Who is our enemy?

June 15, 2016 In confronting terrorism, the U.S. needs to decide whether it is at war and who the enemy is.

By George Friedman
The slaughter in Orlando, Florida on Sunday once again raises the question of what we should do about attacks like this. But before that, we must answer a more fundamental question: Was this a criminal act or an act of war? Answering that question is the key to determining the appropriate response.

If these are criminal acts, then the criminals must be punished for their actions. If these are acts of war, then the enemy forces must be found and destroyed, not based on what they might or might not have done, but in order to destroy the enemy before they can strike again.

Since 9/11, the United States government has failed to resolve this issue. Immediately after the attack, President George W. Bush committed to bringing those who planned the attack to justice, implying that this was a criminal act.

At the same time, he sent the U.S. military into Afghanistan to wage war on the Afghan government, its army and al-Qaida, which was operating under the government’s protection. That implied that this was war.

The rules of war and the rules of criminal justice are vastly different, as is their intent. Had President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his speech after Pearl Harbor that he intended to bring everyone who planned the Pearl Harbor attack to justice, he would have completely missed the point. It was not the pilots or the staff officers who had committed a crime. It was the Empire of Japan, as Roosevelt put it, that had committed an act of war.

Bush further confused the issue by speaking of the Axis of Evil – Iraq, Iran and North Korea – saying that was in some sense responsible for 9/11. He also spoke of a Global War on Terror. Terror is a weapon of war. It is designed to terrorize the citizens of a country into either paralysis or overthrowing their government. The Germans bombed Britain for that reason in World War II. The allies bombed Germany for the same reason.

As a means of warfighting, terrorism is similar to tanks or aircraft carriers in that they are tools of war, rather than the enemy itself. Imagine if Roosevelt had declared a global war on aircraft carriers, since carrier-based planes had attacked Pearl Harbor.

Bush never clarified whether we were at war, and completely confused the issue of who we were at war with. He wisely did not want to declare war on the Islamic world, because it contains 1.7 billion people and the likelihood of defeating that many with a standing army of about 500,000 troops is remote.

In addition, as he knew, only a tiny fraction of the 1.7 billion people were interested in and capable of carrying out terrorist attacks. So, he focused on al-Qaida, and then further complicated the issue by invading Iraq, whose secular president, Saddam Hussein, was obsessed at the time with survival, and was unlikely to form an alliance with the jihadists.

The conceptual confusion was further compounded by President Barack Obama. He not only pointed out the obvious, which is that the United States is not hostile to all Muslims, but also tried to take the position that the terrorists’ proclaimed belief in Islam was incidental to their actions.

Others who take this position have also pointed out that guns in the United States kill more people than terrorism.

Obama’s view that Islam was incidental to terrorism was in fact a repetition of Bush’s point on the Axis of Evil. The target included all terrorists, Muslim or not. As for the argument on guns verses terrorism, it is both true and vague in its intent. It seemed to be saying that terrorism is more tolerable because of the prevalence of gun violence. But it is not clear what change of action is being recommended.

It is now almost 15 years since 9/11 and we still have not answered the core questions: Are we at war or fighting criminals? And if we are at war, who with exactly? To distinguish between crime and war, you have to look at intent, not means. The means may be the same but the goal is different. Criminals pursue money or are unbalanced and pursue fantasies. Terrorists are pursuing political ends, and therefore, their attacks are consistent with the definition of war. War is a continuation of politics by different means. War is intimately bound up with politics. Crime is not. There are always gray areas, but this definition works.

What are the political ends of Islamist terrorists? Since the rise of al-Qaida, there has been a clear and consistent goal: to overthrow “hypocritical” Muslim states and replace them with jihadist regimes that would create a united global Muslim state called the caliphate.

To achieve this end, the jihadists need to do two things. The first is to demonstrate to the Muslim masses that they have been betrayed by their own governments, and that they have the power to seize control of their own destinies.

The second goal is to drive the United States, Europe and other non-Muslim powers out of the Islamic world. Terrorism is intended to drain the enemy of its will to continue and force withdrawal. This is the same goal of the mass bombings of World War II.

The two goals mesh, because terrorism does not require major organization or resources. It simultaneously strikes at the enemy, and empowers all its supporters who wish to be empowered.

