Articles by Herschel Smith

Michelle Malkin is following the story of Steve Cintanni who was captured and then later released after his (and his colleague’s) “conversion” to Islam.  I posted earlier on his conversion at gunpoint.  Michelle is also blogging the issue of Cintanni’s conversion making him a target for future assassination attempts if he repudiates his conversion.  Finally, Michelle links to a great post by La Shawn Barber on the question “What would you do?” in “Gunpoint Conversions and Martyrdom.”  Let’s turn the microscope up a few notches and look at this question of Christian ethics in more detail.

First of all, let’s dispense with this silly and adolescent notion that all lying is immoral.  I know, this strikes you as a rather odd statement to make, whether you are a Christian or not, right?  Well, let’s revisit the story of Rahab.  In the book of Joshua, Rahab takes in the spies.  In Joshua 2 we read:

Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.  The king of Jericho was told, “Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.”  So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.”  But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.  At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.”  (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.)   So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.  Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof   and said to them, “I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.  We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.  When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.  Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death.”  “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the LORD gives us the land.”

R. J. Rushdoony (in Institutes of Biblical Law) comments:

“Rahab clearly lied, but her lie represented a moral choice as against sending two godly men to death, and for this she became an ancestress of Jesus Christ (Mat 1:5).

Global Guerrillas has a very interesting piece up entitled “Playing with War.”  In it John Robb argues that:

The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it’s increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following: 

John continues with a complete description of what I will include as an outline listing (for editorial and space reasons):

• Operations of low lethality
• Marginal placement within national priorities
• Muddled objectives

The upshot according to John is that wars will become increasingly difficult to win, because:

• Asymmetric motivation (of the enemy)
• New methods of warfare
• Proliferation of opposition

Finally, the following points are outlined as a summary for learning to live within the constraints imposed by this new breed of warfare (I will quote completely).  We should learn to avoid:

• Nation-building as a global social policy. Historically, counter-insurgency against an established enemy has almost never worked (and when it has, it usually involves bloody exterminations). Any attempt to build a nation will likely, particularly in the current environment of globalization, yield an opponent that will be impossible to defeat through limited means. Further, the durations of these conflicts will exceed the capacity of the western states to maintain a cohesive set of objectives — they will shift with opinion polls and political winds.
• Collapsing rogue states. In almost all instances, despite how easy it is to collapse a weak state with modern weapons, those wars launched to collapse rogue states will not yield positive results. The collapse will necessitate calls for revival (see item one). Unless states are willing to live with partial collapse without resolution, they should not undertake the action in the first place.
• Escalation of tension. Given an inability to resolve conflicts through nation-building and state collapse, western states should endeavor to deescalate conflicts rather than ignite them. Escalation is a false God that promises a return of the motivational clarity found in the wars of the 20th Century. It cannot deliver this. The only thing it provides is a widening and deepening of the conflict through the proliferation of opposition. 

Mr. Robb probably knows about one thousand times as much about the current subject as I do.  So it is with all due respect that I say that I think that his characterization of the problem(s) is incomplete.

Having a son in the Marines, I study everything I can get my hands on pertaining to his training, the history of the Marines, the nature of the current conflict, and what he will likely be doing in several months.

One of the more interesting things that I have learned is the concept of “small wars.”  I highly recommend reading the Small Wars Manual, and I especially recommend visiting the Marine Corps Small Wars web site and another site called Small Wars Journal.  I make a daily visit to these sites (and sometimes more).

What Mr. Robb describes has already been described in detail in the Small Wars Manual.  In fact, the Marines have known this not since the publication of the manual in the early ’40s, but essentially since the birthday of the Marines, 10 November 1775.

Since their birthday, the Marines have been engaged in small, low intensity conflicts at the behest of the President, oftentimes without the support of the public, without a declaration of war, and without clear goals or orders, while battling both regular forces and insurgencies and while also having to deal with more pedestrian issues such as electrical power and the restoration of government.  Such engagements have often relied upon rapid, mobile and robust force projection.

The above paragraph is not an advertisement.  The Small Wars Manual is as salient today as it was when it was first published.  It is an admonition for the Army to consider its future.  The Marines have had to adapt, modify, adjust and make-do based on the changing conditions of the over three hundred low intensity engagements in its history.  The Army will do the same, or it will become irrelevant to the twenty first century.

If this type of warfare is not new, then what has changed?  My contention is that politics has changed.

