ISIS - THE NAZI STATE

ISIS – THE NAZI STATE

SS Division Handshar - Bosnian SS

The ideological underpinnings of ISIS came from WW 2 resistance against Britain and France with the support of Nazi Germany and later Stalin of the Soviet Union.  The fusion of Arab nationalism plus bits and pieces of Arab Socialism aka National Socialism took shape in the Baath Party which held power in Iraq and had been influential in other Arab states.  Nasser and Sadat were both German agents in the period before El Alamein to time the Egyptian Army’s revolt from garrison against the British.

 The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin Al Husseini was a Nazi who raised Bosnian and Arabs SS units.

http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/videos.html

Fig 1

The pattern of total submission to ISIS version of Islam and the execution of all others is a purely Western notion, the worst examples being the Holocaust and Stalin’s purges.

The default manner of dealing with minorities ethnic groups by Islam from the time of the Rashidun Caliphs, through the Ottoman Sultans was flexible and accommodating of various groups’ values closest to family, village and tribe. 

Fig 2

Proof of the matter is the fate of minorities in Iraq and Syria who have survived the entire period of Muslim rule, and some go back before the Israelites.  The Yazidun, for example go back before Zoroastrianism.   Now for the first time in all that time, they are being butchered like the Nazi Death Squads was loose. 

Under the Ottomans, minorities were ruled in a flexible and conciliatory mode, known as the Millet System. 

“In the heterogeneous Ottoman Empire (c. 1300–1923), a millet was an autonomous self-governing religious community, each organized under its own laws and headed by a religious leader, who was responsible to the central government for the fulfillment of millet responsibilities and duties, particularly those of paying taxes and maintaining internal security. In addition, each millet assumed responsibility for social and administrative functions not provided by the state, conducting affairs through a communal council (meclisimillî) without intervention from outside. From 1856 on, a series of imperial reform edicts introduced secular law codes for all citizens, and much of the millets’ administrative autonomy was lost.”

Encyclopedia Britannica

 

Massacre at Sinjar

Fig 3

The early Muslim empires from the Rashidun Caliphs, Umayad, Abbasid, Seljuk, Fatimid and Ottomans offered the conquered a simple choice, of minding their own business plus tax, or converting with a tax break.  The loss of revenue from those converted then, as now, operated as an incentive to keep the peace. 

Otherwise, Islam would have been forced back into the desert instead of fostering a higher degree of tolerance for minorities than the Europe until after the French Revolution allowed Jews to be treated as mensch.  Jews were driven out of Spain and found home in the Ottoman Empire.  Jews and other minority figures could rise to positions of wealth and power, by playing according to the rules.

While many can argue about script and dogma, the treatment of minorities was practical, pragmatic, and profitable. Consequently the arguments used by ISIS to massacre those who Islam has protect for over a thousand years, are insults to the Caliphates they purport to represent. 

It should be remembered that Iraq revolted against the British with Nazi assistance (that didn’t amount to much).   Saddam Hussein’s surrogate father, his maternal uncle Kairallah, had fought in the 1941 uprising against Britain, and suffered thereafter because of it.  The Ba’th (Arab National Socialist) party was nationalist not religious, and subsequent use of religion since 9-11 is convenient propaganda for Saddam’s humiliated legions. 

Fig 4

Saddam’s butchery to his own people are legend, and the tradition continues with ISIS. 

Suffer the Children,

Fig 6

Gordon S Fowkes, LTC USA RET

FEAR OF FOG FREEZES

Fear of Fog, Freezes Minds and Fosters

Indecision in the Face of the Fog of War

 Indecision, hesitation, and disagreement at command and staff levels ar endemic and if allowed to run unchecked leaves the battle to the bold.  The Fog of War is the default status of information of who is doing what, where, when and with what. That includes all involved, regardless of whom.  Grant and Sherman at Vicksburg, and Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville demonstrated that rare ability described in French as coup d'oeil,  the ability to see at a glance the big picture under all the fog, smoke, and fire of battle.  All had the knack of a grasp of the whole when many of the parts were missing and some were wrong.  Of those four commanders, only one (Robert E Lee) would have been selected for higher command or the War College

Union Plan to flank Lee and march to Richmond A

Grant and Sherman were old and close friends with Grant helping Sherman recover from deep depression and despair.  Both had left the Army before the war and both had experienced failure as civilians.  Jackson was mediocre as an instructor at VMI, and not the career centric courtier that thrive with the Golden Cockroaches that infest the walls of power.  Lee was also rare, particularly today, as the perfect example of the Tidewater aristocracy that included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

It requires a deep understanding of the relationship between what the Soviets called the Correlation of Forces (COF), which is a broader concept than balance of power. It includes understanding the quirks of dirt, fire and maneuver and impact of the fog of war on the minds of opposing players.  The impact of the fog of war is an understanding of how a leader or manager deals with fog (missing, lost, false, and errant pieces of information.  The fog of war is also found in any decision making body absent the firepower.

