zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — also, the role of the True Name in intel analysis & Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea ]
.

You may know that I value the documentary film Manhunt for its lucid presentation of the process by which the finest intelligence analysts “leap” to their quarry — in which Cindy Storer notes, “not the analysts doing it, but other people who didn’t have that talent referred to it as magic”.

In my post The process of associative memory I decribe this process, which I consider the root process of true creativity:

There’s the present moment .. And there’s the memory it elicits.

Compare Michael Hayden in Manhunt, at 1.19.18:

The way it works is, information come in, you catalog it, your organize it – that little nugget there could sit fallow on your shelves for four or five years until something else comes in that’s suddenly very illuminating about something that you may have had for a very long period of time. That actually happened in the work we did to hunt for Osama bin Laden by trying to track his courier.

By way of confirmation, here is Robert Frost:

The artist must value himself as he snatches a thing from some previous order in time and space into a new order with not so much as a ligature clinging to it of the old place where it was organic.

And here’s Jeff Jones on piecing together puzzles —

Some pieces produce remarkable epiphanies. You grab the next piece, which appears to be just some chunk of grass – obviously no big deal. But wait … you discover this innocuous piece connects the windmill scene to the alligator scene! This innocent little new piece turned out to be the glue.

**

My point here is that the board in my “game” of DoubleQuotes provides a matrix for eliciting and annotating such leaps between fact and memory — that’s its purpose, and that’s why I believe the practice and “playing” of DoubleQuotes is, in itself, an ideal training for the analytic mind in that otherwise elusive aptitude which Ms Storer says seenms like magic to those who do not possess it..

I believe my DoubleQuotes would be an invaluable tool for analysts in training.

**

Note, however, that Jose Rodriguez, speaking immediately after Michael Hayden at 1.19.55, adds a reference to the “True Name” — accompanying screencaps included — something to which as a theologian I am naturally drawn:

It took years for the agency to recruit the human source that eventually gave us the true name. That’s why we were in the business the of condensing human intelligence because, in many cases, all these fancy gadgets and everything else won’t give you the information that you really need. A true name.

And we finally got his true name, which is whatever it is. Whatever. Arabic name, you know. But the true name – we were able to find out a lot about him. From then on, you know, the agency was able to do what it does so well. Track the guy and find him.

That too elicits memories, though in this case providing cultural context rather than actionable intelligence. It’s interesting to compare Rodriguez’ quote with the passages in which Ursula Le Guin describes the nature of magic in her book, Wizard of Earthsea:

He who would be Seamaster must know the true name of every drop of water in the sea.

and:

He saw that in this dusty and fathomless matter of learning the true name of every place, thing, and being, the power he wanted lay like a jewel at the bottom of a dry well. For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing.

**

See also:

Gaming the Connections: from Sherlock H to Nada B

Jeff Jonas, Nada Bakos, Cindy Storer and Puzzles

FWIW, there’s an appendix on the central spiritual significance of remembrance of the True Name in Judaism (HaShem), Christianity (Jesus Prayer), Islam (dhikr), Hinduism (nama-rupa), Buddhism (nembutsu) etc at the back of Frithjof Schuon‘s little book, The Transcendent Unity of Religions.

On which frankly mystical note, here’s a third para from Le Guin to carry you towards Lao Tzu‘s observation that “The name that can be named is not the eternal Name” —

It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man’s hand and the wisdom in a tree’s root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.

[ by Charles Cameron — this motive for terror in Mumbai totally blindsided me ]
.

Young Ajmal Kasab, from the village of Faridkot in the Punjab, in Mumbai, now deceased

**

Consider this:

Strapped to a gurney and visibly shaken by the bloodied bodies of his fellow terrorists strewn about, Mohammed Jamal Amir Kasab, aged twenty-one, begged his police interrogators to turn off their cameras. They refused, and Kasab’s recorded confession provided the world with a glimpse into the individual motivations of the young men behind the four days of attacks in Mumbai, India. Kasab explained that he “joined the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba only for money.”1 His was not solely an individual decision, however, and the money he earned from participating in the attacks was not intended to be discretionary income. According to Kasab, his father had urged him to join so that Kasab and his siblings could afford to marry.2 Kasab recounted that his father had told him that his participation would mean that the family would no longer be poor and that they would be able to pay the costs required to finalize a marriage contract. One of the police officers, seemingly ignoring Kasab’s response, pressed, “So you came here for jihad? Is that right?” Crying, Kasab asked, “What jihad?” Lashkar-e-Taiba deposited the promised money in his father’s account after the successful attack; for his participation, Kasab was hanged in 2012 by the Indian government. Whether his siblings were subsequently able to contract marriages as a result of the funds provided by Lashkar-e-Taiba remains unknown.

