WORLDWIDE WAR: ISIS Pre-War Considerations

WORLDWIDE WAR:
ISIS Pre-War Considerations

By Dr. Bob Uda, PhD, CM, CHSP, ILO
The Cyber-commentator©™
February 17, 2015

World War III (or IV depending on your perspective) is coming soon.

Where can we find another general like General George S. Patton, Jr.?  Unfortunately, there is none.  When he lived, General Patton was a unique leader who happened to be in the right place at the right time and under the right conditions.  World War II was made for General Patton, and General Patton was made for World War II.  Without him, we would probably all be speaking the German, Italian, and Japanese languages today.

Sun Tzu.  Sun Tzu said, “Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.  The consummate leader cultivates the moral law and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success.” These great men include Sun Tzu, Niccolo Machiavelli, Miyamoto Musashi, Karl von Clausewitz, George S. Patton, Jr., Bernard Brodie, Herman Kahn, and Michael Savage.

Dr. Michael Savage.  Another great living person whom I quote extensively is Dr. Michael Savage, conservative talk show host extraordinaire, who speaks his mind, cuts to the chase, and says it like it is.  He calls a spade a spade.  He pulls no punches.  He never pussyfoots around.  You know exactly what his position is and where he stands on every important issue.  That is one reason why the left hates him so much, for he does not subscribe to “cutting and running” as they do.  The jealous right also refuses to recognize his existence.  Dr. Savage coined and invented the term “Islamo-fascists” and may be transitioning it to “Islamo-Marxist.”

War is Hell

I start from the basic premise that war is Hades.  General William Tecumseh Sherman said, “War is hell.”  Past wars have included murder, rape, plunder, pillage, torture (Far Eastern type), hatred, anger, insanity, revenge, wanton mass murder/killings, mass graves, anti-Semitism, decapitation, dismembering of bodies, cannibalism, “man’s inhumanity to man,”¹ weapons of mass destruction (poisonous gas warfare, germ warfare, and nuclear warfare), chemical-biological-radiological (CBR) warfare, and nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC) warfare.  Because of Islamo-fascist savagery, all the above have been, are, and will continue to be components of modern war and warfare.  That is why war is hell.

The ISIS is committing genocide.

Enter ISIS.  Up through 2013, we have been fighting the al-Qaeda Islamo-fascists.  However, beginning in 2014 a more deadly offshoot of al-Qaeda came into being.  This offshoot is called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).  The ISIS is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).  Headquartered in Syria, by the summer of 2014, ISIS was in full swing capturing much of the territory and cities in Iraq.  The ISIS is knocking at the gates of Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq.  The ISIS has been gaining worldwide notoriety by beheading Western journalists, video recording the butchery, and promoting it worldwide.

Men Win Wars.  Remember, we are not fighting a conventional war.  We are fighting a war that requires 7^th Century thinking and acting.  The enemy we fight uses strategies and tactics dating back to the Stone Age, Biblical Times, and/or Dark Ages.  Hence, we must use ancient strategies and tactics to counter the enemy’s ancient strategies and tactics.  Further, we have the advantage of using better, higher-technology equipment.  However, we must never forget General Patton’s comment when he said, “Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.”  Never forget that men win wars.  That means boots on the ground.

We may bomb the living daylights out of a country with our Air Force and Navy, but we must send our Army soldiers/infantry and US Marines in there (on land) to capture and conquer the real estate.  We cannot plant the American flag in the air.  We cannot plant the American flag on the ocean.  We plant it on land as we did on the island of Iwo Jima and on the surface of the moon.  President Ronald Reagan said, “No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.”²

The American Revolutionary War: Winning wars equate to “boots on the ground.”

 Politicians and Military Brass are Supreme Experts on War, Yet They Know Nothing.  I wrote this treatise because our politicians and military brass really have had a long enough time to fight and win the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the overall War on Terror.  They simply do not know how to win.  This is because of what General George S. Patton said, “Many soldiers are led to faulty ideas of war by knowing too much about too little.”

