Sic Semper Tyrannis

From Redhand's Comment

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

On Saturday, in comments to my post on Additional Thoughts on the Gilded Age, Redhand put up a link to a very interesting story/confessional from a recently retired, and very senior, Congressional Republican staffer.  I saw and read the story before Redhand put it into comments, and had been mulling over whether to do a separate post on it for the beginning of the week.  The link deserves to be in a post of its own, not in comments, so hat tip and thanks to Redhand for bringing it to everyone at SST's attention.   

One of the things I found interesting about the story is where it appeared.  I got the link from the Ballon Juice gang, but I think its very important that we take a second and think about where this was published.  While I have no major issues with Truthout, let's be honest: its not the NY Times, The Atlantic, Harper's, The New Yorker, or several other very well known pubblications with both online and in-print coverage.  While James Fallows at The Atlantic did direct his readers to the piece, I have to agree with Steve M. that because of where this is published, as well as its content, it is very likely to wind up in a sort of main stream news spam filter.  Basically, its going to get a lot of play on a place like SST that is concerned with effective and functioning policy and governance (domestic, foreign), a variety of similar sites, and then a range of what is called the leftist, liberal, and/or progressive blogosphere.  So moving it up to the front page here, so it gets a bit more wider notice, is I think the right thing to do.  Finally, for anyone interested in more information on the GOP as a political/ideological movement in the way that Mr. Lofgren describes, I recommend the Stiftung Leo Strauss website (where someone named Redhand seems to comment...).  The proprietor, a beltway insider, does his best to both explain and channel the Straussian/neo-Con ideology and world view that seems to have infested much of today's GOP (he also has at least one COL Lang quote on his random quote generator).  He does a very interesting job and here's the link to his posts on what he calls The Movement.   I think many here at SST will find them interesting and illuminating.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarilly reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

A Few Additional Thoughts on the Gilded Age

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

COL Lang's recent post on attempts by the GOP to return America to a new Gilded Age excellently picked apart what is being proposed and why.  I wanted to follow up with some additional information I have come across and took note of in case I had reason to use it.  The first is an excellent article in The Atlantic from last winter.  The article, by Chrystia Freeland, a business correspondent, delineates how the wealthiest of Americans have essentially detached themselves from the rest of us.  They have fully embraced the concept of globalization by recognizing that they and their capital can go anywhere, therefore they don't really need the US or the rest of us Americans.  In doing so they have broken the last bits of the economic portions of the American social contract.  Essentially all of the rest of us are just disposable.  This, as I've mentioned before in regards to military service, is at the heart of the book AWOL and Freeland's article makes a more general and economic complement to that argument.  And Timothy Noah (before Slate let him go...) did an outstanding multipart series on income inequality.

Another excellent piece, especially now that one of the major GOP candidates for the party's presidential nomination has said that corporations are people, is a lecture given by Harper'scontributing editor and law professor Scott Horton that was reprinted in (at least the online version) of Harper's.  Professor Horton's presentation takes a look at the corporation through the eyes of James Madison and presents a stark contrast to how many in America, and certainly the (conservative wing of the) Supreme Court based on recent rulings, view and should understand corporations. 

Finally, just a couple of links to some chart heavy sites dealing with how Americans are compensated for their work, facts about US inequality, debunking some major tax myths, historical top tax rates.  New gilded age indeed...

*Adam L. Silverman, PhD is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

 

There is Nothing More Dangerous than a Democracy when it is Scared...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

When I was an undergraduate, the political science professor who I thook the political theory core from (ancient, modern, feminist, and nietzchean) used to say that the closest thing that political science had to an axiom was that "nothing was more dangerous than a democracy when it was scared".  As we approach the tenth anniversary of the events of 9-11 we have begun to see both straight reporting, analysis, and opinion pieces that look back over the past decade in something of a retrospective manner.  This past week two of these types of pieces (one straight reporting and one op-ed) caught my eye and I think, in many ways, they bear out the truism shared with a class of 18 and 19 year olds in the late 1980s.  

The first piece, in the LA Times, looks at the costs of homeland security spending over the past decade, how much of it there is, if it makes sense the way we are spending it and using it, and if it is actually making us safer.  One of my favorite portions is the quotation from Professor Mueller at Ohio State about the odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack: 1 in 3.5 million.  For those wondering how Professor Mueller gets that number he lays it out in his book on US responses to the 9-11 attacks: Overblown.  Professor Mueller's book is excellent and I highly recommend it.  And for anyone wondering, I calculated an odds ratio similar to the one he presents back in 2003 using an open source data chronology of terrorism posted online (total number of incidents, over the time span in days from the first recorded incidents to the day I did the analysis, calculated against the adjusted population figures).  That one focused less on the odds to an American, just the overall odds.  Basically the chance is extremely unlikely, though it does go up if you reside in conflict areas.

The second piece, which is a full retrospective op-ed, is by Frank Rich.  Mr. Rich's column ponders who has won?   Just something for us to ponder as we move into the final week of the decade that began on 9/11/01.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Sharia Law is NOT Closer to America than it Appears Part III: Fear Inc.

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

LeaNder, in comments to COL Lang's (working) vacation notification brought up the new Center for  American Progress (CAP) report: Fear Inc.   SST readers can find both links to the whole report as pdf, as well as its specific chapters, at the link, as well as CAP's write up on the report.  I pulled the whole thing over the weekend and have only had a chance to read through about a third of it, with the plan to do a post about the whole thing tonight.  I recommend that anyone who is interested in how this concept of a concerted attempt by Muslims to impose sharia (as if it was one monolithic set of religio-legal concepts) through subterfuge on unsuspecting Americans click through and give it a look.  From what I can tell so far they have done a very thorough job in their research and investigation and I doubt anyone will be surprised, both based on what several of us have written about on SST, and others have written elsewhere about just who is spreading this privately funded false message intended to promote anti-Muslim anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and hate.

Just one housekeeping note: I do have official duties during the day (and sometimes after hours as well).  While US Army War College (USAWC) encourages its personnel to blog, as well as publish in more traditional venues, I may not get to comments that have been posted immediately.  I will clear comments as often as I can my schedule permitting.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Libya Update

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

The Libyan rebels appear to have not only entered Tripoli, but seem to have brought about the collapse of Qhatafi's government.  It is also being reported that three of his sons, including his two eldest, are in custody and that Qhatafi's location is currently unknown.

*Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

Seeking Dominion?

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

With Congresswoman Bachmann's victory in the Iowa Straw Poll and Governor Perry's announcement that he is entering the 2012 presidential race timed to essentially step all over the events in Iowa, both candidates are getting a lot of media coverage and attention.  While there have been a number of articles, some of the most recent are beginning to bring more attention to and highlight the religious beliefs of both politicians.  While discussions of other's religious beliefs can be dicey, both candidates have regularly and routinely referred to their devout Christianity as not only important parts of their lives, but as major influences on their politics and political views.

Both Congresswoman Bachmann and Governor Perry are part of two different variants of a particularly American form of Evangelicalism referred to as Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism, and/or Theonomy.  Ryan Lizza's recent New Yorker profile does a good job detailing how Congresswoman Bachmann came to her faith and how she is influenced by Dominionism.   Forrest Wilder does an excellent job covering Governor Perry's much more recent movement into Dominionism in The Texas Observer.  Frank Schaeffer, the son of Francis Schaeffer one of the founders of Dominionism who eventually broke with the movement, provides a former insider's view of the beliefs of Dominion theology and Christian Reconstructionism, as well as how those beliefs have not only influenced Congresswoman Bachmann, but all of American Christianity and politics for the past thirty plus years.  To see Francis Schaeffer's own take on Dominionism, his video series How Should We Then Live, can be found here.  To see the views of the other father of Dominionism and founder of the Chalcedon Foundation, Rousas John Rushdoony, The Second American Revolution, they can be found here.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army.

