Here is a comment bemoaning the release of the Wilders film by someone in an army magazine:

"The dismissal by Fred Roggio is warranted. Of course there will be some kind of trouble if, and when, the Wilders film is released. Muslims have been attempting to blackmail the Dutch, and the entire Western world, not to have it released, using that same argument. So what? This will always be the case.

The American military man or civilian who wrote that little comment apparently is not thinking straight about Islam. He is thinking only of the way in which Muslims can be so easily whipped up, and assumes they will be whipped up if the Wilders film is released.

But he is missing several points. One is that Muslims can always be whipped up. They don't need a film or cartoons. They are very good at manufacturing their own reasons for being whipped up. They stage atrocities -- see the Al-Dura case, see all the pictures on Al-Jazeera of American "Nazi-like" behavior in Iraq, with that hideous Arab score playing as the camera pans over what are supposed to be victims of "American aggression" and that could be pictures taken from anywhere, or for that matter made up. It doesn't matter.

The person who said that the Wilders film should not be released (and could he have been, by the way, a Muslim or someone who listened a bit too credulously and naively to local Muslims in Afghanistan) manages to overlook all the made-up stories about "American soldiers destroying Qur'ans" that have been broadcast in Afghanistan, and that, though denied and obviously false, have led to the usual predictable and hysterical riots and lunacy.

But what that comment points to is the narrowness of vision of American military men. In Iraq, Petraeus and company are so intent in applying those "laws" about "insurgencies" so beloved of those "military intellectuals" -- those Kansas colonels who think it makes sense to come up with such laws as "on average, insurgencies last ten years." [This is as helpful as the statement that "on average civil wars last 4.7 years" or "on average wars last 11.3 years."] It ignores the most important things: that there is not one "insurgency" but many different groups competing for power and loot in Iraq, and that while all but one -- Al-Qaeda -- are willing to use the Americans to their own advantage, all of them, but possibly one (the Kurds) cannot conceivably offer the Americans real, unfeigned, and lasting friendship, and even the Kurds, possibly unduly romanticized, have to be our friends because it is only the Americans who have rescued them in the past, or can offer them the necessary diplomatic and other support, to an dependent Kurdish state, in the future.

The American military in Iraq, like that in Afghanistan, sees the task it has been assigned, and is attempting to fulfill that task. It does not see, the generals do not see, the larger picture. They do not calculate the economic cost to the United States, of the effort in Iraq or Afghanistan. They do not ask themselves about the other theatres of war, in the campaign of self-defense against the world-wide Jihad, because most of them do not think in those terms at all. How can they? The very fulfillment of their task, and their day-to-day dealings with the local "good" Muslims, brings them ever further into personal entanglements, a confusion of being impressed with this or that local Arab or Afghani who may indeed appear to offer real friendship, or at least prove helpful, and so beyond that immediate helpfulness, that slogging "side by side" with "our Iraqi allies" or "the brave Afghans," it is easy to forget about such things as exactly what those "Iraqi allies" are doing, what they are doing it for, how much bribing they need to continue doing what they do (for if the American bribes stop, they stop), and whether, from an American perspective, the whole thing really makes sense, or if, beyond the local "victories," the real victory to be achieved is best accomplished by coolly, hard-headedly, recognizing what has been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan is pursuit of an ignis fatuus, a will-'o-the-wisp or feu follet that keeps receding into the distance, the goal of a "stable" and "unified" and (with American taxpayers' largesse, signed over by the tens of billions, by an Administration that has no other thoughts as to how to obtain Muslim cooperation, for it does not understand what deep hostility Islam inculcates toward non-Muslims, and is fearful of finding out, of recognizing this immutable truth and basing a policy on awareness of that truth).

Even if, here and there, at enormous American and, in Afghanistan, other NATO cost, there can be local "victories" over Al Qaeda, or over the Taliban, so what? Their ranks are endlessly replenishable. And the local "allies" are not really "allies" at all. The Anbar Province tribes, should they succeed in remaining bribed, still have no intention of doing America's bidding, and still, as Sunnis, have no intention of acquiescing in the main consequence of the toppling of Saddam Hussein: the transfer of power, now and likely forever, from the Sunnis to the Shi'a of Iraq.

