zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — because the subtler games are more interesting ]
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It’s the mind that plays the game that interests me.

Why? Because what little I know of van Riper has to do with the war game he more or less closed down by sending a flotilla of tiny “red team” craft up against a US expeditionary fleet in the Persian Gulf:

Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal – not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet’s only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.

He may be a chess player, but that’s a whole lot subtler than chess.

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As is this:

Putin doesn't need territory. He needs conflict to hold on to power. You can't appease someone who needs conflict itself to survive.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) February 5, 2015

That’s a chewable.

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a “zen“]

Stalin: Volume I. Paradoxes of Power 1878-1928 by Stephen Kotkin

I’ve read quite a bit about old Uncle Joe.

Most of the major biographies of Stalin sit on my shelf, including those from Adam Ulam, Roy Medvedev, Robert Tucker, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Dimitri Volkogonov and other historians more obscure. I’ve read extensive commentaries about the Kremlin Mountaineer from Robert Conquest, Richard Pipes, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,  Milovan Djilas, George Kennan, Nikita Krushchev, Leon Trotskii, Amy Knight, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anton Antonov-Oveseenko, Al Resis, Pavel Sudoplatov, Walter Bedell Smith, Eric Hobsbawm, Herbert von Dirksen, Anatoly Dobrynin and various biographers of Churchill, Truman, FDR, Hitler and Mao. I’m not a Soviet expert, but for a layman, I can throw down rather well on Josef Stalin and his Soviet system.

So, with that in mind, if you are a Russian history buff or Soviet studies person you need to run, not walk, to get yourself a copy of Stalin: Volume I. by Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin.

It is simply that good!

[ by Charles Cameron — there’s rather more going on in the burning of the Jordanian pilot than I can handle — here are some of today’s relevant highlights ]
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I’ll start and close with JM Berger, who has two of the wisest contextual comments of the day to offer us:

ISIS is so eager to turn back the clock that they sped past khawarij to jahiliyya.

— J.M. Berger (@intelwire) February 4, 2015

That’s the context as I see it, though you’ll note that Tim Furnish differs, later in this post.

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Two tweets give us Qur’anic justification for and against the use of fire in punishment:

The justification for burning Moaath is taken from Surat An-Nahl according to Minbr al-Taheed wl Jihad users. pic.twitter.com/pgvWGm9PLg

— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) February 3, 2015

and:

The Qur'an curses those who burned Christians alive (85:1-7). Can't imagine its author would be jazzed about doing same to Muslims.

— Will McCants (@will_mccants) February 3, 2015

The Quranic verse Zaid Benjamin quotes is given in English in his tweet. The first seven verses of Sura 85, quoted by Will McCants, read in the Arberry translation:

By heaven of the constellations, by the promised day, by the witness and the witnessed, slain were the Men of the Pit, the fire abounding in fuel, when they were seated over it and were themselves witnesses of what they did with the believers.

I would really like to see a detailed scholarly post commenting on McCants’ reading of Qur’an 85.1-7, with or without notes on related ahadith and tafsir.

**

Two tweets offer ahadith related to the case:

@ground_glass Here… @will_mccants pic.twitter.com/3eyRhQfa4E

— Hameed (@SheikhThingsUp) February 3, 2015

and:

@SheikhThingsUp and yet this hadith exists as well. are they not contradictory? @will_mccants pic.twitter.com/hvFi2iB0On

— Christopher Dawson (@ground_glass) February 3, 2015

**

Two from Tim Furnish:

#ISIS cites ISLAMIC doctrine of shifa' al-sudur ("retribution") & #IbnTaymiyya on bodily desecration–so once again Islamic norms followed.

— Timothy Furnish, PhD (@Occidentaljihad) February 4, 2015

and:

"#ISIS & #Islamic #Immolation:" my analysis of the brutal burning of the Jordanian pilot; http://t.co/qCGXc00Jwe

— Timothy Furnish, PhD (@Occidentaljihad) February 4, 2015

Here is Tim Furnish’s commentary, from MahdiWatch:

ISIS gruesomely burned alive Jordanian Air Force officer Mu`adh al-Kasabeh not simply to horrify or intimidate, but rather in order to exact retribution for the “Crusaders” and their Coalition allies dropping bombs and launching missiles that consumed Muslims (especially, allegedly, children) in flames. The Islamic doctrine of shifa’ al-sudur (the name of the video, note) was derived from Sura al-Baqarah [II]:179 and its idea of “legal retribution” which is supposed to lead to reconciliation between Muslims once scores have been settled in like fashion—between, presumably, ISIS and the Muslim nations (Jordan, UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Oman) named in the video as helping the “Crusaders.” So, in this mindset, al-Kasabeh had to burn–not simply be decapitated. Lex talionis according to Allah.

