The View From Olympus: Another Strategic Failure

On Wednesday, President Obama outlined his strategy for dealing with ISIS. It is a strategy set up for failure, because the means are insufficient to the desired ends.President Obama has set the goal as destroying ISIS. The phrase he used in his speech to the nation was "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS. Secretary of State John Kerry had already announced this objective. According to the September 8 New York Times, Kerry said, "We have the ability to destroy ISIL (ISIS). It may take a year, it may take two years, it may take three years. But we're determined it has to happen." The same day's Times reported on its front page,

The Obama administration is preparing to carry out a phased campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria that may take three years to eventually destroy the terrorist army . . ."What I want people to understand,“ Mr. Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press," "is that over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum" of the militants, "we are going to systematically degrade their capabilities; we're going to shrink the territory that they control; and, ultimately, we're going to defeat them," he added.

Those are maximalist objectives. But the means President Obama announced are not sufficient to attain them, absent a great deal of good fortune. This is not because the president is "weak." It is because the U.S. military is a one-trick pony. That one trick is to bomb. As President Johnson said in frustration during the Vietnam War, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, that's all my generals know how to do.“To see how inadequate the means are for the announced strategic ends, it is helpful to evaluate the President's plans on John Boyd's three levels of war: the physical, the mental, and the moral.Physically, the president's strategy relies on air power. The reasons air power alone will fail, as it always has, are many. The enemy quickly finds ways to conceal and protect himself from air attack. It's harder in desert country, but by no means impossible. Irregular light cavalry forces such as ISIS are difficult to distinguish from civilians from the air, and they will quickly intermingle their columns with traveling civilians so the air strikes kill women and kids. They will lose any specialized military equipment, but they don't depend on that.For an air campaign to be effective, it must act in cooperation with competent ground forces. In Kurdistan, those exist. They do not exist elsewhere in Iraq, as the disintegration of the Iraqi army demonstrated. Shiite militias will fight, but are usually poorly trained and bring moral baggage, as noted below. There could be an effective ground force working with our air power in Syria, in the form of the Syrian Arny of President Bashar al Assad and its highly competent ally, Hezbollah, but President Obama has ruled that out for ideological reasons. The "moderate Syrian opposition" he wants to rely on consists of twelve men living outside Syria in luxury hotels. It is a chimera.If our military were competent, it could offer the president the option of a small--2500 to 25,000-man--"Afrika Korps" that could employ maneuver warfare on the ground, cooperating with American air power, to serve as the chi force to the Iraqi Army's and militias' cheng force, much as Rommel did for the Italians in North Africa. But the Pentagon can't do that. The generals would quickly tell the President they would need at least 250,000 men to go in on the ground. Otherwise, the only option is bombing. So we'll bomb.We will supposedly create effective allies on the ground through American training. Has anyone else noticed that all the armies we train lose, starting with South Vietnam? We train them in obsolete Second Generation war, war dependent on vast firepower and logistics they do not and cannot have. We trained the Iraqi Army that just broke and ran. So the prescription is more of the same? Again, it is all the U.S. military knows how to do.On Boyd's mental level, a continuous air war above ISIS, similar to that which Israel has waged in Gaza, even during times of relative peace, will be wearing to ISIS and the civilians in areas it controls. ISIS will suffer attrition. But because it is just one problem that requires adaptation, not a cascade of ever-greater problems, it will not pull ISIS apart. Once you've seen the one-trick pony's one trick, you don't care much about seeing it a second time, or a five hundredth.It is on the moral level, Boyd's most powerful level of war, that President Obama's strategy is the weakest. The September 11 New York Times quoted one American "security official" saying, “We cannot be seen as the Shiite air force," but in Iraq that is what we will be. On the ground, we will be acting in support of an overwhelmingly Shiite Iraqi Army (what's left of it) and Shiite militia. That will drive Iraqi Sunnis toward ISIS.By attacking ISIS, a force with few air defenses, from the air, we will fall once again into the doomed role of Goliath endlessly stomping David. That will strengthen ISIS‘s moral appeal and serve as a highly effective recruiting tool for them.In the region where it operates, ISIS's moral strength is already great and growing. Contrary to what President Obama said Wednesday night, ISIS represents true Islam, pure Islam, Islam as it poured out of the Arabian deserts to overwhelm Christian North Africa and the Christian Levant in the 7th century. That gives it tremendous moral appeal to Arab Muslims, especially if they are young men with nothing to do, which is the one product Arab societies overproduce. As air attack has its usual effect of pushing those under bombardment closer together while giving them a burning desire for revenge against enemies they cannot reach, ISIS's power at the moral level of war will grow by leaps and bounds. Again, that is power at the most decisive level of war--against which all we can pose is some attrition.So failure is as guaranteed as anything in war can be. When President Obama's strategy fails, the war party in Washington will howl that America's "credibility" is at stake. President Obama or his successor will be subjected to great pressure, not to acknowledge failure and get out, but to escalate. That will mean, once again, sending hundreds of thousands of American troops to fight another war in the Middle East--and suffer another defeat, because we do not know how to fight Fourth Generation war.

Victoria: Chapter 26

Back when we were establishing the armed forces of the Northern Confederation – just Maine at the time – I had sent one of our Christian Marines, Captain Rick Hoffman, formerly of the U.S. Navy, down to Portland to see what might be done about creating a fleet. Hoff had his work cut out for him, since our only ship was the LPH John Ross pirated when he came north.I hadn't paid much attention since to what Hoff was up to, partly because we hadn't needed a navy yet and partly because he had a mission order and could be trusted to carry it out. I figured by now he ought to have done something, so I ordered him to our HQ in Worcester to help plan a naval battle."Waal, do we have a navy or don't we?" I asked the good captain when he reported in, "I hope we do, because we sure need one right now.""We have a navy of sorts," Hoff replied. "It's nothing the old U.S. Navy would have called a navy, but I think it can fight.""Can it cut the Islamics in Boston off from the sea?""I think it can, if we use a combined arms approach," Hoff replied."What do you have in mind?" I asked."We've developed two types of warships," Hoff explained. "I should call them 'warboats,' because they're pretty small. The first is a gunboat, armed with either a ‘Stalin organ’ multiple rocket launcher or a Russian 240 mm mortar. They are converted fishing boats, which means they can carry plenty of ammunition, but they're slow. Our second warboat type is torpedo boats, converted from speed boats.""Did the Russians send us torpedoes?" I asked."No. They don't have torpedo boats any more, and the experiments we tried shooting their submarine torpedoes from converted speedboats were not very promising: We're using spar torpedoes.""Spar torpedoes?" I asked, not sure I'd heard right. "Hell, those disappeared with the Civil War. I'm all for Retroculture, but isn't this taking it a little far? How will our crews survive ramming a torpedo on a stick into a Muslim destroyer?""We're a little more modern than that," Dick replied. "We're up to about the 1880s. After the Civil War, in Europe, navies developed spar torpedoes that could be towed behind and off to one side of a torpedo boat. Instead of ramming the target, the torpedo boat could cut ahead or astern of it, and the towed torpedo would still hit the ship’s side. That's the kind we've got.""Still sounds pretty risky to me," I commented."War is dangerous," Hoff reminded me."Well, you should have the advantage of surprise, anyway," I responded. "The Islamics won't be expecting a type of attack no one has made in more than a century. How do you plan to use your boats to cut Boston off from the sea?""There, I need some help," Hoff answered. "We can't do it alone. It has to be a combined arms operation – the old rock-paper-scissors trick. If we have surprise, and I think we will, I believe we can sink or disable the five warships the Islamics now have off Boston. Once the warships are gone, the transports are dead meat, and we can set up a blockade. What we can't do is deal with the warships they will send to replace those we sink, because by then they'll be on the lookout for our torpedo boats.“The best answer to those ships are our F-16s. But they can't operate near Boston so long as the Islamics have air cover out of Logan. So our navy needs to take out that air cover to allow our aircraft to keep their ships away.""Can you do that?" I asked."Yes, I think so," Dick said. "I've talked to the Boys in Utica, and they'll launch a massive feint toward Boston with every F-16 we've got at the same time we make our torpedo attack on the Islamic warships. That will make the Islamics launch their aircraft in response. Assuming our torpedoes hit, the way will be clear for our gunboats to blow the hell out of Logan airport. When the Muslim F-35s and F-16s get back, the only place they'll have to land is in the ocean. After that, our F-16s will have clear skies to defend the approaches to Boston from any more ships the Muslims may send.""OK, you've thought this through well," I said. "Combined arms is the answer. As always in war, the outcome is in the hands of Dame Fortune, but you've done everything possible to make her job easy. How soon can you do it?""It will take about three days to infiltrate our gunboats and torpedo boats into the Boston area," Hoff answered. "Their weapons systems are concealed, so they look just like other coastal traffic, which the Islamics haven't blocked. We want to attack at first light with the torpedo boats, when their warships will be silhouetted by the dawn and we can come out of the shadows. The gunboats will already be in Boston's outer harbor, posing as the fishing boats they were. Utica is ready now, so let's say we make D-day September 10th, four days from now. We need to move fast, or there won't be any white Christians left alive in Boston.""There may not be any by the 10th," I said, "The one thing Muslims seem to do efficiently is murder. Anyway, I'll need that time to get our ground forces in position to attack. We should move when you do, and we'll need to bring up artillery. A good artillery stonking should rattle them. But I fear we'll still face heavy urban combat, which is the nastiest job on the face of the planet.”"I'll leave that part to you. I'll be busy enough playing 'Canoes vs. Battleships,'” Hoff said. "But I do have a question for you. All the attempts at forced conversion to Islam we've seen in Boston, and all the crucifixions, have been of whites, Hispanics, and Asians. What has happened to Boston's black Christians?""Hmm, that is a good question," I answered. "To be honest, I hadn't thought of it. I guess I just assumed they were being left alone because they were black. But we shouldn't assume that. Islamics don't like black Christians any better than white Christians, as they've shown by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of them in Africa. I'll look into it."

***

After Hoff left for Portland to get his Navy moving south, I asked our intel officer, Capt. Walthers, what he knew about the fate of Boston's blacks. He hadn't asked the question either. But he said some blacks had fled through our lines, with the white refugees, and he'd see if he could find out what they knew.I went back to work, writing the orders to deploy our forces close-in around Route 128 in preparation for the assault. The Islamics still had not attacked us with air, but I didn't want their air recon to pick our movements up and tip them off something was coming. So we still had to move at night, on back roads, in small units. There were plenty of houses and barns to hide in during the daytime.That evening, just after I'd finished giving the last motorcycle courier movement orders for the artillery, Walthers rang me up."Skipper, I've got someone you may want to talk to, a black fellow who got out of Boston just last night. He says he knows you, and he knows what's happening to Boston's blacks. His name is Matthews.""Shit, Gunny Matthews? Yes, I know him. Send him up to my office.""Aye aye, sir. He's on his way."Mathews was the hero of the Christian Marines' first battle, the Battle of the Housing Project. I'd lost touch with him since. Whatever the Islamics were doing to Boston's blacks, it was great knowing he was still among the living.My door was open, as usual, and I soon saw a very downcast Gunny Matthews standing in it. I got up to shake his hand and congratulate him on his escape. He wouldn't take my hand, and he wouldn't look me in the eye. That wasn't the Gunny. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Are you hurt?""Terribly hurt, sir," he replied. "But I did it to myself. You don't want to shake my hand, sir, not after what I've done.""Sit down," I ordered. "Now, what's this crap all about? You're still a Christian Marine, and you're still my friend. What happened to you?""No sir, I'm not a Christian Marine anymore. I'm not a Christian any more. I have some information I think you should hear, sir, but once I've told you, and told you how I got it, I'll be gone. I'm not fit to be around decent people no more."“As your commander, I'll be the judge of that," I replied. "Tell me what happened to you, what you did, and most important, what you know about the fate of Boston's black Christians.”“Yes, sir. Well, sir, you know what's been happenin' to the white folks in Boston. Back in our churches, we wondered whether the Black Muslims would do the same to us. A few days after they started crucifying white Christians there on the Common for everyone all over the world to see, they began rounding up black folk, too. We all knew people who 'disappeared.' Some came back as Muslims. They told us they'd seen other blacks refuse to convert, but they didn't know what happened to 'em.”“So, sir, I decided to try and find out. I went straight to the Black Muslim's headquarters in the State House and told ‘em I wanted to become a Muslim. I figured if I volunteered, they'd trust me more, and maybe I could find something out.”“So I did it. I said the words, ‘There is no god but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet.’ I turned my back on Jesus Christ, sir, and I denied him. That's why I said I can't be a Christian Marine any more. Of course I didn't mean it, it was a, what did you used to call it? Something French, oh, yeah, it was a ruse de guerre. But still I said it, so I guess I'm no Christian anymore.”“But it worked, sir. They'd had a few other people just come in and volunteer, but not many, so I was something special. They gave me the rank of major in their Black Muslim army, and some Arab handed me a whole bunch of his country's money. They put me on the staff that was overseeing the conversion of other black people to Islam. There, I found out what they're doing to black Christians who won't convert.”The Gunny paused, whether for breath or for drama I didn't know. "And what are they doing to them?" I asked, playing my part.“They're selling them, sir. As slaves, back in the Arab countries. When a plane or a ship arrives with Muslim troops or equipment, it doesn't go home empty. It goes back filled with black Christians, sir, to be sold as slaves."“You're sure of this?” I asked, realizing we'd just been handed a potent weapon if it were true.“Yes, sir. I've got proof. I've got it with me.” Gunny Matthews reached into a canvas bag he'd been carrying and hauled out a bundle of hand-written notes.“The Arabs, once they had the black folk who wouldn't convert rounded up, told 'em what was gonna happen to them. They thought they'd get some more converts to Islam that way. And they did get a few. But most black Christians are strong folk, sir. They're like the church ladies you remember. Unlike me, they wouldn't deny their Lord and Savior, Jesus.”“After they'd been told they were goin' back into slavery, when I could be alone with them, I told 'em that if they wanted to write their families and tell 'em where they were going, I'd try to get the letters through. These are their letters. I'd still like to get them to their families, like I promised, sir, but I thought you might have some use for them first.”“Gunny, you done good,” I said, with a grin on my face. “I think it's safe to say I – we – will make very good use of those letters. Are you ready to go on the air, letters and all?”“Sir?”“Gunny, the forces of the Northern Confederation are about to attack, to liberate Boston. You have just given me the keys to the city. If you'll do it, I'll call a news conference where you will tell the whole world's media what you just told me, and you'll show them the letters. I'll time it so it hits Boston right before our assault. I suspect every black in Boston, including the Black Muslims, will go for the throat of the nearest member of the Islamic Expeditionary Force as soon as he hears what his ‘allies’ have been up to. We'll have those camel-drivers between two fronts and they'll collapse in a heart-beat. You've given me the most powerful psychological weapon since Germany shipped Lenin to St. Petersburg in 1917.”“I'll do whatever you want to help my people, sir. All my people, black and white,” the Gunny replied. “I know I'm not a Christian any more, but to me, all Christians are still my people.”"Gunny, listen to me. You're still a Christian, as good a Christian as any and better than most,” I said. “Remember a guy named Peter? He denied Christ three times before the cock crowed, and he was the rock on which Christ built his Church. Christ knew what you were doing. I strongly suspect he put you up to it. Your idea was too good not to come from the Holy Spirit.”“I don't know what the one unforgivable sin is, but it surely isn't using a ruse de guerre. Not only are you still a Christian Marine, when you get to Heaven, I suspect they'll have a special big show when they give you your crown, with all those good Church Ladies belting out some Gospel number to shake the rafters. As I said, you done good. And you've helped save the lives of lots of other Christians, including my troops.”I could see relief dawning in the Gunny's face. Planting some hope was all I could do now, because we had a city to storm.