Our politicians and military leaders know everything about warfare, yet they know nothing.  They have reached the mathematical limit of the meaning of an “expert,” i.e., an expert is a person who knows more and more about less and less until finally, in the mathematical limit, he/she knows everything about nothing.

How to Win

If they want to learn how to win, all they need to do is to read and follow about what Sun Tzu said, which goes as follows: “Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:

• He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
• He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
• He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
• He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
• He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”³

Note the key phrase: “…is not interfered with by the sovereign.”  The sovereign in the United States consists of the president and all of his advisors (including Congress).  In other words, turn the war over to the generals, give them the single mandate to win, provide them with the necessary resources to win, stay out of their way, and let them go win the war.  That is it!  Simple!  Prussian military strategist, General Karl von Clausewitz, said, “Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.”⁴  Unfortunately, our idiotic politicians cannot accept this wise counsel by two great military strategists on warfare.  Mark Twain said, “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress.  But then I repeat myself.”⁵

Generals are Puppets.  Only by winning do we demonstrate our true knowledge of 21^st Century warfare.  As an aside, I firmly do believe that our generals now fighting the war are impotent and ineffective mainly because they are puppets of our politicians.  This cannot and must not stand!  It must really be frustrating for our modern-day generals to fight wars with their hands tied behind their backs!

What is Asynchronous and Asymmetrical Warfare?

Combating Terrorism.  Asynchronous warfare is combating terrorism.  Guerrilla warfare, paramilitary warfare, and insurgent warfare are all forms of asymmetrical warfare…and so is combating terrorism.  Hence, asymmetrical warfare and asynchronous warfare are the same.  World War III is going to be, if it not already is, an asymmetrical or asynchronous war.  It is a war of ideology, a war of philosophy, a war of culture, and a war of the survival of the Western way of life.

Contrasting Ideologies, Philosophies, and Cultures.  When I talk about a war of ideology, a war of philosophy, a war of culture, and a war of the survival of the Western way of life, I am referring to the vastly contrasting ideologies, philosophies, cultures, and ways of life between the ISIS (terrorists) and the civilized world (i.e., Western society).  If we did not have such a vastly different view of these things, we would not be experiencing the resulting conflict.

Principles of Asymmetrical Warfare.  From this premise, I have devised certain principles of asymmetrical warfare that demonstrate how to beat the ISIS at their own game.  If these principles are taken seriously by our political and military leaders, we will win all future asymmetrical or asynchronous wars.  These principles of asymmetrical warfare were not derived from deep study, military doctrine, or complex military theories.  I derived these principles from simple common sense and from the ideas expounded by my greatest modern military hero, General George S. Patton, Jr., who said, “A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances.”  Some of the principles are what you will find in this treatise.  The circumstances are asymmetrical warfare.

Synchronous or Symmetrical Warfare.  Synchronous or symmetrical warfare is conventional warfare.  Asynchronous or asymmetrical warfare is unconventional warfare.  Conventional warfare is what we fought in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.  Unconventional warfare is what we fought in the Vietnam War, War in Afghanistan, War in Iraq, and now the overall War on Terrorism.  Therefore, not all warfare is asymmetrical warfare.

Characteristics of Conventional Warfare.  I fully understand that misunderstandings and confusion can result when people cannot agree on the definition of words that they use in their discussions.  For example, take “conventional,” “synchronous,” or “symmetrical” warfare.  I designated WW I, WW II, and the Korean War as “conventional,” “synchronous,” or “symmetrical” warfare because they possess following characteristics:

• The combatants on each side wore military uniforms with military insignia on them.
• Each side was signatory to the Geneva Convention.
• Each side followed a clear chain-of-command from top to bottom.
• Both sides used advanced weapons and tactics.
• There is a battlefront and lines separate the enemy from friendly forces.