ISIS also adduces a saying from the famous Sunni cleric Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) that desecrating bodies is allowable if it horrifies (unbelieving) enemies into ceasing their aggression against Muslims—or, in this case, against the Islamic State proper.

So, just as with beheadings and enslavement of “pagan” women, ISIS is acting in a supremely, albeit brutally, atavistic Islamic fashion (not a nihilistic one, as the President keeps saying). Only when we admit that will we (Westerners and Muslims) be on the path to refuting and eradicating ISIS.

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Mark Safranski, my gracious host and the publisher of this blog, refers us to the ICRC:

If Jordan executes all ISIS prisoners for the ghoulish murder of Moath al-Ksasbah, it is a legitimate reprisal https://t.co/ONZtXfaVfH

— mark safranski (@zenpundit) February 3, 2015

Mr Orange suggests there have been previous burnings by ISI, the predecessor to IS / Daesh:

Many don't remember but when #IS was still #ISI they burned men alive. The video was never released but leaked via captured video material.

— Mr. Orange (@Mr0rangetracker) February 3, 2015

It seems to me there’s room for plenty of research as between international lawyers and experts in the history of Islamic exegesis…

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Three tweets regarding the Jordanian response:

Mosques across #Jordan to say a special prayer for Moaz Kasasbeh at noon tomorrow. Church bells will also ring in his honor. #ISIS

— Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) February 3, 2015

http://t.co/Xumlhn1Z6l KABUL: (Middle East Press) #Jordan Executes #Sajida al-Rishawi and #Ziad al-Karbouli pic.twitter.com/ABjZXhlZfk

— MEP English (@mepenglish) February 4, 2015

and:

"The only problem we're going to have is running out of fuel and bullets." King Abdullah of #Jordan warns #IS filth: http://t.co/N18ap5uKPm

— Nu'man El-Bakri (@numanelbakri) February 4, 2015

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Common sense: this, from Daveed Gartenstein-Ross:

This year has highlighted the many thorny problems we confront. I wish the public sphere were less incompetent at considering hard questions

— D. Gartenstein-Ross (@DaveedGR) February 3, 2015

and John Horgan:

Think before you tweet images of Jordanian pilot Muaz al-Kassaba being burned alive. Don’t reinforce ISIS’ sadistic theatrics.

— John Horgan (@Drjohnhorgan) February 3, 2015

in light of which, let me add by way of requiescat:

Want to honor #jordanianpilot? Remember him as a pious Muslim coming to worship his Lord. #MuathalKaseasbeh pic.twitter.com/NWbuTPv5XJ

— omid safi (@ostadjaan) February 4, 2015

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I’ll close as I began, with JM Berger:

The backlash is the point of the video, not an unintended side effect.

— J.M. Berger (@intelwire) February 3, 2015

Let’s not feed the flames.

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

The Chicago Progressive

I have a new article up at The Chicago Progressive, where I look at facets of the current exasperating disarray in national security.

The NSC is Broken

American presidents, particularly in their second term, tend to emphasize foreign and defense affairs in establishing their legacy because it is where our political system and the Constitution give them the greatest freedom of action. Success or failure here for their administration emanates from two distinct but related areas: formulating good, effective, policy ideas and secondly, policy execution by strategy and implementation with our allies and adversaries. Lacking good policies, an administration is simply a caretaker government on autopilot; lacking competent execution, good policies will be frustrated, then discredited and potential opportunities lost. The primary tool the POTUS has to see his foreign policies carried out is the National Security Council and the inter-agency process it supervises; while membership of the NSC was set into law in 1947, every president is free to establish and staff the national security decision making process that suits them best. Unfortunately, this means that while every president gets exactly the NSC he wants, too few of them get the one they most need or deserve. [….]

….Furthermore, no president, not even the highly secretive Richard Nixon, can run a one-man foreign policy (though Nixon, it must be said, certainly tried) nor should President Obama be expected to do so. The Obama administration is closest to using the “Operational NSC” model, which worked relatively well during the first term. While not friction-free, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan and several others were very experienced senior officials and political heavyweights accustomed to working closely with the Oval Office who were able to counterbalance the excessive influence of a relatively junior White House staff whose primary experience was and remains domestic politics. No such check and balance exists today. Brennan departed his post as counter-terrorism adviser to the President to head the CIA, Hillary Clinton left to prepare to run for president, while Panetta and Gates returned to private life. When the dean of the American foreign policy community, Leslie Gelb, the respected former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Democrat who is no conservative, called for the firing and replacement of the entire senior White House staff, it was unprecedented but not surprising. A staff that cannot get little things like a photo-op right are not of the caliber to serve the president in questions of war and peace [….]

Read the rest here.