***

September 7, 8, and 9 were days of gut-wrenching tension. Our troops and "warboats" were moving into position. Gunny Matthews was briefing key members of the international press on the fate of Boston's blacks, with release embargoed until noon on the 9th. The weather forecast for the 10th was good for our navy; some morning fog then clear, with light winds. Our infantry was deployed to attack, not on major routes, such as I-90 and I-93, but on all the back roads and minor streets. The Islamic Expeditionary Force had focused on defending the major roads, leaving the small stuff to their Black Muslim allies. I was relying on Matthews' message to clear them.Meanwhile, all I could do was wait and gulp down Maalox. Bill Kraft reminded me of what von Rundstedt did when he got the word that the Allies were landing on the beaches of Normandy. He went out into the garden and trimmed the roses. He had already done all he could, and anything more would just get him into his subordinates' knickers where he shouldn't be. It was a good lesson, but it didn't untie the knots in my stomach.The first action opened on schedule at noon on the 9th. At a massive press conference with reporters from all over the world, Gunny Matthews told his story. We beamed it into Boston, live, on radio and television. Then, the Gunny read, over the air, all the letters he had brought out with him. We knew they would authenticate his account in the minds of our Boston listeners, because the names and family events mentioned in them would be recognized. Those who heard the words of their own wife, husband, child, or grandparent would tell others the letters were real.By the evening of the 9th, Boston was crackling with light weapons fire, and the deeper reports of tank guns and RPGs were starting to be heard. Boston's blacks were turning on their Islamic “friends.”At first light on the 10th, among the fog banks drifting outside Boston's harbor, the lookouts on the five Islamic destroyers and frigates spotted some small boats messing about at low speed. Some were fishing boats, others the kind of speedboats used to run hashish between ship and shore in a trade both sides made money from. Nothing seemed unusual, on a blockade that had never been challenged. The lookouts knew the infidels had no navy, and besides, it was time for morning prayers.Precisely at prayer time, the speedboats gunned their engines and turned sharply toward the Muslim warships, on courses that would take them across their bow or stern. The spar torpedoes ran about 20 feet outboard of the torpedo boats and 100 feet astern. The morning calm was broken by the deep booming of underwater explosions as 250 pound charges blew truck-sized holes in the Prophet's war galleys.At the same time, the Islamic air controllers at Logan Airport picked up a mass formation of incoming Northern Confederation F-16s on their radar. Within minutes, Saudi F-35s were scrambling to intercept, followed by everything else that could fly. No one noticed that on the fishing boats near the end of the runways, crewman were taking the canvas covers off tubes planted amidships. The first rounds from our gunboats' mortars and rocket launchers began impacting the runways and support facilities at 06:40. There were no Islamic warships to interfere.Our zoomies badly wanted to get into furballs with the Islamic fighter aircraft, but I had forbidden it. Our pilots were better, and I was sure we would win, but I was also sure we'd take some losses. Never fight an enemy you can destroy without fighting. True to their orders, our F-16s turned tail and fled west when they picked up the lead Saudi F-35s closing on them. The Islamic aircraft turned back also, jabbering on their radios about how the Christian dogs were hopeless cowards. They got back to Boston to find Logan a burning heap of wreckage. Some tried to land anyway and became one more wreck amid the potholed runways. Others tried putting down on highways; the ones that made it were captured by our advancing infantry. Most ditched in the bay.With the Muslims' air force wiped out, our F-16s launched a second strike, this time for real. They finished off two Islamic warships that had remained afloat after our torpedo attacks, sank the Islamic transport ships and strafed and cluster-bombed the Muslim armor and artillery.Our ground assault had also kicked off at first light. Our infantry walked into a city-sized civil war. Everywhere, blacks were fighting troops from the Islamic Expeditionary Force. Militarily, the result was to open the door to us, since the blacks had gone after the Arabs, who were mostly on the main roads. The back streets were clear.Without any direction from General Staff headquarters, our forces moved to encircle the regular Islamic units. That made me proud, because it showed that the concept of achieving a decision through encirclement had taken hold. The effect in this case was a double encirclement: first a ring of blacks around the foreign forces, then an outer wall of Northern Confederation forces around the blacks.The question was, how would the blacks react? Would they fight both us and the foreign troops? Or would they welcome us as friends and liberators? Around noon on the 10th, I realized this would be the decisive question. It was not something I could determine sitting in an office in Worcester, no matter how good the comm (and ours was good, thanks to using Radio Shack gear and not the garbage the old U.S. forces had bought through their Soviet-model procurement system). I had to be there to get a feel for it. So I grabbed the chopper we kept ready at the door, and had a motorcycle recon squad meet me at Waltham. I took a soldier's bike and the rest of the squad led me into the city.A major pocket had been closed just south of Waltham, along I-90, between Newtonville and Route 128. In it was most of the Islamic armor, which had been put there to block an armor thrust by us that never happened. We'd blown bridges on I-90 before and behind the armor, so it couldn't move. On the other hand, we didn't have the heavy weapons to take it out. Tactically, it was a Mexican stand-off, but operationally they were toast because their shipping was gone.John Ross and his Marines had led the column that created this pocket. I found him on I-90, just west of the blown bridge that cut the road back to Boston. In our army, he wasn't surprised to find the Chief of the General Staff arriving on a dirt bike.“How's it goin', John?” was my formal greeting.“It's goin' good, best I can tell,” Ross replied. “From what I hear on the net, the rest of the Arabs are either caught in pockets like these guys, or are running for the harbor, where they'll find their ships sunk.”“It's over for the Islamic Expeditionary Force,” I said. “All that's left is for us to cut up their U.N. blue berets and use 'em as toilet paper. But it's not them I'm worried about. It's the local blacks. How are they reacting to you?”“None of them are shooting at us, and I've made sure we don't shoot at them,” John answered. “The black civilians have welcomed us and given us some good intel. Of course, most of them are Christian. You notice the markings on our vehicles?”I hadn't. John took me over to the Dodge pickup he was using as a command vehicle. Painted on the side was a white shield with a red Crusader cross. “You'll find this on just about every vehicle in our army. The men came up with it on their own, as we waited in our jump-off points,” he said. “The cross tells the local Christians we are friends.”“But the black troops are Black Muslims,” I said.“I think most of them are galvanized Muslims,” John replied. “And they all know what their Muslim 'brothers' have been doing to fellow blacks who wouldn't convert. I think many of them would come over to us, if we could talk to them.”“Why don't we try?” I suggested.I broke a whip antenna off a vehicle, tied my handkerchief to it and started walking forward. John Ross came with me, as did a Catholic chaplain, Father Murphy.The Black Muslims had built a small barricade of trucks and overturned cars between themselves and us. Beyond it, further west on the pike, they had a larger barricade built the same way between themselves and the Arabs. Periodically, the Arabs sent a tank shell into it, and the blacks responded with light weapons fire.As we approached the smaller barricade, we could see weapons pointed at us. “Stop,” a voice called out. “What d'ya want?”“We want to talk with you,” I replied. “A white flag means parley.”After about a minute of silence, another voice called, “Who do you want to talk with?”“All of you,” I answered.Again, silence. Then someone in cammies carrying an AK stood up on the barricade. “OK, come on,” he said.We climbed over the barricade and found a couple hundred Black Muslim militiamen gathered in front of us. Their faces showed uncertainty, not hate. They were caught between one enemy and one might-be enemy, which was not exactly a comfortable position. The man who had told us to come on said, “I'm Captain Malik al-Shawarma. What do you have to say to us?”“What's your real name?” I asked.He hesitated a moment, then answered, “John Ross.”Our John Ross grinned, then said, “I'm John Ross too. Glad to meet a cousin I didn't know.”That got a few chuckles, which was a good sign. “Captain Ross, I've got two things to say to you and your men,” I said. “First, you've been had. You've been conned, you've been swindled. This “Islam” stuff is crap. You're not Muslims. And the whole Black Muslim bit itself is just Father Divine and the Reverend Ike and the Kingfish all over again – a few folks who get rich by selling you their shit.”“Most of you, maybe all of you, became Black Muslims not because you believed it as a religion, but as one more way to ‘get Whitey.’ Well, it's been a long time since Whitey sold you as slaves, as your Islamic ‘friends’ have done with your real friends and family members. In your hearts you know that what your mother or grandmother taught you is true; Jesus Christ is Lord. He's the One sitting up there, the One we'll all meet some day. It's not some damn camel-driver who sits at the right hand of God.”“We all get conned on occasion. I got conned by a car company once. I bought a Saab, which is what you do when you own one. You got conned by Mr. Farrakhan and a bunch of rug merchants, and you bought a false religion. Once you realize that and dump this Black Muslim garbage, we have no quarrel with you, nor you with us.”“That's the second thing I have to say,” I continued. “We don't want to fight you. And I don't think you want to fight us. If you do, you'll lose. The whole Islamic fleet is on the bottom of the bay. Our aircraft will sink any new fleet that comes within 250 miles of Boston. You've got no way out – except to join us instead of fighting us.”“What do you mean by ‘join you?’” one militiaman asked.“First, renounce Islam. Then, turn in your weapons and go home,” I replied.“Most of us know we was had by Islam,” Captain Ross said. “Anything that makes slaves of black people is our enemy. But we want to kill these Arabs. They sent my own grandmother into slavery. Can we keep our weapons until that's done?”“No,” I replied, “because we don't want to kill the Islamic Expeditionary Force. We want to capture it, then trade it for the black Christians who chose slavery over renouncing their faith.”“You mean you're gonna get our people back?” Captain Ross asked, amazed.“That's exactly what I mean,” I answered. “Anyone who is strong enough to accept slavery rather than renounce Christ is someone we want as a citizen. We don't care what color someone is. We care about what a person believes and how they behave. The black Christians of Boston are our people too, and we want them back.”The militiamen looked at each other in astonishment. They'd been told what the “white devils” wanted was to put every black they could lay hands on in the kind of camp where they only came out through the chimney. Now, we were saying we wanted to bring back blacks someone else had gotten rid of.As usual, the moral level of war was the strongest. A voice came from the crowd, “You got a deal.” The rest nodded their agreement.“OK, start stacking your arms over here,” I said. “I need volunteers to team with my men and talk to the rest of the Black Muslims in this city. Our deal is open to everyone. Who's willing to help?” More than one hundred hands went up.After tossing his AK on the pile, one militiaman came up to me. “When we accepted Islam, or thought we did, they had us say, ‘The only god is God, and Mohammed is his Prophet.’ What can we say now to become Christians again?”I turned to Father Murphy for an answer. “You've already been baptized, son?” he inquired. The militiaman nodded yes. “Well then, you're still a Christian. Jesus Christ sees into your heart. He doesn't need any magic formula to know you are His.”“Isn't there anything we could do to give up Islam?” asked another from what had become a growing group around the priest.“Well, I suppose there is,” Father Murphy replied. “Are you willing to take Communion from a Catholic priest?”Again, the nods said yes. And with that, Father Murphy took some crackers from an MRE and a half-drunk bottle of Ripple found among the rubble and said Mass. As he intoned the Words of Institution, more and more of the former Black Muslims gathered around him, until he had them all. Both John Rosses and I knelt with them to receive the Body of Christ. I still don't know how the crackers from one MRE provided the Host for all those people, but they did.

***

The battle was over in one day, and thankfully, our casualties were light, as was the damage to Boston. By the 11th, the encircled elements of the Islamic Expeditionary Force knew their fleet was destroyed and their exit closed, so they asked for terms of surrender. We assured them they would be treated as POWs and exchanged for Boston's blacks, provided they left their equipment undamaged. They agreed, and we inherited a huge park of the latest tanks, artillery, and air defense weapons. For real war, most of it was inferior to the older, simpler gear we already had, but we still found ways to use it. 70-ton tanks work fine as coast artillery.With the revelation of the Islamic trade in black slaves, the Black Muslims ceased to exist. The vast majority turned Christian, and were welcomed back by the church ladies as prodigal sons. “General” al-Shabazz became Willy Welly again, and took up his sax in the cause of the WCTU. Some people wanted to hang him, but the consensus in Boston was that the Martyrs of the Common would rather have a convert than a corpse.Boston again became the capital of Massachusetts, and Massachusetts, shorn of its long-standing liberal illusions, was accepted into the Northern Confederation. Connecticut and Rhode Island came in, too, giving us a solid, defensible block of the old northeastern United States. Again, I had hope of demobilization and peace.But our war wasn't over yet. The next battles would be against poisons within.

