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[ by Charles Cameron — two learnings about Hezbollah, in process and with one question each ]
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The trouble with this internet thing is that it offers nonstop opportunities for learning.

I hope my readers here at Zenpundit know by now that I’m an amateur (a lover) of the topics that I write about, learning as I go. I have long thought fard ‘ayn or individual obligation was the key phrase in religious recruitment to the jihad, conveying as it does divine sanction for the deeds properly committed under that license. I believe I first encountered the phrase in the context of Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj and his book, The Neglected Duty. It’s my (strictly amateur) hunch that the neglected (pun intended) Faraj should be the object of as much of our study as the far better known Sayyid Qutb.

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Just yesterday Phillip Smyth posted an extended piece on the Brown Moses blog, Hizballah Executing Syrian Prisoners? – Analyzing the Video, which in turn introduced me to the concept of taklif al-sharii. The key paras read:

In a June USA Today article which covered Hizballah’s involvement in Syria, a Hizballah fighter noted, “Everyone who is sent to fight in Syria has received a ‘Taklif Sharii'”. USA Today added the taklif sharii is “a religious command that means he will go to heaven if killed.” Nevertheless, the taklif sharii is more than just a religious edict which guarantees a martyred fighter’s spot in heavenly paradise. It is a religious obligation put forth by a cleric and must be followed. In fact, it is a form of religious ruling which underpins the Khomeinist ideology guiding Iran, Hizballah, and all of the main Iraqi Shia organizations sending militiamen to Syria.

Augustus Richard Norton noted that Hizballah’s adherence to taklif sharii is a theological legal ruling, “as though commanded by Allah”. According to Mohammed Sherri, an Al-Manar (Hizballah’s official TV channel) commentator, “once a taklif is issued, violating it is similar to any sin, like murder or adultery, or not praying or fasting.” In traditional Shi’ism, the taklif sharii was rarely issued and normally did not deal with political issues. The concept was actually revived as an important Shia idea by the father of Iran’s Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini and as an important support for his form of clerical rule, Wilayat al-Faqih (in Persian it’s known as Velayat e-Faqih). In effect, the issuing of a taklif sharii by a high ranking Shia cleric, in this case Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei—The “Spiritual leader” of Hizballah and the other Iraqi Shia groups, is a direct order coming from Allah.

So — here are my amateur — still learning — questions: does taklif sharii serve the same function among Shia jihadists as fard ‘ayn does among Sunnis? Are both terms used in both communities? The parallel between the two terms, and the differences between the kinds of authorities who control Sunni and Shiite discourses in matters such as these, would make for an interesting exploration I think.

Okay, that’s the “About taklif” section of this post.

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As you might imagine, though, Smyth’s post set me reading Augustus Richard Norton‘s piece, and there I discovered another interesting snippet, on another topic entirely:

From the Israeli withdrawal of May 2000 until the eruption of war in July 2006, there was aggressive patrolling, heated rhetoric and periodic episodes of violence by both sides. Most of the armed attacks were in the disputed Shebaa farms. By historical standards, however, this was a relatively quiet period. In general, clashes respected “rules of the game”, which had been codified in writing in 1996 and specified that Israel would not attack civilians in Lebanon and Hezbollah would not attack Israel. As Daniel Sobelman notes, the rules were so well established that officials were sometimes quoted as saying that such and such skirmish was ‘‘within the rules’’.

The Sobelman reference points us to:

Sobelman, D. New Rules of the Game: Israel and Hizballah after the Withdrawal from Lebanon. Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2004, pp. 67–82.

Okay, here’s second my question, the one about “parawar”. What’s the Clausewitzian term for something of this kind, far beyond politics, “within the rules” yet still not quite war — parawar? The duel comes to mind, too.

So: is there a word for such things?

Is underway – growing longer than I anticipated – which is a good thing.

Be finished sometime Tuesday

UPDATE:

LTC Bob Weiman, who had a presentation on the question of the Laws of War vs. Rule of Law paradigms, that particularly  resonated with me given my diplo history background, had a great review of his impressions that I did want to get lost in the comments section:

Boyd and Beyond 2013…ideas, discussions and breadcrumbs

Another Boyd conference has come and gone at Quantico and this is the fourth held aboard the Marine Base in that many years. The presentations are thought provoking, discussions enthusiastic and the Boydian commandeer excellent.

The conference opened with Michael Niehuser and his work on: “Colonel John R. Boyd Oral History Project: A Search for The Truth”. Yes! About time and long overdue. I believe I spent a little more time with Michael then most and he is definitely hooked on the Col Boyd story and those earlier followers we call acolytes. When he is done with this project it will prove to be exceptional. The Boyd, von Mellenthin and Balck re-invasion of Russia story was priceless.

In my mind, two basic issues are associated with Col Boyd and his compendium of briefs. The first is the existing institutional resistance and skepticism. The second is the incompleteness of Col Boyd’s work. I say incomplete because he did not write his book and that is a criticism I hear frequently from across the informal debating podium. These two issues provide opportunities or gaps that the Boyd Conference participants exploit. As Boydians, the more we discuss, debate, investigate and evolve the more likely we overcome the institution resistance.

Concerning the incompleteness; as Boydians, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma. We recognize the robustness and utility of his work and at the same time have an endless stream of questions on his meaning and intent, especially concerning the practical application within our particular professions.

