The Field of Fight

by Lieutenant General (Ret. ) Michael T. Flynn

  At the moment, various governmental entities are engaged in the creation of a coherent strategy to defeat the jihadis in the digital universe. These entities include U.S. Cyber Command, Homeland Security, the State Department, the FBI, operating under a plethora of legal authorities under Titles 10 (Armed Forces), 50 (War and National Defense), and 22 (Foreign Relations). Each will have its own reading of the relevant statute, and each will attempt to accumulate control over as much bureaucratic turf (and federal money) as they can. This must cease and we must operate as one cohesive team focused on a single goal—winning the global war against Radical Islam and its allies (www.defenseone.com/ideas/2015/12/us-needs-someone-run-effort-defeat-isis-online/124664/).

  Digital war necessarily involves the private sector as well. No doubt many citizens were surprised to learn that the metadata collected by the National Security Agency is actually held by private companies, and we can’t possibly have an effective campaign against Radical Islamic ideology without the cooperation of the likes of Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

  Our cyber army therefore contains governmental and private forces, along with others from the military and civilian sectors. What are all these guys doing? Nobody should be surprised to learn that many of them are doing the same as many of the others, and, inevitably, they sometimes make embarrassing mistakes.

  For instance, at the end of 2015, Twitter, following a false claim in the New York Post, suspended the account of Iyad el-Baghdadi, a popular blogger and leader of the Arab Spring. Twitter and the Post had confused him with the caliph of the Islamic State. The blunder was quickly corrected, and, while certainly embarrassing, I rather suspect that it may well have had a positive effect—to cause more serious understanding of the enemy we face.

  With such a large body of major players, we badly need effective organization—otherwise the organizations will constantly bump into one another—and skilled leadership. Somebody’s got to define the basic mission and decide who does what. As I said earlier, find an effective leader, place that person in charge and if the person doesn’t work out, get rid of him or her and find another who can do the job. Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War model is probably the best historic example. He kept relieving his generals until he found Ulysses S. Grant, who went on to win the war (and eventually became our eighteenth president). Lincoln was one of our very best presidents—wish we had leaders like him today.

  A serious question that must be answered is, Do we want to shut down the most radical Web sites or concentrate our efforts at exposing them, and then challenging their doctrines?

  The multiplicity of actors involved further complicates the situation. Shutdown of the [enemy] networks and Web sites and takedown of [their] propaganda and material for example, will involve the private sector including social media and Internet service providers (ISPs).… The idea would be to encourage nongovernmental entities to hunt and gather pertinent information that could be turned over to ISPs, thereby helping them to marginalize the most egregious content.… The EU’s [European Union] new Internet Referral Unit refers potential terms of service violations to providers in order to reduce the amount of extremist content online. (www.defenseone.com/ideas/2015/12/us-needs-someone-run-effort-defeat-isis-online/124664/)

  Defeating messianic mass movements was our mission for most of the twentieth century. We had to fight them at all levels and by all means. We had to defeat their armies, the better to demonstrate that their defeat was inevitable, and that the power of the master race, and the laws of history, weren’t good enough against the United States of America. We displayed our economic, military, and political superiority. So complete was our victory that some very smart people believed—at least for a while—that history itself had come to an end, that the superiority of the American model was so complete that a frontal challenge was unimaginable, and that henceforth war itself would be limited to economic competition.

  The Radical Islamists and their allies did not believe that history had come to an end, nor did they think that the American model was destined to dominate the world. Indeed, at the end of the Cold War, at the very moment the Soviet Empire was headed toward defeat, they were organizing what they believed would be our inevitable defeat at their hands. Al Qaeda was the first major global jihad organization, and Osama bin Laden believed that we could be eliminated as a superpower in a single stroke. Now there are so many of these organizations—notably ISIS—that only an expert with near-total recall can keep track of them all. They are well-funded, well-armed, well-trained, and confident that they can do us in. It would be foolish for us to wait until they pose an existential threat before taking decisive action. Doing so would only increase the cost in blood and treasure later for what we know must be done now.

  Not surprisingly, the recent congressional draft Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF (a minor component of a still-required comprehensive strategy), signals that we are willing to wait for them to become existential. Again, this is irresponsible and dangerous thinking.

  Instead, this authorization should be broad and agile, with clearer and more decisive language and unconstrained by unnecessary restrictions. These restrictions cause not only frustration in our military and intelligence communities but they also significantly slow down the decision-making process for numerous fleeting opportunities. If this is due to a lack of confidence in our military and intelligence leadership, get rid of these leaders and find new ones.

  If there is not a clear, coherent, and comprehensive strategy inclusive of all elements of national power forthcoming from the administration, there should be no new authorization at all; simply leave the existing one in place.

  There are solutions to this problem. However, solving tough, complex problems such as eliminating Radical Islam from the planet will require extraordinary intellect, courage, and leadership. Leadership that isn’t obsessed with consensus building; instead, leadership that is tough-minded, thoughtful, patriotic, and, when it matters, decisive.

