In War Brutality Wins
From: "Jim McMichael"
What you describe here is not a war AGAINST terror, as you pretend.
The French war for domination over the Algerians was a war OF terror, and
the terrorists (France) won.
That is the lesson of your essay on brutality. In war, brutality wins, and
it matters not whose side is right or wrong. The victors pretend they are
in the right, and the losers are called terrorists.
Thus you justify any brutal methods used to fight wars. The US can use
napalm, fuel-air bombs, depleted uranium, fire bombs, torture, imprisonment
without trial, massacre of civilians, -- anything, and you justify it.
When the French Underground civilians fought the German occupation forces,
you call them "freedom fighters" and heroes. When the Algerians fought the
French occupation forces, you call them terrorists.
There used to be a name for your philosophy: The End Justifies the Means.
Would you like a historical example of the opposite?
Consider El Cid from Spain in the 11th Century. In the day of El Cid, Spain
was only a geographic region containing dozens of small kingdoms in walled
cities. Starting from one of those kingdoms, El Cid went from victory to
victory throughout Spain, uniting the Iberian kingdoms under his own king.
This was because, in contrast to the other generals of his day, El Cid
fought with decency, generosity, and chivalry. To anyone who surrendered or
deserted to his army, he granted immediate pardon without conditions. When
besieged towns ran short of food, he fed them from his own stores rather
than allowing the the women and children to starve.
He was so successful and beloved by the people, his army swelled with
soldiers from all over who wanted to fight with El Cid. When he approached
towns to conquer, sometimes the people overthrew their rulers and opened the
gates to his army, knowing there would be no looting, massacre, or rape.
Toward the end of his career, some generals surrendered to him on the
battlefield before the battle had begun, because they knew the morale of
their own troops could not be sustained in battle with the universally
acclaimed goodness of El Cid. He died before his very last battle, but his
generals tied him into the saddle and led his horse out to the battlefield
to keep the morale of his own troops alive and demoralize the enemy. And he
won that battle, too.
If "terrorism" has any meaning, it is a deliberate policy of brutality
designed to frighten the target and demoralize the enemy. Nathan Lewin, a
US lawyer who hopes to become a US judge, recently suggested that Israel
should kill the families of suicide bombers -- mothers, fathers, children,
and infants. http://www.forward.com/ In Lewin's world, the biggest
terrorist wins, and can thereafter define who was right and who was wrong in
the conflict. Supposedly, Lewin is an expert on US Constitutional law, and
has argued 12 cases before the US Supreme court. In other words, Lewin's
think is now an unfortunate component of American mainstream think, both in
military and civilian circles.
In like think, the US Army operated the "School of the Americas" in Ft.
Benning, Georgia, to train Latin American state terrorists in the finer arts
of torture, intimidation, assassination, midnight disappearances, etc. Bad
press forced them to change their name, but the game is still the same. See
http://www.soaw.org/new/ The terrible truth is that brutal methods do NOT
win the war. The brutal drug war continues forever and forever, as does
Israel's war against the Palestinians. If you operate with brutality, you
persuade your enemy of these facts:
a) surrender is useless, b) God is on HIS side, and you are fighting for the
devil c) he has a duty to future generations to wipe you out, regardless of
any personal sacrifice.
To win a war of decency and chivalry, you need only defeat the rulers of the
enemy in a war of strategy. You then allow him to surrender, and he may
become an ally in commerce and global politics.
In contrast, to win a war of brutality, you must conquer every soldier and
civilian individually, either by killing him or terrorizing him into
servility. When it is over, you have a ruined nation as your prize of
conquest, and sometimes, generations of future bitterness and problems. You
also degrade your own military forces, and they become unsuited to take part
in the sweetness of life at home.
This time I give you the last word to make your case. Your original
article, in its entirety, is appended below.
J
---
911 Terror:
Muslims Suspend Laws of Physics
http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/physics_1.html I wonder when the lies will
stop and truth begin, even as grim as the truth may be. And then I remember
that for 70 years, the reign of terror in Russia called itself "the people's
government." We have so far to fall, yet we are falling fast and Hell yawns
to receive us.
-------------------------------------
On Thu, 13 Jun 2002 21:35:41 bigguy wrote:
THIS EXCELLENT PIECE ON THE REALITY OF WAR IS COURTESY OF VIC
(Triggerpuller)....
