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Jason Fritz at Inkspots had a thoughtful post about Afghanistan in light of recent events and made some points regarding strategy well worth further consideration. I suggest that you read his post in full, but I will comment on excerpts of his remarks below in a short series of posts. Here’s the first:

Delicate strategic balancing: perception’s role in formulating strategy

…..That all said, incidents in Afghanistan these past few months have caused me to question the validity of strategies that hinge upon the perspectives of foreign audiences*. This is not to negate the fact that foreign perspectives affect nearly every intervention in some way – there has been plenty of writing on this and believe it to be true. I firmly believe that reminding soldiers of this fact was possibly the only redeeming value of the counterinsurgency manual. To say nothing of this excellent work. But strategies that hinge upon the perspectives of foreign populations are another matter altogether. 

I think Jason is correct to be cautious about either making perception the pivot of strategy or throwing it overboard altogether. The value of perception in strategy is likely to be relative to the “Ends” pursued and the geographic scale, situational variables and longitudinal frame with which the strategist must work. The more extreme, narrow and immediate the circumstances the more marginal the concern about perception. Being perceived favorably does not help if you are dead. Being hated for being the victor (survivor) of an existential war is an acceptable price to pay.

Most geopolitical scenarios involving force or coercion though, fall far short of Ludendorf’s total war or cases of apocalyptic genocide. Normally, (a Clausewitzian would say “always”) wars and other violent conflict consist of an actor using force to pursue an aim of policy that is more focused politically and limited than national or group survival; which means that the war or conflict occurs within and is balanced against a greater framework of diverse political and diplomatic concerns of varying importance.  What is a good rule of thumb for incorporating perception into strategy?

According to Dr. Chet Richards, the advice offered by John Boyd:

….Boyd suggested a three part approach:

• With respect to ourselves, live up to our ideals: eliminate those flaws in our system that create mistrust and discord while emphasizing those cultural traditions, experiences, and unfolding events that build-up harmony and trust.  [That is, war is a time to fix these problems, not to delay or ignore them. As an open, democratic society, the United States should have enormous advantages in this area.]
• With respect to adversaries, we should publicize their harsh statements and threats to highlight that our survival is always at risk; reveal mismatches between the adversary’s professed ideals and how their government actually acts; and acquaint the adversary’s population with our philosophy and way of life to show that the mismatches of their government do not accord with any social value based on either the value and dignity of the individual or on the security and well being of society as a whole.  [This is not just propaganda, but must be based on evidence that our population as well as those of the uncommitted and real/potential adversaries will find credible.]
• With respect to the uncommitted and potential adversaries, show that we respect their culture, bear them no harm, and will reward harmony with our cause, yet, demonstrate that we will not tolerate nor support those ideas and interactions that work against our culture and fitness to cope. [A “carrot and stick” approach.  The “uncommitted” have the option to remain that way—so long as they do not aid our adversaries or break their isolation—and we hope that we can entice them to join our side. Note that we “demonstrate” the penalties for aiding the enemy, not just threaten them.]

I would observe that in public diplomacy, IO  and demonstrations of force, the United States more often than not in the past decade, pursued actions in Afghanistan and Iraq that are exactly the opposite of what Boyd recommended. We alienated potential allies, regularly ignored enemy depredations of the most hideous character, debased our core values, crippled our analysis and decision-making with political correctness and lavishly rewarded treachery against us while abandoning those who sacrificed at great risk on our behalf . We are still doing these things.

Most of our efforts and expenditures at shaping perception seem to be designed by our officials to fool only themselves.

[ by Charles Cameron — no extremism in religion, did Muhammad say that? ]
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1.

Illustrated above is the banner of the Khudi blog from Pakistan, offering a hadith in support of its vision, which it describes as follows:

As a movement Khudi stands against all forms of extremism, including those that use religion to justify a certain agenda. But simply saying ‘no’ to extremism isn’t good enough – it’s essential to challenge and undermine the arguments used by extremists and to refute the religious justifications they put forward.

However, challenging extremism in this way doesn’t mean that Khudi is eligible to comment on religious matters or issue fatwas about the length of the beard or the hijaab. At Khudi we believe religious beliefs are a personal matter that each individual may take guidance on from their respective religious authorities. Thus, our volunteers and friends belong to a variety of faiths and sects and span the religious spectrum, from conservative to liberal. The important thing is that we stand firmly by the principle of respecting each other’s difference.

2.

I’m intersted in Khudi, not least because it seems to be a brainchild of Maajid Nawaz, one of the ex-jihadists who founded the Qulliam Foundation in London:

Quilliam is the world’s first counter-extremism think tank set up to address the unique challenges of citizenship, identity and belonging in a globalised world. Quilliam stands for religious freedom, equality, human rights and democracy.