The paper, by Valerie M. Hudson and Hilary Matfess, is published by MIT Press in International Security, Volume 42 Issue 1, Summer 2017, p.7-40 under the title, In Plain Sight: The Neglected Linkage between Brideprice and Violent Conflict.

How little we know, how little we suspect, how diverse the world is, how varied the motives at play, even in matters that we study and feel we’ve grasped.

**

The paragraph above stands as a fitting anecdotal confirmation of Will McCants:

The disappoint stems from the desire to attribute the jihadist phenomenon to a single cause rather than to several causes that work in tandem to produce it. To my mind, the most salient are these: a religious heritage that lauds fighting abroad to establish states and to protect one’s fellow Muslims; ultraconservative religious ideas and networks exploited by militant recruiters; peer pressure (if you know someone involved, you’re more likely to get involved); fear of religious persecution; poor governance (not type of government); youth unemployment or underemployment in large cities; and civil war. All of these factors are more at play in the Arab world now than at any other time in recent memory, which is fueling a jihadist resurgence around the world.

If anyone elevates one of those factors above the others to diagnose the problem, you can be certain the resulting prescription will not work. It may even backfire, leading to more jihadist recruitment, not less.

[ by Charles Cameron — another amazing twitter thread collated for easier reading ]
.

When I was in Syria, ISIS women told me how Yazidi slaves had to endure virginity tests, rapes &jealous ISIS wives. Today marks 3yrs after horrible ISIS slaughter of Yazidis in Sinjar. At least 3100 male Yazidis killed, 7000+ women &children enslaved. Yazidis have testified about ISIS crimes extensively. But rarely have ISIS members spoken about topic of Yazidi slavery. That’s why during my stay in Syria I specifically asked captured ISIS wives to tell me their version of slavery stories. Very disturbing. I will now translate my interview with Lebanese ISIS wife on slavery of Yazidis. You can see her interview in 1st tweet of this thread.

When ISIS took Sinjar, all Yazidi men they found were killed. ISIS considers them real kuffar (unbelievers) so they had to be killed. The women, they were all gathered. They (ISIS) told the women: “Take off your clothes”. And then ISIS brought a doctor to inspect them. The ISIS doctor checked who is virgin and who is married. Because otherwise ISIS cannot know who is virgin and who is not a virgin. Upon inspection the doctor would say: ‘This is a virgin, this not.’ ISIS then separated the virgins from the none virgins. They also collected the none adult males (they call them abeed or male slaves) and they separated them into a different group too. Many ISIS soldiers participated in the Sinjar battle and afterwards every fighter got a sabiya (female Yazidi slave) as a gift. All soldiers were happy to get female slaves, because they could have sex with them. Slave owners offered own slaves to their friends. Each day a different friend slept with slave. Sometimes they slept with slave from back (anal intercourse). It’s forbidden in Islam. They end up taking slaves 2hospital because they got injured from way they had sex with them. Some of slaves were really young in age. When they sleep with the young girls, they start bleeding, so ISIS fighters sometimes would take them to the hospital for treatment. When it reached al-Baghdadi how fighters were sleeping with slaves, he didnt accept that. This isn’t way to deal with slaves, he said. Baghdadi told ISIS fighters: Slave owners must do sharia/religious course. This course will teach you rules on how 2deal with slavery. After completion of sharia course, ISIS fighters kept slaves to themselves. And didn’t allow friends to have sex with their slaves. Also a new rule: If you want to sell your slave, you have 2wait until she passes 1 menstrual cycle before new owner can sleep with her. Later selling slaves became a business. ISIS fighter would buy a slave for $1000. Then he sells her for 3000 dollars to make profit. There was slave auctions. 1fighter said: “I want for my slave $10.000.” Others said: “No mine is better, she’s virgin,$20.000 for her!”

