More Evidence Pentagon Clueless about Warfighting

From the Bill Gertz column copied below:

"The American people need to prepare for a long-duration war against
radical Muslims who are set to fight for 50 to 100 years to create an Islamist
state in the region, a top Pentagon strategist in the war on terror says.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark O. Schissler said in an interview that the
current strategy for fighting Islamists includes both military and ideological
components that make it similar to the 40-year Cold War against
communism. "You can try and fight the enemy where they are and
where they're attacking you, or prevent them and defend your own homeland," said
Gen. Schissler, deputy director for the war on terrorism within the strategic
plans office of the Pentagon's Joint Staff. "But that's not enough to stop it.
We've got to break the chain, and that's ... the ideology. We really need to
show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking." "

There's so much that's wrong in just this lead-in. We should *not* be prepared to fight a 100 year war, we should have won the damn thing already. The enemy could have been defeated with a single, decisive attack on Iran 5 years ago, and an ultimatum to Pakistan and Saudi to round up their terrorists or face similar obliteration. Even now, the enemy could be defeated in about 5 minutes, if you get the intercontinental drift of my ballistic comments.

The "war" (we aren't really waging one, are we?) has ideological components, alright, and ideology is fundamental, but is it really like the Cold War? Not. For one, the Islamists don't have a nuclear arsenal. Yet. But will, if we keep on pussyfooting around. The self-licking ice cream cone of American foreign policy.

Meanwhile, General Schissler, in an elaboration of the self-evident, misses the implications of his own remark. Yes, we can try and fight the enemy where they are. Let's start, for crying out loud. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Pakistan. Syria. To hell with Iraq, that's a killing field they've drawn us into, while they've motivated and mobilized the entire muslim world against us with the feeling that they are beating us -- materially in Iraq, psychologically, in the successes of their propaganda and psyops.

Schissler:

"Or prevent them and defend your own homeland."

The other half of his strategic oxymoron. He would have done well during the French occupation, after luring his countrymen into a feeling of security behind the Maginot Line. He's suggesting (along with too many other clueless warfighting wannabees in Washington) that defense is on a par with offense in winning war.

Once again, not. The prevailing attitude in Washington is *so* much about holding our position, "defending the homeland", and failing to engage the real enemy. Let's remember the words of a genuine warfighter:

"I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're
not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we're
not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold
onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick
the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap
through a goose."

While the noose of "homeland security" tightens to protect us (is it just me, or does that name have vaguely Nazi overtones?) the fifth column of Muslim immigration proceeds apace. (Get ready for waves of Iraqis when we bail there, just like the waves of Somalis -- 700 airport cab drivers and growing, in Minneapolis, but Allah help you, don't violate the Koran or you won't get a ride -- after Clinton's fiasco there.)

Let's return a moment to ideology and all that "extremist" thinking stuff. I would just *once* like a member of our military, those who are supposed to understand our enemies, actually read a little about our enemy. There is nothing "erroneous" or "extremist" about the Islamic fundamentalists.

They are simply practicing the most literal, correct interpretation of their cult as layed down in the Koran and Hadith. The most cursory examination of these books (I have hundreds of quotes, on request) will show they are as "mainstream" as it gets, and the "peace-loving" muslims are either

A) poor readers,
B) hypocrites or
C) Liars.

We are no more fighting "extreme" muslims than we were fighting extreme Nazis in WWII.

The recognition of this fact would have a significant influence on our warfighting doctrine. We would not appeal to the moderate Nazis -- I mean, muslims. We would not attempt to "reach out" to show the moderate Nazis -- I mean, muslims -- that they can get along with us. We would not foster dialogue with local Nazi -- I mean, muslim -- community groups such as CAIR and every other I could name, who are intricately tied to terrorist organizations the world over, and whose funding and legal activism to prevent "discrimination" against innocent air-traveling Imams (and many others) move in amazing lockstep with the agenda of a few Islamic countries in the MidEast.

(If it walks like an intelligence operation, and talks like an intelligence operation, it probably isn't a duck.)

Without dissecting this story further, I can safely say that if Gen. Schissler (the number two man in the war on terror??) is representative of our military leaders in the "war on terror", we are doomed. Our enemy are "Borg" (see old Star Trek show) who cannot be persuaded to leave us along -- except by decisive force.

If Schissler really wants to win this war, he (and the rest of the Pentagon, and the fools in the White House and Congress, Democrats not excluded) should start by understanding that this is a war we cannot afford to spend the next 100 years fighting. It's much bigger than sustaining public 'will' for the long haul, as he says. In the long haul, we will lose, just as we are losing disastrously right now (and everyone on this list knows I'm not talking about Iraq).

"We really need to show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking", says Schissler.

Yes, but the only way to do that is at the source, a message delivered with decisive impact. A message that should have been delivered a week after 9/11, but which sits in a dead letter box.


http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061213-010657-5560r.htm

General foresees 'generational war' against terrorism
By Bill GertzTHE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 13, 2006

The American people need to prepare for a long-duration war against radical Muslims who are set to fight for 50 to 100 years to create an Islamist state in the region, a top Pentagon strategist in the war on terror says.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark O. Schissler said in an interview that the current strategy for fighting Islamists includes both military and ideological components that make it similar to the 40-year Cold War against communism.

"We're in a generational war. You can try and fight the enemy where they are and where they're attacking you, or prevent them and defend your own homeland," said Gen. Schissler, deputy director for the war on terrorism within the strategic plans office of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

"But that's not enough to stop it. We've got to break the chain, and that's ... the ideology. We really need to show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking."

Gen. Schissler said he is concerned that Washington politics is weakening the will of the nation.

"I don't care about the politics. I care about people understanding the facts of what's our enemy is thinking about, what's our strategy to defeat them, and for [Americans] to understand that it will take a long fight, mostly because our enemy is committed to the long fight," he said. "They're absolutely committed to the 50-, 100-year plan."

"One of my concerns is how to maintain the American will, the public will over that duration," he said.

America's past wars lasted three to four years and sustaining support for longer wars "is very difficult," he said.

A Joint Staff briefing on the long war against terrorism states that since 2001, more than 3,000 al Qaeda terrorists are held in more than 100 nations, including 500 in Pakistan, while two-thirds of al Qaeda leaders are dead or in prison.

More than 17 terrorist attacks were disrupted since 2001, including three in the United States and two in Europe.

Al Qaeda's ultimate goal, the general said, is to set up an extremist "caliphate" stretching from western North Africa through southern Europe and along a path through the Middle East to Central and Southeast Asia.

"We're pretty convinced that the extremists are not ever going to give up the fight," Gen. Schissler said, noting that they are driven by the concept of jihad that makes it a religious duty to wage terrorist war.

The current war on terrorism requires fighting with ideas. In the Cold War, "we didn't beat ...the communists by militarily taking them to the battlefield," he said. "We took them to the intellectual battlefield and beat them against their ideas, the ideology of communism."

One goal is to disrupt al Qaeda efforts to "radicalize" young people ages 19 to 25 through educational efforts. Another objective is to assist moderate Muslims who see extremism as unacceptable.

Ultimately, Muslim scholars, clerics and other religious and government leaders will have to "take a stand," albeit one that carries grave risks because of the extremists' harsh methods, Gen. Schissler said.