The View From Olympus: The Next Move

President Obama's reluctance to just "do something" about ISIS is correct. He should be applauded, not criticized, for saying we do not yet have a strategy to deal with ISIS. It is not a simple problem. I suggested a strategy in a previous column, but if we adopt it, no one will notice. It is covert and takes time to work.However, ISIS's execution of another American may put irresistible pressure on the president. If so, there is something he can do that would have an effect. It would not be decisive, but it would create a problem for ISIS.ISIS has wisely adopted the Hezbollah model for 4GW organizations.It not only fights, it also provides the people under its control (if they are strict Sunnis) good government. Taxes are lowered, officials don't require bribes to do something, crime is suppressed, and people get services the state should provide but long ago ceased to do so. The obvious goal is to build legitimacy, the coin of the realm in Fourth Generation war.The U.S. could drive a wedge between ISIS and the people to whom it is trying to appeal. We should announce that we will "severely punish" ISIS for its murder of American citizens, and warn all civilians to leave all town and cities under ISIS's control. Then, we pick a town or small city, not too large, not too small, and flatten it. Not just "precision" strikes from an F-18 or two; we hit it with every B-52 and B-1 that can fly. Most of the bombs will just be making the rubble bounce.Then, we announce that we may (or by implication may not) give other places the same treatment. If the civilians flee, ISIS loses its logistics base and it has shown it cannot protect them. If ISIS forces people to stay, then we do hit some more places and lots of civilians die. Either way, ISIS loses legitimacy. Its bonds with the population are damaged if not shattered.Such an operation--we might call it Templar Express--requires stronger nerves than the Washington Establishment possesses. It relfects the reality that in this situation, if you are going to do anything, it has to seem big. Strategically, it isn't. It will not destroy ISIS.The usual hand-wringers will howl if we flatten a place full of civilians, but the Hama rule applies. It has to be over fast. You cannot keep up  a campaign like this very long.As the FMFM 1A, Fourth Generation War (K.u.K Austro-Hungarian Marine Corps) argues, for a state to prevail in 4GW, it must either take a slow, patient, careful approach in which it may suffer more casualties than it inflicts, or it must get very violent very fast--and get it over quickly. That is the Hama model. Regrettably, the leadership of almost all states tries to split the difference, because that is what politicians normally do. But that guarantees that the state loses.In the event that we do not split the difference here--most probably because Obama has the courage to continue to do nothing until we can identify a strategy with some promise of success--the president would do well to remember in future teapot crises two bits of advice. The first is from President Nixon, who was far and away our best president on foreign policy in the 20th century: It can be useful to be thought just a little bit mad. The other advice comes from a fellow who had some prominence mid-century: if you are going to act in a crisis, your action should be "Eiskalt und Blitzschnell"--icy cold and lightning fast. And don't ever, ever split the difference.

Victoria: Chapter 25

Summertime, and the blacks were uneasy. It had been hot in Boston over the last week, and July was the usual month for the usual riots. Now, Massachusetts would have to look to itself to put them down. There was no more 82nd Airborne standing by just in case. But it shouldn't be all that hard. The traditional "whiff of grape" from the Massachusetts State Police usually sent the rats running for their holes, once they'd looted the Koreans and Jews. No reason it should be any different this time.I clicked on the radio and caught a reporter speaking from the Boston Common. "A green flag is flying from the State House, and fires have broken out throughout Back Bay," he was saying. "Columns of cars and trucks festooned with green streamers, full of armed blacks, have been moving through central Boston, heading across the Charles River into Cambridge and west on the Mass Pike toward Brookline and Suffolk. I see people dressed in white moving onto the Common for what appears to be some sort of rally. We're told to expect an announcement soon from the State House, where General Hadji al-Malik al-Shabazz now has his headquarters."This didn't sound right at all. What were the blacks doing on Boston Common and in Cambridge? That wasn't their turf. Green flags? Some Muslim general? Did the looters bump into a Shriners' parade and the two get mixed? I needed to get the gouge on this, fast, so I called John Kelly, our Christian Marines' Massachusetts commander and now a colonel in the State Police."Col. Kelly's not in his office at present," said his worried-sounding secretary. "Would you care to leave a message?""No, I need to talk to him right now," I replied. "Patch me through to him over your radio net.""I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that. Our radio net is being jammed," she told me.Shit, what kind of rioting blacks have an electronic warfare cell? "OK, don't worry about it," I told her. "I'll get a hold of him another way."We had a Christian Marines satellite phone network which we didn't use unless we had to. I punched in John's number, and after about 20 rings he picked up. "Ire, thank God," he panted, using an old nickname earned by my sunny disposition. "We've about had it here. At least you can get the word out.""Word about what?" I replied. "What in hell is going on? Isn't this the usual summer ghetto free-fried-chicken-and-watermelon riot?""No way," Kelly replied. "This is a Black Muslim operation to take over all of Boston. It's organized and it's disciplined. They've already moved their command element into the State House. I'm trapped with about 20 other state cops on the top floor of the left wing of the building. John, I'm afraid it's the Little Big Horn for us."My mind immediately began racing, thinking of what we could do to put together a quick rescue mission. If there was one person I didn't want to lose, it was John Kelly. "Do you have any way out of there?" I asked, which was a dumb question since he'd already said he was trapped."Negative," he replied. "They're using gas, and we don't have masks with us. We're trying to throw the gas grenades out the windows as they shoot them in, but they've already gassed us from floor to floor. I've lost a lot of guys, John, and I'm afraid we're all toast unless you can get here in a big hurry. I'm expecting another assault within half an hour, and we've got nowhere left to go."How fast could we move? We had a few helos down at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. That was about 50 miles from Boston, as the crow flies. We had to get a scratch crew together, and they'd have to plan en route. About all we'd be able to do is hover over Kelly's wing of the State House and lower some lines."Can you get to the roof from where you are?" I asked John."Negative," he replied. That meant we'd have to try to lower the lines near windows and hope they could grab them, then pull themselves up. It would be a desperate attempt, but it was a desperate situation. Better a wrong action than no action."OK, John, hold on as best you can. This time Major Reno is coming through. Let me get things in motion and I'll call you again," I said."Thanks, Ire," he replied. "Thanks for everything, not just this. Whatever happens to us, what the Christian Marines have done has made a difference. In the end, that's all that counts. Out here."I immediately rang up the CO of the helo outfit at Portsmouth and explained the situation to him. He said he'd have a crew in half an hour. It would take another half hour, at the least, to get to Boston. If we made it in time, there was still an excellent chance the helicopter would get shot down as it sat over the State House, a big piñata for everybody to blaze away at. But we had to try.I also called Governor Bowen to let him know what I was doing. As usual, he wouldn't take my call, which saved me having to get his approval. If he'd disapproved, I would have gone ahead anyway.I picked up the sat phone and called John Kelly again to let him know the cavalry was coming. It would be close, but we had a chance. Like last time, it rang and rang. Finally, I heard a click. "Who dis?" a voice said in an accent I recognized all too well. Maybe it was one of Kelly's men."Put Colonel Kelly on," I ordered."Allah is Great! Allah gon' kill all da white devils!" the voice replied. "All da white devils gon' burn in hell! Ha ha ha ha...."It was over for John. I hoped it had been quick.

***

I canceled the rescue mission, then sat back to think. Should the Northern Confederation get involved in this? Massachusetts was not a member of the Confederation. It had remained loyal to the federal government until there was no federal government. We didn't owe Massachusetts anything. And if Boston burned, maybe that was just desserts for all those decades of Kennedys and Welds and liberal cultural rot. Whenever anybody had tried to defend our old Western culture, they'd screamed "Intolerance!" and shut them down. Now, we could let them see what kind of "tolerance" they would get from the Black Muslims.On the other hand, Massachusetts still held a lot of good Christians within its borders. John Kelly had been one. I remembered the folks around the table at Tune Tavern, in south Boston, where the Christian Marine Corps was founded. What was happening to them now, and to the rest of the Irish Catholics in that neighborhood? And if the Black Muslims succeeded in Boston, what effect would it have on the blacks in upper New York state's cities, which were part of the Confederation? Islam had spread there as well, as it had among blacks in virtually every city in the old USA.I recognized it was time for some Prussian advice. Bill Kraft was still in town, waiting for our big victory banquet that was scheduled for August 4, a date he had insisted upon for reasons he wouldn't explain. I found him comfortably ensconced in a Victorian garret at his boarding house, his nose in Sigismund von Schichtling's criticism of von Schlieffen."You hear the news from Boston, Herr Oberst?" I asked, thinking I could take him by surprise with the latest scoop."Indeed," he replied. "It's not surprising. It's the opening of Phase Two.""Phase Two of what?" I inquired, slightly deflated but curious."America's Second Civil War," he answered. "You didn't think it was over, did you?""Well, I guess I did," I said. "I hoped so, anyway. You think what's going on up in Boston is of more than local importance, I take it?""Very much so, as you will see," he responded. "The war in America has just intersected the Third World War, which has been going on for at least fifty years. You know the war I mean: the war of Islam against everybody else. Have you forgotten how we ended up with Egyptians in Bangor?""No, but I didn't connect the two," I said. "Are you suggesting what's going on in Boston has been planned elsewhere?""Your naiveté would be charming, were you not Chief of the General Staff," he scalded. "I am expecting a call shortly from Geneva." Following the demise of the United States, the UN had relocated to the old League of Nations building there. "While we wait, you might wish to rummage about the 'Bismarck' shelf among my books. He will be more relevant than von Moltke to what is coming.""Instead, why don't you put your book down and let me tell you what I'm thinking?" I said.Kraft obliged graciously, overlooking my shot back at him, and I shared with him the conflict in my own mind about whether we should get involved in Boston. He listened, expressionless, and let me say my piece."Seen only within itself, this question is difficult, as you've found it," he replied once I was done. "But it is transparent if we see it in its larger context.""What we are, John, is the West. We are Christendom, at least its remnants. It was for the West that we left the United States, once that country was taken over by the cultural Marxists, who are enemies of Christendom. The Northern Confederation is a Christian nation, or it is nothing. We've already seen where nothing leads, and I do not think we will make that error again.""Islam is an enemy of Christendom, and a deadly one. It has been our enemy since its beginning. All of North Africa, the Levant, Turkey, these areas were once Christian. You can ask our Egyptians what happens to Christians in those places now.""If we are part of Christendom, then we must fight the Islamics, because they will attack us as soon as they think the odds favor them. If they succeed in Boston, they will try the same thing in every one of our cities. Nor should you think the appeal of Islam will be only to blacks. They will shape and tune their message to white audiences as well, and they will penetrate them. They will use any means that work. Saudi Arabia used to pay tens of thousands of dollars to any American citizen who would convert to Islam.""John, let me put it to you as a question," Bill concluded. "We decided we were on Christendom's side against Islam when we accepted those Egyptian Christian refugees in Bangor. Then, we took on someone else's fight. Do you think we can walk away from the same conflict when it's being fought on our own southern border?"Again, I realized I'd thought too small. Bill sometimes missed some of the trees, but he always saw the forest. "I guess you're right, because that's the strategic perspective," I said. "But what do we do about Governor Bowen? If he has to make a decision on this grand a scale, he'll break out in assholes and shit himself to death.""The Bowen problem will soon solve itself," Kraft answered. "He is permanently on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and one day he'll go over it. Meanwhile, the governors of Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York are for intervention. I've already talked to them. So is a majority of Maine's state legislators. They are prepared to call an immediate referendum on the issue if you, as Chief of the General Staff, formally recommend the Northern Confederation intervene. The Egyptians in Bangor will go to every town and farmhouse in the state to explain what Islam is and does. I think it will carry.""How long will that take?" I asked."Two or three weeks, at least," Bill replied."What do we do in the meantime?""Develop our plans and deploy our forces.""What happens to Boston before we get there?""The Black Muslims take it over. The whites will have to fight their way out. For reasons I don't yet understand, the Islamics are trying to encircle the city and keep the whites in. They may be planning to use them as hostages.""If they do, will it keep us from moving into the city?""We shouldn't move into the city," Bill said. "Casualties would be enormous, and much of Boston would be destroyed. In fighting for our culture, we don't want to destroy its monuments. The way to take a city is by siege. Remember, cities can't feed themselves.""We'll plan our deployment accordingly," I concluded. "Please convey my thanks for your assistance to the Prussian War Ministry."Bill grinned. "I will do so with pleasure. I'm sending dispatches to Koenigsberg this afternoon.""Not Berlin?""Sadly, we Prussians remain exiles, even in Germany."As I was putting my cover on and walking out Bill's door, the telephone rang. He motioned me to wait as he picked it up. "It's Geneva," he said in a stage whisper after the caller had identified himself. Bill said little, other than, "As I expected." After the call was finished, he turned to me. "The U.N. General Assembly has given its approval to sending a Muslim expeditionary force to Boston, under the U.N. flag. Russia will block it in the Security Council, but that won't matter. It's only a fig leaf, anyway. The real actor is the World Islamic Council, made up of every Muslim nation. I'm sure the expeditionary force was on its way before the Black Muslims made their move in Boston.""So for the first time, a World War will be fought on north American soil," I reflected. "I guess we couldn't luck out forever." I took my leave from Bill and went back to General Staff headquarters to set the new deployment in motion. It looked like there wouldn't be any demobilization in our future for a long, long time.

***

Within twenty-four hours of the U.N. vote, the first Islamic transport aircraft began landing at Logan airport, carrying a battalion of infantry from Muslim Bosnia. That was America's reward for helping establish a Muslim state in Europe in the 1990s. Two Egyptian squadrons of U.S.-made F-16s and one of Saudi Arabian F-35s came in to provide air cover; it was clear our New York Guard F-16 drivers would get some air-to-air action in this war. Three days later an Islamic naval task force arrived off Boston, including Iranian, Pakistani, and Indonesian destroyers and frigates, plus transports with 20,000 Egyptian and Iraqi combat troops equipped with tanks and artillery. The equipment was the best oil money could buy. As Bill Kraft had suspected, this whole thing was coordinated from the outset. Otherwise, it would have taken the Islamics months to respond with forces this large.On August 15, the people of Maine voted for war. The rest of the states in the Northern Confederation had already done the same, in their state legislatures. A Governors' Council met on the 16th, in Concord, New Hampshire, to make the formal decision. Bowen maintained a zombie-like detachment, saying not a word. His secretary said he was so doped up he could hardly walk. I was past anger, and felt genuinely sorry for him. He had never sought the office he now held, much less expected to be deciding on questions like war or peace. Why didn't he resign? No one would have thought worse of him for it. War proves many men inadequate to their tasks. It usually forgives those who get out of the way so others, more able, can do the job.On August 17, as darkness fell, we began infiltrating Northern Confederation forces into Massachusetts. I expected enemy air attack, so we moved in small groups, on back roads, at night. Speed of advance was not important. The Islamics had established a perimeter roughly along Route 128, and so far showed no signs of moving beyond it. I had begun to suspect that their planning didn't go beyond securing Boston, and they weren't sure what to do next.With the enemy's far superior fire power, I knew we couldn't stop them with a perimeter defense if they tried to break out. Instead, we put small outposts forward, a couple miles outside of Route 128. Their job was to watch, report, help the refugees who were still slipping out in some number, and block any supplies from going into Boston. Behind them, I set up a network of light infantry ambushes running as far west as Worcester, south to Fall River, and north to Methuen. It was good light infantry country, especially against an enemy who would probably stick to the roads. I kept our LAV and tank forces dispersed in small, concealed lagers north of the border on I-95 and west of Worcester along the Mass Pike. If the Islamics tried a major break-out, there would be plenty of time to concentrate to counter it, if in fact we wanted to concentrate. In the face of their air power, I thought we might prefer to use our mobile forces in motti tactics, just like our light infantry. If the enemy comes at you with a spear, you usually do better breaking the shaft than trying to dull the point.By the 25th, our forces were in place. The Massachusetts state legislature met in the Worcester train station and formally applied to join the Northern Confederation, putting all state forces under our command at the same time. There was no reaction from the Islamics, beyond some air reconnaissance missions. We doubted those saw very much.Boston was now besieged by land, but the Islamics had control of the sea, which meant they could stay in Boston as long as they wanted, just as the British did during the American Revolution. I spent my days considering what we could do about that and wondering just what they were up to in Boston.