I sat in shock listening to this emotionless ISIS wive. Then I asked if her own husband had a slave.

My first husband, who was Lebanese, had a friend who owned a female (Yazidi) slave. He asked my husband’s help to sell his slave. My husband explained to him: There is a Telegram channel, it is called ‘Souk lil Sabaya’. All the fighters of ISIS are in this group. saw many pics on this telegram channel. ISIS puts pics of slave w/good clothes, makeup, showing her body to get best selling price. “ISIS fighters start bidding for slave. If she’s beautiful, high price. If she’s pretty &virgin VERY expensive. Some sold for $30.000. My husband was on that channel, selling &buying slaves. Friend of husband loved 2have slaves, always changing them, sleeping with them. If he wants to buy a slave, he not only wants to see pic, he will touch her body. He checks if it’s good for him, if her breasts OK… Some ISIS guys ask: We will not buy slave until we see it all, they have to undress. Others were okay with seeing only pic and buy. Some (ISIS fighters) would say: I want to see her naked, why should I get cheated and get a bad quality slave? In Raqqa there was market for slaves. I can’t remember which day. When it’s slave market, it gets so crowded esp Saudi ISIS fighters. ISIS fighters start fighting in market over slaves. And when they take slave home, their wives fight with them bcz they feel jealous. Some ISIS fighters would treat their female slaves better than their own wives. He will buy for the slave make-up &nice clothes. Some (ISIS) fighters will basically treat their slave good for personal reasons because he wants to sleep with her. Others would treat their slave good because they want to sell the slave and you get more money when the slave looks good. It’s just like when you are selling a car, you have to show the car in its best condition to get the best price. Same goes for slaves.

My Lebanese husband, he did not mind having a slave. But he did not have enough money to buy one. My current Tunisian (ISIS) husband he did not want to have a slave. His friend gave him one slave as a gift, but he didn’t take her. My husband hates the issue of slaves. He said: I don’t accept it that woman I sleep with has slept with many different guys before. One time I saw (in Raqqa) a slave girl &she was crying very loud because every time they would sell her to a different fighter. I told her: I cant help you. Either convert to Islam, become Muslim or try to run away. If I help her, ISIS would arrest me or kill me.

Above tweets are word-by-word translation of what ISIS wife told me. I interviewed another woman on same topic. Maybe I translate later. When u read my thread on ISIS slavery it’s shocking 2realize there’s no int mechanism to punish ISIS. No UN court. Many ISIS walk free.

Anyhow, this was a long thread. Hope it was helpful. Thank you all for your attention.

[by Charles Cameron — whereof scholars are in disagreement, how shall generals, presidents, you, or for that matter i, be expected to get things right? ]
.

Oh, wow:

National Security Threat HR McMaster, who's like Obama on Islam, is at it again, purging rational actors at the NSC https://t.co/SGzztkY6na pic.twitter.com/EAuSQSLYKk

— Bosch Fawstin (@BoschFawstin) August 3, 2017

Nah!

**

Is Westboro Baptist Church a Baptist Church?

Is Westboro Baptist even Christian? Is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Islamic? Islamist? Heresy? Specoifically, Khawarij?

Surely there are senses in which the answers, both with regards to WBC and ISIS, are Yes, and senses in which the answers are No. To my way of thinking, the question of ISIS and Islam has a great deal to do with what audience a given speaker wishes to reach — and what second order consequences that speaker wishes to avoid.

**

But Khawarij, specifically?

The site Millat Salaf [“Path of the Predecessors”] asks, ISIS are Khawarij or not?

So who are the Khawarij? What are their beliefs? Are they Kuffar? Should they be killed? When should they be fought? We must compare the methodology and beliefs of the ISIS before slapping the title “Khawarij” to their backs and going all Shariah on ’em.

Millat Salaf goes on to note some of the beliefs of the Khawarij of the time of the Prophet — jhere are three of a dozen examples:

They Permit the Greater Khilaafah to be a man from other than Quraish, free man or a slave, arab or a non-arab, and other groups from within them do not see having a Khilaafah as important at all, rather the people should sort out their affairs for themselves, and if they feel the need for an Imaam they may choose one.

