes along with having weapons that are loaded that causes injuries."

To say I am disappointed is to understate in the extreme.

As I mentioned Friday - I spent months - as have hundreds of thousands of other sevicemembers, many who can say "years" not "months" - carrying a weapon around in Condition 3 - and only going to Condition 1 only when outside the gate. Condition 3 or Condition 4 should be more than fine for recruiting duty ... and no chance for "accidental discharge" as there is no round in the chamber at all. But again, even if there were - look at the string of attacks where those in uniform were ordered to be defenseless. Worth a accidental discharge or two? My clearing barrel says, "Yes."

For now, we have a paralysis at the Federal level. We have become used to this state of affairs. At least we have some state Governors stepping in and leading;

Governors in Indiana, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma have ordered National Guardsmen to be armed.

It really is that easy to do.

What these leaders know is that the enemy has seen that the attack in Chattanooga was a successful attack, and there are thousands of other targets that are just as easy to get to - and are just as legitimate of a target in war.

To not understand the threat as it is, is not to be worthy of someone in a position of authority and leadership in 2015.

Having servicemembers to die unarmed in the face of a determined enemy for your own vanity, and petty career comfort behind your reserved parking space, duty driver, six-figure retirement income, and security detail? Ponder that.

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UPDATE: As the nation waits for leaders to act - the people will make their own statement. Via USMCQ;

Dude with semi-autos eating Chick-Fil-A, guarding their Marines.

'Murica.

A Return to the Profane - for Freedom's Sake

If you don't think this has anything to do with national security, you are a fool.

If you don't this this is a topic worth your time, you are an idiot.

If you in any way try to say anything close to, "What did they expect? They should be more careful." then you are part of the problem.

Most of the new listeners probably don't know - but this isn't my only blog on blogspot. No, I have another one.

When you click to it, you'll get this;

Content Warning

Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable.

Why would anyone find something I would do objectionable enough to complain to google (owner of blogger)? Well simply, my little side blog was in the first batch of internet addresses to be banned by Pakistan nine years ago. The Islamist trolls took it from there. 

Sure, there is a little frontal nudity ... but that isn't what they objected to.

The blog? Since 2006, DrawMohammedWeek, of course. I started it on a whim to show just how difficult it would be to contain what the Islamic fundamentalists were trying to kill their way to silence in the wake of the Danish cartoon kerfuffle.  

With new media, anyone can reach the world in less than a few minutes and as a result, anyone can draw Mohammed and have that image on a computer all the way to Mecca if they wanted ... and I did. Sadly, a lot more turtles pulled their heads in their shells than lions of liberty roared, but I made my point.

Every threat to liberty and the spirit of man by the most retrograde force on the planet today - radical Islam - must be opposed. They threaten the very basic nature of the West - free expression.

When someone tries to shut you up, yell louder. It is what a free people do.

From the bullies trying to silence everyone with the "microaggression" BS, to the other bullies on college campus with their speech codes, to those who went in to the offices of Charlie Hebdo and opened fire - they are all the same. They are the jackboot fantasying forever to kick in the face of individual liberty. Liberty to speak - and more importantly - liberty to offend others.

So, I would ask you to not just look at this one cover of Charlie Hebdo on this post, visit my little protest blog DrawMohammedWeek and look at their greatest hits. Look what people died for.

The attack on them was an attack on everyone who loves freedom. This will happen again, it is only a matter of when.

You see - I thought the attacks on Van Gogh would open people's eyes. I thought Ayaan Hirshi Ali's persecution would do it. I thought the London and Madrid attacks would. I thought Ft. Hood would ... but no. I guess there isn't enough blood yet.

“I'd rather be standing up than live on my knees.” Charlie Hebdo leading cartoonist Charb.

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UPDATE: Outstanding commentary on the empty "Je suis Charlie" out there by Matt Welsh over at Reason, and always - his royal awesomesause Rusty Shackleford over at Jawa.