From Dave Hackworth's site:
Special Report: War on Many Fronts ARTICLE 01 Wage War Against Terror With
Maximum Force By Patrick Hayes As President Bush attempts to change how
Washington bureaucrats operate, the United States must also move beyond the
lingering Clintonian angst of political correctness, especially when dealing
with global terror. Al Qaeda prisoners vacationing in the sun at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, are a case in point: given special food, access to Muslim
clerics and not being interrogated because we may offend them, or violate
their "civil rights". Yet these terrorists are a constant threat to the
Americans guarding them.
Although first published in 1832, On War (Vom Kriege) by Carl von Clausewitz
is still a timely and valuable work, particularly relevant to current
events. He wrote:
Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to
disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine that
is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy
that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that the mistakes
which come from kindness are the very worst. The maximum use of force is in
no way incompatible with the simultaneous use of the intellect. If one side
uses force without compunction, undeterred by the bloodshed it involves,
while the other side refrains, the first will gain the upper hand. This is
still a valid lesson that the West generally, but the United States and
Israel specifically, must learn. In a war where terrorists, particularly
Muslim terrorists who see their own death as a means to an end and who
operate by the principle that the end justifies the means, there can be no
negotiated peace. If the United States, Israel and Western European states
are going to quash the threat, they need (paraphrasing Col. Hackworth) to
steel their hearts.
Currently, the U.S. Marine Corps is observing Israeli Defense Forces
tactics used in its ongoing urban counter-terrorist operations - a most
likely battlefield of the 21st century. However, the Israelis also need to
learn the lessons of von Clausewitz. Trying to win a war without bloodshed
is doomed to failure because it begins from a weakened position. The recent
Israeli tactic of only destroying the homes of the Muslim bombers and gunmen
is one tactic, but brick and mortar can be replaced and such action has not
deterred further attacks.
Since Vietnam, U.S. policymakers have labored under a similar timidity
about bloodshed and the use of maximum, decisive force against Muslim
terrorists and harboring states - Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, the Balkans, the
Philippines, the Afghan-Pakistan border region, to name a few. And each
show of political weakness has emboldened the terrorists, leading to the
threats we now face.
To reach what the Marine Corps identifies as warfighting ability, political
and military leaders may consider a review of recent history for "lessons
learned" when dealing with terrorists with expediency. Given the threat
level, we can no longer afford to coddle or appease them.
One case study of effective, albeit brutal, counter-terrorism was the battle
for Algiers in 1957, in which the 10th Parachute Division (Le Para),
including the 1st Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment (1er Régiment étranger
de parachutiste - 1er REP ), took part, under the command of General Jacques
Massu. Although French politics have wavered from one Republic to another
since Napoleon Bonaparte, the French regular army has produced some stalwart
soldiers, particularly the paratroopers and, since 1831, has relied heavily
on the Foreign Legion (la Légion Étrangére ) in their colonial and
post-colonial affairs, particularly in North Africa.
The Foreign Legion was the sharp end of French forces in the colonial
outposts from the Sahara to Indochina, but particularly in Morocco, Tunisia
and Algeria - the latter, at Sidi-bel-Abbès, had been its home base since
1831, which gave the Legion a particular attachment to Algeria. They had
also been fighting Arabs and Berbers for over a hundred years in the North
African deserts.
However, on All Saints Day 1954, Algerian Muslims turned to urban terror
bombings and shootings as their means of seeking independence from France,
led by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), or fellagha.
The brutality of hitting soft civilian targets with bombs, and murdering
French and other European civilians, brought about brutal reprisals against
the Muslims by French colonials of Algérie Française (known as pieds noirs,
or "black feet," a reference to the high boots worn by early French
settlers) and the military. In one incidence, a Legion sergeant was knifed
to death by Muslim terrorists. Within hours, a Legion company entered the
village and killed 25 Muslims in reprisal. They delivered a short, but
bloody message to those harboring terrorists.
By January 1957, the FLN bombings, shootings, rapes, beatings and other
attacks against Europeans had become constant, and the 10th Parachute
Division was sent into the city to quell the uprising and restore order.
General Massu moved quickly to identify and locate the FLN terrorists,
suspending civil laws as necessary. He incorporated a system of quadrillage
offensif, in which Algiers itself and the Kasbah in particular, where the
FLN had set up headquarters, were divided into squares. Le Para moved
quickly to identify each individual within the squares, making the head of
each household and square, or neighborhood, leaders responsible for each
member therein.
Within a few days, the FLN called for a general strike. Le Para responded
by pulling the shutters off the storefronts, causing the striking owners to
be present, if for no other reason than to protect their businesses. The
strike ended. The FLN bombings continued, but within a month, a primary
bomb factory was located and destroyed.