The ALEC Material

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

About two weeks or so ago, someone in comments to a previous thread mentioned ALEC - the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has recently been identified as producing standardized legislation and farming it out state by state.  I indicated that I'd put the link up to the ALEC memos that surfaced.  I apologize for it taking so long, but the link to the memos can be found here at ALEC Exposed.  Here's some of the preliminare reporting from the LA Times.  And here's a piece from the Nation. 

*Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

We "did Afghanistan - 50 Years Ago: The Supporting Documents

 
 
Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Here are two historic AID (the precursor, sort of, to USAID) documents pertaining to US development work and interaction with Afghanistan.  I found them about two years ago, just using a regular google search, while doing prep work for what I thought was going to be project I'd be working on regarding Afghanistan.  You all can judge for yourselves just how much has changed. The third document is simply a catalogue of sorts, from much more recently, of other documents such as the first two.

Download PNACN319

Download PNACN326

Download 11188

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

Sharia Law is NOT Closer to America than it Appears... Part II

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

I was all set to write something to not only highlight, but rebut the absolute wrongness that is reported in this NY Times article on one of the key individuals behind the anti-Sharia movement in the US (hat tip to Steve Benen).  Fortunately I saw this very interesting article about the most recent Gallup Polling, and the report based on it, pertaining to both Muslim American attitudes and the attitudes towards Muslims by other religious groups.  The full report can be found here:  (Download MAR_Report_ADGC_Bilingual_072011_sa_LR_web).  Among other things it indicates that Muslim Americans are the most likely of any religious adherents in the US to oppose attacks on civilians, either by the military or other actors, that Muslim Americans identify as strongly with America as they do with their religion, and as a direct antidote to what the NY Times article reports, Jewish Americans are even more likely than Muslim Americans to recongize and indicate that Muslim Americans face prejudice in the US.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

The Unintended Consequences of Posting About Extremist Violence

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

One of the unintended consequences of my two most recent posts have been the discussion as to exactly what extremism is (J's question) and a heated discussion as to what the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is (discussion between J and MarkfromIreland).  I wanted to take a minute or two and try to get to both.

In the former I use the term extremist or extremist movement for any identity based group (religious, kinship and/or linguistic, political/ideological, social, economic, nationalist, etc) that is both espousing a set of beliefs that are towards the fringes of the larger societies, groups, movements, and/or subcultures that they are part of and whose beliefs are either directly used to justify violence by those that are objectively identified with such a group or subjectively identify with the beliefs of the group even if they have never formally joined anything.  In the former case we are talking about activity by known members of a group like the IRA or the UFF in Northern Ireland.  In the latter we are looking at activity by Timothy McVeigh (please remember that McVeigh never formally belonged to any white supremacist, militia, patriot, and/or Christian Identity group, which is why he was not trackable by those who monitor those networks).  In all these examples we are dealing with people who are white and Christian (members of the IRA being Catholic, the UFF being Protestant, and McVeigh seemed to be loosely involved with Christian Identity towards the end with his connections to Elohim City and his use of Willian Pierce/Ian MacDonald's "The Turner Diaries" as the blueprint for his attack).  I could just have as easily used Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other examples but these will do as no society, community, group, or religion is immune to extremism.  So J, I'm not using the term willy nilly, nor am I just bandying it about with impunity.  Contrary to those whose own works were cited as justification by the Norway shooter/bomber, I recognize that words have not only meaning, but consequences and we should strive to be as precise as possible so as not to provide anyone with a loaded gun; even if it is just a conceptual one.

Some Excellent Reporting on Domestic Terrorism

In the comments to my post on the attacks in Norway, a portion of the conversation has turned to the fact that the larger terrorism threat is domestic - from one's fellow citizens.  There is always good reporting, and some excellent recent stuff, on this topic, but you won't find it in the major media.  Rather its at Esquire's Daily Politics Blog and from Dave Neiwert at Crooks and Liars.  Mr. Neiwert has been aggregating incidents since 2008 (the last presidential election cycle) into an interesting interactive map.

In the Spring of this year I taught an elective on religious and (other forms of) identity violence at the US Army War College.  We focused on a number of case examples, finishing with extremists here in the US.  The enduring issue is how does one contextualize, analyze, and formulate responses to extremists threats from within?  Threats that come from one's fellow citizens, people that look and sound just like you.  We also worked on how one works these issues if one has to intervene as a third party.  There is a reason that the most effective groups have always struck at domestic targets.  Whether its the IRA, the UFF, Hamas, Hezbullah, the Mehdi Army, and the Order or the Army of G-d here in the US (to use just a few examples from a lot of places), domestic extremist threats are so effective because they understand all of the terrain.  The international stuff is often flashy and grabs the headlines, but the domestic stuff is a far more sustained set of campaigns.  And its harder to get one's head around that people so similar to you think you're the enemy or a collaborator with the enemy.

*Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

Norwegian Attacks: Information

Adam L. Silverman*

For those interested, here is the running updates on the bombing and shootings in Norway today from the Guardian.

One of the last entries before sign off is that, despite initial claims and suspicions that this was perpetrated by Muslim extremists, the perpetrator is believed to be a single individual. He is in custody, is an ethnic Norwegian, and as of a couple of hours ago the Guardian was preliminarily reporting that he is a member of a right wing extremist group, who is a farmer, and has a grudge against the government. If this is the case it would help to explain the choice of targets (a government building and a Labor Party conference).

*Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

 

Government Spending: How it Affects US (us being Americans or people living in America)

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

In the comments to my recent post with the charts about government spending, some of the commenters have taken different positions on just what is being spent and what is benefiting Americans.  I recently read this scholarly article that deals with how most Americans don't realize just what benefits they are receiving from the government, or perhaps more accurately from government spending.  I'd like to give the hat tip on this to The Big Idea or Grasping Reality with Both Hands, but to be honest I can't remember which econ site I saw the link for this at.  The most revealing data is presented in table 3.

The article can be downloaded here:

Reconstituting the Submerged State

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

Chart Pron: The Data on US Debt and Deficits (and a few other things too)

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

In his post earlier today about whether the US has become ungovernable, COL Lang lays out several really easy fixes (in policy, if not in the institutional politics) to right America's financial ship of state.  Below you'll find a number of charts, as far as I know based on OMB or CBO data, that show were our current debt comes from and what some of the things we could fund if our elected officials were to follow COL Lang's recommendations.  The first three are all from the Center on Budget Policies and Priorities, the last one is uncredited, but is simply another way of presenting the data in chart 3.  I've seen these all over the Internet in the past year from economics blogs and sites to news and commentary sites, so I don't even know who to give the original hat tips too, but if you're looking for consistently good economic analysis I recommend Brad Delong's Grasping Reality with Both Hands, Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture, Yves Smith's Naked Capitalism, Andrew Leonard's How the World Works, Felix Salmon's blog at Reuters, David Cay Johnston's columns at Tax.com, and Bruce Bartlett's columns at Capital Gains and Games.  Also, though he's often shrill and is definitely partisan, Paul Krugman's NY Times blog. I'm sure I've left a ton out, and I apologize, but I spend several hours a week staying up on the macroeconomics stuff from across the spectrum, so I'm sure I've slighted somebody.

Internet Dog #2

 

Internet Dog #2   pl

 

Fear of the Muslim Brotherhood May Be Greatly Exaggerated...Part II

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Back in February I wrote about how fears of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) were likely greatly exaggerated.  While this post was largely focused on concerns over Egypt, including the conspiratorial ones, fear of the MB is alive and well and often focuses on the threat of the MB within and to the US.  Last week Spencer Ackerman reported that Congressman Allen West (R-FL) will be sponsoring a Capitol Hill briefing on 25 July where a group called Citizens for National Security will present a report on how the MB is in the process of culminating its fifty year infiltration of the US entitled: Homegrown Jihad in the USA: Culmination of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 50-year History of Infiltrating America.  According to the letter from Congressman West that Spencer cites, the highlight of the event will be CFNS's releasing its database of everyone in the US they have been able to identify that is involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the organizations that they are involved with.  