They Abolish the ruling of stoning of the adulterer.

Some of them deny Surat Yusuf saying that it is not befitting to have a love story in the Quran.

On the basis of these and other significant details, and comparing them with ISIS doctrine and practice, Millat Salaf declares that the members of ISIS are not Khawarij.

On a more general level, however, Millat Salaf described the Khawarij as both a contemporary and an end-times group:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said “Leave him, for he has companions, and if you compare your prayers with their prayers and your fasting with theirs, you will look down upon your prayers and fasting, in comparison to theirs. A people will come at the end of time; as if he is one of them, reciting the Qur’an without it passing beyond their throats. They will go through Islam just as the arrow goes through the target. Their distinction will be shaving. They will not cease to appear until the last of them comes with Al-Maseeh Ad-Dajjaal.” Bukhari (and An-Nisaa’i with different wording)

In these terms, the Khawarij are more ostensiveloy (ostentatiously) pious than other Muslims, but their practice is hollow.

So.. I mean..

It is perfectly possible, from within the Salafi stream of Islam, to suggest as Millat Salaf does:

we cannot agree with the claims of the FSA and their allies that the ISIS are Khawaarij

It is also perfectly possible within that same Salafi stream to hold, as Sheikh Abu Basir al-Tartusi does, that ISIS is Khawarij and worse. From a page titled Conclusive scholarly opinions on ISIS:

The group known as ISIS are from the fanatical Khaw?rij, rather they have surpassed the Khaw?rij in many of their characteristics and actions, combining between fanaticism, aggression, hostility and shedding inviolable blood.” He further said: “We call upon all sincere individuals who have been fooled by them while still with this misguided group to severe their ties with it and to declare their freedom from it and its actions.”

**

And what of Westboro Baptist from a Christian perspective? Christianity Today carried a piece titled The Westboro Baptist in All of Us, observing:

It’s easy to distance ourselves from Westboro Baptist Church. They’re extremists with monstrous practices that flow from a twisted theology of a deceived people. We’re not extremists. We’d never dream of protesting the funerals of American soldiers or even conceive of picketing the funerals of Sandy Hook Elementary victims in the name of God while smugly declaring via Twitter that “God sent the shooter.” We’d never indoctrinate our children as they have and call it nurture. Between most of us and those at Westboro Baptist Church, there’s a great gulf fixed.

But then..

Most of us wouldn’t go to the same lengths as those at Westboro, but collectively, we have our own prejudices, rigid rules, regulations, and zealotries. These drive us to marginalize, cast aspersions upon and exclude others within our own churches, Christian organizations and institutions who so much as dare to differ, even slightly, from our own political or theological stances.

**

If Christianity is understood as the religion of love, then from a Christian perspective, WBC’s excessive and hate-fueled zeal distances them from the very Christianity they claim, and which in historical perspective gave rise to them. Mutatis mutandis, If Islam is understood as the religion of Peace, then from an Islamic perspective, ISIS’ excessive and hate-fueled zeal distances them from the very Islamic faith they claim, and which in historical perspective gave rise to them.

**

Unfortunate McMaster — caught in the crossfire between the theological snipers of Is and Isn’t.

[Mark Safranski / “zen“]

A friend asked me to weight in on the response of Russian Prime Minister Medvedev to the signing by President Trump of the Russia sanctions bill passed by Congress.  A translation of Medvedev’s remarks today:

“The US President’s signing of the package of new sanctions against Russia will have a few consequences. First, it ends hopes for improving our relations with the new US administration. Second, it is a declaration of a full-fledged economic war on Russia. Third, the Trump administration has shown its total weakness by handing over executive power to Congress in the most humiliating way. This changes the power balance in US political circles.

What does it mean for them? The US establishment fully outwitted Trump; the President is not happy about the new sanctions, yet he could not but sign the bill. The issue of new sanctions came about, primarily, as another way to knock Trump down a peg. New steps are to come, and they will ultimately aim to remove him from power. A non-systemic player has to be removed. Meanwhile, the interests of the US business community are all but ignored, with politics chosen over a pragmatic approach. Anti-Russian hysteria has become a key part of both US foreign policy (which has occurred many times) and domestic policy (which is a novelty).

