I’m watching the news, just like most of America is, of the shootings in Chattanooga, TN, by an ISIS operative. I’m as appalled, but probably not for the reasons that most of America is. Here’s why I’m appalled….
1) I see people, including military personnel, calling the shooter a “coward.” This is a cultural cognitive bias that we HAVE to get past, both culturally and individually. Let’s look at this honestly…
The shooter in TN was not “cowardly.” What he was was smart. It was a criminal act, but only because he was a naturalized American citizen, which means he was a traitor, when he attacked American servicemen. This was an act of war, by an enemy combatant, against UNIFORMED MILITARY PERSONNEL. Did he ambush them? Sure. He utilized the METT-TC available to him, camouflaged himself in the urban environment, and killed UNIFORMED MILITARY PERSONNEL.
This is a man representative of a culture stretching back centuries; a culture that still remembers when the Caliphate ruled from India to the Iberian peninsula. These aren’t “goat-fucking, towel-head, camel jockeys.” We like to browbeat them as “barbarians,” but both etymologically and anthropologically, they are not barbarians. They’re simply a culture with a different value system than ours.
They are our enemies, culturally, and we need to recognize that, but for a people who like to quote Sun Tzu, we seem to spend an awful lot of time trying to forget this maxim, ““If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
If we simply look at them as “goat-fucking camel jockeys,” guess what, we’re going to succumb in every battle, and we’re going to lose this clash of civilizations.
We’re at war. ISIS knows it. We use ambushes in war. So does ISIS. Dismissing this as some “cowardly” attack, rather than a planned military operation, against UNIFORMED MILITARY PERSONNEL, just because they were unarmed, serves no purpose whatsoever, except to make the average donut eating, couch-surfing, low-information voter, feel safer. “By Gawd! Them damned terr’ists wouldna have had a chance, if our boys’d had known they was comin’! Why, they’d have gunned up, dug fighting positions, developed range cards and sector sketches, and blown that sumbitch straight to his 72 virgins!” It’s a false narrative.
What we SHOULD be learning from this is “the enemy is NOT stupid.”
2) We spend a lot of time listening to moralists tell us how barbaric these people are. By OUR measure, today, yes, they are absolutely barbaric. I mean, they cut people’s heads off! They burn people! It’s horrific. Or, are we just pussies?
We used to do shit like that to our enemies. Everybody else in the world, except our “kindler, gentler” society does shit like that to their enemies. Sure, we have a different moral code than they do. Is it a moral code that’s going to result in us losing this, a multi-generational war? Julius Caesar put people’s heads on stakes. Caeser Augustus crucified people. The Puritans of Massachusetts fucking drowned women for “witchcraft.” We used to shoot and hang criminals.
Of course, our culture has “advanced” past that. We’re too “civilized” for that, these days.
I’m not going to argue with that. There’s a whole lot about contemporary western culture that I’m appreciative of. I like indoor running water. I like flush toilets. I like not having to worry about my daughters being killed by random strangers at the playground….errr…wait….
Maybe, just maybe, Sir John Baget Glubb, had it right, when he said we were decadent, and bound for a fall, because our culture had grown weak and soft. Maybe, had those Marines been armed, they WOULD have successfully defended themselves. After all, if there’s one thing the Corps does well, it’s indoctrinate their people with a warrior spirit.
Maybe, instead of worrying that people from other cultures will judge us by OUR cultural values, we need to consider that they’re only going to judge us by their cultural values, and to ISIS, the only thing that matters, is killing. If we really want to win against ISIS, maybe we need to start letting our guys that are on the ground over there start putting some heads on spikes, without having to worry about prosecution when they come home.
Maybe we need to offer a bounty on ISIS heads. “Hey, you bring me the head of an ISIS fighter, I’ll give you $1000.” Or, we can wring our hands and shed our tears over “how barbaric those people are,” as they continue doing what they think they need to do.
This is not civilization v. the barbarians. This is two civilizations, with different value systems, at war. Do we want to win, or not? It’s common for us to claim that the world has advanced beyond that behavior, but really? Only western culture has grown that weak.
3) About arming the Marines….It’s really popular right now (and always has been. I have to admit, when I started digging for the facts, I was shocked to discover that what I “knew” for twenty years, was wrong….) for people to blame Bill Clinton for the fact that US military personnel are not allowed to carry personal weapons on post. I did it for 20 years. I mean, come on, it’s Bill Clinton, a vile, despicable man…who is actually not to blame in this case.
Unfortunately, it’s the same old “Us v. Them” divisiness that politicians keep using to keep Americans divided, instead of focusing on the civilization we’re at war with.
Before we get into why it was NOT Bill Clinton’s fault that US military personnel are unarmed on post, let’s ask ourselves one critical question? If this was the result of a Leftist, anti-gun President’s Executive Order, why didn’t that paragon of Neo-Conservative, Pro-Gun patriotism, GWB, override the EO and allow military servicemen to carry again? Especially considering….WE WERE AT WAR!!!!???
Well, mostly, because it was not an Executive Order at all. The ban that took place, in March of 1993, was the result of a Department of Defense directive, issued in FEBRUARY 1992….Before Clinton was even elected. That’s right…the DoD (DoD Directive 5210.56) directed this under President George Herbert Walker Bush…so much for a Leftist, Liberal scheme to leave American troops vulnerable to attack.
The Army initiated the directive in March of 1993 as AR 190-14, which regulation specifically says it is intended to put into action the appropriate portions of directive 5210.56.
We can continue to blame Bill Clinton, or we can try to figure out why Directive 5210.56 was reissued in 2011, WHEN WE ARE AT WAR!!!???
Make no mistake, this is not a war of civilization versus the barbarians. This is a war between two civilizations. One remembers its heritage and is okay with that. The other one is embarrassed by its heritage and wants to convince itself that it’s “too nice” to do shit like that. Who do you really think has the edge there?
So, the John Mosby, Mountain Guerrilla solution to this?
Gun the fuck up. Hone the edges on your axes. Sharpen some stakes, so you have somewhere to put the heads, and pay the fuck attention to what’s going on around you.