General Massu also used the weaknesses of the FLN, including clan and racial
divisions between Berber and Arab. Using informers and FLN collaborators
(la bleuite), he hit FLN hideouts and bomb factories and, with lightening
raids, le Para managed to capture a considerable number of documents. Based
on these, other arrests were made, including the FLN leader, Saadi Yacef.
Also, just using the threat of la bleuite and rumor within the Muslim
community, General Massu's Para observed as the FLN terrorists turned inward
and killed many of their own, believing they were traitors or collaborators.
During interrogation, le Para used torture as a matter of expediency.
Similar to the American Phoenix Program in Indochina against Viet Cong and
the National Liberation Front infrastructure, the French had used torture as
a matter of course when dealing with the Viet Minh. Also similar to the
American experience, the interrogations were usually conducted by Vietnamese
troops. In Algiers, le Para themselves conducted the interrogations, which
included beatings and electric shock.
Torture is and has been condemned by much of the Western world (but
obviously not by the Muslim world, as with American journalist, Daniel Pearl
in Pakistan, and Marine Col. William Higgins and other hostages held in
brutal captivity in Beirut during the mid-1980s). To French colonial
forces, however, it was a means to an end when dealing with extremely
violent Muslim terrorists. According to Gen. Massu:
It was imperative that we obtain urgent operational intelligence, upon which
depended the lives of innocent human beings, deliberately sacrificed by the
FLN to gain its objectives. Such cruelty (on the part of the FLN) did not
inspire one with the desire to spare those whose confessions could interrupt
a fatal course of events. Therefore, practically speaking, if to make them
"cough up"
it was necessary to rough them up a bit, the interrogators were obliged to
achieve the confession.. This was nothing more than physical pressure, even
violent, used to get quick information and which did not degrade the
individual.
On one hand, the French regarded torture as an expedient method for
destroying the FLN infrastructure. On the other, critics countered that
individuals under torture may say anything to stop the pain, or even to
throw interrogators off track. However, for the terrorist in custody,
erroneous information would not stave off further interrogation
indefinitely. Also, interrogators could compare information from one
terrorist with that obtained from others. Even the threat of torture was
sometimes enough to obtain the necessary information.
Gen. Massu also realized that the troops involved in urban anti-terror
warfare were operating under increased and constant pressure, and needed to
rotate out of the urban environment on a regular basis. This not only
prevented the soldiers in the campaign from becoming too involved in what
was seen as a "police matter,"
but also ensured that, by introducing fresh or rested troops, the French
would not lose the momentum against the terrorists.
One key difference between the Battle for Algiers and the ongoing war
against terrorism, of course, is that France was a colonial power trying to
hold on to a foreign land, while the United States, Israel and their allies
are fighting to safeguard innocent lives. Although the French government
eventually gave Algeria its independence, there is nothing palatable that
either the United States or Israel can surrender to induce Hamas or al Qaeda
to cease their offensives.
Israel, a sovereign, democratic country, is fighting for survival against
Muslim terrorists and it appears that only their deaths at the hands of IDF
soldiers or Israeli security forces will stop the Muslim bombers and gunmen.
The same is also true with the Muslim terrorists who continue to target the
United States nine months after the 9-11 attacks. Whatever Americans do to
attempt "peace," it should be clear by now, even to the most ardent
Left-leaning pacifist and civil libertarians, that no words, political
postures or acts of appeasement will deter al Qaeda from its goal of
destruction. Decisive, even brutal, action is, therefore, the necessary
consideration against such an unyielding enemy.
The United States was not attacked by "independence fighters", but by
fanatical Muslim terrorists bent on killing as many Americans as possible -
with no distinction between uniformed soldiers and unarmed women and children.
Again, as von Clausewitz wrote, "If one side uses force without compunction,
undeterred by the bloodshed it involves, while the other side refrains, the
first will gain the upper hand." Al Qaeda terrorists have already shed
considerable American blood. The Prussian theorist is correct that victory
requires we exert maximum force to defeat the enemy, and to take the
conflict to them, rather than waiting for them to take the initiative
against us with more attacks.
By definition, terrorists do not seek peace. They seek to destroy. When
combating terrorists, particularly Muslim terrorists who hold their own
lives so cheaply, there is no alternative to, as von Clausewitz wrote, the
violent and maximum use of force to prosecute the war and destroy the enemy.
This has never been truer than today as the West faces this no-holds-barred
global threat.
Patrick Hayes is a contributing editor to DefenseWatch. He can be reached
at gyrene@sftt.org .
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