***

We soon got an answer to my second question, and found out why the initial Black Muslim eruption had tried to trap as many whites as possible. On September 1, 2028, "General" al-Shabazz, who until the uprising had been known as Willy Welly in the upscale Roxbury nightclub and whorehouse where he played the saxophone, called a news conference to announce that "the triumph of the Prophet will begin in Boston, on the Common, on September 3, 2028." All news media, including those from the Northern Confederation, were invited to cover the festivities.At ten A.M. on September 3, the General Staff gathered around the TV in our temporary headquarters in Worcester to see the show. Al Jazeera gave us a ringside seat. I figured we would get a parade of some sort, sermons from various mullahs, and maybe some indication of what the Islamics would do next. At some point the Sitzkrieg had to end.The ceremony opened with General al-Shabazz giving a raving, largely incoherent sermon about "the sword of the Prophet" from a platform set up in front of the State House. Behind him were an array of mullahs from various Islamic countries, plus the commanders of the Islamic Expeditionary Force in their U.N. blue berets.Then, twenty whites, obviously prisoners, were marched out in front of the platform. Several were in the torn and bloody remains of a uniform of a Massachusetts state trooper. I stared intently at the screen. My God, that's John Kelly! I couldn't be sure, because the prisoners' backs were to the camera, but the way the guy carried himself was just like John, both hard and loose, ready for anything. I prayed silently, Lord, let it be John. Let us have him back. Then I stopped short, realizing we didn't know the script for this play. John might be better off dead.A mullah was introduced as the Ayatollah Ghorbag from Qum, in Iran, and he came down from the platform. Standing in front of the first prisoner, he said, in English, the Islamic formula: "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is his prophet." The prisoner responded by repeating the same words back to him, making himself a Muslim. The Ayatollah then handed the new convert a crucifix, which he dropped on the ground and stomped.The shabby little rite went on, working slowly down the line of whites. Then, after seven worms in a row had turned, somebody dropped their lines. The Ayatollah was standing before the man next to the state trooper I thought might be John. The prisoner repeated the magic words: "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet." The Ayatollah held out the crucifix. But the trooper drove his shoulder, hard, into the new Muslim's arm, reached out for the crucifix and snatched it from the startled Ayatollah. I could see the side of the trooper's face as he turned – it was John! The Christian Marines' Massachusetts commander held the crucifix up, kissed it, shouted "Vivat Christus Rex!" and drove his big, black Mass state trooper boot into the Ayatollah's groin. The mullah bent doubled, and John smashed both his fists and the crucifix down on the back of his neck. Ayatollah Ghorbag went down like a bag of manure.Around the television, we all yelled, "Arugah!"Black Muslim guards poured out from around the platform and fell on John. I expected them to kill him on the spot, but they just held him down. The unconscious Ayatollah was carried off, another mullah took his place and the ceremony resumed.But John's courage proved infectious. When the Muslim cleric said the formula to the next man in line, he said nothing back. So it went, until they came to the only woman in line. She was straight-backed, had certainly seen her 65th birthday, and looked every inch a Boston Brahman. Before the mullah could say anything, she announced, "I am Mrs. Elliott Cabot Lodge. I was baptized in the Church of the Advent, I was married in the Church of the Advent, and I shall be buried from the Church of the Advent. Nothing you may say to me will make the slightest difference." If the mullah didn't understand all she said, her expression was unmistakable. It perfectly summed up the words, "High Church Anglican." Wisely, he passed her by. Between her example of Christian courage and John's, only two other prisoners converted to Islam.General al-Shabazz then took the podium again, to announce that all the "white idolaters" the Black Muslims had captured would be given an opportunity to convert to Islam. "Those who refuse," he shrieked, "will die a dog's death!" Uh-oh, I thought. Here it comes.The guards grabbed those who had remained true to their Christian faith, shoved them together and marched them across the street onto the Common. There, crosses were waiting. The Islamics made sure the Al Jazeera cameras got a clear view as the prisoners, starting with John, had nails driven through their wrists and their feet into the wood of the cross, which was then erected. John said the Nicene Creed, in Latin, as the hammers pounded. Mrs. Lodge wept, but she didn't scream.Death by crucifixion is slow, and Al Jazeera didn't stay for the end. An Egyptian soldier we captured later told us John Kelly took two days to die.The Islamics set up an assembly line process on every side of the Common, where the ceremony went on all day, every day. Most whites had managed to escape the city, but we figured they had captured between fifty and one hundred thousand. Thousands converted. Thousands refused. The Common soon was crowded with crosses, to the point where it looked like a convention of short telephone poles, each holding the broken body of a Christian martyr. They even had special, tiny crosses for the children, who gasped and wheezed out their breath looking over the little lake where the swan boats used to sail.As can happen in a siege, the advantage of time had turned. The Black Muslims could hold Boston forever, so long as they controlled the sea. But we had to do something. We couldn't just sit there and watch our fellow Christians die horribly.The people of the Northern Confederation were with us, every man and woman, now. They knew why this had to be our fight, and why we could not let Islam get a foothold on our shore. They would accept the casualties of a direct assault. But the Islamic Expeditionary Force had enough troops in the city that I was sure an assault would fail.Their critical vulnerability was the sea. That's where we had to attack.

The View From Olympus: The Origins of Our Distress

In an earlier column I referenced Thomas Friedman's interview with President Obama, published in the August 9 New York Times. The interview is worth revisiting, because it yields important clues to the origins of our failures and distress.Before I criticize the president, let me make two points. First, in the interview President Obama demonstrates a far more realistic view of the world than that of his childish predecessor, George W. Bush. Second, the errors in President Obama's world view are shared by virtually the whole Washington Establishment. The most prominent and damaging disconnect from reality, hubris, is worse among Republicans, where howlers for endless war everywhere such as Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham are still taken seriously by some.That said, the magnitude of the Establishment's hubris shines through President Obama's statements. Nowhere is it more clear than in his statements about Libya, where our intervention against Qaddafi destroyed the Libyan state and created another petri dish for Fourth Generation forces--exactly as I predicted at the time. Friedman quotes Obama saying,

I'll give you an example of a lesson I had to learn that still has ramifications|to this day. And that is our participation in the coalition that overthrew Qaddafi in Libya. I absolutely believe that was the right thing to do (emphasis added) ...when everybody is feeling good and holding up posters saying, "Thank you, America." At that moment there has to be a much more aggressive effort to rebuild societies that didn't have any civic traditions.

Friedman summarizes what was presumably more discussion of Libya by writing,

Intervening in Libya to prevent a massacre was the right thing to do, Obama argued, but doing it without sufficient follow-up on the ground to manage Libya's transition to more democratic politics is probably his biggest foreign policy regret.

What on earth leads the Establishment to think America can go into a country with a radically different and largely dysfunctional culture, about which it knows virtually nothing, and "manage its transition to more democratic politics," much less "rebuild societies that didn't have any civic traditions?" Who do the Establishment think they are? Merlin? The Archangel Michael? The degree of hubris is astonishing. The United States, or any foreign power, has no more ability to do those things than we do of commanding the tide to recede.More, what President Obama proclaims is a "lesson he had to learn" shows that the Establishment cannot learn. The obvious lesson from Libya is that if you overthrow a tyranny, what you get in most of the world is anarchy. But he does not draw that lesson, concluding instead that we must somehow do more to turn these flea-bitten fly-blown third-world hellholes into Switzerland. Here we see the rigid limits the Establishment has set to learning from experience. The lesson cannot be that its ideology of "democratic capitalism" is at odds with reality, despite its repeated failures. Anyone who dares draw that lesson immediately ceases to be a member of the Establishment. Instead, the ideology must be preached all the more stridently, and dissenters banished ever-farther from the seat of power.The sin of hubris runs through much of the remainder of the interview. Speaking of the Sunnis in the Middle East, President Obama says, "Unless we can give them a formula that speaks to the aspirations of that population . . ." Who are we to think we can give the locals "formulas" to solve problems that go back more than a millenium? Of the Iraqis, he says, "We can help them and partner with them every step of the way . . ." After a decade of showing we don't know down from up in Iraqi society, how are we supposed to "help them and partner with them" instead of just making everything worse, as we have already done in spades? Again and again, we see the same point proven: the Establishment cannot learn.Two other sources of our distress shine through the president's remarks, both, like hubris, common throughout the Establishment. Discussing ISIS, he told Friedman,

the question for us has to be not simply how we counteract them militarily but how we are going to speak to a Sunni majority in that area ... that, right now, is detached from the global economy.

Besides the fact that the Pentagon hasn't a clue how to deal with ISIS militarily, because all it knows how to do is drop bombs, the assumption shining through here is that the Sunni-Shiite civil war could be settled if only its participants were involved in the “global economy." The Establishment cannot grasp that religion, race, and nationalism are far more powerful motivators than is economics. Globalism, with its hollowing out of the state, is in fact paving the way for more primal war, fought for age-old reasons by entities that are not states.And in his discussion of the dangers of political maximalism, concerning which he is both prudent and correct: the president said, “And the more diverse the country is, the less it can afford to take maximalist positions." That is true. The more diverse the country, the more difficult and dangerous its politics, the more likely it is to splinter in civil war. Yet President Obama, like all the Establishment, is a fervent believer in more "diversity" -- which in the coded language of cultural Marxism means diversity of everything except thought. The President wants more immigration, more emphasis on cultural divisions already present within this country, more rubbing raw every difference of race, sex, and class. Why cannot he, and the rest of the Establishment, perceive that "diversity" is likely to be the undoing of America, that we need, if the country is to survive, what it used to have, one common people and culture?The answer: again, is the willful blindness demanded by ideology. Of all the poisons unleashed by the French Revolution, ideology remains the most deadly.