Given this end, there is no question that terrorism is an act of war and not a crime. The problem is defining the enemy. We know that all Muslims are not jihadists. We also know that all jihadists are Muslims.

In this war, the jihadists are hard to identify for the same reasons that they are in utter violation of the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention acknowledges the right of partisans – guerrillas – to be treated as soldiers. However, they must meet two criteria. First, they must carry their weapons openly. Second, they must wear clothing that identifies them as warriors.

The jihadists do neither of these things and, therefore, have no rights under the Geneva Convention – another point that has been utterly confused in Western debates. But giving up rights under the Geneva Convention does not give jihadists claim to the criminal justice system. In World War II, when soldiers were caught infiltrating out of uniform, the normal punishment on all sides was execution after a casual court martial. There was no concept that violators of the Geneva Convention had legal protections beyond military justice.

At the same time, the advantage of being out of uniform and hiding weapons was understood on all sides. The jihadists have a tremendous advantage in this. Since their primary goal is maximum casualties, explosives and rifles are the weapons of choice.

Since the goal of a war is to render the enemy incapable of waging war, that goal can be thwarted by covert operations. This strategy puts the defender in the position of waiting for the next attack and having to defend an impossibly large set of targets, or identify enemy operatives who have blended into the general population or are drawn from it. The best way to do this is to track known jihadist operatives and see who they make contact with.

Therefore, the Islamic State avoids contact with potential operatives. Instead, it encourages those with little or no direct contact with IS to design and execute terror attacks that maximize casualties and thereby shake the target country. Like all ideological movements, it is possible to both know the goal of the organization and participate in its realization in some way without having contact with the main organization.

This strategy was learned from the defeats of the Palestinian groups in the 1970s and 1980s. Modeled after Soviet-style organizations, these groups were self-enclosed and highly secure. The problem was that even the most secure organization could be penetrated.

What al-Qaida learned, and IS grasps even better, is that the cost of carrying out terrorism is organization. They must accept a degree of chaos in return for operations that are frequently unguided by the center. However, the lone wolves are alone only in the sense that they lack personal contact. They are deeply in contact with the ideology.

This brings us back to the challenge of defining who the West is at war with. The obvious answer is that the West is at war with the jihadist strand of Islam. The problem is that this strand is not only covert, but also embedded in the Muslim community as a whole.

This again proves why the Geneva Convention does not protect jihadists. In the Franco-Prussian War, French snipers hid in crowds to shoot at Germans. The Germans fired back hitting civilians. The framers of the Geneva Convention held the French, not the Germans, responsible for the carnage. Using civilians as cover for operations is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

It is nice to have the law on your side, but it doesn’t solve the problem of how to wage this war. The enemy is indistinguishable from friends. You can only identify the jihadists by intruding deeply into the community, and beyond. You can intercept phone calls, but hardly any will provide clues and, given the volume of calls, they cannot all be intercepted. You can also plant operatives in mosques. There are many actions that can be taken – but all are obnoxious to American values.

It should be remembered that, in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the right to habeas corpus. During World War II, Roosevelt imposed intensive censorship and spied on Congress. But all knew that at some point these wars would end. Fighting the jihadist war will likely take a long time, and suspending liberties for long would change the character of the Republic. It might also generate hostility towards the government, a goal of the jihadists.

This is merely one of the challenges that must be debated. But it cannot be debated until we face some truths. This is a war and jihadists are the enemy. Not all Muslims are jihadists, but all jihadists are Muslims. There are other terrorist groups and other causes of death, but none have as extravagant plans for doing us harm as the jihadists.

Giving up liberties may be too high a price, but we should be honest in admitting the price we will pay. In addition, some tactics may seem plausible, but will not solve the problem in the end. Stopping Muslims from coming to the country, for example, may seem reasonable to some, but a child could get around that barrier. We must be honest that the war, which has raged for 15 years, will go on for a long time to come. We can bring our troops home. But jihadists may follow them. All of these things must be honestly considered. But we like to lie to ourselves, and that’s the real enemy.

Chris Kyle, ‘Savages,’ And Moral Language In A Terrorist Age

Chris Kyle, ‘Savages,’ And Moral Language In A Terrorist Age
‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle was perfectly justified in calling terrorists ‘savages.’