The sanctions regime has been codified and will remain in effect for decades unless a miracle happens. This legislation is going to be harsher than the Jackson-Vanik amendment as it is overarching and cannot be lifted by a special presidential order without Congress’ approval. Thus, relations between Russia and the United States are going to be extremely tense regardless of Congress’ makeup and regardless of who is president. Lengthy arguments in international bodies and courts are ahead, as well as rising international tensions and refusal to settle major international issues.

What does it mean for us? We will steadily continue our work on developing the economy and social sector, take efforts to substitute imports, and solve major national tasks, relying mostly on ourselves. We have learned to do so in the past few years, in conditions of almost closed financial markets as well as foreign investors’ and creditors’ fear of investing in Russia upon penalty of sanctions against third parties and countries. To some extent, this has even been to our advantage, although sanctions are meaningless overall. We will cope.”

My short take on this is that we are all watching a gambler or manipulator (President Putin not Medvedev) who has overplayed his hand and is now flailing about, trying to stir the pot a little, because they don’t have a follow up play.

Longer take: I find the reference to Jackson-Vanik extremely interesting. Far more than the crude effort to push Trump’s buttons or the lack of understanding on how our constitutional machinery works and agitprop spin.

Most Americans have forgotten Jackson-Vanik and the refusenik issue but Russians of Putin’s generation have not and it means something very different to them than to us. The reference to Jackson-Vanik is aimed less at us than their domestic audience and I find that quite telling. I certainly would not have used it if I were in their shoes. It would be like Xi exclaiming that some action by the US was an “unequal treaty“.

Here’s the significance in my view. During early Détente, the Soviet side had the objective of leveraging better relations with the US to improve the Soviet economy. Brezhnev personally valued this outcome as a way to have both guns and butter. There were Soviet internal political drivers at work too in that Brezhnev was using Detente and the material rewards that would flow from it, to elbow aside Kosygin and Podgorny in the politburo and become the de facto leader of the USSR. And Nixon and Kissinger obliged, having the theory that a combination of trade, aid, American credibility, linkage, arms control, the China card and such could tame the Soviet bear and split the Soviet bloc while easing US problems in Vietnam. So in this time period you had incongruities like the rabidly anti-Communist Bill Casey, then Nixon’s head of the Import-Export Bank, defending credits, loans and various deals with Communist countries in Congressional testimony.

Well, Congressional Democrats led by Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson began putting sticks in the spokes of Nixon’s wheel, culminating in Jackson-Vanik in 1974. The Soviets reacted with rage out of all proportion to the actual value of the US-Soviet trade at the time, protesting this law was a violation of Soviet sovereignty; more to the point, Jackson-Vanik terminated the prospect of any future spigots of American cash that Brezhnev intended to use to increase consumer goods or reform moribund Soviet agriculture. Furthermore, it wounded Soviet prestige by essentially denying the equality between the Superpowers that Brezhnev and company were fairly desperate to trumpet on the world stage.

While there was an effort to sustain Detente through the Ford administration it was winding down and it collapsed entirely under President Carter as Soviet foreign policy became increasingly aggressive and adventurous in the Third World. The Soviets saw Jackson-Vanik as a turning point in relations with America and complained bitterly about the law ever after. In retrospect, you could trace the American pressure that nudged the USSR toward collapse in 1991 back to Jackson-Vanik; and whether Russian nationalists see the law as part of the vast Western conspiracy to destroy the Soviet Union or not ( many would) it is certainly seen as an example of our hostility. These events were part of Vladimir Putin’s formative experience in acquiring his chekist-siloviki worldview when he was a law student already in the KGB recruit track.

So given the vulnerability of the export based, relatively small Russian economy their reaction today strikes me as bluster and empty bravado. They really can’t win a serious economic confrontation with the West ( which these sanctions are not) and they know it. There’s some panicky, sky is falling, undercurrents here. The danger is that Putin’s regime if handled poorly may attempt to compensate, as did Brezhnev’s USSR, with small, foreign adventures. Russia can’t really afford this either – not sustained combat operations over months against a new semi serious conventional opponent, but subversion, terrorism and little green men paramilitaries are cheap