Lee splits his army to hold his right and a punch to the nose with his left

The principal problem of some in positions of power is that some can't make a decision until all the pieces are accounted for, confirmed, and lead to certainty.  One British writer, Norman Dixon wrote "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" about forty years ago, and promptly forgotten and dismissed ... until now when copies of his book is expensive.  His thesis asserts that Assholes  (closest clinical term) lose battles.  More specifically, the Anal Retentive whose sense of security is secured by no shit, no messes, no confusion, orderly, clean and in accordance with regulations. 

Uncertainty in combat intelligence and operational information triggers a rigid hesitation to make decisions absent extra and comforting information that fits the templates. The correlation of shit to shot requires balls, the balls to shoot without all the shit being cleaned up. 

Lee hits Hooker with a wide left hook, while staring a force three times his size in the face

While the Anal Retentive are hesitant in uncertainty, they can be otherwise fearless, inventive, creative and inspiring leaders.  Hooker, Burnside, Fremont, and others were fearless in the face of certainty.  Grant and Sherman having lived in uncertainty and survived, knew that of ten courses of action one end certain victory and the other certain defeat, taking the first one in the middle that comes to mind and go balls to the wall wins.

Some students of the military art and the role that Assholes play in it are coming around to see the correlation in the US military between an obsession over appearance and hesitation to act, and an ever expanding need for visions of certainty: more troops, more supplies,  more intelligence, anything that provides a camouflaged pacifier.   In Afghanistan, after SOF had run the Taliban out of town, some flag rank got furious over SOF troops wearing beards, an essential status symbol in Afghanistan. 

.Indecision to the point of rash decision of the type typified by the Charge of the Light Brigade results when the indecisive mind freezes on the flight of fancy or self delusion.

Patton is an example of one who knew which shit was important and demanded a high standard of appearance and high risk when the odds favored action. It stems, so Dr Dixon says, from excessive excitement over a child's toilet training, which in the British military he traces back to excessive shit over shit in the English boarding school system.   That the diagnosis fits many cultures, the trace back to potty training doesn't hold where in both Japanese and German child raising lets the rug rats run loose, but the leash is tightened by peer pressure later.

Maps by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com

Doctrine And Culture

Warrior’s Guide to the Other Guy’s Culture –
Doctrine and Culture

The Commander’s business is mission accomplishment and the welfare of the troops, formerly stated as the Mission and the Men. In mission accomplishment we use the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) which applies the factors of METT-TC (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops Available, Time, and Civilian Considerations. Of these six factors, three deal with people: the enemy, troops, and civilians taken together or separately, each has culture which, for the Warrior, acts the same as doctrine in deciding what factors rank where in their cultural decision making process.

While anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and art critics have their definitions of culture, the Warrior needs to stick to the concept of culture as doctrine, a set of rules, best practices, historical influences, sex, love, greed, and/or children. Like the military commander, the heads of family has the same two parental responsibilities (mission and welfare) found in the family, however defined. The children, troops,, of a family bear the same relations as troops in a unit: obedience to the (parental leader) and the corresponding expectation that that authority protects and nourishes the troops/children.

Thus family, when not even a biological entity, is the basis for any human organization however formalized. There are Brotherhoods of Boiler Workers, Social Clubs like the Tongs or Triads, the Viet Cong, the Skull and Cross Bones, and Sigma Phi Epsilon. Any group tends to adopt family like structures,

To deal with analyzing family, we use existing doctrine on occasion, like applying the Civil Affairs factors known as ASCOPE from FM 3-07