By Owen Strachan and Andrew Walker
FEBRUARY 12, 2015

America finds itself squared with an enemy in ISIS that utilizes tactics one can only call evil and nightmarish. It crucifies, beheads, and burns its enemies alive. The recent video of a Jordanian pilot writhing in flames, for example, has sparked moral outrage, and rightfully so.

It’s in this context that the “American Sniper” film has proven one of the most culturally explosive films in years. In particular, we’ve heard much discussion of Chris Kyle’s use of the word “savages” to describe the terrorists he fought overseas—and which he would certainly call ISIS, or the Islamic State, if he hadn’t tragically been killed. Kyle has been routinely criticized for drawing a sharp line between good and evil.

Kyle wrote the following of the terrorists he opposed in his autobiography (also entitled “American Sniper”):

Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy ‘savages.’ There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there (4).

Of his kill count, Kyle wrote this:

The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives. Everyone I shot in Iraq was trying to harm Americans or Iraqis loyal to the new government (4).

These comments—and others—have drawn a great deal of attention since the film debuted in December 2014. The most serious critique regarding these passages is that Kyle has dehumanized his enemy and, in doing so, has justified even harsher retaliation at the hands of American military forces. This is a substantial charge that we believe demands a better answer than it has received. Our response is threefold.

Chris Kyle Did Not Demonize Anyone

He called evil what it was. Like virtually all American combatants in Iraq, Kyle saw the opposing side commit evil acts, over and over again. He watched a mother put her child in mortal jeopardy by pulling a grenade pin. He saw the enemy use children for shields. Those he fought frequently took drugs to ramp themselves up for combat, and they were driven not by a sense of virtue, but “blood lust,” as Kyle noted.

At one point, Kyle and his unit found the following scene:

In this one house, we heard faint moans as we went down into the basement. There were two men hanging from chains on the wall. One was dead; the other barely there. Both had been severely tortured with electric shock and God knows what else. They were both Iraqi, apparently mentally retarded—the insurgents had wanted to make sure they wouldn’t talk to us, but decided to have a little fun with them first (163-64).

The grisly scene, captured briefly in the cinematic form of “American Sniper,” was beyond words:

The second man died while our corpsman worked on him. There was a black banner on the floor, the kind the fanatics liked to show on their videos when beheading Westerners. There were amputated limbs, and more blood than you can imagine. It was a nasty-smelling place (164).

This is evil in its purest form. It is what Kyle and his fellow Americans were in Iraq to fight. Kyle did not sacrifice his time and energy to stereotype people (even as he has been stereotyped). He traveled far from the comfort and pleasure of home to oppose wickedness and protect the innocent.

Chris Kyle saw evil. He saw savagery. He named it, and for that he is a pariah to the American Left.

Kyle’s Remarks Referred to Behavior, Not Ontology

Kyle said some strong things, to be sure. He notes throughout his autobiography that he struggled with hating the enemy. This is a common experience for soldiers of all sides, and we can be honest about it. It is far from ideal, but this is part of the effect of the fog of war, of trying to kill someone whose goal is to kill you.

A preening minority has focused a great deal of attention on the just exploits of a conscionable soldier and correspondingly little attention on the terrorists who made his sniping necessary.

Kyle was a tough customer. He used rough language and sometimes shot off his mouth. But he wasn’t calling innocent people savages. He also wasn’t speaking to the inherent worth of those he fought. He was referring to insurgents and terrorists who had freely chosen to target civilians and destroy the moral and sociopolitical order of Iraq. They tortured disabled people. They blew up children. They created anarchy and chaos in order to stop the many civic-minded Iraqis who wanted to build a stable society.

The pushback against Kyle is both ironic and instructive. It is ironic because a preening minority has focused a great deal of attention on the just exploits of a conscionable soldier and correspondingly little attention on the terrorists who made his sniping necessary. It is instructive because the West has largely lost any sense of martial virtue. Now, we are taught, war is wrong, and anyone who partakes of it is equally implicated. There is no honor in war. So say those who depend upon soldiers to be able to advocate their opinions (precious few of whom have gone without Wi-Fi for a day in their lives, let alone faced an actual terrorist).