Congressman Cantor's Investments

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Augustin L. in comments to COL Lang's recent post on Congressman Cantor remarked about and referenced the Congressman's investing in a fund that shorts the US.  Specifically Congressman Cantor has been invested in the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury since at least the Summer of 2010.  Here's a link to all of his other publicly known personal financial information. (hat tip for all the links to Jonathon Easley at Salon.com's War Room)

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army. 

United States or united States: Some Additional Thoughts on Revolutionary Documents and State Sovereignty

 
Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Two of COL Lang's most recent posts, on the Declaration of Independence and on Fareed Zakariya's understanding of the nature of the US, especially federalism, got me thinking a bit about American Political Development (of which I did not specialize in...) and how America has and has not changed over time.  

In the first post COL Lang asks if the document could bear scrutiny today and if its author, and I take that to me its primary drafter Thomas Jefferson, could avoid police state surveillance?  I think the answer is quite simply that Mr. Jefferson would have little to no place in modern American political society.  And while this has been evidenced by the State of Texas writing him out of their history textbooks (apparently the religious conservatives who control the board do not like him because he penned the phrase "separation of Church and State"), I think it goes farther than just Mr. Jefferson's status.  I have often wondered, and sometimes remarked, that I do not think any of our founding and framing fathers could be elected to office today or even approved by the Senate for appointment.  And this is not because of the obvious concern that many were slave owners and therefore on the wrong side of what we would today call racial issues (it was the 18th Century after all).  Rather it has to do with their political views, ranging from the radical to the reactionary, their beliefs about the world and nature and the Deity, their understanding of government, and finally their personal lives.  While I could produce a long list of these men, their ideas, and their foibles, with appropriate links, suffice it to say that Jefferson's affair with his sister in law (Sally Hemmings was Mrs. Jefferson's sister),

 

Another Reading from the Book of COIN: Iraq...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Yesterday reports came in that there were two more bombings in Iraq that killed at least twenty four people.  While sporadic violence, if not escalating violence, is to be expected as the various divisions and factions, including the sectarian, continue to jockey for position and resource, the strategic failure that we leave behind in Iraq is directly tied to COL Lang's post from earlier today about Afghanistan.

In November of 2009 COL Lang and I were both panelists and participants at New York University's Center on Law and Security's Counterinsurgency: America's Strategic Burden conference.  I was on the first panel on COIN Theory and Applications.  COL Lang on a later panel dealing with the history of COIN.  Everyone else on my panel had been key contributors to FM 3-24 (Undersecretary of Defense Davidson, Dr. McFate, Dr. Crane, and LTC Nagl)**.  I was not part of that endeavor, but have contributed revisions to several related field manuals since then.  When LTC Nagl gave his remarks he zeroed right onto the upcoming Iraqi elections.  He stated they would go smoothly (they didn't), that when the new government was seated we would be able to negotiate a proper status of forces agreement and that would allow us to keep large numbers of troops in Iraq for an extended period.  I was looking out at the audience and I can only say that no description of COL Lang's expression would do it justice.  Needless to say, as the WaPo story about the bombing indicates, there will not be an extension of any significant number of US forces under the current government (and I do NOT consider 10K or so to be a significant number if that's the number of forces left to do security force advising) as the Sadrists will bring down the governing coalition.  Here's the link to the conference page and there's supposed to be video links that work at the bottom:

http://www.lawandsecurity.org/law-and-security-conferences/vw/3/itemid/61/d/20091120

(full embarrassment disclosure: I had a Freudian slip in my remarks - I was referring to a French friend whose father had been a French general.  She is several years older than me and once got very emotional while visiting and watching a documentary on Vichy France and how they did not teach that in school when she was a girl.  While referring to her being older I intended to say: as its not polite to give a Lady's age I do not want to provide a date for her and it came out as "I don't want to date her" my mouth got ahead of the brain...)

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army

** Full Disclosure: I used to work with and for Dr. McFate as she was one of my two supervisors when I served on the PM's staff of the Army's Human Terrain System, the other COL Fondacaro was also a panelist later in the day.  Dr. Crane is now a professional colleague at the US Army War College, this event was the first time I met him.

The Jews of China

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

In the comments to Mr. Habakkuk's most recent post, commenter Dag asked if there were, indeed, Jews in China.  The answer is yes, but there are very, very few left.  Above you can see drawings of the exterior and interior of the Jewish Temple at Kaifeng, which is where the very small remnant of China's Jewish community survives.  The history of Judaism in China is long, dating at least to the 8th Century BCE, but references to what appear to be China can be found in the book of Isaiah and communities of Jews have been documented in China as far back as the 1st Century BCE, if not earlier.  I even remember once seeing a reference, while studying comparative religion for one of my master's degrees, that one of the oldest extant pieces of writing ever found was an ancient Chinese dialect written in paleo-Hebrew script found in a cave along what came to be called the Silk Road.  While that is most likely an apocryphal and mythological reference, it should provide some indication as to just how far back the group of people that would eventually become known as the Jews have been interacting with the Far East**.  Once the Jews got to China they were very successful.  Unlike most of their interactions when going west into Europe, they were far better able to enter the societies and cultures in Central, Southeast, and East Asia.  For instance, in India Jews found a way to work themselves into the caste system and became very successful members of society in Cochin and the same was ultimately true in China.***  

Jewish succes in China was partially the result of the communities acceptance by the Confucian Emperor under the restored Song Dynasty.  Imperial edict allowed the Chinese Jews to participate in the civil service and there are a number of surviving records of Jewish mandarins.  According to some traditions once the synagogue complex was built at Kaifeng the Emperor is said to have sent the community a gift: Confucian ancestor worship fire pots.  The story goes that the Jewish community, not wishing to offend the Emperor found a way to work the Confucian ritual objects into their worship by simply adapting their use.  When reciting the lines of the Amidah (The Eighteen Benedictions), the synagogue authorities would light the fire pots upon reaching the portions dealing with the Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (crisis averted...).  

Corporations as People

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Frabjous, in comments to the Palin at Gettysburg thread, mentioned how corporations came to be considered as people for legal purposes.  This was a major change in not only American jurisprudence, but also American political philosophy as Madison definitely did not consider corporations, nor did he want them considered, as if they were people for legal or political purposes. Back in 2002 Thom Hartmann wrote an interesting essay explaining how corporate personhood came to be.  I highly recommend his piece to the SST community.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

On Tribalism...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

COL Lang has absolutely, 100% hit the nail on the head regarding Dr. Krauthammer's views pertaining to US policy in the Middle East, especially regarding Israel.  The best evidence of this is MJ Rosenberg's recounting of Dr. Krauthammer's behavior at Yom Kippur (for the non-Judaica informed: The Day of Atonement, the Holiest Day of the Jewish religious calendar) services from 2001:

"About three years ago, I saw Krauthammer flip out in synagogue on Yom Kippur. The rabbi had offered some timid endorsement of peace — peace essentially on Israel's terms — but peace anyway. Krauthammer went nuts. He actually started bellowing at the rabbi, from his wheel chair in the aisle. People tried to "shush" him. It was, after all, the holiest day of the year. But Krauthammer kept howling until the rabbi apologized. The man is as arrogant as he is thuggish. Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace?"**

This would be the equivalent of going after the Archbishop at either Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve or Good Friday or Easter Sunday Mass for saying something in his homily that one disagreed with.  Dr. Krauthammer is without doubt a smart man.  He is without doubt an educated man.  He is also, without a doubt, a Jew without Mercy.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

**MJ Rosenberg's original link to his archive where he recounted the Yom Kippur incident is dead/missing.  He refers to the incident in several later posts and columns, which I've hyperlinked to for you all, and then links to the Washington Monthly's post that quotes his original story, which I've also hyperlinked to for you all.