What the American generals must do if they are to avoid confirming that "war is too important to be left to the generals" is to begin to see what used to be called the Big Picture. Petraeus, in Iraq, should be thinking about the malevolent Saudis, and the Money Weapon that pays for mosques and madrasas deep inside the West. The generals in Afghanistan should be thinking about the attempt of Geert Wilders to instruct, and rouse, people in the Netherlands by dint of a mere ten-minute film, instead of worrying about the "effect" on the local Muslims and its relation to them, the NATO troops. If the local Muslims can be so whipped up, and so easily turn on the American and other NATO troops, it is that fact that is telling, and should be understood by the Western military as one more reason why, instead of the squandering of men, money, and matériel -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in meretricious and hopeless Pakistan -- Western money should be saved, Western soldiers should be spared, and war matériel reserved not for "nation-building" efforts but for war-making, and emphasis now placed on what should always have been seen, about a trillion dollars ago, as the most intelligent strategy: to recognize, to do nothing to lessen, to exploit, whatever pre-existing fissures exist in the Camp of Islam. In Iraq there are two: the sectarian and the ethnic. In Afghanistan, save for the Shi'a Hazara, the country is riven by rivalry between Tadjiks, Uzbeks, and Pashtuns. Use it, use it to divide, and to keep constantly unsettled, the re-emergence of the Taliban, where possible. Do not build roads or schools or do anything that will help the Taliban and local Muslims to emerge from a hardscrabble existence. It is that hardscrabble subsistence farming or raiding that is the surest guarantee that people will be kept so busy staying alive that they won't have time for Jihad, which is what you do once your minimal needs are taken care of. Don't take care to help with those minimal needs.

And while the spectacle of internecine warfare, not necessarily at a high level -- in Iraq, the Shi'a will simply make clear that they have no intention of re-admitting Sunnis to Baghdad, and whatever attacks on Shi'a take place after the Americans withdraw, will be met with further attacks on Sunnis in Baghdad. Meanwhile, in the north, the Americans for reasons of realpolitik reasons could be supporting the Kurds, because the more powerful the Kurds, the more likely they will obtain an independent state. The great inhibiting factor is apparently the government of Turkey, which is in the hands of Erdogan. But the Turkish army's opposition, which does worry, can be overcome, if it can be demonstrated that an independent Kurdistan will have to rely on American support, and the Americans, in turn, will be the guarantors, who can withhold arms and diplomatic support, that Kurdish irredentism will apply, with a vengeance, to Iran and to Syria, but not in eastern Anatolia. There are ways to make this case, but they require taking a different tack with Turkey, or at least with its military.

The use of Iraq as a permanent fault line for Sunni-Shi'a clashes, the loss to the "Persian" Shi'a of Baghdad, for four hundred years the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, so central to the history, real or imaginatively reconstructed, that history-haunted Arab Muslims (returning, again and again, to imagined past glories of culture, munificence, and power -- often greatly exaggerated -- which can never be acquiesced in by those Sunnis, -- suggests that an Iraq without the American presence will be a source of permanent tension between Shi'a Iran (and its succursales among the Shi'a of who form the majority in Bahrain, 20% of the population in Pakistan, and a plurality of the population in Yemen, not to mention Syria, where the Alawites have been attempting to legitimize themselves as Muslims by use of a Shi'a fatwa, when the Sunni Arabs know perfectly well that the Mary-worshiping syncretistic Alawite despots are not real Muslims, and could, should, would be slaughtered -- not an Alawite village would be safe -- should the Alawite regime ever fall.

The consequences of an American withdrawal would be, to save money, lives, even rescue the American officer corps from further shrinkage -- all those non-reupping captains, by now 15,000 -- them who cannot be easily replaced -- that leads to a decline in morale and in quality. And then, the precipitous attack on Iraq, followed by the years of staying stuck to Tarbaby Iraq, with -- at the top -- every evasion, every distraction, every short-term task of what is ludicrously called "winning" in Iraq, would no longer be possible, and harder heads would reconsider the ideology of the Total System of Islam, reconsider the amazing failure to consider the main instruments of Jihad -- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa and, especially in Western Europe, inexorable demographic conquest, if the Infidels remove almost all of their troops, but watch the spectacle of internecine warfare from afar, able to intervene, from afar, with intelligence (spy satellites, drones) and with weapons, when and if necessary -- essentially, what the Americans did, to a degree, during the Iran-Iraq War. That war should have gone on forever. Sunni-Shia conflicts can go on forever, if only the Americans leave Iraq. Non-Arab Muslims can better be inspired to see islam for what it is -- a vehicle of Arab linguistic, cultural, political and economic imperialism -- if they have an example of a non-Arab Muslim people throwing off the Arab yoke. An independent Kurdistan fits the bill.

But as long as those military men, like the one in Afghanistan deploring the Wilders movie -- in other words, demonstrating his ignorance of, or indifference to, the need to rouse the people of the Netherlands, where a million Muslims now unsettlingly have settled (in 1970 there were 15,000) -- think only of what is right in front of them, and not of the larger war of which Iraq or Afghanistan are very small theatres, the squandering and the waste, and the wasted opportunities will continue."