If anyone would say that no war was “conventional,” then we cannot discuss intelligently between conventional and unconventional warfare.  I have defined what I mean by conventional warfare, and if one cannot accept and/or disregards my definition and insists that no war is “conventional,” then there cannot be further logical discussion about conventional and unconventional warfare.

Characteristics of Unconventional Warfare.  Whereas, for “unconventional,” “asynchronous,” or “unsymmetrical” warfare, there is a significant difference in what one side (the terrorists, for example) uses and the other side (the West) uses in the way of weapons, tactics, uniforms, adhering to the Geneva Convention, lines of authority, and battle lines.  Here are the differences:

• Uniforms.  The terrorists do not use a consistent uniform.  You cannot differentiate the terrorists’ uniforms from those of ordinary Arab-Muslim-Islamite (AMI) civilians.
• Geneva Convention.  They do not follow the Geneva Convention.
• Collateral Damage. They are intentionally indiscriminate as to who they kill.  They could not care less about collateral damage except when they charge the American military with committing collateral damage on their civilians.
• Fratricide.  They do not even care about fratricide of their own people, particularly when they use them as human shields.
• Genocide.  They believe in and practice genocide of the Jews and the entire Western civilization.
• Urban Warfare.  Finally, urban warfare lends not itself to battlefronts or battle lines.

Exhaust All Alternatives before Going to War

Do not go to war except as THE last resort.  All avenues of social, diplomatic, political, and economic alternatives should be exhaustively applied and proven to be unsuccessful before the military alternative should ever be employed.  Of course, if we are directly attacked, all bets are off.  If attacked, we should automatically go to war.  The following is a description of each of these alternatives:

• Social alternative – International exchange programs, sister cities, Red Cross, Peace Corps, social outcasts, and international pariahs.
• Diplomatic alternative – Communications, discussions, understanding, disagreements, compromise, mutual respect, statesmanship, resolutions, and the United Nations (UN)
• Political alternative – Alliances, allies, pacts, coalitions, agreements, treaties, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), summits, declarations, and proclamations
• Economic alternative – Trade embargos, trade restrictions, blockades, and freezing of bank funds.  An example of this approach is competing with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the Arms Race causing the Soviets to outspend their ability to generate the funds to pay for the arms.  In the end, the USSR, now called Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), imploded economically because the Soviets could not keep up with the United States (U.S.) on developing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or “Star Wars” system and countering that threat.  Hence, that ended the Cold War.  Regarding the Cold War, Ronald Reagan said, “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: We win; they lose.”⁶
• Military alternative – open clashes/conflicts, low-intensity conflicts (LIC), wars, warfare, injuries, killings, battles, destruction, weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), tactical nuclear warfare, massive retaliation, nuclear exchanges, nuclear apocalypse, mutually assured destruction (MAD), scorched-earth policy, annihilation, eradication, liquidation, and Armageddon.

All Western nations must work together to defeat the Islamic Terrorists, not just “violent extremists.”

International Cooperation

All avenues of international cooperation (diplomatic, political, and economic) should be attempted to achieve a peaceful end to the problem.  In dealing with ISIS, the following should be considered:

• Arresting Suspected Terrorists – Motivate other countries to assist in seeking and arresting suspected ISIS members and bring them swiftly to justice.  Extradite to the United States those ISIS members who committed terrorist crimes in the United States but were captured in other countries.
• United International Front – Team with all of the nations in the world that are on our side to go after ISIS in a united front.  Nations are either for or against terrorism.  Their actions show on which side of the line they stand.  Do not listen to their words.  Observe their actions.
• International Anti-ISIS Force – Establish a joint international anti-ISIS force headed by the USA.  Membership should be limited only to nations that support the United States 100 percent and that we know that they support us.  Countries on the caliber of England, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Philippines, Germany (maybe), and so on should be part of this force.  When a country commits and deploys military forces and funds to combat ISIS, that action proves that they are behind the USA 100 percent.
• Resource Denial – Deny money, support, and safe sanctuary to ISIS.  Accomplish this through freezing their bank accounts, eliminating their funding sources, and eliminating those governments that provide them with support and sanctuary.  You are either for us or against us.  There will be no “willful financing” of ISIS.  We must make other nations deny “safe haven” to ISIS.  If they do not, they shall face harsh consequences…and then follow through.  Do not just give lip service.  No more ignoring of red lines in the sand.