Well This Explains a Lot: The Less than Stellar Hunter of OBL

Adam L. Silverman*

Penn Bullock and Brandon Thorp of Gawker, based on culling reporting from the NY Times, the Washington Post,  MSNBC, McClatchy, and other sources, have reported that the head of the unit tasked with hunting and finding bin Laden from 2002-2004 went on from that position to a lucrative career helping to profiteer off of US operations in Iraq, as well as trying to bribe the Jordanians and providing illegal campaign contributions from non-Americans.  Moreover, based on his own emails he seems to be too enthused by the unfortunate realities of what is going on in the war zone he and they company he went to work for were profiting off of.  

Its this very lucrative market that is going to make it very hard to actually adjust our policies, strategies, and operations.

I know a number of very, very professional, dedicated, and highly qualified people who have worked for the Agency.  Its a testament to their professionalism that when the politicized shenanigans that have seemed to reoccur there over the past decade that they keep plugging away doing their jobs.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not represent those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

Breaking News: bin Laden Dead

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

According to all the major news networks the President is preparing to make a televised address that Osama bin Laden is dead and that he was killed as a result of US military actions.

Here's a link to the breaking news:

Sources: Osama bin Laden is dead

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

A Clarification on Some Thoughts on the Kandahar Jailbreak

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

I wanted to clarify something from my previous post that has come up in a couple of comments.  I think I wasn't exactly clear in either what I wrote or how I wrote it pertaining to both the efforts of TF 134 under Maj. Gen. Stone or Ashour's research on the de-radicalization of jihadis.  The two are not, and were not in the previous post, intended to be linked in a way that implied that TF 134 was engaging the de-radicalization that Dr. Ashour has researched and written about.  Ashour's work focuses on both Egyptian and Algerian Islamic movements that have become either radicalized or reactionized and utilized violence to achieve their ends and how they either did or did not give up the use of violence to achieve their goals.  The process involves the movements and the state authorities -military, civilian, law enforcement, and intelligence services - interacting to produce the process he delineates and the outcomes he describes.

#Some Thoughts on the Kandahar Jailbreak, De-radicalization, & Detainee Operations

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

I wanted to just take a minute and follow up on COL Lang's post and comments regarding the jailbreak in Kandahar.  While the CSM report does not go into great detail about how the detainee operations were conducted, it does make clear that criminal and political prisoners were separated.  What it does not specify, however, is how the political prisoners were treated.  And by treated I mean not just were they give three meals a day, exercise time, prayer time, access to reading material, health care, etc, but if their incarceration included attempts to de-radicalize them, disaggregate them from the insurgency, and eventually be able to release them back into their communities.  The latter two aspects of detainee operations were successfully established and used in Iraq by Task Force 134.  Initially conceived and laid out under the command of Maj. Gen. Stone, the idea was to move beyond a crime control process of just getting the insurgents off the street and holding them were they could not do any more damage to actively trying to identify who the detainees were (extremist, non-extremist, religious, non-religious, reconcilable, non-reconcilable) and then utilize appropriate rehabilitation (for lack of a better term) methods to achieve these goals.  Essentially the detainee operations were a version of COIN applied within the detention facility.  TF 134 had some real success with this approach and it appears that it was copied in Parwan, Afghanistan.  Whether this was being used in the Kandahar prison is not determinable from the CSM article on the jail break.

 

Public Goods, the Social Contract, and the Discussion that Americans Should be Having

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

For a several months now, as I've worked on one project or another or interacting with colleagues and friends, I keep coming back to the same two broad concepts that Americans should be discussing, but seem to have lost sight off: what exactly are or should be public goods and what sort of social contract should we have to make sure that they are properly delivered.  While this is going to be a light on hyper links post, as it is essentially a thought piece, given the type of discussions that we usually have here at SST, and given what we all witnessed over the past two weeks regarding continuing resolutions and budgets, and what we'll unfortunately watch going forward as issues like the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget come up, as well as the next election cycle, the time seems right to try to write this up and post it.

Let me start by defining my terms.  I'm using public good to refer to anything that is or should be non-excludable and/or non-rivalrous or both.  Simply if anyone could or should partake of it and if partaking of it can not reduce the amount of it to be consumed by anyone, then something is or should be a public good.  In simpler parlance we generally equate things like roadways, a variety of essential services such as sewer and water and electric, education, defense, law enforcement, emergency services (fire and EMS), and even healthcare as public goods.  Another good way to define a public good, which is often easier to use because it doesn't use words like "non-rivalrous", is an item or service that individuals, or even groups, can not provide for themselves, that by their nature are accessible to everyone in a society, and which have to account for the lowest common denominator (ie it makes no difference what one's class, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc is).  

By social contract I'm referring to the agreements that we make as a society on issues of political, social, economic, and religious governance.  Usually in liberal democracies, which is what the US is supposed to be (of the republic type), this requires giving up some freedom or liberty in exchange for certain public goods; specifically goods and services that individuals or even groups of individuals can not produce or provide for themselves.  So the two concepts - public goods and social contract are linked and intertwined.

Something worth watching

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Given our gracious host's literary endeavors, as well as the often expressed interests of many of the contributors and readers here at SST, I thought I'd mention a new three part documentary to air tomorrow night.  Its on the National Geographic Channel and the link to the show's website is:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/civil-warriors/5682/Overview

Full disclosure:  I have nothing to do with National Geographic or their cable station and my last contribution to their fiduciary well being was purchasing their issue with Ankgor Wat on the cover while on TDY in JUL 2009.  

*Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College, the US Army, and/or the US Government.