Politics and failure to act decisively allowed Bin Laden and many in Al Qaida leadership to escape Tora Bora.  Politics failed to execute a warrant for al Sadr’s arrest during Paul Bremer’s watch in Iraq (I recently saw an interview with Bremer on FNC in which he attributed this failure to a military decision, saying that he was in favor of al Sad’r arrest.  I know nothing of the decision making or line of authority concerning this matter, but if the military made this decision, then the one who actually approved of letting al Sadr escape arrest should be on the receiving end of a courts martial).  Politics has caused us to cease hostilities on Ramadan.  Politics has caused us to refuse to fire upon Mosques (until very recently).  Politics has caused problems for Gitmo.  Politics has dragged generals in front of congressional inquiries to be battered by those seeking to stake out a position for the upcoming elections in November.

There is a deep division in America, with one side being not just anti-military, but rather, socialistic and anti-American to a large extent, and this is a failure of American society, not American military strategy or might.  Even though the Marines have engaged in conflicts before in which the public was unsupportive (or unaware), the difference now seems to be politics in the highest ranks of the military brass.  The military establishment seems less willing to insulate the decision-makers from politics, and potentially risky decisions are avoided due to their being seen as potentially career-ending decisions.  To summarize, my contention is that the main difference today is the deference being paid to politics by the military brass (and senior leadership, including the Secretary or Defense and even the President).

When properly posed, I believe the question to be “do we have the political will to win?”  The tactics, strategy, manpower, know-how, equipment and patriotism are already in place.

It is not a question of warfare.  It is a question of politics.

Postscript: Even if I am right, this post doesn’t address the other issues raised in the GG post such as nation-building.  I will post on this at a later time.

I have posted several times on the battle for Baghdad, begging for rapid and intense offensive action.  The only boundaries on our offensive action should be the limits of intelligence.  Our intelligence network should be large, deep and well-paid enough by now to be able to decipher where the insurgents are, who the bomb-makers are, and where they are located.  Al-Sadr’s militia, the so-called Mahdi army, continues to be a problem, and Iraqi PM Maliki will not decisively act against him:

Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, is a Shiite-dominated city where the influence of Mahdi Army has been gradually increasing. It already runs a virtual parallel government in Sadr City, a slum in eastern Baghdad.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has found it difficult to rein in al-Sadr, whose movement holds 30 of the 275 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts.

Al-Sadr’s backing also helped al-Maliki win the top job during painstaking negotiations within the Shiite alliance that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Al-Sadr mounted two major uprisings against the American-led coalition in 2004 when U.S. authorities closed his newspaper and pushed an Iraqi judge to issue an arrest warrant against him.

But American forces have also been wary of confronting the Mahdi Army because of al-Sadr’s clout over the government and his large following among Shiites, who are in a majority in Iraq.

Nine U.S. troops died over the weekend, eight of which were from roadside bombs (IEDs) in and around Baghdad.

As I have suggested repeatedly, al-Sadr’s influence and power should make him a prime target.  The notion that because he is supported by the Shiite people the U.S. should be reluctant to engage him is, to me, analogous to saying that because Nasrallah is supported by some of the Islamicists in southern Lebanon, Israel should be reluctant to go after him.  This is manifestly absurd.

Finally, Baghdad is a restive city.  It has been said that the battle for Baghdad will be measured in months, not days.  But at the rate of nine U.S. troops per weekend, if this rate continues, we could be sustaining hundreds more U.S. deaths to IEDs before Baghdad is pacified.

This should be intollerable to both the brass and the U.S. public.  Not a single military spokesman has proferred a single reason why a broad, sweeping, aggressive, offensive action to clean out Baghdad, capture or kill al-Sadr, and kill the bomb-makers is not possible and in order.  If it is politics that is holding us back, then let’s bring our boys home now.

Politics loses, not wins, wars.  This is still a war, isn’t it?

From My Way News:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Militants freed two Fox News journalists on Sunday, ending a nearly two week hostage drama. One of the former captives said they were sometimes held face down in a dark garage, tied up in painful positions and forced at gunpoint to make videos and say they had converted to Islam.

I would like formally to thank the captors of Centanni for making my point for me better than I could have.  See my post “Does this help explain Jihad a little better?”

Here at the Captain’s Journal, we always appreciate it when others make us look smart at the expense of making themselves look stupid.