Khudi appears to be Quilliam’s Pakistan equivalent, more or less.

3.

Here’s the deal. The Khudi blog website header illustrated above cites Bukhari 9.582 as saying:

Beware of extremism in religion, for extremism destroyed those who went before you.

I would like to be able to point to that hadith with confidence in my own writings, and I’d be happy to give appropriate attribution to the Khudi blog. but first I need help in clearing up some questions I have about it.

Specifically, when I went to verify the hadith for scholarly accuracy before quoting it — not being a reader of Arabic, and thus being dependent on what resources in English I can muster — I found to my surprise that the
hadith-search function for MulsimOnline gave the following result for Bukhari 9.582:

Narrated Ibn `Abbas:

(regarding the Verse):– ‘Neither say your prayer aloud, nor say it in a low tone.’ (17.110) This Verse was revealed while Allah’s Apostle was hiding himself in Mecca, and when he raised his voice while reciting the Qur’an, the pagans would hear him and abuse the Qur’an and its Revealer and to the one who brought it. So Allah said:– ‘Neither say your prayer aloud, nor say it in a low tone.’ (17.110) That is, ‘Do not say your prayer so loudly that the pagans can hear you, nor say it in such a low tone that your companions do not hear you.’ But seek a middle course between those (extremes), i.e., let your companions hear, but do not relate the Qur’an loudly, so that they may learn it from you.

“Not too soft, not too loud” bears a kind of family resemblance to “nothing in excess” — but it’s not the same thing, and I rather doubt that the words in Bukhari rendered by one translator as “Neither say your prayer aloud, nor say it in a low tone” would be rendered by another as “Beware of extremism in religion” — and I don’t see anything there that would correspond with the phrase “for extremism destroyed those who went before you”.

4.

Okay, all this set me digging a little further, and I next found a hadith reported at the ProphetEducation site, which reads as follows:

On the authority of Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him):

“Very early in the morning on the day of ‘Aqabah, the messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) while riding on his camel said to me: ‘pick some pebbles for me’. I then picked seven hurling pebbles for him. While dusting them of his hands he said: thou shall not cast except with such pebbles. Then he said: O mankind! Beware of extremism in religion for those before you were destroyed as a result of extremism in religion”

Related by Ibn Majah, Hadith no.(3029).

5.

So.

Did the folks putting the Khudi site together just get the hadith citation wrong — or is there more here than meets my eye? I would very much appreciate any help in explaining what at present seems to me a somewhat confusing picture.

If the hadith is authentic and can be found as stated in Sahih Bukhari, the pre-eminent source for hadith, and can be referenced from the English translation of Bukhari on the USC site, that would itself be a help. If so, it would also be of interest to know what kind of hermeneutic AQ deploys to get around it.

And if it is always found in the original sources, Bukhari or otherwise, in association with the comments about small “hurling pebbles” — why, that raises yet other questions.

6.

TIA — in this case meaning thanks in advance, not transient ischemic attack!

[ by Charles Cameron — creative, automotive, drone? whither music? classical, pop, film? — & other questions ]
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Mozart on skates with ski sticks:

I’m posting three videos here that have quite a bit in common, each of which has gone viral at some point recently, and each of which features music making.

OK Go’s Needing/Getting on Chevy Sonic:

Three styles of music, three kinds of instrumental set-up… there’s something admirable about each of them, and also something I find faintly disturbing — a different something disturbing in each case

Quadrotor Drones play the James Bond theme:

So what do you make of them? I’ll be back with a John Cage video and my own comments in a follow-up post a few days hence.

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h/t +Jason Wells

Jay Ulfelder of Dart Throwing Chimp pens an intriguing review.

[ by Charles Cameron — some middle ground? ]
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Two pieces have struck me in the last couple of days for their, well, maturity. By which I find I mean their ability to hold the tension between two opposites — among the most celebrated of all — while seeking an appropriate balance between them.

There’s an interesting blend of PR and wisdom in there, and something akin to a disciplined exhaustion with war. But this is Amsterdam…

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My second example comes from Caitlin Fitz Gerald at Gunpowder and Lead, and is titled On Taking Nonviolence Seriously. A snapshot:

I understand the urge to dismiss nonviolence in the face of the brutality of the Syrian regime. I certainly don’t know what is best for the people of Syria in this conflict, and I’m not sure I would have the courage to urge non-violence to people who are being attacked by their own government daily, but I would urge anyone dismissing nonviolent means as completely absurd to read a little Gene Sharp (whose work Mr. Serwer references in his piece) first.

Early in his seminal work From Dictatorship to Democracy (pdf), Sharp makes a key point about the why for nonviolent means, that ”By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority.”

I don’t want to get too strange about this, but we can exult in war and we can rejoice in peace — our lives play out in the tension between impulses, and that’s a long walk on a high wire…