The good news is Col Boyd’s work drops trails of breadcrumbs across everyone’s mental “tapestry” that shows the least interest. These breadcrumbs trails are the guide to completeness. On military side, when I listen to that first incoming salvo of “Patterns of Conflict”, Col Boyd talked about “Tiger Jack”. Major General John Shirley Woods 4th Armor Division led Patton’s Third Army across Europe. The second time I heard “Patterns of Conflict “ the Colonel spoke about Major General “Terrible” Terry Allen Division Commander of the 104th Infantry Division. When asked why the General Allen stressed night attack training when it confuses his own troops, his reply was; “because it confuses the Germans more”. Detailed battle studies of these men and their tactics are needed to determine why they got Colonel Boyd’s attention as good examples.
Another example is Michael G. Moore’s (Integrity Psychologist) work and presentations. Michael has presented for the past three years and he has moved from tracking bread crumbs through the forest to a full exploitation of a gap. I believe Michael is executing (what we call in the military) a “rollup” using Boyd within his own professional field.
During the conference, Scott Shipman mentioned that when he went into the Boyd papers at the Alfred Gray Library, he saw pages of yellow legal pad where Boyd had written a line or phrase over and over and then suddenly changed one word. Here the breadcrumb is the “word” and the trail is the why he choose that particular word.

I think Colonel Boyd would be excited observing us on this mental gymnastic dilemma of chasing breadcrumbs. He would be thrilled because we have all left the role of witness and ventured into the realm of thinkers, analyst and implementers. Well done Boydians, hope to see where you are on your breadcrumb trails next year and a special thanks to Stan and Scott for their time, efforts and hospitality.

Semper Fi, Bob Weimann

Thanks Bob!

[ by Charles Cameron — sometimes the answer to a simple question is a matter of life ansd death ]
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Two days ago, the New York Times ran a remarkable article about a retired IRA gunman, Sean O’Callaghan, titled Behind Flurry of Killing, Potency of Hate. At the heart of this article was what I call a DoubleQuote in the Wild — an observed and noted parralelism, in thoughts and or events, with echoes and implications far beyond the two particular instances in question. It’s that DoubleQuote I want to present to you here, drawing on two other news reports for my presentation.

I examined the idea of a jihadist life or death questionnaire a short while back, as exemplified in the upper panel here and the Nairobi slaughter to which it refers:

When I read the second quote in the lower panel, however, it gives new context to my understanding of the first.

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Sources:

BBC, Ten dead in Northern Ireland ambush

Telegraph, Nairobi shopping mall attacks

[ by Charles Cameron — on two viral videos of children ]
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Malala Yousafzai has been in many hearts and minds recently, and deservedly so. Her speech before the United Nations Youth Assembly, like her John Stewart interview, went viral on YouTube– here’s a version that has the grace to include her opening invocation of the Name of God:

Thinking idly about her the other day I was reminded of anither video of a schoolchild that went viral just a few months ago — this one the more off-the-cuff speech of a boy, Ali Ahmed, interviewed on the street. He’s twelve, Malala spoke at the UN on her sixteenth birthday, but he testifies eloquently to Malala’s point by his own obvious clarity and intelligence:

I think it’s worth holding these two video clips in mind together, the young woman and the young man, she almost fatally wounded and now recovered, he happening to be at the right spot on the right moment to be interviewed, her words reaching us directly in her fluent English, his coming to us only via sub-titles, as in an art-house “foreign” movie… If she has eclipsed him, let us remember him again.

The intelligence, the clarity. the education. And how many thousands more must there be, unviral and unsung, but no less intelligent?

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Unless ye become as little children, saith the Gospel, and a little child shall lead them, saith the Prophet.

[ by Charles Cameron — eccentric cleanliness and uncleanness, and a righteous blast of Handel ]
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I ran across two quotes the other day that made me decided to start a collection of what I’ll call “Quotes from Outer Orbits”. Here are the first two:

My first pick comes from the label of one of Dr Bronner’s Magical Soaps:

Replace half-true Socialist-fluoride poison & tax-slavery with full-truth, work-speech-press & profitsharing Socialaction! All-One! So, help build 4 billion Hannibal wind-power plants, charging 96 billion battery-banks, powering every car-factory-farm-home-monorail & pump, watering Babylon-roof-gardens & 800 billion Israel-Milorganite fruit trees, guarded by Swiss 6000 year Universal Military Training

My second is a lot fiercer, but no less strange — it’s from radio host Pete Santilli, speaking on air:

I want to shoot her right in the vagina and I don’t want her to die right away; I want her to feel the pain and I want to look her in the eyes and I want to say, on behalf of all Americans that you’ve killed, on behalf of the Navy SEALS, the families of Navy SEAL Team Six who were involved in the fake hunt down of this Obama, Obama bin Laden thing, that whole fake scenario, because these Navy SEALS know the truth, they killed them all. On behalf of all of those people, I’m supporting our troops by saying we need to try, convict, and shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina.

I’ll take the literal soap box over the metaphorical one, thanks!

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But I don’t mean to leave you depressed at the state of the world. Meanwhile the Ensemble Zaïs, led by Benoît Babel, plays one of Handel‘s Organ Concerti with a vitality that inspires me…

Who can despair at this?