From My Way News:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Militants freed two Fox News journalists on Sunday, ending a nearly two week hostage drama. One of the former captives said they were sometimes held face down in a dark garage, tied up in painful positions and forced at gunpoint to make videos and say they had converted to Islam.

I would like formally to thank the captors of Centanni for making my point for me better than I could have.  See my post “Does this help explain Jihad a little better?”

Here at the Captain’s Journal, we always appreciate it when others make us look smart at the expense of making themselves look stupid.

Haaretz has this:

A 17-year-old boy who died during tryouts for pilot training was apparently killed by heat stroke rather than dehydration, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The commander of the Israel Air Force, Major General Elyezer Shkedy, has ordered an investigation into the death of Itai Sharon of Zichron Ya’akov, who died on Wednesday.

A debriefing revealed that between 6:30 and 8:00 A.M. Wednesday, the group of teens involved in the tryout went on a six-kilometer march carrying weights. The IDF’s chief medical officer, Brigadier General Hezi Levy, said that the heat stress factor did not rule out such activities under army regulations. At 8:30 A.M., the heat stress factor became borderline in terms of the regulations governing strenuous physical activity, so the group was assigned activities that they could do sitting down.

An hour after the march, Sharon’s friends saw him sitting in the sun. When they summoned him into the shade, they noticed that he was confused and apathetic. After they made the commanders aware of Sharon’s condition, he was sent for medical treatment. He was found to have a high fever, given a transfusion and transferred to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, where he lost consciousness and died.

Heat stroke, in which the body is unable to discharge heat built up during strenuous activity, is a known risk in very hot weather. A number of IDF soldiers have died of heat stroke over the years.

In my post “Israel’s Might Army: Plan and Keep the Balance,” I said:

In my post “Israeli Army in Disarray During War,

Haaretz has this:

A 17-year-old boy who died during tryouts for pilot training was apparently killed by heat stroke rather than dehydration, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The commander of the Israel Air Force, Major General Elyezer Shkedy, has ordered an investigation into the death of Itai Sharon of Zichron Ya’akov, who died on Wednesday.

A debriefing revealed that between 6:30 and 8:00 A.M. Wednesday, the group of teens involved in the tryout went on a six-kilometer march carrying weights. The IDF’s chief medical officer, Brigadier General Hezi Levy, said that the heat stress factor did not rule out such activities under army regulations. At 8:30 A.M., the heat stress factor became borderline in terms of the regulations governing strenuous physical activity, so the group was assigned activities that they could do sitting down.

An hour after the march, Sharon’s friends saw him sitting in the sun. When they summoned him into the shade, they noticed that he was confused and apathetic. After they made the commanders aware of Sharon’s condition, he was sent for medical treatment. He was found to have a high fever, given a transfusion and transferred to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, where he lost consciousness and died.

Heat stroke, in which the body is unable to discharge heat built up during strenuous activity, is a known risk in very hot weather. A number of IDF soldiers have died of heat stroke over the years.

In my post “Israel’s Might Army: Plan and Keep the Balance,” I said:

In my post “Israeli Army in Disarray During War,

Our friend Mike at Cop the Truth sent me an interesting (but not surprising) link from the Herald Sun in Australia.

An Iran-based web site run by Hezbollah has run this picture of Hezbollah rockets allegedly hitting an Israeli ship last month.

Examine the features of the blast.  Now look at this picture below, of the intentional sinking of the Australian destroyer-escort HMAS Torrens in 1998 upon being retired and decommissioned:

Right click on the picture and notice the link URL.  It is from Defense Industry Daily.  Examine the features of the explosion in this frame and compare it with the frame above.

The real question is how anyone who views the Hezbollah web site could be so stupid as to believe that this was a picture of the Israeli ship.

The picture is obviously taken from the air (i.e., a helicopter) based on the oblique angle.  And it cannot have been taken from much more than about 1 km away.  So in order to believe that this was the Israeli ship, someone would have to believe that either:

1. Israel has a helicopter in the air that day taking time lapse photograpy, and then decided to release this picture to the press showing its failure to protect its ship, or
2. Hezbollah now has an air force and it made it to within 1 km of an Israeli war ship without being molested; the occupants of the aircraft knew when the Hezbollah missile was launched, and took time-lapse, fast shutter speed photography at the time of the missile impact.

The Herald Sun reported that since its publication of these pictures, the Hezbollah web site had removed its post.

