Flipping the Bird instead of COIN

Flipping Birds at Counter Insurgency, Flipping Bass Ackwards.

By Gordon S Fowkes,

LTC USA RET, KCTJ, M.Ed.

ST Bartholemew's Massacre of French Calvinits, 1572

Now is the time for Bass Wholes on both sides of the Aisle to bay at the winds and microphones of how “nation building is not a military job” or how “remotely piloted vehicles” with pin point precision is a war crime, unlike carpet bombing of Japan and Germany which were not.   Now is also the time when virgin pundits describe that which never happened in Vietnam, or those whose scope of understanding of the nuances of mortal combat are confused with Four Quarters or Nine Innings. War is not a game, nor is it an election, nor a debate.  War Sucks, but somebody has to do it. 

And it better be done right.

War is not a continuation of politics by other means, it is politics with other means just as an airstrike is no different from a traffic ticket aimed at reducing the speed of the action. Whatever it takes to feed and protect the family is what the fighting is all about, as is all the rest of survival of the adaptive, fit or not.

And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  That sad tale is how the best equipped, best trained, best led, and best supported military force of the US, was bested by a hollow point between the ears, by a bloated bureaucracy bent on self-aggrandizement and career enhancement.  The latter a sham foisted on those in field grades with eyes on the stars whose chosen slots were shot down by those without branch or insignia.

US MP and German Police on Traffic Duty during Occupation

But enough for the platitudes.  We screwed up, again as we had in the villages and towns of other ancient civilizations. We assumed (ass out of you and me) that our fantasies of what was sacred and absolute truth, were as imaginary as are those of our enemies are towards their own.  

Muslims have this nutty idea that Islam is the central truth of the universe, despite that they aren’t even a (Circle One, or more):

• American, Texan, Southern Californian, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, Italian, Russian, Chechen, and/or _________________. 

The fundamental motivation of the Rescuer is to convert the Victim and fight villainy, insanity, and heresy.  Nation building is rescuing and converting the helpless and stupid to worship the ground we walk on.

 Civil Affairs (and Military Governance) works to grease the gears that might not mesh, and fix shot up places get to their own feet.  Regardless of what kind of shoes they wear.  The flip side of CAMG is to flip the other guy’s feet. These include Special Forces and Special Operations.  Psychological Operations supports both stand and flip.

THE SHOGUN AND THE EMPEROR

The term counter insurgency became the fad by means obscure to me, as it anoints the counter insurgent with a righteousness not bestowed upon the insurgent.  And, to make it even clearer, what is an insurgent?  The Taliban was the effective government in place in Afghanistan when the US took sides with the Northern Alliance and invaded.  That was a surge against the Taliban, but not an insurgency? The term has a political definition not relevant to military operations. 

Nevertheless, the logical lines of operation (LLO) in the counter insurgency (COIN) as originally spelled out in the Army/Marine Corps manual on Counter Insurgency applies in fact to all of war for or against those whose contributions to success or failure make a difference.  

LLO or LLE or whatever dissected the body politic into functions of a society including governance. Or as it is done by ISIS in reverse to topple and repeat on those toppled.

From one of the manuals LLO are directed at:

• 1.     Civil Security
• 2.     Civil Control
• 3.     Security Forces
• 4.     Governance
• 5.     Essential Services
• 6.     Economy and Infrastructure
• 7.     Advertising and Public Relations

As one who is retired from the City of Houston (Building Inspections) and member of many a society for the preservation of the good, and disruption of the bad, this is a fairly standard list of logical lines of reelection, election or selection to the higher and mighty.  At present, REMFCOM appears to have decided that local governance is not one of interest to the infantry including those on boots who must travel the routes through those local governances with unpronounceable names.

Just as it is in local elections, the efforts of one side to enhance their version of the LLO, must be destroyed, disrupted and/or discredited by actions against the other’s LLO, and to enhance the other’s own.   This is precisely what the Taliban and ISIS are doing, and have been doing for decades, in one version or another.

There are, therefore, four variants of LLO depending upon which side one is on:

• 1.     Making your own,
• 2.     Wrecking someone else’s,
• 3.     Defending one’s own,
• 4.     Wrecking the wreckers.

This bears some resemblance to the Tactical Imperatives of combat.

Stability Operations therefore have the same four modes. As such there is Stabilization and Destabilization already under Special Operations Command, as it was under the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.  And therein, lie many a good example of what not to do and what to do.

The Hanging of French Protestants during wars of religion

The Cold War was a religious war in all but name.  The present religious wars are like the political wars of the religion, as the two differ only in name.

 Bloody Awful ISIS is!