Victoria: Chapter 24

I scheduled a meeting with Governor Adams on the 19th to discuss the Confederates’ offer. I saw no reason to refuse it. So far, the war with the federal government had been going just as we planned it, at small cost to ourselves. When that happens, a General Staff officer should become wary. War never works that way for very long.My phone rang at 7:19 on the morning of the 19th. The officer in charge of the governor's security detail was on the other end. "John, I've got bad news," he said, breathing heavily and obviously shaken up. "Governor Adams is dead. He was shot just six steps outside the Governor's mansion, as he left to meet you down at Mel's. It was obviously a professional job. He took one round in the head from a .50 caliber sniper rifle. We didn't hear a report, so the weapon was either silenced or it was a long-range shot or both."I was stunned; John Adams was a competent leader and also a good friend. But I knew this was war, and stunned or not I had to think. "How do you know it was a .50?” I asked."Because there's nothing left of his head," the security officer, Lieutenant Bob Barker, replied.Good reasoning, Sherlock, I thought. American Army special operators used a silenced .50 cal sniper rifle. The silencing wasn't very effective, so the shot had to have been taken at long range. Good shooting at long range also suggested federal spec ops boys."OK, Bob, secure the site and get the governor's remains in for a fast autopsy. We need to confirm that it was a .50 caliber round from a standard U.S. Army sniper rifle. I'll take it from there."My job was to get the sniper team before it could leave town. I immediately sent out three messages. The first was to all local regular forces, ordering them to sweep the area, starting with long-range vantage points that overlooked the shooting site. The second was to mobilize the militia and get them searching. The third was to the Augusta radio stations – with electric power down because of the fuel situation, everybody carried a battery-powered transistor radio – announcing the governor's assassination and requesting all citizens to search for and apprehend any suspicious parties.As I expected, the old "hue and cry" brought the best results. When Mrs. Seamus McGillicuty heard her dogs making a racket out by the chicken coop, she got suspicious and called the militiaman three doors down. He phoned in a report, took his shotgun and covered the coop. We had troops on the scene in fifteen minutes, and they soon had in custody three very fit men in black jumpsuits with trademark Delta Force mustaches.I ordered the prisoners taken to the town jail, then went over to meet them myself. I was 90% certain who they were, but I needed to be absolutely sure before accusing the federal government of war by assassination. The first rule of good propaganda is to make sure the facts are accurate.A crowd surrounded the building – word always spreads fast in situations like this – and our men had difficulty getting the suspects into the jail in one piece. Governor Adams had been more than popular. He had been honored by a people grateful for a public official who had put his country ahead of himself. Under the old American republic, that type had almost disappeared.I had the prisoners marched into the interrogation room. "Gentlemen," I began, "I regret to say you have been caught out of uniform. Black jump suits may be your unofficial uniform, but I am afraid unofficial doesn't count. Under the laws of war, I can have you taken out and shot right now. However, I am prepared to be lenient. If you will give me your names, ranks, and serial numbers, as the laws of war require you to, I will grant you POW status and treatment." Names, ranks, and serial numbers were all I needed to confirm they were from the American military.I got back nothing but distant, silent stares."Very well, we'll do this the hard way," I continued. "Until you are prisoners of war, you have no protections." I pointed to the shortest member of the group. "Rack him." I ordered.A few months back, a grizzled old Yankee in worn but clean overalls had approached me down at Mel's. He said he was too old to fight, but he wanted to do something for the cause. So he'd turned his skill as a cabinet-maker to creating a device he thought our military intelligence branch might someday find useful, namely, a rack. Would I accept it as his service to the Northern Confederation?His patriotism touched my heart, and my head remembered a line from one of my favorite lieder, the auto-da-fe song from Leonard Bernstein's Candide: "Get a seat in the back near the rack but away from the heat." So I thanked our good cabinetmaker and asked if he could deliver his rack to the old town jail, one of those marvelous 19th century prisons with crenelated battlements and damp stone walls that hint of dungeons and people hanging by their thumbs.We marched all three probable-Deltas down to the rack room. I'm not sure they believed we really had a rack until they saw it. When they did, they looked rather grim. "Perhaps you've heard of the Retroculture movement?" I inquired gently. "We find it has wide potential application."Our rack operators were members of the Society for Constructive Anachronism, who had never had anything more lively than department store manikins to experiment on. The prospect of real groans excited them to no end, so they were quick about getting Shorty strapped in. A few preliminary twirls of the capstans took the slack out, and the boys were grinning as we heard the first snap, crackle, and pop. "Shame he's not a Chinaman," quipped the Torturemaster. "We'd soon have Rice Crappies.”To the disappointment of the torture team, it was over quickly, after the first few screams. The assassin on the rack didn't give in. One of his friends did. "His name is Glenn C. Pickens, his rank is First Sergeant in the United States Army, and his serial number is 199-66-6703," sang out the youngest looking soldier, who was turning rather green. This was just what I'd been counting on. It is easier to suffer yourself than to see a friend and comrade suffer."Thank you very much," I answered. "Release him," I ordered the rackateers, "Now, do we have to go through this again, or are you two willing to give what the law requires you to?" They were, and did.By noon, we had the official announcement out: the federals were waging war by assassination, and we had the names, ranks, and serial numbers of their assassins to prove it. Our people's anger over the assassination was channeled into supporting the war effort even more strongly. The American people were made more uneasy about their own government. In Tokyo, the Diet dissolved in a riot as the opposition demanded an end to the subsidies. Those results were my personal memorial to my friend, John C. Adams.Our lieutenant governor, Asa Bowen, stepped into the governorship, and the governments of New Hampshire and Vermont agreed that he should continue to be unofficial head of the joint war effort. He did not have John Adams' mind or voice, but few did. I hoped he could recognize good advice and make decisions.As always in war, time was precious and pressing. I met with Governor Bowen the evening of the 19th, amidst preparations for his predecessor's funeral, to discuss the Confederacy's proposal for a joint advance on Harrisburg. I recommended we agree.I explained to the governor that the federal government was disorganized by its move from Washington, more and more of its forces were being sucked into the guerrilla war in the trans-Mississippi, and the citizens of what remained of the United States were tiring of the war. We could almost certainly achieve an operational victory, cutting the U.S. off completely from the Atlantic seaboard. A strategic victory was possible, because the American government might not survive another major defeat.Governor Bowen said he agreed, but he could not make a decision without the agreement of New Hampshire and Vermont. I hoped we didn't have a leader who wanted "councils of war," but I made allowance for the fact that he was new and seemed somewhat nervous. Had we made any plans with the Confederacy, he wondered?We had. The Confederates would advance with one armored and two mechanized divisions up the valley of the Shenandoah, cross the Catoctin mountains, and, following Lee's route through Gettysburg, move on Harrisburg from the south. I thought they would do better to follow I-81, which would allow the Catoctins to protect their flank much of the way, but they wanted to avenge the wrongs of history by having Lee win this time. Making allowances for cultural differences among allies – southern Cavaliers and Yankee Roundheads – I agreed.In turn, we would play the chi force to their cheng, using our better operational mobility (their mech forces were tracked, most of ours were wheeled) to strike indirectly. We would concentrate in the westernmost counties of New York, then with all our LAV and motorized infantry units cut into Pennsylvania on I-90. From Erie, we would strike straight south at Pittsburgh via I-79. That would cut the federals' east-west road and rail connections. Once Pittsburgh was liberated – we expected its white ethnic communities would welcome us – we could move east on Harrisburg on the old Pennsylvania Turnpike, go west toward Columbus, Ohio to stir up trouble there or just wait until we saw what the federals were going to do. In any case, we would make sure the feds faced a threat to all of Pennsylvania, not just one city, which would tend to fragment their response.Governor Bowen nodded, saying only that he wanted to run the plan by a few other people before signing on. Another sign of indecisiveness, I thought; great. He probably meant Bill Kraft, who had been part of the team designing the operation, so that wasn't a problem. The General Staff advisors to the other governors would pull them along. But we would lose time. How many days, I wondered?By the 23rd, I still didn't have a decision, and I knew Governor Bowen was not the right man to lead a war. That was the day the federal government formally departed Washington for Harrisburg. We wanted to strike while they were in transition to use the chaos of the move to our advantage. Our forces were in place between Buffalo and Chautauqua, and the Confederate Army wanted to roll. All I needed was a green light, but I couldn't even get an appointment with Bowen. His secretary told me privately that he was in a state of nervous collapse and wouldn't see anyone.At 3 PM on the afternoon of the 23rd, Warner, the last president of the United States, gave a final speech on the White House lawn. After pledging to "fight the forces of racism and bigotry wherever they may appear," he joined the vice president, senior cabinet members and the majority leaders from the House and Senate on the presidential helicopter for the flight to Harrisburg. The feds had organized a rousing welcome for him there, paying every bum, drunkard and whore for miles around to turn out and cheer.Just south of the Mason-Dixon Line, a single engine light plane had been cruising in lazy loops over the Monocracy River, which marked the most direct route from Washington to Harrisburg. At 3:27 PM, its pilot spotted the HMX-1 V-22 following the river about 3000 feet below him, and dove on it. The crash turned both aircraft into a fireball that could be seen as far as Hagerstown.The kamikaze pilot, Mr. Montgomery Blair of Clinton, Maryland, had sent an email to the Washington Post, marked to arrive at 4 PM. In it he wrote, "I have given my life that the Tyrant's heel may finally be lifted from Maryland's shore, and in revenge for the murder of the Northern Confederation's brave leader, Governor John Adams of Maine. Sic Semper Tyrannus." Leaderless resistance had struck again.In Harrisburg, as soon as the news was known, General Wesley, Chairman of the federal JCS, appeared on a balcony above the crowd that had been gathered to welcome President Warner. After announcing the death of the president, the vice president, the speaker of the House, and most of the cabinet, he said, "The line of succession envisioned in the U.S. Constitution had been broken beyond repair," which wasn't true since there were still some cabinet members, but that didn't matter. "I'm in charge here now," he went on, "and the United States is under martial law. Civilian government is suspended for the duration of the war for the union. The duty of every citizen is to remain quiet."Ever since the presidency of Jimmy Carter, way back in the 1970s, the United States had made an international pest of itself by insisting that every other country conform to its notions of democratic government. Now, it was payback time.In New York, at the U.N., the speakers were lined up at the rostrum to demand that all subsidies to the American government be cut off, since America was no longer a democracy. China led the charge in the Security Council, its ambassador unable to conceal his glee at the chance to hoist the canting Americans on their own petard. Tokyo had its own unpleasant memories of military rule, and made it clear its days as paymaster for Washington were over. The Tsar's representative worked quietly behind the scenes to line up the votes. General Wesley's request to speak to the U.N. was turned down. On the 25th, the Security Council voted to end all grants and aid to the United States, and the General Assembly passed its own resolution of agreement. The liberals' and neo-cons' chickens had finally come home to roost.And that was the end of the United States of America. It's epitaph was that of all states dependent on mercenary armies: pas d'argent, pas du Suisse. The remaining states, defying a martial law that had no soldiers to enforce it, declared their independence. General Wesley's "government" was quietly interned at the Shady Acres home for the mentally indigent by the government of Pennsylvania.It was over. We were free.On the 28th, as I sat in my office enjoying a victory cigar and going over the plans for demobilization, Captain Vandenburg stuck his head in. "The Black Muslims are taking over Boston."

The Northmen's War Against Civilization

Amongst the inchoate movement of the New Right, Dark Enlightenment, or Radical Right there is an element that emanates from the neo-pagan revival of the 1970s. This is not an attack on the foundations of Neo-Paganism per se, but a refutation of a certain polemic that has arisen in that quarter against Christians. Stephen McNallan, a practitioner of Asatru, argues that the Norse and Germanic civilizations, thriving and dynamic cultures who were creative and progressive, were destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church, whose imperial spirit was an extension of the Roman Caesars. The Viking raids are cast in the light of a belated response to the imperialist Church under the Pope, and the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne. He cites the Saxon wars and forcible conversion of Germans as the Munich moment--pardon the metaphor--for the Norse. The Viking raids, while a failure, were justifiable self-defense. The Church is further cast as a genocidal destroyer of culture and religion that sought to exterminate the pagans of the north and east.This is a patently absurd narrative. The first civilization in the west was the Cretan kingdom of the Minoans (2700 BC – 1450 BC). The Minoans were known for their sailors, palace at Knossos, and having developed a hot and cold running water system. Western civilization with periodic barbarian invasions sprung from that root and eventually flowered in the great civilization of Athens and Rome. During this time science, philosophy, rhetoric, geometry, poetry writing, history, architecture, and law were developed and refined to a level unmatched except in China. From the 3500 years from Minos to Charlemagne what did the Norse and Teutons produce? For all practical purposes, nothing. Runes, longboats, broadswords, and sacred groves are a poor replacement for Aeschylus, Herodotus, Plato, Numa, and Virgil. So these Northmen were a completely unproductive and irrelevant race inhabiting the Hyperborean regions of the Europe. Irrelevant, except for their periodic murderous expeditions south.Neo-Pagans would have you believe that it was the Ancient Romans and the Medieval Church that initiated a war of extermination against the religiously tolerant pagans in a paroxysm of imperialism. This is an absurd claim; first blood was drawn by the Teutons. After smashing the thriving Hallstate Culture (Earliest known celtic civilization), these unquenchable pagans poured over the Alps into the Roman province in Cisalpine Gaul. The tribes who invaded Roman lands were the Cimbri and Teutoni; at the battles of Noreia and Arausio they smashed two Roman armies. This tide of the Northmen was finally stopped by Marius at the battles of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae. All future Roman wars were seen in this light of preventing a repeat of the Cimbri and Teutoni invasion.The countless wars between the Romans and Germans from Julius Caesar until the Emperor Honorius were largely inconclusive, but the fear Rome had of the Northmen was proven valid in 406 with the Rhine frontier stripped of its armies, by Stilicho in order to fight Alaric, the heathens swarmed into Gaul. The great classical civilization which had lasted for 1000 years was seen to be no more in the west. Desolation, conquest, slavery, and dislocation were the norm. Brutish pagans destroyed the great classical civilization of Rome. Demographic collapse followed, the cities shrunk, the population disappeared. In England the worst was yet to come. The bloodthirsty heathens (Angles, Jutes, and Saxons) engaged in an unprovoked war of extermination against the Romano-Celtic inhabitants. The Saxons were delayed by the rallying figure of Arthur, but he could not stop the heathen hordes. A once thriving Romano-Briton civilization disappeared only to survive as echoes in Wales and Ireland. The horrors reported in Gildas, Bede, and the Anglo-Saxon chronicle are but a taste of what the invasion must have meant for the inhabitants of England. Classical and Christian learning and light was replaced by superstitious heathenism and darkness.The darkest days of the west were only the night before the dawn. As the Saxons were committing acts of genocide in England, another Romano-Briton, Patrick was converting the Irish and bringing to them the light of classical and Christian knowledge. Patrick ended human sacrifice and slavery in Ireland. Ireland was transformed from a primitive backwater at the edge of the world to the center of western scholarship, especially Latin. Time would fail me in describing the conversion of the Picts by Columba or the Northumbrians by Aiden or the Alemani by St. Gall or Lombard Italy by Columbanus or the necklace of monasteries planted by these wandering mendicants from Ireland, to England, to Gaul, to Italy where the light of learning was preserved in these dark days. The long process of reconverting these savages from heathenism or Arianism was begun by both the Irish and the Papacy. The most salient aspect of Celtic Christianity was that it sought to make brothers of those who, by the right of retribution, should have been killed for murdering their ancestors in England. This expression of Christian love, rather than heathen revenge, produced the great centers of learning in York and Jarrow, producing Alcuin and Bede respectively.With the Merovingians and Charlemagne the first tentative steps to restore the light of reason and faith occurred in Achen, the imperial capital. Charlemagne gathered to himself all the great men of his age, by default mostly Irish and Christian Anglo-Saxons. He oversaw the preservation of ancient texts. We all take for granted Carolingian Miniscule, a product of this age. Carolingian Minuscule was the first attempt to introduce lower-case letters, paragraphs, and punctuation in grammar. Before texts were all capital letters with no spaces, just one large block of text on the scroll or page. This Renaissance whose intellectual heart lay in Ireland was brutally smashed in the 9th century.Not being satisfied with destroying the Western Roman Empire, the Northmen sought to destroy its successor, the Holy Roman Empire. This is where McNallan’s claim of defensive war is absurd. If the Viking raids were retribution for the Saxon wars, which is an invalid assumption of pagan solidarity--a concept foreign to their tribal life--why was Lindisfarne (founded by St. Aiden) sacked in 793 and the numerous Irish and Christian Saxon monasteries looted and burnt to the ground? What offense had they committed against the Norse? None! McNallan is just making a specious justification for genocide. The inhabitants of the Hebrides and the Picts of Eastern Scotland did not survive the Viking raids. The great Irish civilization was extirpated, never to revive. The Anglo-Saxons under Alfred and his successors and the Kings of West Frankia barely held off the savage hordes of the north. The 10th and 11th centuries saw the gradual absorption of England into the Norse Empire, until King Cnut ruled, but by that time Cnut and Denmark were already Christian.The Christianization of Norway, Denmark and Sweden were defensive measures to bring the barbarians to heel. Since no army in Europe could have conquered the Norse, it took the Gospel of peace to do so. From 1050 onward, after the Christianization of the Norse and Magyars, Western Europe had the safety it needed to engage in the reconstruction of western civilization and the modern scientific age, no thanks to the Norse invasions. In short we can view the millennium-long struggle from the Cimbri and Teutoni to King Cnut as a struggle between barbarism and ignorance and classical learning and Christianity on the other, with the latter triumphing not in conquest and pillage and rape, but in charity and love through conversion.