This is nonsense of rare vintage. Despite what one cloying, under-performing “war” movie after another has alleged (“In the Valley of Elah” and “Grace Is Gone” are just two of a closet-full of titles currently swimming in mothballs), good and evil are real forces in the world. It is right to oppose evil. The Nazis embraced savagery, and killed innocents. They became savages in their behavior. So do terrorists of the modern era. They more than merit the title of “savage.”

To call evil “savagery” is not to justify harsher, capricious treatment in return. Our position requires consistency and fair application. Were U.S. soldiers to ever act in similar barbarism, they, too, would be acting savagely. America has rules of engagement, a well-defined system of accountability, and it subjects offenders to trials in courts of law. This is moral realism in practice. Borders do not determine good and evil. American militancy is not barbarism, and our martial code both deplores it and guards against it.
Terrorists of the modern era more than merit the title of ‘savage.’

Our argument suggests that as humans deploy or embrace attitudes and actions that are intrinsically evil, they become further enslaved to sub-human irrationalities. This adopted madness mars the image of God we all naturally bear by a willful descent into irrational evil. Despite what some voices within the Christian tradition have alleged, this descent reveals that language invoking “savagery” is not wrong. Labeling an enemy a “savage” by virtue of their brutal, cruel tactics does not deny their ontology as image bearers of God. It does describe vicious, primitive, and barbaric acts as a descent into animalistic rage.It is not our use of such language that dehumanizes terrorist combatants. They willingly choose to become dehumanized by failing to resist either internal or external pressures to cooperate with evil. We are thankful that many understand this devolution. For example, a Princeton scholar and a diverse constituency recently released a petition that called the actions of ISIS “unconscionable acts of barbarism” and called for U.S. intervention.

Christian Theology Gives a Vocabulary of Rebuke

Christians has always been able to call evil by its first name, because Jesus Christ did the very same. Consider the following passage from the Bible: “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance’ (Matthew 3:7-8 ESV).”
Kyle stands shoulder-to-shoulder with many figures in the Christian tradition who have indicted the evil of the human heart.

Jesus also called his opponents by this term in Matthew 3:7 and 23:33. His apostles did not hold back, either. Peter called false teachers “irrational animals” and “accursed children” (2 Peter 2:12, 14). Paul thundered to the Galatian church, “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:12) These biblical figures made such strong pronouncements because they knew that wicked people existed. They recognized the church would lose its way if these false teachers were not opposed and the gospel of grace clarified. The stakes were too high for politesse.

What does all this have to do with Chris Kyle? He was not Jesus by a long shot. He, like every one of us, was imperfect. But he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with many figures in the Christian tradition who have indicted the evil of the human heart. We think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who famously said, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Solzhenitsyn’s witness won’t allow us to perform the amoral sleight-of-hand perfected by our sitting president, in which we condemn atrocities but fail to use the “e” word (“evil,” for the presidentially influenced). Good and evil exists within each of us. Without divine assistance and the cultivation of moral virtue, the descent into brutality and evil exhibited by a foreign enemy could easily sweep over each of us.

Chris Kyle Deserves Honor for His Moral Heroism

We find ourselves in a weakened age. Much of manhood has been carved out. Little of it is left. Part of what our culture has lost as a result is the moral discourse associated with virtue, and traditionally with manly virtue. We are not allowed to use black-and-white moral terms today.
The loss of our moral language leaves us a nation without a soul.

At best, we feel endless pressure to nuance and qualify and back-track. At worst, we offer vacuous moralisms about the messiness of war meant to indict each side’s guilt. We are losing our ability to make moral judgments, because moral judgments can only be expressed with cold, hard, right-and-wrong words.

The loss of our moral language leaves us a nation without a soul. Occasionally, however, a courageous person shouts so loud that he or she cannot immediately be silenced. The moral certitude of this voice is so strong, so unusual, that for a glorious moment, the censors of society are struck dumb. For a time, before he was cruelly cut down, Kyle filled this role, in his rough-and-tumble way. He did the unthinkable: he used language that was irrevocably moral.

That, alongside his courage and proficiency in battle, renders him something more than an American sniper. It renders him an American hero.

Owen Strachan is a professor at Southern Seminary and Boyce College, president of CBMW, and author of the forthcoming The Colson Way. Andrew Walker is the director of policy studies with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and the author of essays published in Time, First Things, and National Review.