Declaration of War

Know Where Each Elected Official Stands.  Never go to war without an official declaration of war from Congress.  These declarations should normally be for worldwide wars (e.g., World War I, World War II, and the imminent World War III).  All Congressmen should show whether they are “for us or against us”⁷ in a recorded, documented vote.  We must know where each elected official stands.

Imperialist Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941–a day of infamy.

US Declared War on Countries That Did Not Attack Us.  Japan killed over 2,400 Americans when they attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  The United States declared war on Imperialist Japan.  Shortly thereafter, the United States also declared war on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.  Germany and Italy did not attack America as Japan did, yet Congress declared war on them anyway.  Is that not strange?

Al-Qaida Gets a Pass.  However, the United States did not declare war on al-Qaida (In the press, this term is also spelled as al Qaida, Al Qaida, al-Qaeda, al Qaeda, or Al Qaeda.).  Al-Qaida directly attacked the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York and killed almost 3,000 people in that heinous attack (The 3,000 includes deaths at the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.).  Is it not strange that we give al-Qaida a pass just because it is a pseudo-military organization instead of a country or nation?  We must not allow ISIS a similar pass.

This is a war of existence, a war of survival, a war we must win or we are dead.

Sidebar Comments

Business in Saudi Arabia.  Regarding different spellings of the same name or terms, I remember when I had worked at The Titan Corporation and did some work for one of Titan’s divisions called Titan SureBeam (now defunct), the problem of different name spellings came to my attention.  At the time, we were dealing with businesses in Saudi Arabia to provide them with SureBeam systems for electronic pasteurization that killed harmful bacteria instantly, enhancing a food’s quality, and extending its shelf life without changing its taste or texture.  Similar to a microwave oven, the SureBeam system used ordinary electricity as its energy source to pasteurize food after it was processed and packaged.

Different Spelling of Names Did Not Matter.  At any rate, I had received a letter from our Saudi Arabian representative who was located in Saudi Arabia.  I noticed that this fellow had his name spelled two different ways on the same page of the letter.  In a phone conversation with him, I asked him, “Which was the correctly spelled name?”  He said, “Either way; it didn’t matter.”  I was floored.  How can a person’s name be so trivial and unimportant to him that he did not care how it was spelled even if it is spelled two different ways on the same piece of correspondence!  Needless to say, I was flabbergasted.

Motive Makes the Difference.  Now, five years later, I begin to have a better understanding of why it would not matter to a Middle Easterner as to how he spells his name.  If you do not want to be easily recognized, identified, and found, you would not mind spelling you name differently.  If you had something to hide, you would not mind creating confusion with your name.  If you were doing something illegal, immoral, or unethical, you would want to have aliases, faked names, or multiple ways of spelling your name.

Strategy of Confusion.  Take this simple, common name for example: Muhammad, Muhammed, Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhamad, Muhamed, Mohamad, Mohamed, and Mahomet.  There are nine known different ways to spell that same name!  So, if you did a different spelling of your name with your first name, middle name, and surname, there would be no way to recognize your correct name in a humungous database.  There would be a gargantuan number of combinations of your first, middle, and last names together.  Nobody could determine who you are!  Wow, what a strategy!  Appendix D of this book shows numerous ways various Arabic words and names are spelled.  They confuse everyone.

