Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar

Was doing some research regarding a post I am working on and came across this March 2003 interview of Dr. Thomas Barnett author of “The Pentagon’s New Map”. This book sought to define the sort of wars we might find our country involved in these coming years and was so revolutionary and at once commonsensical that it found a wide audience and became a New York Times Bestseller. It was interesting to take a look at what he was saying years ago to see how well his predictions stood the test of time, even though 3 years doesn’t seem so long ago.

Not sure if I buy into all of Thomas Barnett’s theories but when someone predicts events as well as he did prior to the Iraq war lending an ear to his ideas might be worthwhile. After all the Pentagon thought enough of him to bring him into the Office of Force Transformation. He has taught at the Naval War College and in general has had the time to give this new style of war a bunch of thought.

The Pentagon’s New Map (PNM) Esquire from March 2003
IF WE STEP BACK for a minute and consider the broader implications of this new global map, then U.S. national-security strategy would seem to be: 1) Increase the Core’s immune system capabilities for responding to September 11-like system perturbations; 2) Work the seam states to firewall the Core from the Gap’s worst exports, such as terror, drugs, and pandemics; and, most important, 3) Shrink the Gap. Notice I did not just say Mind the Gap. The knee-jerk reaction of many Americans to September 11 is to say, Let’s get off our dependency on foreign oil, and then we won’t have to deal with those people. The most naive assumption underlying that dream is that reducing what little connectivity the Gap has with the Core will render it less dangerous to us over the long haul. Turning the Middle East into Central Africa will not build a better world for my kids. We cannot simply will those people away.

The reason I support going to war in Iraq is not simply that Saddam is a cutthroat Stalinist willing to kill anyone to stay in power, nor because that regime has clearly supported terrorist networks over the years. The real reason I support a war like this is that the resulting long-term military commitment will finally force America to deal with the entire Gap as a strategic threat environment.

Taking down Saddam, the region’s bully-in-chief, will force the U.S. into playing that role far more fully than it has over the past several decades, primarily because Iraq is the Yugoslavia of the Middle East a crossroads of civilizations that has historically required a dictatorship to keep the peace. As baby-sitting jobs go, this one will be a doozy, making our lengthy efforts in postwar Germany and Japan look simple in retrospect.

This prediction was made prior to our invasion of Iraq. Uncanny eh? Notice also what he says about Saddam clearly supporting terrorism. Too bad the Bush administration dropped the ball by going with the Saddam violated UN Resolution approach, typical bureaucratic attitude. (btw that is the post I am working on, the idiocy of trying to lead a war based on violations of UN resolutions)

Where I differ with Dr. Barnett’s analysis is his apparent shunting aside of the role that Islam plays in creating the very gaps he declares to be such a problem. Having not read his book yet it would be premature to say that he doesn’t understand that ideology plays a strong role in the conditions of these areas. But then again many people do indeed believe that it is “unfairness” which has driven these areas to poverty not bad ideas. Not me, these gaps are caused by ideology and because of the totality of Islam I believe it qualifies as an ideology. It is no coincidence that Islam is found in many of the area’s the good Dr Barrett describes as being in the gap. Perhaps it would help to point out that I base my belief of his misunderstanding because of the quote below.

Similar arguments resonated in most China-bashing during the 1990’s, and you hear them today in the debates about the feasibility of imposing democracy on a post-Saddam Iraq a sort of Muslims-are-from-Mars argument.

This war is about ideology indeed I believe it is a battle of religions. Our religion being the religion of capitalism and freedom bound together in a liberal world where we work towards a constantly improving life in general with individuals encouraged to follow their own paths of enlightenment. Our understanding of the world expands with each year something which brings such rewards we cannot believe much less understand when others choose not to follow such a course.

The enemies religion consists of a set of rules written in the 7th century which the Radicals believe must be rigidly adhered to or dire consequences follow. Our enemies demand that the world obey a set of rules that outlines exactly how each person should live from birth to death. A set of rules that leaves nothing to be discovered and specifically outlaws following a path to personal enlightenment. A set of rules that starts with the idea that your life belongs to god and that your free will is nothing but temptation. And finally and most distressingly a set of rules which has no clear way of being changed to fit our modern understanding on how the world works. The evidence of the failure of this idea is all around the world.

It is no coincidence that wherever Islam has flourished poverty has reigned. Indeed part of the reason we are seeing such a rise in terrorism can be laid at our feet but not for the reasons most leftists and Islamic apologists would assume. When we turned over the oil wells to the Muslims we gave them the cash to finance the idiotic attempts to bring their 7th century thuggery to the world as a whole. Until Western corporations drilled and pumped the oil from the earth oil meant nothing to the beggars masquerading as Kings and Princes in the Middle East. The idea that mere squatting on the earth earned them the right to confiscate the sweat of our civilization is outrageous.