AREAS
2-27. This characteristic addresses terrain analysis from a civilian perspective. Analyze how key civilian areas affect the missions of respective forces and how military operations affect these areas. Factors to consider include political boundaries, locations of government centers, by-type enclaves, special regions (for example, mining or agricultural), trade routes, and possible settlement sites.
STRUCTURES
2-28. Structures include traditional high-payoff targets, protected cultural sites, and facilities with practical applications. The analysis is a comparison how a structure's location, functions, and capabilities can support operations as compared to costs and consequences of such use.
CAPABILITIES
2-29. Assess capabilities in terms of those required to save, sustain, or enhance life, in that order. Capabilities can refer to the ability of local authorities to provide key functions and services. These can include areas needed after combat operations and contracted resources and services.
ORGANIZATIONS
2-30. Consider all nonmilitary groups or institutions in the AO. These may be indigenous, come from a third country or US agencies. They influence and interact with the populace, force, and each other. Current activities, capabilities, and limitations are some of the information necessary to build situational understanding. This becomes often a union of resources and specialized capabilities.
PEOPLE
2-31. People is a general term describing all nonmilitary personnel that military forces encounter in the AO. This includes those personnel outside the AO whose actions, opinions, or political influence can affect the mission. Identify the key communicators and the formal and informal processes used to influence people. In addition, consider how historical, cultural, and social factors that shape public perceptions beliefs, goals, and expectations.
EVENTS
2-32. Events are routine, cyclical, planned, or spontaneous activities that significantly affect organizations, people, and military operations, such as seasons, festivals, holidays, funerals, political rallies, and agricultural crop/livestock and market cycles and paydays. Other events, such as disasters and those precipitated by military forces, stress and affect the attitudes and activities of the populace and include a moral responsibility to protect displaced civilians. Template events and analyze them for their political, economic, psychological, environmental, and legal implications

Examination of ASCOPE for the Commander is largely dependent on Civil Affairs, PSYOP, and for the present, the Human Terrain Teams made up of sociologists and anthropologists. These, however, don’t tell you what will effect the decision making of the culture, be they Templar Knight, Apaches, Romans, Taliban, or the villagers of Khost.


There are represented in the Warrior’s Guide to the Other Guys Culture as F4F (Fate, Face, Fame, and Fortune) like the Navy Fighter of WW 2, and the interface with temporal issues like time, place, and geography. ASCOPE is the where to look, F4F is what to look for in ASCPE/

The First F in F4F is family with the basics of who is in the family and who is not. It includes where this family sits with others. Is there a hierarchy like Spartans and Helots, or the Crips and Bloods, or the Normans and the Saxons? What are the normal parental roles represented by the Paternal which is concerned with external factors and the preparation of the family to face the outside world? What is the Maternal role which is internally oriented to nurture the children, like the First Sergeant concerned with the welfare of the troops? The parental roles can be cast in multiple generations, in multiple spin-offs of the basic structure like public schools are to the parents.

Family - Face, Fate, Fame, and Fortune

The Warrior is concerned with the structure of the family in terms of paternal (exterior), maternal (interior), and progeny (obey and grow). Under this framework the four value systems of Face, Fate, Fame and Fortune shape the behaviors of the family and of its parts.

FACE is honor, shame, duty, as seen by the holder of the expected view of self from the outside. Face is often a mask, sometime deeply felt, sometimes tossed at the first sound of trouble. Face issues in war, where the commander makes a foolish decision solely to maintain the illusion of control. Issues of motherhood, and the sanctity of their women as well as sex issues fall under Face.

The Taliban destroys girl’s schools, to protect the virtue of women. Gays get executed. The portrayal of rape, pillage, and/or plunder on the part of an invading enemy is a Face issue and is timeless. Likewise the use of rape to humiliate an enemy culture is found in current conflicts in Africa and the Balkans.

Face slapping is a military objective. Japan intended to destroy the Pacific Fleet on Dec 7 , 1941. The damage wasn’t as great as planned but the effect was that of an Asian slapping the face of a Caucasian, utterly sneaky, and the outrage thereafter lingers on today. FDR authorized the Doolittle Raid which was intended as a slap in the face which worked to the point in brining the Japanese Fleet out to it’s destruction at Midway.

FATE is consequence, Fate is authority, Fate is what is really in charge. Americans place a great deal of trust in self and the law. In other cultures fate is controlled by the family, the party, the Fuhrer, the Law of Gravity, or a responsive Will of God.

While Americans see their fate tied to hard work, diligence, and confidence in facing what comes, other cultures place their faith in family, tribe, Communist Party, or feudal lord. Those who come from a culture where family determines fate more than the actions of the self, don’t react to working hard for a wage. Many call this laziness, but it is due to a lack of connection of self and salary and a dependence on the family to care. Workers in the former Communist states have no faith in work for wages, as in the Communist system the state pretended to pay them, so they pretended to work. There is still a sentiment in those states where working hard is irrelevant to survival.

FORTUNE is in many cultures Godlike in status, and in others not. The Rich are routinely lambasted in political and religious treatise. And the poor elevated in status. That of course is Inverse Attribution, only the rich have the means to be charitable. And Charity is just another form of domination, or one ups man ship.