Some Real Afghan Blowback

Adam L. Silverman, PhD* On the 20th of March everyone's favorite Floridian clergyman finally burned a Quran.** Unlike his aborted previous attempt leveraged for maximum publicity, this time the Reverend Jones' actions did not get as much press due to wall to wall coverage of Libya, Japan, and a presidential election that is over a year away. This time Jones put the Quran on trial, found it guilty, and administered the penalty: burning. While Jones' actions didn't make much of a splash here in the US, it did get the notice of Muslims in Central and SE Asia. In Afghanistan three clerics in Mazar i Sharif exhorted members of that community to seek revenge against Americans. Given that there are few in the area, a number of incensed locals took their anger out a Western target of convenience: the UN Headquarters. Reports indicate that at least twelve are dead. And if you want to know what the UN workers are themselves thinking, then the despondent comments of one staffer is very enlightening: "The UN mission is done".*** Aside from noting the blowback from Jones' bigotry, there are two important issues that we need to keep in mind. The first is that all communication is strategic communication. Everything we do or say conveys meaning. In this case Jones' extremist stupidity conveyed that Americans are at war with Islam. And the result is that people lost their lives. Had their been Americans in the area, or personnel from our coalition allies, then they too would likely have been attacked. While Jones, and others like him, have the right to say or do anything that is within the Law, their actions are putting not only American lives at risk, but also those of our military allies, and civilian allies like the slain UN workers as well. The second important point to keep in mind pertains to just what it is that Jones did. The Quran is considered to be an uncreated text. By that I mean that it is considered to be an aspect of the Deity. This is akin to the Christian concept, as delineated in the Gospel, of: "In the beginning was the Word". So lets turn the map around a little bit and consider if Muslim anger over the mishandling of the Quran. If non-Christians, claiming to believe that Christianity was evil, violent, and destructive were to burn the New Testament exactly what do you think the reaction would be in the US? We don't have to think long or hard about this as we have a recent example to view. Last October the Smithsonian first exhibited, then pulled amid an outcry a privately (that's right I wrote PRIVATELY) funded artistic film, made over a decade ago, about the early days of the AIDS crisis. In one scene a plastic crucifix is shown covered in ants. While the creator of the work has stated that this was an allegorical depiction of suffering drawing on Mexican Christian/Cruciform imagery, prominent Christians in the US were outraged and the Smithsonian quickly pulled the film from the exhibit. There were even calls in Congress to defund the Smithsonian.**** Too often we see the professionally outraged in the US, both religious and non-religious, make the most outrageous statements about Muslims not denouncing terrorism or Islam justifying violence. Usually these claims are accompanied by statements that Islam is a religion that promotes violence or is somehow inherently evil, but seldom do we see any reflection or discussion about what happens when the shoe is on the other foot. In January, in Spokane, a white, Christian, anti-government extremist/supremacist tried to blow up marchers at an MLK Day Parade***** - did anyone feel the need to ask a prominent Christian or a prominent white person to apologize on behalf of all other Christians or white people? No, and it would have been absurd had anyone made the demand. What the Reverend Jones' actions exemplify is another well known passage from the Gospels pertaining to hypocrisy: "first remove the beam from your own eye..." * Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College or the US Army. **http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/asia/02afghanistan.htl?r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/asia/02afghanistan.htl?r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss ***http://www.undispatch.com/this-attack-is-different ****http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/12/controversy-over-video-censored-by-smithsonian-continues-to-build-steam.html *****http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/jan/18/fbi-says-backpack-spokane-parade-route-was-bomb/ I apologize for no hyperlinks. I'm traveling, only have my iPad, and can't get the rich text format to work in Typepad while using it from my iPad.

#Some Thoughts on Libyan Intervention

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

After following all the recent SST posts and comments pertaining to Libya, as well as some of the reporting and commentary in other places, I think the issues pertaining to American intervention in Libya come down to the broad categories of why and how.  While I think that The Twisted Genius and COL Lang certainly have laid out and proposed the best variant of how US intervention should take place, after observing both the politics surrounding the uses of American military force for the past decade, as well as the actual way the US ultimately uses force, I'm not feeling too optimistic that what they are delineating, based on year's of hard learned experience, will actually be done.  In fact I'm pretty sure we will see something of the usual suspects version of the use of force: a no fly zone that doesn't do much to remove Qathafi (which is now, if I understood the President's remarks correctly, the overall stated US objective: that he has to go), followed by pressure from both our allies (France, Britain) and from the internal foreign and defense policy mavens that we must do more, America is looking weak, we're not living up to our standards - the usual arguments for boots on the ground intervention, which will result in said intervention.  Then we will start hearing the arguments that we have to expand operations so as not to discredit those who have already risked so much and because we can not allow Libya to descend into an ungoverned state of chaos, destabilize the region, and become a haven for al Qaeda, other extremists, and/or international criminals.  This will then become the basis for the need for the US to build a modern Libyan nation-state.  Since only time will tell how what we do plays out, let me move on to a brief discussion regarding whether we should or should not intervene.

#The Clearing of the Mada'in

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

In the comments to the recent post dealing with Iraq we had a good discussion pertaining to the Sons of Iraq and Sahwa movement, especially in regard to how they have been dealt with by the Government of Iraq during the run up to the 1999 provincial elections, in the run up to the 2010 parliamentary election, and since that election was finally resolved.  I have referenced the field work I did on behalf of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team/1st Armored Division in many of my posts on Iraq, as well as in comments to those and other posts.  Of all the forty-five formal, semi-structured interviews I did, only one focused solely on the Awakening Movement in the area, the formation of the Sons of Iraq, and the clearing of what would become our operating environment: Mada'in Qada. While the first article derived from these notes was published last July in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, it only draws from and references the interview material as source and subject material.  I think that one of the best ways to get a window into the Awakenings is to simply post the interview that dealt solely with them.  For those that might have concerns: these are not raw field notes, rather they are transcribed interviews.  I have cleaned them up, included editor's notations in parentheses when appropriate, and in other transcribed interviews have obscured the identity of the subject of the engagement when asked to do so by that individual.  All of these forty-five formal interviews, as well as the dozens of more informal ones I conducted with non-elites, are unclassified and in this case (as in the majority of the formal interviews) I have written permission to attribute the interview to the subject I was engaging with. Before I get into the details I do want to thank my team mates, many of whom accompanied and assisted me with these engagements (Brian, Gene, Dana, Billy, and Larry - you are all the best), as well as the men and women of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team/1st Armored Division who kept us safe while we were doing our jobs; may they always Strike Hard!

The interview that follows was conducted between myself and Qais Shather Khmees al Jabouri. Qais, a retired Iraqi Army brigadier general, is also referred to as Sheikh Qais.  His cousin Sheikh Sammi Abbas al Jabouri is the Grand Sheikh of the Jabouris in the area.  Additionally, Qais is fluent in English and we conducted the whole interview in English.  In the interview Qais references a number of other individuals in the area - his cousin Mahmoud Jablowi who was killed by a formed IED placed in his car in the late Summer of 2009, Sayeed Khadum al Dinanawi from Nahrwan, and a variety of company, battalion, and brigade officers.  I will not identify the latter by name as they had all redeployed long before I conducted the interview, I know only a few of them (the battalion and brigade commanders), and do not have their permission to identify them.  The battalions that Sheikh Qais referred to are the 1st Battalion/15th Infantry Regiment, the 3rd Squadron/1st US Cavalry, and the brigade is the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team/3rd Infantry Division.  3HBCT/3ID was the first sustained coalition forces element in the area and the 2BCT/1AD replaced them in the Spring of 2008.

It is important to remember that Sheikh Qais told me what he wanted me to know.  While he was the subject of my engagement, I was also his conduit for getting his point of view back to my brigade commander, as well as to the battalion commanders that he routinely dealt with.  In 2010 Qais was elected to Iraq's Parliament as a member of the Iraqiyya List and subsequently went into hiding when PM Maliki's government, in an attempt to change the electoral plurality that Iraqiyya had achieved at the polls, issued a warrant for his and two other Iraqiyya members arrest.

Two final notes before we start: 1) I've tried to un-acronym most of this, but just in case: CF is coalition forces, GOI is government of Iraq, SOI is Sons of Iraq, IA is Iraqi Army, NP is National Police, and AQI is al Qaeda in Iraq and 2) because the interview runs five pages, I'm attaching it as a pdf file so it doesn't clutter up SST and push out other recent posts.

Download SST_The_Clearing_of_the Mada'in

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College, the US Army, or the US Government

Here's a Perfect Example of Failing to Live up to American Ideals

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

Came across this youtube video of news coverage of a California Muslim groups fundraiser to assist those who are experiencing food distress in the US.  That it drew protestors is remarkable enough, the behavior of many of them is just shocking:

 

Hat tip to Digby

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College, the US Army, or the US government.

#Sharia Law is NOT Closer to America than it Appears…

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

At the beginning of February I wrote about how fear of the Muslim Brotherhood taking over in the US, as well as in Egypt was greatly exaggerated.  This theme, or meme for the fashionable and trendy, goes hand in hand with the longstanding argument that Sharia Law is soon to be imposed in the US.  Initially, in the first couple of years after 9-11 this claim was basically made by several Conservative (I’m using the term because I think that’s how they’d describe themselves) bloggers who made the assertion by arguing that soon Americans that were not Muslims would become dhimmis[2].  In fact a new term was coined: dhimmitude; as in our impending dhimmitude.  I’m not going to link to the people who put these arguments out then, one of whom was also a primary instigator of the invented Ground Zero Mosque controversy last year.  They do not deserve the click through traffic, if you want to read what they had and have to say, just do a search for dhimmitude.