Many Ways to Spell My Name.  Hence, from now on, I am going to spell my first name as Robert, Roberto, Rob, Robbo, Robby, Bert, Bob, Bobby, and Bobbo.  I will have nine first names too!  I will also spell my middle name as Takeo, Take, Take-bo, and Tak.  Furthermore, I will spell my last name as Uda, Euda, Ooda, Oowda, Ouda, Uuda, Yewda, Yoda, Yuda, and Youda.  I will have 10 different last names!  I am even one better than Muhammad.  How great it is!

Keep All of Our Government Agencies Confused.  Now, if I combine them together with three different combinations of first, middle, and last names, nobody will ever be able to find the correct Robert Uda or Bob Uda…particularly if I use different spellings and combinations of names in the same piece of correspondence!  Won’t that put the police department, Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), Social Security Administration (SSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Security Agency (NSA) all in a tizzy?  That is what the terrorists are doing to them!

A Great Problem for Genealogists.  It is no wonder the genealogists or family history researchers have a heck of a time sorting out the correct names of people.  With that variety of names for the same person, it could give a genealogist a constant, severe migraine headache.  However, for some reason or other, when these genealogists are hooked on performing that kind of research, they do it forever.  I give them a lot of credit for persevering through all of that, I am sure, frustration.

We Must Remember the Lessons Learned from the Vietnam War

Robert McNamara’s 11 Lessons from Vietnam.  Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara badly screwed up running the Vietnam War, and he later apologized for it.  Through all of his misjudgments and mistakes, he did learn a few lessons, which we should not ignore and repeat in our current and future wars.  Remember, it was George Santayana, who said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”⁸  Robert McNamara’s 11 lessons from Vietnam are as follows:

1. We misjudged then – and we have since – the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries…and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
2. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience.  We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
3. We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
4. Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
5. We failed then – and have since – to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces, and doctrine.
6. We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
7. We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement…before we initiated the action.
8. After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course, we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
9. We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient.  Our judgment of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums.  We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
10. We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action…should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
11. We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there might be problems for which there are no immediate solutions.  At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
12. Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues.⁹

We Did Not Learn Our Lessons from Vietnam.  Already, it is obvious that we do not learn our lessons of past wars.  In Iraq and Afghanistan, we are violating every one of these 12 costly lessons learned in the Vietnam War.  Sad!

Our Leaders Do Not Know How to Fight and Win.  Sun Tzu said, “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.”¹⁰  This is why we lost in Vietnam.  We did not know how to fight to win that war…much less know the enemy and ourselves.  We made an ingenious initial entry into both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.  However, since then, we reverted to a Vietnam modus operandi.  This is why we are now losing in Afghanistan and Iraq.  When are we going to listen to Sun Tzu and win these wars?

References

¹ Robert Burns, Poet Laureate of Scotland, said, “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”  Quoted from his book titled Man Was Made to Mourn.

² “Ronald Reagan’s Wisdom.” (2006). Retrieved from http://www.newsmax.com

³ Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Retrieved from The Internet Classics Archive of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website: http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

⁴ Karl von Clausewitz. On War. Retrieved from Clausewitz Quotes/Quotations website: http://www.military-quotes.com/Clausewitz.htm

⁵ Mark Twain. Laughing Matters.  Retrieved from http://www.laughingmattersink.com/

⁶ “Ronald Reagan’s Wisdom.” Retrieved from http://www.newsmax.com

⁷ Shortly after 9/11/2001, President Bush declared to the world’s nations, “You’re either for us or against us.”  Our politicians should be subject to the same test.

⁸ George Santayana (16 December 1863 in Madrid, Spain – 26 September 1952 in Rome, Italy), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist.  Taken from Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of his The Life of Reason.

⁹ Bonnie Azab Powell. (2004, February 5).  “Robert McNamara, Errol Morris return to Berkeley to share lessons learned from ‘Fog of War’,” UC Berkeley News.  The 11 lessons in this article were cited from Globe and Mail, January 24, 2004, issue.

¹⁰ Sun Tzu. The Art of War.  Retrieved from The Internet Classics Archive of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology website: http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

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