Most important in cultural analysis is the relation of people to the product and process. Farmers are different from miners, and cattlemen different from truckers. The relation of the work process and the values systems of people is a way to see how they tick. Sometimes, civilian skills have a military application, like cattle herdsmen turned to cavalry.

FAME is the expected external view of self, which if denied is a serious Face problem. Fame is reward, recognition. It’s awards and decorations and the adulation expected thereto. Fame is expected due to the shapely and the sharp. Yet Fame, like Fortune, resented.


Taken together, the array of Face, Fame, Fate, and Fortune of a given culture is the “terrain” that war is fought on no less than Critical Terrain, Observation, Obstacles, Cover and Concealment, and Avenues of Approach.

The Paraguayans in the War of the Triple Alliance in 1864 to 1870 fought Argentina, Brazil, and Chile resulting in the loss of three quarters of their population due to their savage but outnumbered resistance. No capture the flag or cutting off the snakes head here. The Bolivians in the 1930’s tried to cut their way across Paraguay to gain access to a port. They lost despite having a better trained and equipped. Paraguayans are inordinately proud of their country, yet will wait until your back is turned to strike back. The detest condescension and welcome compliments about their women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Triple_Alliance

Cultural Sensivity Isn't About Being Nice

There is a deep cultural aversion to cultural sensitivity amongst military practitioners and pretenders who think that killing or capturing the enemy, occupying the high ground, and rearranging the furniture is the sum total of the profession at arms. These cries and belches have diminished somewhat in view of the apparent success of the new counter-insurgency doctrine in Iraq. Will the new namby-pamby cultural sensitivity doctrine work against the Taliban?

Well, maybe. It depends on whether the pressure is against the sensitive parts of the Taliban sensibilities. And that’s why being culturally sensitive doesn’t mean being namby-pamby socialist liberal wishwashery. Take “Black Jack” Pershing in the Philippines for example..

There is an urban legend about Pershing that attributes a world wide halt in Muslim terrorism after he had executed some Muslims and buried them with pig parts. While even if the legend is false, it is nevertheless a good example of cultural sensitivity. Pershing was very keen on culture. There were a lot of old fashioned massacres in that campaign. A widely quoted slogan was “civilize them with a Krag”, a Norwegian rifle used by US troops.

Another example of Pershing’s sensitivity takes place in Mindanao, then as now, has been plagued with Muslim “Moro” rebellions. Moro ferocity in battle, aided with tight body bindings to stem bleeding and a toke of smoke, was such that the Luger 9mm pistol then being considered as Army standard, was rejected in favor of the .45 caliber pistol. The 38 caliber or 9mm pistol wouldn’t stop a charging Moro with a really big sword in hand. The 45 dropped them, then as now.

Pershing would supplement fire and maneuver with chess. He would enter a village, proceed to the center, set up a chess table, sit down and wait. He knew that the chiefs of the Moros, called Datos, loved chess. Sooner or later, someone would show up, sit down and play chess. During this exchange, Pershing would negotiate acceptable terms with the Dato, terms which were conducted in accordance with Moro sensibilities.

Pershing was called “Black Jack” as his early career was in commanding segregated black troops, including the 10th Cavalry, the Buffalo Soldiers at San Juan and Kettle Hill. This early experience in commanding black troops was clearly an opportunity to learn how to get the most out of a vastly different culture.

It isn’t about being nice. It’s about being effective.

The Slaps that Shape the Face of War

The successful use of the Warrior’s Guide to the Other Guy’s Culture is matter of culling from the information about a culture that reveals it’s Face. Face issues include duty, honor, country, family, be they individual or collective. Battles are fought to grab something, smash something and/or brag about it. It is the bragging and the humiliation that shapes the face of a war.

George Washington’s Christmas Eve attack on the Prussians at Trenton was intended to slap the British Face, to humiliate them and to announce to the Colonies that he intended to fight and win. The positive spin on this definitive Slap in the British Face induced thousands of militia in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to join the rekindled Revolution. A few months before, the British seemed to have the rebellion under hand. After all, Washington had lost ninety percent of his forces after the battles on Long Island.

The Hessian troops under British control were excellent troops, but in the European tradition in which they had been trained and accustomed to, rape, pillage and plunder were not only for service support but as job benefits. This was a Slap in the Face of those in New Jersey that over came their immediate drift to settle up with King George. George Washington’s Slap came as a welcome comeuppance.