The View From Olympus: How To Defeat ISIS

The rise of ISIS and similar Fourth Generation entities poses a conundrum. On the one hand, it is in our interest to uphold the state system, which puts us at odds with non-state forces. On the other hand, direct intervention with U.S. military forces has repeatedly failed. It has often worked to the advantage of the Fourth Generation forces that are our greatest threat, as we saw in Iraq, where there would be no ISIS today if we had not overthrown Saddam.What we need is a way to act effectively against ISIS and similar entities. We must accept at the outset that America's favorite military tool, air strikes, will work only in a few situations, and then mostly just at the tactical level. It is important we not be misled by the local success we have attained against ISIS by supporting the Kurdish Peshmerga with air strikes. They only worked because we had an effective force on the ground to support, the terrain was open, and ISIS was sloppy about camouflage, deception and embedding its forces in civilian populations. Similar air strikes are not likely to prove effective in support of the Iraqi army because that army is not competent and ISIS will quickly learn how to protect itself from air attack.We must also accept the rule that the more obvious the American role is, the less likely we are to succeed at the strategic level. The problem, which I have discussed in previous columns, is that we become Goliath while clever 4GW opponents know how to play David. This is van Creve1d's "power of weakness," and it is often decisive in 4GW. Anything we do must have a light footprint. So what might work? The key is to realize that ISIS and many other 4GW entities are loose coalitions of elements that are often in tension with each other. If you press them from outside, you push them together, which makes the entity stronger. What can defeat ISIS and other such non-state opponents is pulling them apart from within by leveraging their internal divisions.How might this be done? The starting point is intelligence and analysis that enables us to identify the elements of the coalition and the tensions among them. Our intelligence agencies alone are not likely to be able to do this. We will need to turn to other sources of expertise, including academics who specialize in the region, local allies who may personally know some of those on the other side and the intelligence services of international allies, who may know more about a particular place than we do. The Russian intelligence services could be especially useful here; regrettably, our short-sighted policy of hostility toward Russia makes their cooperation unlikely.Once we have developed an image of the mosaic we face, we must reach inside it with a mixture of promises and threats--mostly promises, many of them involving money--and seek to exacerbate its existing feuds. Entities such as ISIS that, publicly at least, are led by religious fanatics will be especially vulnerable to leveraging of internal differences because many elements of their coalition will loathe the fanatics and the tyranny they impose.How might we reach inside our opponent? At one time, the CIA was rather good at that. But I fear it is no longer. Over time, it has re-focused on photo intelligence and direct action so much--another Second Generation attempt to reduce war to identifying and putting firepower on targets--that it may not be able to do much else. Our special operations forces are not likely to be better, again because of a recent over-focus on direct action. Both local and international allies may be our best bet. With ISIS, others in the Arab world are likely to have contact with the Baathist elements in ISIS's coalition, which I think have been decisive in its military success. If the Baathists could be split from the Islamic puritans, ISIS would crumble. That would mean, of course, that the Baath would have to be assured a post-ISIS future, either in a united Iraq (unlikely) or in an independent entity, the equivalent of Kurdistan, for Iraq's Sunnis.All of ISIS is not in Iraq; much is in Syria. There the answer to ISIS is much simpler: support the Assad government. It has been doing quite well with Iranian and Russian support, but we could no doubt help. The obstacle, as is so often the case, is the imbecility of the Washington foreign policy establishment. Bleating endlessly about "democracy"--which has worked so well in the Middle East--they will claim they cannot support a "dictator and war criminal“ such as Assad. They are ISIS's best friend and most effective ally.The conundrum of having to choose between doing nothing or doing what does not work when faced with 4GW opponents is solvable. It requires capabilities we used to have and allowed to atrophy, but they can be revived, and in the meantime allies can help. Regrettably, nothing can inject the necessary dose of realism into our foreign policy establishment, without which we will continue to avoid what might work while pursuing what is impossible. So long as that establishment endures, 4GW will strengthen and spread.

Victoria: Chapter 23

As usual, we gathered around the coffee-stained, ring-marked back table at Mel's. The General Staff had grown somewhat with the addition of men from Vermont and New Hampshire, but the Operations Section was just twelve officers, which was the most who could fit at the table. I made sure Mel didn't get a bigger table.We had Washington's invasion plan. The question was, how could we take advantage of it? Once everybody had downed their buckwheat cakes and venison sausage, I asked for ideas.“I know the 42nd Division,” said one of the new guys from Vermont, Fred Farmsworth. “Our Marine Reserve unit played against them in an exercise a few years ago. It was a joke. When we attacked, they broke and ran – and everybody knew we were just shooting blanks. I could keep the 42nd Division out of Vermont with a couple of Boy Scout troops armed with slingshots.”“Do we want to keep them out?” I asked.The old hands smiled; they knew we had an opportunity to use the “let ‘em walk right in” defense, and on the operational level too. Seth Browning, who had traded his Army National Guard rank of Lieutenant Colonel for Hauptmann im Generalstab and a pay cut, laid out the obvious. “The 42nd Division can only come on two routes,” he said. “They can come up I-91, or they come up via Whitehall and the east shore of Lake Champlain. I'd bet on the Champlain approach, because I-91 is hemmed in by mountains and they'll be scared of our infantry in the mountains. They're flatlanders, and the land east of Champlain is fairly flat. Plus, they can get into Vermont directly from New York state, and they'll be more comfortable with that. If we guess wrong and they do come up I-91, our militia can keep ʻem on the road and our mobile forces can shift quickly and cut them up with motti tactics.”“A good analysis,” I replied. “What should our intent be if you're right and they attack via Whitehall?”“That's easy,” said John Ross, who I had dual-hatted as commander of our motorized forces and member of the Grossgeneralstab. “We let them come well in, then pocket them with their backs to Lake Champlain. Being Army, they'll see water as an impassable obstacle rather than a highway. Once we have them trapped with their backs to the lake, they'll cave.”“What about the folks in Vermont between West Haven and Burlington?" said Sam Shephard. “They'll take this kind of hard.”“Sadly, that is war,” said Father Dimitri, now the informal Imperial Russian advisor to the Northern Confederation General Staff. “We Russians know well the cost of letting an invader come. But we also know it can bring decisive victory to the defender. Their sacrifices will be well-rewarded. The Tsar has authorized me to tell you that he will follow your first major victory with diplomatic recognition of your country. I think the destruction of the 42nd division will count as such a victory."“OK, then, we know our intent: pocket the whole 42nd Division against Lake Champlain and wipe it out. The Plans section can lay out our deployment accordingly. What else do we need to decide here?” I added.“What if they try a naval blockade? Our report from the White House meeting leaves that unclear,” asked Don Vanderburg, also a recruit to the General Staff; he'd shown earlier that he could make decisions. “And what if they go through with the JCS proposal for an air campaign?”“Our satellites indicate they may attempt to intercept the next Russian ship bringing arms into Portland,” answered Father Dimitri. “They have stationed two American destroyers and an Aegis cruiser off the Maine coast. If they try to stop our ship, the Imperial Russian Navy will uphold the principle of freedom of the seas. You do not have to worry about that.”“An air campaign does face us with some problems,” I added. “They can unquestionably do serious damage to civilian targets. History tells us that will just make our folks fight harder, but of course we want to prevent it if we can. Militarily, an air threat is only significant if we have to move operational reserves fast, by road or rail. I don't anticipate that here. Plus, our anti-aircraft guns and shoulder-fired SAMS will make most of their pilots fly too high to see or hit much.”“I think we may have some operational, not just tactical answers to their air,” said Captain Ron Danielov, a former Marine Corps Scout/Sniper sergeant who was in charge of special operations. “As you know, a special operation is an action by a small number of men that directly affects the operational or strategic level. I think we may be able to do one targeting their air power. I'm playing around with some ideas, talking with Ross’s guys and a couple of the trash haulers from the Air Guard.“Fine,” I replied, “but we need to move fast. How soon will you be ready to pull something off, or tell me that you can't?”“One week,” Ron answered.“In war, one week is a long time,” I said. I allowed my subordinates to come up with their own solutions to problems, but I insisted they be quick about it.“Sorry, but that's what it takes,” Ron responded. “We're not just doodling and day-dreaming, we're rehearsing some stuff to see if it works. You can't make a special operation up as you go along; it's too fragile for that. You've read McRaven's book too. You know that."I had and I did. His reference was to a book by a U.S. Navy SEAL officer, Bill McRaven, The Theory of Special Operations, published way back in 1993 by the old Naval Postgraduate School. That and the U.S. Special Operations Command's Pub 1, Special Operations in Peace and War, were good guides to a kind of war where smarts could make up for numbers and equipment. I knew Ron was right."OK, you've got your week," I replied. "If they start bombing before then, we'll just suck it up and take it."The first bombs fell three days later, on June 19, 2028. Cruise missiles came in just before dawn, targeting the State Houses in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, National Guard armories, and power plants. The damage was extensive but largely symbolic. The State Houses and armories were empty, and the power plants were down for lack of fuel. Three waves of bombers hit us after the cruise missiles, going for bridges, rail lines and railway shops, fuel depots (also empty), and the Portland docks. In Washington, President Warner announced "the beginning of precise, surgical air action to compel the northern rebels to surrender to lawful authority."In Augusta, a precise, surgical cluster munition dropped by a U.S. Navy F-35 hit the schoolyard of St. Francis Elementary during noon recess. Thirty-three children died, along with seven teachers and the parish priest.We had expected the hits we got, other than the schoolyard. Railroads are easy to blow up but also easy to repair, and we had the trains moving again by midnight. Engineer bridges were ready to go in strategic places, and those were up quickly too. Railroad rolling stock was hard to replace, but we had scattered it around the country and didn't lose much.Video of the St. Francis schoolyard was on the Internet within forty-five minutes of the attack, and the images broadcast around the world brought further air attacks to a screeching halt. Japan said in no uncertain terms that if there were further civilian casualties, there would be no more yen.We also had an amazing stroke of luck – or perhaps something more than luck, since St. Francis was involved. The F-35 that dropped the cluster bomb was shot down. Our few anti-aircraft weapons were deployed to protect our mobile ground forces, not our cities. But a Russian instructor happened to be showing some of our troops how to use the SA-18 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile at a small base just south of town. They heard the bombs hit Augusta, and when one of the American jets screamed overhead on its way home, the instructor took a shot and got it. The pilot came down alive.I immediately sent one of our few helicopters to pick up the U.S. Navy pilot and bring him to St. Francis. Pilots seldom see their handiwork up close. They pickle their bombs, run for home, and its beer:thirty at the club. It's all a video game for them. Unlike infantrymen, they're not prepared to see the other guy's eyes bug out when you twist a bayonet into his guts.I called the school and stopped the removal of the bodies. Then I went over there myself and met the helo as it came in. The helo crew had told the pilot what he'd hit, and he was already shaking when I met him at the bird. With a video camera stuck in his face, I forced him to walk through the blood, guts, and tiny severed limbs, lifting each sheet and staring at his handiwork. He managed to maintain his composure until the third kid, a little blond girl whose torso was ripped half away. He had a little blond daughter about the same age, and he came unglued. The camera caught his face in an unforgettable image of horror and agony, just before he puked himself dry. By the tenth kid, he was begging me to shoot him rather than look at any more. I made him keep looking. When he'd stared into the eyes of every tiny corpse, I ordered him locked up in the town jail under close watch, not so he couldn't escape but so he couldn't kill himself.I got back to headquarters to find a message from Governor Adams, asking me to meet him down at Mel's as soon as possible. When I got there, I found the mayor, a couple of the Governor's advisors, and Bill Kraft already with him. The subject of discussion was what to do with the Navy pilot. The two most popular alternatives were putting him on trial as a war criminal or hanging him that afternoon in the St. Francis schoolyard."Well, what does the General Staff advise in this case?" the Governor asked me."Waal, I don't know," I said in my best Maine accent. "Since we seem to be deciding to hang him now or hang him later, I guess I'd as soon hang him now. It'd make the people of Augusta feel a little better, anyway.""It sure would," the mayor added.Bill Kraft had been sitting to the side, smoking his pipe, looking into a book and making it clear that he didn't much care for meetings like this. I expected he'd also favor a prompt hanging. Instead, he gave me a look of icy contempt and said, "I would have expected at least an attempt at military reasoning from someone in the uniform of a General Staff officer."After that face shot, I knew I was going to get a lesson in military reasoning. Bill's lessons were usually good ones, even if they sometimes felt like a broken-glass suppository wrapped in sandpaper."Here as elsewhere, the correct question is, how do we use this situation to strike most powerfully at our enemy?" he went on. "Merely doing what makes us feel better betrays a lack of self-discipline. Our object is not to feel good, but to win.""I thought we'd already done that by putting this guy on YouTube as he cracked up," I replied."That was an excellent start," Kraft said. "But why not carry it further?""How?" asked Governor Adams."Send him home," Kraft replied."You mean just let him go after he killed our kids?" the Mayor asked."Exactly," Kraft answered."How does that help us?" the governor inquired, knowing Kraft well enough to realize he was probably on to something."The Chief of our General Staff should be able to answer that question," said Kraft. "Regrettably, in his hurry to get here he seems to have left his brain in his wall locker, so I will explain." There was the suppository."If we send the pilot home, we toss a hot potato into the lap of the federal government. They have three choices, all bad. They can let him out in public, in which case he will tell a story of horror that will undermine public support for the war. They can arrest him for war crimes, which will let all their military personnel know that if they make a mistake, their own government will sacrifice them. Or they can send him back to his unit, where he will undermine the will of his fellow pilots to drop bombs anywhere but in the ocean or open fields. Whatever they do helps us, while the pilot is no further help to us if we keep him here. So we should send him home."As usual, Bill was right. We all saw that, and we all knew he was right about self-discipline as well. As the weaker party, we had to do what would hurt the enemy, not what would make us feel good.So that’s what we did. We announced that as a humanitarian gesture to the pilot's family, we were releasing him, and we invited the federals to send a plane under a white flag to pick him up. That made us look like the good guys to the world, and the video of a U.S. Air Force transport coming into the Augusta airport with its insignia covered by white patches didn't hurt either.The pilot gave a weepy interview to the press on his departure on June 20, saying that the war was a terrible thing and he hoped nobody would drop any more bombs.He said the same thing to a bigger clutch of newsmen when the plane landed at Andrews.Then, to our delight, facing three unpalatable choices, the federal government did the worst possible thing. It chose all three.First, it let the pilot appear on all the TV talk shows to cry about what he had done. Then, it arrested him. When the military screamed, it dropped the charges, so it looked like it was condoning war crimes. Finally, it sent him back to his unit, where he spread his horror story to everyone he could talk to, so those pilots dropped their bombs in the ocean from then on.