That these two systems would clash should not be such a strange idea. It is inevitable indeed it is merely a continuation of a war that has been going on for over 1300 years with one 100 year hiatus due to Allied powers utter destruction of the Ottoman empire in WW1. That there is nothing we can offer them to appease their desire for our elimination, submission or conversion seems to be beyond our understanding. Even when they declare it outright our projection of our beliefs unto our enemies tricks us into believing they are merely posturing. Over and over just as Hitler was clear in his goals our current enemies are clear in their goal of eliminating our civilization. We laugh, some have the decency to laugh nervously, but all of us laugh at the thought that these barbarians could take us down. Yet it is clear that it takes far less to destroy a marvelous civilization than it does to produce one.

As to whether the enemy is all of Islam or merely a small percentage is something that cannot be settled easily since there is a sliding scale of participation in the war against the west. For that matter in any war by any group of people you will find those who wholeheartedly back the aims of the government all the way down to those who are against the war. As much as it is possible to avoid killing those on the enemies side who are against the war we should do our best to avoid. On the other hand we cannot sacrifice the chance to protect our citizens against the sort of attacks promised by our enemies simply to avoid collateral damage.

Since in large part this country is defined politically by the two main parties we are left with the fact that one of those parties has completely abdicated its role as a defender of this country. Instead of arguing for a different more effective strategy against an enemy who has repeatedly stated and demonstrated its willingness to destroy us, the Democrats have decided that the enemy is a product of President Bush’s imagination. This is a tragedy of enormous proportions. Currently the debate is not regarding which strategy would be most effective in breaking the will of our enemy but if the biggest enemy is not President Bush himself. It is my opinion that crucial debate lies in whether we are prosecuting this war ruthlessly enough. My belief is no we are not, instead our methods seem to revolve around kicking the can down the road.

Victory in war comes from the breaking of the enemy’s will to win. Sun Tzu states it thus: To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. It is not apparent that we understand that breaking the enemy’s will to win is what we are after. Instead we seem to be trying to fight the war with as little discomfort as possible to our enemy indeed some on our side seem to want to offer our enemies bribes to mollify them. From the Washington Monthly Kevin Drum opines in a piece that is approvingly cited by Bill from INDC and several others.

I believe it’s fundamentally nonmilitary and revolves around engagement: trade agreements, security pacts, genuine support for grassroots democracy, a willingness to practice the same international rules we preach, etc. The idea is to slowly but steadily promote democratic rule, liberal institutions, education of women, and international commerce. When military responses are necessary, they should be short, highly targeted, and designed to piss off the surrounding citizenry as little as possible. This will, needless to say, take a very long time and a lot of self restraint, but it won’t succeed at all if every few years we set things back a decade with a conventional war.

In my opinion this is probably interpreted by our enemies as some sort of insult to their honor. Surely a US Soldier offered bribes to stop fighting would be insulted. These attempts to moderate the impact of our admittedly terribly powerful war machine only serve to give our enemy respite and our population the chance to forget our peril.

We can see this in the attempts to broker some sort of ceasefire with Hezballah and Israel. As if a ceasefire is some sort of acceptable end state. Perhaps Olmert believes this to be true but all he is doing is allowing Hezballah to acquire bigger and more terrible weapons along with more time to train an army that is right now dealing embarrassing defeats to Israels once unbeatable army. Of course because we are not willing to actually put down Iran, the sponsor of all the terrorism in the Middle East now that Saddam has been neutered, means that realistically a ceasefire may be the best Israel can achieve. Certainly I don’t believe that Israel has the ability to attack and subdue Iran.

The United States is the sole power that can subdue the main sponsors of terror and war in the Middle East at this point. But because our leaders have forgotten their words of Sept 20, 2001 and worse have forgotten the death and destruction that Iran through its proxies have wrought against us we refuse to stand next to Israel when we should. No matter how prominent the bloggers are who claim that Hezballah and Al Qaeda are separate issues it simply is not so. Remember that Hezballah has been killing Americans far longer than Al Qaeda. This is our war and we should be ashamed that Israel is fighting it for us.

Overall in our war we should remember some General William Tecumseh Sherman quotes: “War is cruel, but the crueler you are the shorter the war is”. and “We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. . . . I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!”

Tags: BlogDesk, Cheney, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Khomeni, Muslim, terrorism, terrorist< /a>

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