Differential Societal Organization: A Response to Carl O

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

Carl O asked if an entire society could go insane.  In many ways what he’s asking about and describing is what Sutherland, one of the fathers of modern criminology, described as differential social organization.  For instance, poor neighborhoods are not disorganized or mal-organized, rather they are organized in line with the structural conditions found there: differentially organized.  This then drives the creation of a set of behavioral drivers (values) that are rooted in the social, political, economic, religious, and physical differences in characteristics.  All together they create the conditions for the development of values that are specific to that neighborhood.  Once this occurs the normal process of social learning takes over. 

This is actually a very good question given the events in Egypt and Tunisia, and a number of other places of interest, over the past several weeks.  One of the real questions that Egyptians and Tunisians will face, that the US has faced in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that will be faced in other places, is how does a society, and its component social elements, make the transition from tyranny and despotism to freedom and liberty.  Egyptians, like the presumed denizens of the poor neighborhood I referenced above, have been living in a society that has been socially, politically, economically, religiously, and physically distorted by over forty years of military authoritarianism.  Egyptians are socialized and normalized to this structural and behavioral reality.  And while they certainly have an understanding and appreciation of what freedom and liberty are or could be (depending on their own life experiences of travel, study abroad, ex-patriotism, etc), as Egyptians in Egypt, many, if not most given the youth bulge, have lived only under this set of structural and ideational conditions.  Whatever happens in Egypt over the next several months in terms of who will stay in power or come to power it will be bound within the context of a population that has been treated and ruled despotically and tyrannically.  When they do finally break free and set up new systems and institutions and remake their societies, despotically treated populations often set up new tyrannies or take a long time to exorcise the despotic, tyrannical, and authoritarian impulses from their structures, institutions, norms, and values. 

When we use the term reconstruction, whether in a post Mubarak Egypt, a post US draw down Iraq, or in Afghanistan we have to keep in mind that it is the social and societal reconstruction that is really the hard work.  It is not so much winning the hearts and minds of the local populations, to turn the COIN phrase, but rather to educate, normalize, and tether the societal elements to new and hopefully less despotic structures and understandings of society.  This takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time.  This is NOT about victim blaming, but recognizing that the victims of tyranny and despotism, as well as those who have engaged in it but have to be reconciled to the new state of society, have a lot of hard and difficult work to do.  The success or failure of liberation movements, revolutions, even our 3^rd party population centric COIN efforts is really going to hinge on how serious the social reconciliation efforts are combined with how resilient the tyrannical and despotic structural and ideational vestiges are.

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[1] Adam L. Silverman is the Culture an Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily represent those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

 

And Now for Something Completely Different: No More Narcissism

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

To what I imagine will be the great chagrin of many members of the SST community, the NY Times has reported that narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) will not be included in the next update to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM).  NPD, as well as several other personality disorders, are being dropped and not without some controversy.  Since the discussion of narcissism often comes up in comments, sometimes with very interesting results, I figured I’d pass this little bit of news along.  The change won’t occur until 2013, so we should be good here at SST for a couple of years more.

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[1] Adam L. Silverman is the Culture an Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily represent those of the US Army War College or the US Army.

 

Fear of the Muslim Brotherhood May Be Greatly Exaggerated

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

With all the unrest and now violence in Egypt a lot of ink, a lot of radio and television airtime, and a lot of internet digits have been used discussing whether the events in Egypt will bring the Muslim Brotherhood into power there and what it means for Egypt, Israel, the region, and the US.  While all this has been going on, in fact before the events in Egypt even started, the fear of the Muslim Brotherhood has been a big concern for some[2].  Especially those that are convinced that the Muslim Brothers are taking over the American government, subverting the intelligence community (h/t to Digby), through such individuals as Homeland Security Advisor Brennan and DNI Clapper, and infiltrating the Conservative Movement.  Since the events in Egypt have occurred there have been further extreme, conspiratorial assertions that the Muslim Brotherhood are now partnering with the socialist left in the US (based on the context of the posting, this seems to mean liberals and/or Democrats and notice the gratuitous conflation of Islam and Nazism…) and that a Muslim Caliphate that engulfs the Middle East, parts of Central and SE Asia, and parts of Europe will soon be reestablished (as well as a Chinese dominated sphere in Asia, Africa, and the Antipodes and a Russian one in Europe and parts of Asia).  All of this comes within several month of Oklahoma outlawing Sharia in the November 2010 elections even though there are only 15,000 Muslims in Oklahoma out of a population of 3.7 million and no evidence that anyone was trying to establish it or use it as a basis for jurisprudence in Oklahoma or anywhere else in the US.[3]  And I don’t think I need to reprise the hysteria of last Summer and Fall about the Park 51 Islamic Center that was, at the time, the most recent example of responses to Islam and Muslims out of all proportion to the actual terrorist threat from violent, reactionary extremists.

An Answer for GregB: An Islamic Reformation?

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

On 27 JAN, in a comment on COL Lang’s column on de Borchgrave and revolution, GregB asked if we might be seeing “the beginning of an Islamic Reformation.”  He is not the first person to ask that or to seek an answer.  I’ve had the idea bouncing around in the back of my head off and on for a while.  And while there is not as much research into this question as I’d like, some of the oldest actually goes back to Max Weber – one of the fathers of today’s social sciences.  Weber took up this issue, but died before he could complete his work.  It has since been picked up by Clifford Geertz (informally), and several others working in this strain of inquiry. 

Some Additional Information Regarding the Giffords’ Shooter - Adam Silverman

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1][1]

Earlier this evening, as I was checking for updates in regards to the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, I came across a reference to a leaked DHS memo that indicates that part of the Federal Investigation is looking into a possible connection between Mr. Loughner and a white supremacist and anti-immigration group.   The group in question is American Renaissance, which is itself tied to the New Century Foundation.  There is more coverage of all of this here, and within this article are interviews with both Professor Brian Levin of Cal State San Bernadino and Mr. Mark Pitcavage of the ADL.  Both of them provide some good background information, as well as necessary cautions about why this line of inquiry may be problematic.  Full disclosure: I’ve known Brian Levin for over a decade and consider him a friend and colleague.  I’ve know Mr. Pitcavage since 2004, when he interviewed me regarding my interest in a research position.

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[1][1] Adam L. Silverman is the Culture an Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily represent those of the US Army War College or the US Army."

 

Iraqi Electoral Resolution - What to Look For by Adam Silverman

Adam L. Silverman, PhD[1]

With the recent reporting that Iraq’s long electoral impasse is coming to a close it is important to keep several things in mind and to watch for a number of potential outcomes.  The first thing to keep in mind is the role played by Iran and what, exactly, Iran gets out of not only being the broker to the resolution, but the resolution itself.  If the reporting is indeed accurate, then the clerics who run Iran[2] have asserted their authority over both the Iraqi Shi’a movements that returned from exile (largely spent in Iran) and the most powerful of the non-exile and Iraqi nationalist Shi’a movements – the Sadrists.  This is a major accomplishment as just three years ago the Sadrists and PM Maliki were at each other’s throats over control of Basra, the right of the Sadrists to have a militia like ISCI’s Badr Brigades, and what seemed to be an unbridgeable gulf between the diasporan Shi’a and those who remained behind.  Additionally, by bringing Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbullah into the negotiations, the Iranian leadership has just demonstrated that it has the ability to shape events from the Levant to Central Asia, which seemingly makes Iran the regional hegemon.  This is one of the end states that was supposed to be prevented by a successful American intervention into Iraq. 