***

It was not the end of the air campaign. For several days the sky was quiet. Then, on June 23, federal aircraft began buzzing our towns at night with sonic booms, not dropping any ordinance but reminding us they still could. On the 25th they hit two bridges with laser-guided bombs, after warning us well beforehand so all traffic could be stopped. On the 26th, they began hunting our locomotives with anti-tank missiles. We didn't have many engines; we needed every one of them and couldn't let this continue. I called in Ron Danielov. He'd had more than his week, and it was time to see if a special operation could help us out."Waal, what've you got for us?""I've got three operations set up and ready to roll. You can use any of them or all of them," Ron replied."What are they?" I asked."The first, and most powerful, is aimed at Washington itself. We've got six moving vans sitting in southern Virginia, each with about 10,000 pounds of explosives in it. The drivers are our men. On signal, they will take those trucks on to the six bridges that connect Washington with Virginia, park 'em, set the timers, and dive into the Potomac. They're all good swimmers who can reach the Virginia shore. When the bombs go, they'll take several spans out of each bridge, cutting Washington off from the south.""What about civilian casualties?" I asked. "We can't ignore that problem without giving the feds license to ignore it too, and it's our best air defense.""The trucks have powerful loudspeakers that will play a recorded message, ‘This is a bomb. Get off the bridge immediately.’ That starts as soon as the drivers punch out, and goes for fifteen minutes before they blow. If anyone tries to enter the truck or move it, the bomb goes off automatically, so the delay won't effect the operation.""How long will the bridges be down?""A few days, but that's enough. As soon as the Confederate government knows they're blown, Confederate forces will enter Virginia and the governor will proclaim the state's secession from the Union.""Holy shit, you set that up?" I replied, astounded."Well, I pushed it over the edge, anyway," Ron replied. "Virginia has wanted out, and the Confederates have wanted Virginia in, so the ground was already laid. When I told them we'd cut Washington off from Virginia long enough for them to move, they decided this was the time. Remember, that's what special operations are about: hitting on the strategic level, or at least the operational level. Blowing the bridges would just be tactical, and that's not a special op.""If Confederate forces are on the Potomac opposite Washington, the feds' capital will be untenable. They'll have to move it which will be an enormous problem for them, given the size of that government. It will effectively incapacitate them for months," I said, thinking aloud."Now I hadn't thought of that," Ron admitted."If that's your first act, and it's a good one, I'm almost afraid to ask for the second," I said. "But bombing them won't keep them from bombing us. Have you got something that will?""The second operation helps with that, and also assists the Confederates' entry into Virginia," Ron answered. "We've done a little recon at the Oceana Naval Air Base and at Langley Air Force Base, near Norfolk. One of our guys got into both, driving a beer delivery truck. You know a beer truck will never be stopped on an air base. Anyway, they've got the planes lined up wing-tip to wing-tip in nice straight rows on both bases, so they look pretty. I've got four teams down there with an 81 mm mortar each, and they can just walk their fire up and down the rows. I figure they can take half, maybe three-quarters of those aircraft out.""Not bad," I said, "but the feds will still have plenty of aircraft. That will disrupt them for a few days, maybe a week, but no more.""We know that, which is why we have a third operation planned," Ron replied. "The target is the other base where most of the sorties against us are flown from, Dover, in Delaware. We're gonna hit the single most vulnerable point on any air base: the Officers' Club on Friday night.""Now that's better," I reflected. "Pilots are a great deal harder to replace than aircraft. How many of the fly-boys do you expect to wipe out, and how are you going to blow the place?""Our intel is that there are usually 100 to 150 aircrew, pilots and NFOs, at the Club on the average Friday night. But we're not going to blow it. We're going to take those guys and bring them home.""Home? What do you mean? I don't get it," I said."Here," Ron replied. "We're going to bring them here, to the N.C. When we take the place, we're going to hold the federal aircrew hostage and demand a transport aircraft to bring them here. When they get here, they'll serve as hostages. We'll chain one to every locomotive, every factory, every strategically important target, so if the feds hit those targets, they'll kill their own men. My guess is that the federal government will order them to do that, but their pilots' accuracy will diminish drastically.""I love it! I love it! That's brilliant! Shit, if you make that one work, you'll get the Blue Max!" I cried. “Skorzeny himself would shake your hand if you can pull it off. Is that the kind of thinking they taught you Scout/Sniper guys?""We didn't write it with the runes for nothing," Ron said."OK, my answer on all three is GO! And the ideas are good enough I'll back you up even if they don't work," I said."Aye aye, sir," Ron replied. "And they will work, subject to the old German artilleryman's caution: all is in vain if an angel pisses in the touchhole."

***

This time, the angels were on the side of the smaller battalions. One of the trucks broke down, and we'd overlooked the railroad bridge which was sloppy map work on our part, but the attack on the Washington bridges did what it was supposed to. It triggered the move of Confederate forces into Virginia and that state's joining the Confederacy, which made Washington untenable for the federal government.The feds picked Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as the new federal capital. Not only did the move prove disruptive, they lost their local support base of government employees, most of whom couldn't move because there was no place to put them. Deprived of the federal payroll, much of northern Virginia became a ghost town. The Pentagon was turned into the world's largest nursing home, specializing in patients with Alzheimer's. It wasn't much of a change. In the former District of Columbia, the Capitol and the White House were vandalized, partly burned and finally taken over by bums and crack heads as places to squat. Having ruined the nation, they became ruins themselves.

***

The mortar crews at Langley found the aircraft still parked in tidy rows and walked their fire from one end to the other. They destroyed about fifty airplanes.At Dover, our team of special operators found almost 300 guys in the club. It seems the base CO had called a meeting of all aircrew for a mandatory lecture on sexual harassment, in response to a complaint by the bar girl that some pilots had been "looking at her." It took two C-17s to carry them all to Portland. The feds howled when we staked them out at all the worthwhile air targets, but the tactic worked even better than we expected. When President Warner ordered the air attacks continued, the remaining American pilots simply refused to fly. The air campaign was over.As Father Dimitri had promised, the Russians took care of the threat of a naval blockade. On July 4, 150 miles outside Portland, the American destroyer USS Gonzalez ordered the Russian freighter White Russia to stop. The ship, which was loaded with RPGs, machine guns, and ammunition intended for us, refused. The American ship put a five-inch round into the White Russia's bridge, killing the captain and seven crew members. Ninety seconds later the Gonzalez was blown out of the water by three torpedoes from the Russian submarine which had been escorting the White Russia.In Washington, where the federal government was beginning the process of packing to move, the Navy demanded immediate and forceful military action against Russia. President Warner, remembering the Trent Affair in the first American Civil War, demurred. "One war at a time, gentlemen, as President Lincoln said," were his words to the JCS. It was a wise decision, but it effectively took the U.S. Navy out of the war against us.

***

That left us to face the renowned 42nd Division (as it continued to be called by everybody except the American Secretary of Defense). That wasn't a threat, it was an opportunity.The deployment of our own forces was complete. The militia was mobilized in western and southern Vermont and southern New Hampshire, to provide a "web" within which the regular forces would maneuver and to guard against an attack up I-91.We knew the first enemy objective was Burlington, where they intended to turn inland away from Lake Champlain and follow I-89 to the Vermont capital, Montpelier. After a thorough reconnaissance, the General Staff determined that we would attempt to pocket the 42nd Division around Vergennes, trapping them between Otter and Lewis Creeks with their backs to Lake Champlain.Accordingly, we moved a regiment of light infantry, with our few artillery pieces, into the area along Lewis Creek, stretching east to Monkton Ridge. Their mission was to prevent any advance north. They did not entrench, but set up a mobile defense in depth based on small teams that could ambush enemy infantry and call in fire on enemy vehicles. Another light infantry regiment plus the local militia held the eastern flank from West Rutland, along Lake Bomoseen and Lake Hortonia, through Middlebury to Monkton Ridge. Their mission was to prevent the enemy from going east. Vergennes lay too far west to cover, so we evacuated the population and garrisoned it with light infantry who had been trained in urban combat. They expected to fight cut off from our other forces. Operationally, their mission was to draw as many enemy as possible into the area and hold them while we encircled.I established the headquarters of the General Staff in Middlebury, about fifteen miles from where Lewis Creek empties into Lake Champlain. Here was stationed our Mobile Force, under John Ross. It consisted of his Marine battalion on dirt bikes, both of our light armor regiments, our heavy armor regiment with its T-34 tanks, and a regiment of motorized infantry. The mission of the Mobile Force was to undertake the actual encirclement of the 42nd Division. It was the focus of efforts, or Schwerpunkt, of the whole operation.The 42nd Division had been mobilized in late June, but had done virtually no training. Its encampment, at and around Camp Smith on the Hudson River, had been a circus of drugs, drinking, and debauchery. After three white officers were murdered, most of the rest went home; blacks were promoted from the ranks to replace them. On July 10, three "Death Battalions" of gang members were added to the division, which turned mere chaos into complete pandemonium. Finally, on the 21st of July, 2028, the monster started crawling north.For the New York towns in its path – towns on "friendly" soil – the passage of the 42nd Division was an envelopment by hell. Stores were looted. Whites were mugged, raped, or shot. Homes, barns and businesses were burned. The division's march was a traveling riot.Since the federal government could not control the Internet, the images of rape and pillage were broadcast into every American home. Secretary of Defense Mowukuu, when asked to explain the depredations of "her" division on its own citizenry, replied truthfully that they were no worse than what the people who made up the division had been doing for many years in the areas where they lived. Americans failed to find that reassuring.Vermont actually got off easier than New York. We had evacuated the towns we knew the 42nd would pass through. The remaining homes and businesses were put to the torch, but none of our civilians were hurt and movable property was saved.Our militia was sure they could hold a line against an invasion as pathetic as this one, and they were right. But I would not let them, because I didn't want to stop the 42nd Division. I wanted to destroy it. Once they understood that, they went along.On July 31, the lead element of the enemy force hit the forward edge of our defense in front of Lewis Creek. We let them penetrate as far as the creek itself, then started chewing them up in small ambushes. The main body of the division did exactly as we hoped when it hit resistance in Vergennes. It figured this would be the decisive battle, and halted while its reserves came up. On the morning of August 2, I told John Ross to attack.John put the T-34s right up front, figuring they would cause "tank terror" among the drunken, untrained, undisciplined horde. They did, and the enemy fled back toward the Lake. By the evening of the 2nd, the encirclement was complete.That same afternoon, I went out to find John. He was down by the southern end of the pocket, figuring that if a breakout was attempted that was where it would come.When I stuck my head into Ross's CP, which was a single command version of the LAV, I was almost impaled by a German spiked helmet coming out. Below the helmet was a vast, rotund figure that could only be Bill Kraft, clad in the dark blue uniform of a 19th century Prussian officer. Down the trouser legs ran the wine-red stripe of an officer of the Prussian General Staff. I must have done a double-take, because Kraft looked at me and said, "Don't you remember why I turned down your kind offer to join the Christian Marine Corps?"I had to think back a bit, but I did remember. Bill had said, "I wear a different uniform." Now I knew which one."We were wiped off the map in 1947." Bill said, "but Prussia is more than a place. As Hegel understood, it is also an ideal. Prussians still exist, and so does the Prussian Army, a bit of it anyway. Now, it's fighting again, here, for what it always fought for: for our old culture, against barbarism. Someday, we will win.""Well, this is a good start," I replied, with what I thought was suitable New England understatement."It's only that," Bill said. "What do you intend to do next?"At that point John Ross stuck his head out of the LAV. "We've just gotten a radio message from someone claiming to be the commander of the 42nd Division. They want to surrender." "I guess that answers your question, Bill. It's over, and we can go home," I added."Wrong answer," Bill shot back. "All that means is you've won a tactical victory. The operational question is, what are you going to do with it?"I saw immediately that Kraft was right. I'd gotten too wrapped up in the immediate situation and was failing to think big – a serious mistake for a General Staff officer."Since you are our Prussian advisor, can I start by asking your advice?" I responded."Strategically, just as restoring the union is the federal government's objective, ours is fracturing it further," he replied. "I think this battle, and the conduct of the 42nd Division on its march here, gives us an opportunity to bring New York state into the Northern Confederation.""Do we want New York in the Confederation?" I asked. “We want people who share our traditional values, and I'm not sure they do.""Most of the people in upstate New York do," Kraft responded. "We don't want New York City. But most of upstate is conservative, and it is also rich in land and industry. It would be an asset.""OK, then, how do we go about it?" I inquired."You are Chief of the General Staff. You should be able to answer that question. I gave you a hint of where to start," Kraft replied in good Prussian style.I took some time to ponder the matter, while Herr Oberst i.G. Kraft filled a fresh pipe and Ross prepared to move up to meet with the 42nd's commander. I knew what Bill Kraft meant by his hint: the reference to the 42nd's conduct on its march. The people who lived in the area it passed through hated its guts. Now, the 42nd was ours. Bingo!"I guess the first thing we do is turn what's left of the 42nd over to the people of New York," I said to Bill."Right," he replied. "That takes the moral high ground. We become the agents of justice.""I suspect they'll hang every one of them from the nearest tree," I said."Right again, and that will split them from the federal government," Kraft said. “The feds will scream that they're all guilty of murder, which means their own government will be a threat to them. What do we do then?""We move in to protect them from their own government.""I think you've got it," Kraft concluded.It worked out pretty much the way we had outlined it. It took us a couple days to round up the POWs. Then, with one light armored regiment and two motorized infantry battalions, we escorted them back into New York. We followed the 42nd's own route of advance in reverse, and along the way we dropped off batches of POWs for the locals to deal with as they saw fit. Mostly, they saw fit to slaughter them on the spot. CNN covered the whole thing, and after what people had seen of the division during its advance, most Americans cheered.By the 5th of August, we were in Rensselaer, just a few miles up the Hudson from the state capital at Albany. We had about 1000 POWs left.That evening, President Warner delivered a televised speech to his nation. After denouncing the vigilante justice taken by the New Yorkers as the usual "hateful, racist, etc.” stuff, he promised that "this government will not rest until every American citizen who participated in this lynching is brought to justice. I have directed the FBI to move in force into New York state as soon as the military situation permits." Every New Yorker knew that the forces of the Northern Confederation were now their best protection.Just after midnight, Governor Adams rang me up on the satellite phone. "John, Governor Fratacelli of New York just called. He and his cabinet are prepared to secede from the union if we can protect them. What should I tell him?""The federals don't have any significant forces in position to invade New York," I replied. "If they are prepared to mobilize their state to fight, we can protect them in the interim. But what about New York City? We sure don't want that.""Neither do they," he replied. "I've already discussed that with him. We cannot decide on admitting them into the Confederation. New Hampshire and Vermont would have to vote on that, as would the people of Maine. But New York does want in, and it also knows it can't get in unless it dumps Babylon on the Hudson. They are ready to do that.""Then tell him I can have a battalion in Albany by daylight.""Do it," Governor Adams ordered. So we did.By the time the legislature met to hear the governor at ten in the morning on the 6th of August, our troops were patrolling the city. The legislature, with the images of the 42nd Division's march fresh in its mind, voted overwhelmingly to secede. In an ingenious move, they gave the city of New York to Puerto Rico, on the grounds that it had far more in common with that place than with the rest of the people of the state of New York. Puerto Rico was too smart to take it, but at least New York state was free of it.I brought up two more motorized infantry battalions to secure the new border, which was set at the George Washington bridge. Following the vote for secession, the governor mobilized the Guard, called upon the local militias to help defend the state and began setting up a state military. Unlike the Northern Confederation, the New York Guard included a potent air force: a whole wing of F-16s, trained in ground support.In the east, the federals were now reduced to a narrow belt made up of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware, connected by a thread through New York City with Connecticut and Massachusetts. That connection was lost on July 15, when Connecticut seceded.On July 18, I received a discreet inquiry from the Confederate military staff in Richmond. Would we be interested in a joint offensive on Harrisburg? Quietly, they had been moving strong mobile forces into the Shenandoah Valley, preparing to roll north.