Posted by: Hugh at February 6, 2008 2:53 PM

Hugh said

But what that comment points to is the narrowness of vision of American military men.

It reminds me of the "debate" over whether the "surge" is working, or could work.

Somehow we're supposed to be comforted by the idea that if we infidels send enough troops at our expense to Iraq, we could see a temporary reduction in the number of intra-Islamic murder and mayhem.

The narrowness of question is carefully reduced to "Can we force the Iraqis to temporarily stop killing each other, regardless of how much of our money and our soldiers' lives are spent there doing it?".

Instead of the question they should be asking, which is "What can we do what is best for the Coalition nations? How can we best allocate our resources to maximize our safety and well-being?".

Our concern for the "well-being" of the Iraqis is at the point of becoming an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Posted by: special_guest at February 6, 2008 5:00 PM

The article, titled "Stirring the Hate," said Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom were "blaming an entire religion for the actions of extremists."

Has the author, Master Sgt. Allen Ness, seen the movie that he is critiquing? Did Mr. Ness explain what false or misleading quotes were included in Wilders' film? Did Mr. Ness back up his underlying assumption that Islam is the Religion of Peace (tm)?

While the Party for Freedom preaches hate and fear to its followers, the terrorists preach hate and vengeance to their own.

Jihadis commit murder (and in one case, pin a letter threatening an MP, with a knife to the chest of the murder victim). Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom murder no-one, but point out that jihadis commit murder (and in one case, pinned a letter etc. etc.). Therefore they are somehow morally equivalent?

The article needs to stay up. The article should be defended by Mr. Ness, to the degree that it can. The debate needs to happen in the military, and in our society in general. Geert Wilders' movie should not be censored, nor should Master Sgt. Allen Ness's article. Let's talk about it. Let's have the discussion.

Posted by: special_guest at February 6, 2008 5:14 PM

Perhaps we should present Alan Ness with a box of diapers. People like him who are so concerned about 'our allies' don't think straight.
But since there is no preparation for these people except the politically correct indoctrination from school-age to CNN. We can't really blame them for their stupidity, or can we?

Lets say this guy is just a misguided fool. Can we say the same for Gordon England who established an Islamic mole (Hesham Islam) in the highest office behind enemy lines? After what we know now, Hesham Islam along with Gordon England should have been demoted and sacked right away. Why was that not done?

Well, at least Coughlin was reinstated, but why must infiltration, sabotage and agit prop continue at taxpayers expense while a war is on?

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at February 6, 2008 5:55 PM

"they are all Muslims," said Ness, pointing out that the country was called the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan."

Exactly, and that's why you can't win, will always be hated as a barbarian, and they will cut your head off the first chance they get. All he has to do now is make the leap from fantasy to enemy and he can call himself a soldier.

Oh and don't leave the ammunition dump outside your base.

Posted by: Ian at February 6, 2008 6:37 PM

So let us suppose, that we do nothing to displease Muslims anywhere on this planet, and as a consequence or otherwies, we are successful in the aims that we have set out for Afghanistan. Will that mean then, that anyone who criticises Islam, or downloads images of Muhammed in Afghanistan, or converts to Christianity, can be legally executed?

Is this why Brits and Americans are dying for, and we, spending our tax money for?

Does Ness have any idea of what Islam is about?

Posted by: DP111 at February 6, 2008 7:50 PM

I am glad they dropped the "critique" of a film that has not yet been released.

Logically, even I can accept that.

Posted by: awake at February 6, 2008 10:46 PM

That we spent our blood and treasure to create "The Islamic Republic" of Anything is madness.

Blindness.

Folly.

We'll have to learn the harder way.

September 11 wasn't painful enough.

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 7, 2008 12:26 AM

Sheikh Yer'mami: Gordon England has a boss. And that boss insists on treating Islam as a religion of peace and on making nice with Saudis. I think that answers all questions on this issue - alas.

Posted by: Paolo at February 7, 2008 4:24 AM

"What I disagreed with was his blanket condemnation of Islam."

Why?

Posted by: Elric66 at February 7, 2008 7:26 AM

"He said he was motivated to write it by his concerns about "what could happen when the fundamentalist supporters of terror get hold of his film" if it was deeply insulting to Islam like the Mohammed cartoons."

Basically he's saying the friends and allies of AFghanistan may see this video by Geerts Wilders and decide on killing NATO troops (Canadians, Americans, British, Australians)

STead fast allies indeed !

Posted by: Sneakyzionistcrusader at February 7, 2008 2:27 PM