Not so.  At the time of this post on the Captain’s Journal, the Hezbollah web site still has this post online.

I just can’t figure out who the clowns are: Hezbollah or their followers.

From the AP (courtesy of Military.com):

BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. forces fired tank rounds at a mosque in the restive city of Ramadi Friday and exchanged heavy fire with militants inside, the U.S. command said, as Iraqis looted a base in the south after it was vacated by British troops.

One U.S. soldier was lightly wounded and three people were reportedly killed inside the mosque, while five people were killed elsewhere in Iraq in a relatively peaceful day in the country wracked by sectarian and Sunni insurgency violence.

Militants inside the Al Qadir Al Kilami mosque fired small arms, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades at U.S. forces, a statement by the U.S. command said. They also hurled hand grenades and a bomb, it said.

American soldiers returned fire at first, and finally unleashed several rounds from M1 tanks into the mosque, said the statement. “The mosque suffered serious structural damage to the dome and minaret,” it said.

It said the attack occurred at about 12.30 p.m., a little before Friday prayers were due to start. It was not known if any worshippers were already inside.

Permit me what may seem a rather pedestrian comment (since I am not in Iraq and do not have a sense of the Iraqi population or the various exigencies of the battles now being fought).  The U.S. has long shown deference to the various religious holidays (e.g., if you will recall, we have even ceased hostilities during Ramadan) and locales (we have avoided firing upon Mosques, even to the point of allowing al Sadr to hole up in a Mosque when he was initially being hunted during Paul Bremer’s watch).

I thought then, and will think in the future, that this was and is, respectively, the wrong strategy, and that it sends the wrong message.  We endeavored to be liked, when we should have endeavored to be respected.  Each and every time we have tried to be kind, compasionate and respectful, we have been taken advantage of and looked the weaker for it.

If from the beginning we had dropped leaflets informing the Iraqi citizens that upon receiving fire from a Mosque the U.S. forces would return fire ten-fold regardless of whether there were worshippers in the Mosque, my bet is that even if they did not believe us the first time it happened, if we had been true to our words, they would have believed us the second time.  More to the point, my bet is that there wouldn’t have been a second time.

What do you think Patton would have said if the Germans had holed up in a church?  God, please give us another General Patton.  No, correction: Give us ten more.  And hurry.

With all of the silly and dangerous definitions of Islamic Jihad out there (e.g., a “peaceful internal striving,” etc.), it is good to see moral clarity and precision.  Michelle Malkin has a great piece today on the case of Lina Joy, in which she converted to Christianity from Islam, and wants to marry a Christian man.  She is now facing death threats (as is her lawyer), and the case has gone to the highest court in Malaysia.  But apparently the civil courts routinely refer cases to the Islamic court, and:

While the Quran states there should be “no compunction” in religion, Islamic authorities world-wide consider apostasy both a sin and a crime. In Malaysia, Islamic courts can sentence apostates to “rehabilitation” in prison-like re-education centers that sometimes use caning as part of their program. 

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?  Rather like the Gulags? 

Continuing, we learn why Islam refuses to allow people to leave the faith:

“If Islam were to grant permission for Muslims to change religion at will, it would imply it has no dignity, no self-esteem,” said Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad, senior fellow at Malaysia’s Institute of Islamic Understanding.

“And people may then question its completeness, truthfulness and perfection.

There you have it.  These are some of the major differences (there are so many to choose from) between Christianity and Islam.  Christianity believes that God changes hearts and minds, not man.  Islam believes that caning can assist in “rehabilitation” in matters of religion.  Christianity welcomes a battle of ideas, confident in the victory of its world view if people will only be logical and if God chooses to change hearts and minds.  Islam tethers its self-worth to what man thinks.

Folks, these are critical differences.  This is why Christianity will not shoot others in the name of God, and why Islam believes that it is acceptable to spread Islam by the power of the “sword.”  It is because in Islam, man is doing the work rather than God.  If you believe that it is by your efforts that man is saved, then why wouldn’t you use all means at your disposal to spread your salvation?

This helps explain Jihad.  It makes perfect sense; it is the seed of violence within Islam.  All attempts to explain it away fail.

[And please, do not send me any moronic e-mails about Eric Rudolph or Timothy McVeigh.  Neither one carried out their actions because of religious motivation.  Rudolph was a white supremicist, while McVeigh didn’t very much like Ruby Ridge or the U.S. government.]