Iraq - Adam Silverman

Mr. Cumming: the major Shi'a parties in Iraq are all Iranian clients. They (Dawa, ISCI, Badr -ISCI's militia and now the majority of Arabs in the Iraqi Army) were all established in exile, by exile Shi'a, with the political, religions, and economic support of Iran's government. The Badr Corps were established and trained by Revolutionary Guards, specifically, if I recall correctly, the Quds Force. And it has been reported that many of the Badr Corps members who have returned to Iraq are still receiving pensions from Iran. Additionally, both of the major Kurdish factions - the Barzanis and the Talabanis - received support from Iran as a check on Saddam Hussein. Finally, while he is, at best, an unreliable client, Muqtada al Sadr is in need of the Iranian clerics as they're the only ones that will make him an ayatullah - or at least string him along; so they have some leverage. Sunni Islam is the largest sect of Islam. The Twelver Shi'a are predominantly found in Iraq, Iran (where they make a vast and close to homogenous religious majority), the other Gulf Arab states, Lebanon - where they have a sizable presence, and the Eastern areas of Saudi Arabia where it borders Iraq. The Ismaili or Sevener Shi'a can be found in Pakistan (I would also estimate parts of Bangladesh, Kashmir, and India too, but Brigadier Ali will know more than I on this given that he is from that neighborhood) and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The Zaydis or Fiver Shi'a are predominantly found in Yemen. The only place where the Shi'a hold an almost complete majority, and I'm referring to Twelver Shi'a, is in Iran. They hold a very sizable one in Iraq, and make up a significant portion of the Lebanese (there are large and ongoing disputes over the ethno-sectarian makeup of Lebanon, and I've not seen any reliable numbers recently, so don't want to speculate) and Gulf Arab state populations. The Twelver minority in Saudi Arabia is always under threat as Wahabbiya is genocidally disposed towards the Shi'a (among others). In the only place where the Twelver Shi'a actually run the state, which is Iran, they have control over the Defense Forces. Their spending on them, especially compared to the US or even Israel or Saudi, is small. Essentially our misadventure in Iraq has helped make Iran a major, if not the major, regional power. They control power, water, food, and other essentials going into Iraq as Iraq has minimal power generation, which means minimal water, meaning min imal agriculture or industry. The Iranians have filled the void that resulted from our failure to act in accord with our status as occupying power: to fix the infrastructure. Unfortunately, what is going to happen, as I've noted repeatedly here at SST, is that the Sunni and Shi'a will go after each other in Iraq. The Sunnis are outnumbered, but as COL Lang indicated they will likely be resourced from outside. Meaning an extended low to medium level environment of political violence ranging from terrorism to civil war, which the Sunnis won't be able to win, but will likely fight anyway. And the other reality is that those pushing the COIN brand, whether they have become brands of their own, will claim that COIN didn't fail, it was never properly administered and therefore never got a real test in Iraq. THey'll find someone to throw under the bus - a general or ambassador - and then they'll go on to the next place they'd like to try to do 3rd Party Counterinsurgency Operation. 

Dr. Adam Silverman

 

The End of Combat Operations in Iraq - Adam Silverman

The End of Combat Operations in Iraq: a Few Thoughts Before the Presidential Address

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1][1]

            As we wait for President Obama to address the nation this evening regarding what is now the second official end to combat operations in Iraq, despite our keeping approximately 50,000 military personnel reflagged as advisors and the State Department’s presence – including its huge private security buildup, it is important to take a moment and reflect on what our endeavors there have accomplished.  Despite having largely safe and secure elections, Iraqi leaders are still unable to form a government.  While the sectarian conflict for resources masquerading as an electoral dispute continues, with wrangling, accusations, and attempted deal making the current hold over Iraqi government lurches forward punctuated by attacks against governmental and other targets.  In fact the recent attacks against police recruits is eerily reminiscent of the inability to protect earlier trainees back in 2005. 

"Attacking Iran: The Potential Negatives" Silverman

Attacking Iran: The Potential Negative 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Order Effects

Adam L. Silverman, PhD[1][1]

While I don’t think anyone is particularly in favor of Iran building nuclear weapons, those who seem the most certain about what to do to prevent it from happening seem to never mention the potential follow on effects.  There seems to be a group of experts, analysts, and politicians who are very eager to see a confrontation with Iran regardless of the 2007 NIE’s findings, and the efforts of Admiral Fallon in 2008 and Admiral Mullen in 2009 to push back against a preemptive Israeli strike. This often seems to stem from wishful thinking: if we can prevent Iran from getting a bomb, and have to use force to do so, then everything will be all right.  A contact recently sent me a column that deals with this topic and asked for my take on it.  My response was a potential 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th order effects analysis; specifically the negative effects.  And to be very honest: I’m not really sure there would be any positive ones…  This column is an extended and expanded version of my response:

 

The Potential Negative 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Order Effects of Attacking Iran

 

The potential negative effects for a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear development capabilities, whether done by Israeli or by the US, would essentially be the same as no distinction is going to be made between Israel acting alone or the US acting rather than Israel.  In the case of the former the US will be viewed as having blessed our client’s actions and in the latter of being manipulated by the client into doing what it wants.  

"Socio-Cultural Research and Analysis..." Adam Silverman

Socio-Cultural Research and Analysis: A Response to Sale’s Questions Regarding Ethnographic Intelligence

Adam L. Silverman, PhD[1][1]

Mr. Sale finished his excellent post on the current state of American intelligence endeavors with a very important question: “Does our current infatuation with contractors and technology provide us with sufficient ethnographic intelligence on Afghanistan, an area which seems to me very similar in its makeup to Caesar’s Gaul?”  I would like to make this one question into two and deal with the portion that is near and dear to my experience over the past three years: does the US have sufficient ethnographic intelligence (on Afghanistan)?  While I have some pretty set views on the question of contractors and technology, those are, perhaps, columns for another day.  

Blurring the Lines: Israel and COIN

 Adam L. Silverman PhD

COL Lang, in his column yesterday on Israel and Hamas, wrote that: “the Israelis do not do COIN.  They do “wog bashing”.  It is amazingly refreshing to see that in print.  Since the Spring of 2009 I have seen repeated references in various venues to the Israelis doing COIN; most recently at a meeting I attended about a month ago.  The first reference to Israelis conducting COIN operations that I heard was at the April 2009 COIN Leaders Workshop at Ft. Leavenworth.  One of the presenters, an Army officer, decided to illustrate his point with several examples, one of which was about how Israel conducts COIN.  Several weeks later, in the middle of a working group that I was attending as a subject matter expert, I heard another officer working on Afghanistan related issues made a similar set of remarks.  Most recently, in the comments to a guest post on COIN and its institutionalization, or lack thereof, that I did for Tom Ricks’s Best Defense Blog, one of the best known COINtras, a military historian and active duty colonel, alluded to the Israeli approach to COIN.  I asked him in a follow up comment if he would please explain to me why he stated that the Israelis have been doing COIN in the Occupied Territories for years as I do not really think they do and would love to see a good explanation.  I never got an answer.  Prior to this the other two mentions I had seen of Israel and COIN were at the Abu Muqawama blog, where Mr. Exum did a pretty good job at getting at some of the nuance and on a reading list he linked to from the Insurgency Research Group.  My guess is that there are a lot more references available if I were to search for them, but unless I have a specific reason to look for something on the COIN blogs, I generally stay off of them as I find the ongoing fight between the COINdinistas and the COINtras tiresome and largely the wrong argument to be having altogether!