Pearl Harbor was not only destructive, but it’s biggest impact on America was it was a huge Slap in the Face by Asians, who by the logic of the day, were inferior. In order to fit this attack into a culturally correct framework was to call the attack a “dastardly and unprovoked” sneak attack. To this day, the term “sneak attack” is ingrained in American culture. But, a Warrior knows that to attack without surprise, an “un-sneaky” attack would the attacker suffering some dastardly results.

FDR knew that this Slap had to be returned. The Doolittle attack was expected to do little in real military or industrial terms. It’s effect as a Slap was a real Face Saver for America, and the insult to Japan resulted in the failed attempt to take Midway.



Likewise did Churchill take the accidental bombing of the London docks by a stray Luftwaffe bomber into an opportunity to bomb Berlin. That Slap in Hitler’s Face shifted the bombing of RAF bases and factories to the bombing of London, the Blitz. This stiffened the resolve of the British, attracted American support, and gave the RAF precious time to rebuild.


Humiliation of an beaten enemy may make the humiliator feel warm and fuzzy, but the cold fury that it engenders has a nasty habit of blow back. The humiliation by Imperial Germany on France at Versailles in 1871 came back in spades at Versailles in 1919. That humiliation was returned in 1941 at the same railway car that saw the surrender of German forces in 1918. In propaganda one portrays the Villain (Bastard, Bitch and/or Brat) to provide fodder for the Hero and Heroine to protect the Helpless. And return the favors in kind.

Face issues are the first of the four “F’s” of Family (collective) decision values, the others are Fate, Fortune, and Fame. Taken together with the Temporal aspects of culture,
Time and Space, the Warrior learns when to slap, when to turn the other cheek, and when to kick back.

Gordon S Fowkes
Lt Col, US Army (Ret)

FM 7-0 Half Fish Half Fowl

The latest Field Manual on Army training, FM 7-0, is just out and represents a decisively equivocal stance between the Rumsfeldian Modular Rotational Expeditionary quick fix style of war and training versus a training system based on traditional factors of mission planning (METT-TC), concurrent multi-echelon training for a period of persistent conflict.

The good news is that the naming conventions of Transformational units (Unit of Action, etc) are scrubbed in favor of the traditional which has evolved under the pressures of wildly changing technological and operational environments for several centuries. Battalions, brigades, divisions and corps stay on.

Likewise, the good news is that training for Full Spectrum operations now requires training for stability operations as well as for defense and offense. The balance between the three depends on the situation for each unit.

More good news is that the company commander and the non commissioned officers are placed firmly in control of the training of their troops with a clear statement that the latter train the troops and officers train the unit as a whole. The Cold War paradigm had officers override and bypass the non commissioned officer corps.

The bad news is the retention of the force structure of rotational, modular, expeditionary force based in the States to be able to react quicker to foreign contingencies from Kansas than could be done from Germany or other forward bases. Likewise, brigades are seen as inherently more flexible than forces generated by task organization with a wider choice of units as has been done since before 1776.

More bad news is that ARFORGEN (Army Force Generation) based on the building block approach to training that failed to match the high order of training produced by the Battalion Training Management System (BTMS). BTMS gave the battalion commander the decisive and final say on training, a stance that was, however logical, was unwise as it cut out the rating and endorsing officers.

The building block approach of ARFORGEN not only cuts the battalion commander but the company commander from direct management of the training of their own troops. ARFORGEN also is based on a precise prediction of the conditions of METT-TC of a contingency several years in advance. This is also a direct conflict with the directives of the manual itself. The front end of the manual requires that the chain of command drive training, while ARFORGEN does not.

So far, I know of no study that proves or even illustrates the assertion that Modular Brigades are inherently more flexible or effective than a modernized traditional structure. Nor do I know of a study that explains how rotating whole brigades in a stability operation achieve the necessary unity of effort to overcome conditions and enemies that don’t rotate any further than the local mountain or forest hiding places.

Each brigade rotation gave our enemies a new lease on life during the time it took the new guys to get up to speed. This was particularly true for the first three years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It took almost four years to get with the program, four years longer than WW2 but just as long as it took in Vietnam.

Rotations make sense for personnel reasons. Unit rotation preserves the cohesion of the primary group (the company or section) upon which combat survival depends. In no other war has the morale of our troops been tested for so long. The tricky part is figuring out how to maintain unity of effort on the battlefield over time and space. It won’t be easy.

Career management during Vietnam included the three “C” for young officers: Combat, Career Course, and Command. The current policies of the Pentagon is the match this same type of individual rotation in concert with unit rotations to match a kaleidoscope of missions, enemies, terrain, time, troops available, and civil considerations. Nice trick if your crystal ball works.