Should we or should we not close the Detention Facility we have established at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO)?

Part of the problem we have in answering this question is correctly identifying the nature of the threat. What follows is a paper I wrote last year as part of some projects I was doing. I think it will help to clarify some of the issues involved.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and Northfield, Minnesota: Understanding Our Current Conflict

Part of the difficulty in understanding the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is the inaccurate comparisons made between those conflicts and others in our history. Voters are confused by these comparisons. Clarifying them may help you better understand the options before us.

Today I will use four historical events to help you understand the difference between our current conflict and others in our past. Those four events are as follows:

• Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attack there brought the United States into WW II.
• The attack on the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11 by Al Qaeda
• Jesse James and his gang’s attempted bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota
• The Fetterman Massacre in Wyoming in 1866

Because the attack on Pearl Harbor is often compared to the events of 9/11, I thought sharing some thoughts in that regard might be appropriate. The reasons why I’ve included Northfield, Minnesota and the Fetterman Massacre will reveal themselves shortly.

When the Japanese attacked the United States, the attack was done by one nation state to another nation state. The Japanese used the resources of its country with the approval of its government to assert its authority over other nation states. The attack on Pearl Harbor was coordinated with attacks on other nation states. The Japanese had the capability to put armed people on ships, sail to other shores, land their people on those shores and take over other nation states by force. The technical term for this is power projection.

Contrast that with what happened on 9/11. We were attacked by a rogue group of individuals led by a charismatic fanatic. Although a nation state gave that group safe harbor, that nation state itself (to wit: Afghanistan) did not attack us. Further, neither the rogue group nor Afghanistan had the capability of power projection. Even Iraq, (which the 9/11 Commission declared had nothing to do with 9/11) lacked the ability of power projection towards the United States.

Now let’s contrast this data with what happened in Northfield, Minnesota on September 7, 1876. Jesse James and his gang rode into town and attempted to rob the bank. So, in other words, like New York, Northfield was attacked by a rogue group of individuals. Now, granted there are a couple of differences. The James Gang wanted the bank’s money with a minimal amount of damage. They by and large shot to wound or intimidate, not to kill. They did not seek to do some form of power projection on the state of Minnesota. Further, they did not succeed. The residents of Northfield, as the late Western writer Louis L’Amour noted, were a bunch of salty old dogs; civil war veterans who weren’t about to see their bank robbed. They pretty much shot the James gang to rag dolls and pursued the gang until it was mostly captured or killed.

Ask yourself this. If the James gang had succeeded in its robbery, would the state of Minnesota have declared war on Missouri (the state the James gang was based in)? The answer is no, isn’t it? Why not? Because the actions of the James gang were the actions of a rogue group led by a charismatic fanatic. The James gang was not acting as an agent of the state of Missouri. Nor was the state of Missouri harboring the James gang. In fact, Missouri was already in pursuit of the gang.

While this is somewhat simplistic, this comparison of the three events gives a new perspective to ask some questions and make some observations.

Why (in the case of Bin Laden) are the charismatic leader and his gang still at large? Why, instead of shrinking, does the gang seem to be growing in Pakistan?

Why did we invade Afghanistan? Because (unlike our example with Missouri and the James Gang) Afghanistan refused to regard Al Qaeda as an outlaw organization and thereby failed to act as a responsible nation state.

The major threat we face is a nation state that will be taken over and become a perpetrator of the vision of the charismatic leader’s ideology. Are the policies we are using today enabling the emergence of such a regime or preventing it?

The State of Minnesota might not have declared war on the State of Missouri, but the United States was willing to go to war (notice I did not say declare war on) with Iraq.

Supporters of the Bush Administration would say their policies are working because our nation has not been attacked again since 9/11. The counter to that argument is that those who wish to destroy us have no need to come to America to achieve their goals. 9/11 was intended to goad us into establishing a military presence in the Middle East. That presence would be used to accomplish two major objectives. First, persuade the people of the Middle East that America was indeed a crusading oppressor and cause a general uprising against America. (See the blog entry, Are We Doing Exactly What Osama Bin Laden Wants Us to Do? http://thecenterstrikesback.com/2007/07/15/are-we-doing-exactly-what-osama-bin-laden-wanted-us-to-do.aspx )

Like the Fetterman Massacre from our earlier history, 9/11 appears to have been used to get an organization to do a thing the organization’s enemy wanted done. In the case of the Fetterman Massacere, the Indian plan was to entice a US Cavalry force to chase the Indians until a point was reached that the Cavalry was at a time and place of the Indians’ choosing. Then the Indians turned on the military force and destroyed it. (Details at this link. http://www.essortment.com/all/fettermanmassa_rfkt.htm)

In the case of Al Qaeda, their second main objective was to upset our center of gravity. As described in Imperial Hubris (written by the man who ran the Bin Laden desk at the CIA), Al Qaeda sees America’s Center of Gravity as our economy.  If our economy can be upset, then America can be defeated. Al Qaeda knows they cannot defeat us militarily in a straight up fight. But if they can upset our economy, then that upset can lead to conditions that will cause us to leave the fight. Given the state of our economy, one can say that Al Qaeda is coming very close to succeeding. It does appear we are, indeed, doing exactly what Al Qaeda wanted us to do.

In our case, we do not want to see Al Qaeda take over a nation state and (like Imperial Japan) develop the capability to do force projection. Luckily for us, Iraqi Sunnis have decided to reject Al Qaeda. Those Sunnis have been “snitching” on Al Qaeda members and our Special Operations (SpecOps) troops have been ruthlessly effective in eliminating members of Al Qaeda.

Americans need to realize that the success during the surge period is, in large measure, due to this betrayal of Al Qaeda. American payment of Sunni self defense groups and a truce with Shia militias are what have accounted for the downturn in violence. Without those factors, America would have spent its last reserves with little to show for it.

We are glad for those results. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a great while. The point is that luck is no substitute for realistic planning and adequate resources for execution of those plans, something that has been sadly lacking with this Republican Administration, aided and abetted by too many Republican members of Congress like your opponent.

More importantly, if the Iraqi Sunnis have rejected Al Qaeda, then the danger has passed for Al Qaeda taking over Iraq. And if Iraq is not in danger of being taken over by Al Qaeda, then what need is there for us to continue to be in Iraq?

All of these perspectives and the questions that accompany them, may give us the way out of the situation we face now, if we have the self-honesty and courage to see the differences between fighting nation states and fighting rogue organizations and take the needed actions appropriate to each.