  We will have to shed some of the feel-good doctrines that have constrained us in recent years. One of the most unfortunate of these is known as the Powell Doctrine, named after General Colin Powell. According to this view, we should never use military power unless there is a strong domestic consensus in its favor. This, General Powell hoped, would greatly reduce the possibility of a large antiwar movement that would inevitably shackle our war effort.

  Colin Powell is a great American, but the doctrine is backwards. The consensus that matters is not the one that exists at the beginning of fighting, but the one at the end of the war. If we win, our leaders will be hailed, while if we lose, they will be despised. Things have not changed much since Machiavelli told his prince “if you are victorious, the people will judge what ever means you used to have been appropriate.” Winners are always heroes and losers are almost always … losers.

  Military leaders like to say that while planning is very important, no plan survives the beginning of actual hostilities. We need leaders who accept that life is full of surprises and that we all make many mistakes. One of our greatest wartime presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, remarked that when things go bad in life you should junk whatever strategy you had adopted and get a new one. However, he stressed, it was vital to keep making decisions until you found a strategy that worked.

  We have seen this type of leadership throughout world history and we have examples in our own travails, typically at the most dangerous moments—from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR to Ronald Reagan. When faced with threats to our way of life and the lives of our friends and allies around the world, they stepped up to lead. Whether that meant forcing our will on the enemy or outmatching them with our wits and imagination, they faced the difficult reality head-on. While he will not be considered one of our greatest presidents, George W. Bush had the insight and courage to change our strategy in Iraq. Our current leaders have not admitted that their original plans were mistaken, and have not changed their actions accor
dingly.

  I had the privilege and pleasure to serve under an outstanding leader, General Stanley McChrystal, and his maltreatment is still hard for me to digest. I honestly thought that cooler heads would prevail back in Washington and that he would have his ass chewed out and told to get back into the fight and stay out of the media for a while (even though Stan was rarely in the media). The Rolling Stone article was based on junior officers’ comments and not due to some “frat house atmosphere” that Stan created—that is totally false. If anything, Stan was the greatest disciplinarian that I have ever worked around. His demanding style was amazing and his level of professionalism displayed at all times was difficult to equal. He never allowed any antics other than light kidding of each other and his own self-deprecating humor about himself. Speaking about politicians was simply not something he would ever allow, and did not. The comments attributed to him (secondhand) were surely misleading, but (unlike former secretary of state Hillary Clinton) Stan took full responsibility for everything that took place within his command.

  Everyone involved with McChrystal knew the truth. The secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, came out with a supporting statement almost immediately, well before President Obama decided to remove McChrystal. Many of us expected the president would come to the same conclusion, especially when we learned that both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommended that Stan be retained. We were actually starting to have some effect in Afghanistan, and the newest campaign plan was just starting to take hold. The president, however, had other considerations.

  Although the secretary general of NATO obviously doesn’t decide which military commander the United States will choose, in the case of McChrystal’s ouster, Rasmussen wasn’t even informed.

  Back in Afghanistan, the moment the decision was announced, many in the HQ were literally crying. It was as though we had just lost the war, never mind simply losing a commander (and we knew that General Petraeus, a noted leader in his own right, would replace him). Many senior officials in Afghanistan were afraid that Petraeus would change the strategy and fall back on his experiences in Iraq (keep in mind that at this time he had very little experience in Afghanistan).

  I lost a friend and the nation lost a great leader who understood how to defeat this enemy better than anyone else, as has been demonstrated ever since.

  America is a big country and great leaders can certainly be found among our more than 300 million citizens. As we tackle this grave crisis, we must hope that the political process will give us good choices and that the U.S. electorate will then choose wisely.

  Conclusion

  It may well be that we are no longer shocked or horrified by the slaughter of innocents by jihadi terrorists. There have been so many videos, photos, and descriptions of suicide bombings, beheadings, mass executions, public hangings, and even stonings, that they have become part of the background noise of our world. We have heard them say “we love death more than you love life” over and over again, and we have heard them chant “Death to America.” Yet it does not seem that our leaders, and perhaps not even most of our people, are sufficiently moved to fight decisively against the barbarians who act in this way. Political correctness forbids us to denounce radicalized Islamists, and our political, opinion, and academic elites dismiss out of hand the very idea of waging war against them.

  No wonder we’re losing. They’ve gotten a free ride.

  Perhaps if we go back to an earlier event in the war, nearly half a century ago, we can recapture its essence and make the threat we face more urgent. I’m totally convinced that, without a proper sense of urgency, we will be eventually defeated, dominated, and very likely destroyed.

  We’ve got to get inside the minds of the jihadis. We should have done that a long time ago, because their goal has been clear for nearly half a century.

  On November 28, 1971, the Jordanian prime minister was shot to death by PLO assassins in a Cairo hotel. As he lay dying, “one of his killers bent over and lapped the blood that poured from his wounds.”