Unequal Reactions - Adam Silverman

Unequal Reactions in the Wake of the Israeli Raid on the Turkish Flotilla

Adam L. Silverman PhD

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.” – Excerpt from President Washington’s Reply Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport (now known as Tuoro Synagogue), August 1790

The official US and Israeli responses to Israel’s raid on the Turkish flotilla are astonishing, and remarkable, as dozens of the SST community have indicated in comments.  They are especially remarkable given the manner in which reliable witnesses have reported the raid to have been conducted, Israel’s selective editing of confiscated footage to support its Information Operations, and the casualties including both a US citizen and citizens of a close NATO ally.  Perhaps the most startling responses appear to be perverse, mirror images of each other.  On Tuesday 1 June Meir Dagan, the Chief of Israel’s Mossad, told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, that Israel’s actions were impacting its relationship and alliance with the US.  Dagan specifically said that “Israel is gradually turning from an asset of the United States to a burden.”   This is an astonishing bit of testimony by the head of Israel’s foreign, and supposedly clandestine, intelligence organization. 

Iraqi election Aftermath: Sectarian Bombings - Silverman

 Adam L. Silverman PhD[1][1]

On Friday 23 April four car bombs (vehicular born improvised explosive devices/VBIEDs) went off around Baghdad.  All four targeted Shi’a sites: two exploded in the Zafaraniyah area close to the Sadrist stronghold in Sadr City and one each at the Hadi al Chalabi Mosque and the Muhsin al Hakim Mosque.  The latter two targets are mosques named for/founded by the father and grandfather, respectively, of Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, and Ammar al Hakim, who succeeded his father as head of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (ISCI).  While the Iraqi leadership had already come forward to blame the violence on al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) as retaliation for the recent Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) killings of two AQI leaders, the targeting pattern seems to provide a different insight.  All four sites targeted have some relationship to one of the two large Shi’a religious party lists, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), led primarily by now returned Iranian supported Iraqi ex-patriots: the Chalabi and al Hakim Mosques.  Additionally, Moqtada al Sadr, currently residing at the Iranian Holy City of Qom in an attempt to become an ayatullah, has his strongest base of support in the Shi’a areas in and around Sadr City – areas like Zafaraniyah.  Had this been simply been a case of AQI retaliation one would expect the targets to have been ISF facilities and bases, governmental sites and ministries, and/or anything specifically associated with PM Maliki and his special counter-terrorism unit. 

Iraqis are high context communicators.  Rather than come in and directly state what the problem they are upset about is and laying out an expected resolution, they instead try to indirectly demonstrate their discomfort.  While this oblique way of communicating has been, and still most likely is, frustrating for US military and civilian personnel it makes sense to keep it in mind when trying to determine what the Iraqis are communicating in their targeting.  While it certainly makes no sense for simple targeting, such as a buried, crush wire IED that is going to go off when any sufficiently heavy vehicle goes off and therefore has an element of randomness, it does make sense to step back from the immediate hyperbole and try to discern the messages from a well coordinated and specifically timed and placed attack.  It would seem just as likely, if not more so, that the targeting of sites linked to the leadership and supporters of the INA was not AQI retribution, rather it was intended to send a message of displeasure about INA leaders behavior.  The offending behavior, the context, is the very close results for the largest plurality in the recent election, the dispute of the results by PM Maliki and his State of Law List, especially the attempts by members of the Iraqi National Alliance to play kingmaker two weeks ago at a conference in Iran.  This meeting excluded Iyad Allawi, the leader of the Iraqqiya List, made up of an interesting combination of secular Sunnis and Shi’a, as well as the more tribal/traditionally oriented Sunni and some Shi’a as well, and seemed to focus on forming a State of Law and INA coalition; a coalition that would only require a handful of other elected members of parliamentary to reach the magic number of 163 seats in parliament to form a government and which would lock out the Iraqqiya Party List – which won the right to have the first attempt to form the next Iraqi government.  Given the disputed election it is probable that the bombings last Friday were an attempt to deliver a message of displeasure about the elections, not about the killings of the two AQI leaders.

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[1][1] Adam L. Silverman, PhD was the Socio-cultural Advisor assigned to the 2BCT/1AD from OCT 2007 to OCT 2008 and was deployed in Iraq in 2008.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the 2BCT/1AD.

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And on the 27th this in the NY Times pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html?src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.jsonp

Mainstreaming Extremism into American Political Discourse - Silverman

Mainstreaming Extremism into American Political Discourse

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

As April 19^th approaches it is both appropriate and unfortunate to take a few minutes and reflect on some of the truly outstanding changes in American political discourse over the past two years.  April 19^th, long remembered as the day that the American Revolutionary War started, has also picked up a much more negative connotation.  Several incidents of domestic terrorism and extremism; most notably the incidents surrounding the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, TX and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  Much of my early work on identity based extremism, political violence, and terrorism focused on comparing and contrasting domestic American extremism (white supremacists, militia movements, anti-abortion extremists) with its Middle Eastern counterparts in Israel (the Nturei Karta, Eda Haredim, Gush Emunim and other settlers, Kach and its offshoots like Eyal), the Territories (Hamas, PIJ), Lebanon’s Hezbullah, Egypt’s Islamic Group and Jemma Islamiya, and the violent Algerian offshoots of the FIS – the GIA (Armed Islamic Group), as well as movements such as Aum Shinrikyo.  I spent a great deal of time examining those groups that were apocalyptically motivated, especially those that blended religious and political identity, which almost always puts them on the extreme right of the political spectrum.

The US and Israel: A Codependent, Dysfunctional Relationship - Adam Silverman

The US and Israel: A Codependent, Dysfunctional Relationship

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1][1]

Mr. Habakkuk finished his contribution to the SST debate over the US/Israeli relationship by asking “In my view, the 'liberal Zionist' position -- very common among British Jews -- depended upon belief that the two-state solution was possible. As I suspect Lerman's remarks indicate, people of intelligence and good faith are still clinging to what like you I believe to be illusion. But what I also believe is that in the U.K. at least, when they finally face the choice very many will chose liberalism over Zionism. Whether the situation is fundamentally different in the U.S. I cannot judge?"  What is interesting in his question is that there both is and is not a fundamental difference in the US.  What is even more interesting is that Mr. Habakkuk’s question frames the issue on the day that it is reported that the head of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that exists to track, document, and oppose discrimination against both Jews and non-Jews, has picked a fight that he cannot win.  Rabbi Foxman, the ADL Director, has indirectly challenged GEN Petraeus over the assertion that Israeli actions are putting US soldiers at greater risk in the CENTCOM AOR, as well as the direct remarks made by VP Biden last week in Israel.

"IO Fratricide and Reactions to Terrorism Part II" - Silverman

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

Recent remarks by John Brennan, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism have further enflamed the IO fratricide as a reaction to terrorism that I wrote about recently.  On the recent Sunday news shows their were even calls for Mr. Brenna’s ouster.  While COL (ret) Lang has expressed his concerns with Mr. Brennan in the past, I think that this case is a perfect example of the over reactions that lead to the counter-terrorism IO fratricide that I detailed on February 4^th.  As such a detailed look at what Mr. Brennan said is in order.

IO Fratricide and Reaction to Terrorism

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1][1]

Now that the actual account of what Federal investigators are learning from Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab has come out it makes sense to step back a little bit and take a good hard look at how America’s current and former elected and appointed officials, as well as pundits and media respond to the issue of terrorism. I want to emphasize issue rather than threat because how to conduct an investigation of a failed terrorist, as well as whether terrorist should be handled in regular courts, trials or tribunals should be held in the places that the acts of terrorism took place, or all terrorist are automatically enemy combatants are all a series of issues, some related some not, not actual threats.  The common thread that runs through all of these responses is that a large portion of our politicians, our pundits, our media all seem to have been thoroughly terrorized.  Even though Abdulmuttalab failed to do anything other than injure himself, anyone watching American tv news, listening to American radio, or reading American newspapers would reasonably conclude that he succeeded in his mission.