  As Laurent Murawiec has written in The Mind of Jihad:

  Inseparable … from contemporary Islamic terrorism are the idolization of blood, the veneration of savagery, the cult of killing, the worship of death.… The highest religious authorities sanction or condone it, government authorities approve and organize it, intellectuals and the media praise them. From one end of the Muslim world to the other.

  Do you want to be ruled by men who eagerly drink the blood of their dying enemies? Such questions are almost never asked. Yet if you read the publicly available ISIS documents on their intentions, there’s no doubt that they are dead set on taking us over and drinking our blood. It’s not just a fight for a few hundred square miles of sand in the Syrian, Iraqi, and Libyan deserts. They want it all as evidenced by this quote from a leader in ISIL:

  “Accept the fact that this caliphate will survive and prosper until it takes over the entire world and beheads every last person that rebels against Allah.… This is the bitter truth, swallow it.” (www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/28/ami-isil-document-pakistan-threatens-india/30674099/)

  What will our lives be like if we lose this war? It’s actually a very easy question to answer: we’d live the way the unfortunate residents of the “caliphate” or the oppressed citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran live today, in a totalitarian state under the dictates of the most rigid version of Sharia. A Russian KGB or Nazi SS–like state where the citizens spy on one another, and the regime doles out death or lesser punishment to those judged insufficiently loyal.

  We can see such a system in place in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and in the ISIS caliphate. The facts about Iran are well known. In the case of ISIS, we know this system was planned from the beginning. In the summer of 2015, the German magazine Der Spiegel published a set of plans for the creation of the caliphate, beginning with the takeover of existing towns and cities (www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html).

  The process of creating an internal security system was very detailed. The population would be invited to religious services, and one or two of the most pious recruited. They were to be instructed to collect information on their neighbors, including:

  • Provide lists of the powerful families.

  • Name the powerful individuals in these families.

  • Find out their sources of income.

  • Name names and the sizes of (rebel) brigades in the village.

  • Find out the names of their leaders, who controls the brigades, and their political orientation.

  • Find out their illegal activities (according to Sharia law), which could be used to blackmail them if necessary.

  The spies were told to note such details as whether someone was a criminal or a homosexual, or was involved in a secret affair, so as to have ammunition for blackmailing later. “We will appoint the smartest ones as Sharia sheiks,” Haji Bakr had noted. “We will train them for a while and then dispatch them.” As a postscript, he had added that several “brothers” would be selected in each town to marry the daughters of the most influential families, in order to “ensure penetration of these families without their knowledge.”

  The man who drafted this wiring diagram of the Islamic State, Haji Bakr, was well trained for his mission; he’d been a colonel in Saddam Hussein’s Air Force Intelligence Service, which meant he’d worked with his Soviet bloc counterparts. The documents discovered by the Spiegel journalists were typical KGB-style products, and Haji Bakr had no doubt embraced the Sharia code and the requirement of piety that Saddam had authorized in the last decade of his tyranny.

  ISIS does not hesitate to kill its own people, even its fighters, if they prove unworthy of the caliphate’s mission:

  ISIS fighters who fled to the terror group’s Iraqi stronghold of Mosul after being defeated in Ramadi were burned alive in the town
square, sources told FoxNews.com, in an unmistakable message to fighters who may soon be defending the northern city from government forces. Several residents of Mosul recounted the grisly story for stateside relatives, describing the deadly reception black clad jihadists got when they made it to Mosul, some 250 miles north of the city retaken by Iraqi forces operating with cover from U.S. air power.

  “They were grouped together and made to stand in a circle,” a former resident of northern Iraq now living in the U.S. but in touch with family back home told FoxNews.com. “And set on fire to die.”

  Several Iraqi-Americans and recent refugees with close relatives in Mosul told of ISIS fighters fresh off defeat in Ramadi being shunned—and executed—for not fighting to the death in Ramadi. (www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/12/isis-burns-fighters-alive-for-letting-ramadi-fall.html)

  That’s what we’ll get if we lose this war, along with all the grim censorship we see in groups such as the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and the Taliban or from nations like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. In the Islamist lands, there is no singing, women are covered up and mostly kept at home, no women are permitted in public unless chaperoned by a male relative, no unofficial public gatherings, no criticism of the rulers, no freedom or praise of it, public executions to keep everyone suitably terrified, and terror attacks or full-fledged military assaults against those unbelievers surviving outside the caliphate.

  Our lives are deeply involved with entertainment, but the Islamist regimes, of the sort our enemies intend to impose on us, are devoted to the destruction of fun and beauty. Remember that when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, music was forbidden, and in Iran today citizens are forbidden to sing in the streets, and even poetry has been widely banished and poets singled out for punishment. In October 2015, two leading Iranian poets—one of them a woman—were sent to jail for six and eleven years, plus one hundred lashes, for writing poems the judge didn’t like. Islamic judges and prosecutors don’t need hard evidence to punish such people, because they can read the writers’ minds!