Ferguson

Well, well. It seems the Martyr of Ferguson, Michael Brown, had robbed a convenience store just minutes before a policeman shot him to death. He wasn't shot because he was a thief, but it would have been appropriate if he had been. If the police officer's story is accurate, Brown was shot because he assaulted the cop in an effort to grab his gun. People only try to grab a cop's gun if they intend to use it to kill the cop. So Brown was both a thief and an intended cop-killer. It is probably safe to say his demise was no great loss to society.The rioting in Ferguson and the howling and bawling elsewhere over Brown's death is really about a larger issue. The issue is that cops do not treat young black males the same way they treat whites, Asians, black women or older black men. There is a reason why they don't: they can't.The black rate of violent crime is twelve times the white rate. Not double. Not triple. Twelve times. The large majority of this crime is committed by young black males. So when a cop encounters a young black male, he encounters someone who is twenty, thirty, maybe fifty times more likely to be a violent criminal than when he encounters virtually anyone else (the Hispanic crime rate appears to be about three times the white rate; cops are also right to be leery of young Hispanic males). Cops, unlike politicians and professional howlers for "equality," have to live in the real world. In the real world, young black males must be regarded as dangerous, at least until there is some reason to believe the specific young male is not, e.g., he is on his way home from Bible study.If blacks want to be treated equally, they have to behave equally. They don't. It is as simple as that. Until the black rate of violent crime is the same as that for whites, blacks have no right to demand equal treatment. The correct response to their demand is, "First clean up your own act, then come back and talk to us about equality.Instead, every time, the blacks line up with the black criminals, such as Brown, against the police. They do so despite the fact that most victims of black violent crime are also black. The real oppressors of the black urban community are not the cops but the young black males with guns. Other blacks who support them are supporting their oppressors and reviling those, the police, who want to maintain order in the community. That is, by any standard, remarkably stupid.None of this is an argument for militarizing the police, something we have also seen in Ferguson. Militarizing the police is a bad idea, because it undermines cops‘ ability to do their job. The state's bargain with its citizens is that is will maintain order, safety of persons and property. To do that, it must prevent crime, not just respond to it. Prevention requires information, which only comes when there is lots of communication between the police and the civilians they are trying to protect. Militarizing the police interrupts that communication, because civilians are not comfortable talking to cops who look like cyborgs. That leaves the police able only to respond to crime, at which point the peace has been broken and the state has failed.The tragedy in Ferguson and elsewhere is that not long ago, as recently as the 1950s, the black urban community was a safe place, for blacks and whites. It may have been poorer than surrounding white areas, but it was still an ordered, decent place inhabited by good people, people who lived by standard middle class values. They got married before they had kids, they worked for a living, they served God and their neighbors--white and black--and the crimes they committed were the same ones whites commit, like jaywalking or rolling through an occasional stop sign. There is nothing inherent in blacks that make their communities centers of crime, disorder and illegitimacy.So what did it? In two words, cultural Marxism. The message the cultural Marxists preached in the 1960s -- "If it feels good, do it"-- devastated the black Community. After half a century of bombardment by that message in an endless variety of forms, all adding up to a culture of instant gratification, the black urban community is literally de-moralized. Ironically, at the same time the cultural Marxists have made blacks perhaps the most sacred of their “victims groups," they have also done them more damage than the Klan ever did.The message to Ferguson from the rest of us is this: We're tired of the whole black act. Were tired of blacks behaving badly while demanding to be treated well. We're tired of the violent crime, the endless stream of bastards, the welfare we have to pay to support them, the drugs, the rioting, the looting, the "demands," all of it. Clean up your act, or the day will come when the rest of us have to clean it up for you. And that would be a shame, because your grandparents and great-grandparents were good people. You could be, too.

Victoria: Chapter 22

The federal government in Washington believed in only one thing, but it believed in that strongly. It believed it wanted to remain a government. All the privileges of the Establishment depended on that, and the people who ran Washington couldn't imagine living without those privileges. So they were prepared to fight for them – at least so long as they could hire someone to do the actual fighting for them.They quickly found an important ally in the United Nations. The Washington Establishment was just one part of the Globalist Establishment, and they all stuck together. They shared a common belief in three things: A New World Order that would replace the state with an international super-state, in effect a world-wide European Union; cultural Marxism; and that everything, everywhere, should be decided by people like them. Globalism still faced a serious opponent, Russia, and Russia blocked any armed action to support Washington by using her veto in the Security Council.But by working through the General Assembly, the U.N. came through in September with what Washington needed most: money, real money, not worthless greenbacks. It provided Washington a ten trillion yen loan, with more to follow.The Feds used the money wisely. They started paying what was left of the old U.S. armed forces in yen. Virtually all the Christian soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen had resigned, and what was left were willing to fight for Washington, as long as they got paid.The flow of yen also brought the federal army new recruits, mostly black gang members from the inner city, immigrants straight off the banana boat, and women. The gangs demanded they be accepted whole and designated as military units, with names like the Bad Boyz Battalion and the West Philly Skullsuckers, on the grounds that "forcing them into a white male structure would deny their unique cultural richness." The result was units that spread drugs and mayhem throughout the federal army but ran as soon as someone shot at them. The immigrant outfits had Spanish as the language of command, and their officers would do anything for a bribe and nothing without one. The all-female infantry battalions were issued cardboard penises so they could take a leak in the field without wetting their drawers.With a motley collection of remnants of regular units, some urban National Guard outfits happy to get paid in yen and assorted other rabble, the federals made their first moves. In October, they invaded Indiana, which had declared itself a republic. The Indiana government had forbidden any defensive measures as "provocations," with their Republican governor promising that "my good friends in Washington are wholly opposed to violence in any form." He was first on the list of sniper targets when the two remaining battalions of the 82nd Airborne dropped on Indianapolis; they got him as he ran for his limousine. A "brigade" of black gangs from Baltimore and Philadelphia took Fort Wayne and spent three days looting and burning the place, with the enthusiastic help of some local Boyz. The videos of panic-stricken whites fleeing their burning suburbs and "necklaced" Koreans’ blackened corpses outside their looted stores told the rest of us what to expect.Other states that had seceded but not organized a strong defense got the same treatment: Iowa in December, Nebraska and the Dakotas in January and February, Kansas in March. Taking these rural states proved easy; all that was required was a coup de main in the capital with some airborne forces, followed by show trials of secessionist leaders and their public executions (the favored method was all-female firing squads).But news soon began filtering out that the capitals and a few other cities were all that the feds controlled. Local militias sprang up in the countryside, and any federal troops who ventured far from town were found swinging from trees or impaled on pitchforks. Soon, the cities and towns emptied, as people went to live with relatives or friends or fellow church members who had farms. Federal garrisons and their Quisling politicos had to be moved and supplied by air, and the planes and helicopters accumulated lots of holes from hunting rifles. But the U.N. kept real money flowing in, and Washington grew more confident.

***

On March 25, 2028 President Warner announced a major coup. He had negotiated a treaty with Mexico recognizing Mexican "co-sovereignty" over Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In his speech to Congress, Warner said, "We are recognizing and healing an old wrong, that hateful war in which white male North Americans tore these states from the bosom of Mexico. Mexican-born citizens now make up more than 50% of their populations, and it is only just that they should feel part of their homeland. To insist otherwise would be to deprive them of their human rights. We have no doubt that Mexican co-governance will benefit all the citizens of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, as they may now fully share the vibrant culture of our southern neighbor."As the treaty allowed, on March 27, the Mexican Army moved north across the Rio Grande. In Brownsville, Laredo, Las Cruses, and Nogales, they were met not by smiling senoritas and Mexican hat dances but with bullets and Molotov cocktails. It wasn't just the Anglos who fought them, so did many of the Hispanics. These people had emigrated to get away from the brutal Mexican Army and the corrupt and incompetent Mexican government. Unlike liberals in Washington, they had no illusions about what Mexican "co-rule" meant. It meant rule by torture, ballot-box stuffing and la mordida –the bribe.The state governments reacted fast and well. They mobilized their National Guards (the remains of the two American Armored Divisions at Ft. Hood joined in), called for volunteers and seceded from the Union. In Houston, Governor John Dalton spoke of "a treasonous and tyrannical regime in Washington that has plunged Santa Ana's knife into the back of Texas." Washington responded with a drone strike that destroyed the Alamo.From Mexico City, U.S. Ambassador Irving P. Zimmerman emailed Washington that "the regular Mexican Army, which has benefited greatly in recent years from American aid and training, will quickly suppress such disorders as nativist-extremist elements may generate." The reality was that the Mexican Army was the same inept outfit it always had been, useful only for massacring unarmed peasants. Texans weren't peasants, and they most certainly weren't unarmed.The Mexican troops never made it beyond the border towns. Hemmed in by roadblocks made of trucks and buses, their vehicles set on fire by gasoline bombs and their troops shot at from rooftops and from behind every door and window, they melted into a panicked mob. A few managed to surrender, and a few more made it back across the Rio Grande. The rest littered the streets like dead mayflies.But the war didn’t stop at the border. Texas swiftly organized its forces and counterattacked into Mexico, with Arizona and New Mexico providing diversionary attacks. The government of the Republic of Texas had the good strategic sense to announce that its only enemy was the despised government in Mexico City, not the people of Mexico. It invited Mexicans to join its march, and thousands did. A mixed force of Texans and Mexican rebels took Monterrey on April 24, and by May 11 they were in San Luis Potosi. What was left of the Mexican Army concentrated at Queretaro for a battle to defend the capital.But that battle was never fought. The Texan invasion gave the Indian population in southern Mexico the opportunity for which it had long waited. On April 25, with the fall of Monterrey, Indian rebels in the Yucatan proclaimed the rebirth of the Mayan Empire at Chichen-Itza. Nahuatl-speaking Indians, the remains of the Aztecs, announced the rebirth of their kingdom in Tenochtitlan three days later. Indian columns, some led by feather-clad priests and Jaguar warriors and others reciting the Popul Vu, marched on Mexico City. The Texans pinned down the Mexican Army, so there was nothing to stop them. Mexico City fell on May 21. On the 23rd, an Aztec high priest cut the beating heart from Mr. Ambassador Zimmerman and offered it to the Hummingbird Wizard atop the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan.

***

Reeling from the fiasco in the Southwest, Washington cast about for something it could do that might work. The U.N. was not about to cut the money off, but the federals wanted more than money. They were working hard to persuade the U.N. to send troops.The Security Council was still a non-starter. Russia did not want to appear to side too openly with the rebels in an American civil war, but it had used its veto once and could do so again – which is why the U.S. Navy made no attempt to block the arms that were arriving in Portland on Russian ships. In Washington, the feeling was that if Federal forces could win a major victory, Russia might have to go along with sending a U.N. “peacekeeping force” that would define “peace” as putting the federal government back in control.The Joint Chiefs of Staff met with President Warner on June 15, 2028, to give him their considered advice. The seceded Rocky Mountain states, they opined, were effectively protected by the guerrilla war in the Midwest. To support a major offensive in the Rockies, federal forces would require secure supply lines, highways and railroads, in the conquered states west of the Mississippi. Those they did not have.The Confederacy was too strong to take on until Washington had the rest of the U.S. back under its control and had major U.N. help. Talks were under way in Beijing about securing large-scale Chinese assistance; an expeditionary force of as many as 20 Chinese divisions was a possibility. Mao's successors had little liking for regional rebellions elsewhere, given their own vulnerability to the same. But they would only act as part of a U.N. mandate, which brought the problem full circle.That left us.The Joint Chiefs recommended initiating a full naval blockade of all Northern Confederation ports, coupled with round-the-clock air, drone, and cruise missile attacks. After about 30 days, the ground war would begin. The main attack would be up I-95, roughly along the New England coast; once Maine was beaten, New Hampshire and Vermont would be cut off from the sea and surrounded on three sides. Their situation would be hopeless.The best of the federal regular forces, the remains of the old U.S. Army and Marine Corps, would carry out the main attack. A supporting attack would be launched from New York state into Vermont by the 42nd National Guard division, an outfit recruited almost entirely from Harlem.President Warner noted that the naval blockade would be difficult politically, because of probable Russian reaction. Otherwise, he seemed ready to approve the plan.But his Secretary of Defense wanted to say something. She had represented Harlem in Congress, and after her defeat by a Black Muslim candidate the administration had given her the defense job to maintain her visibility; she was one of its biggest supporters in the black community. The 42nd Division was her baby – in fact, she had carried several of its babies, until the abortionist had restored her shapely figure – and she wanted it to have its chance to shine.“Mr. President,” said the Honorable Kateesha Mowukuu, “I am the only black woman at this table. We have heard what these white men have to say. I would remind you that in this war, white men are our enemy. Now you will hear what a black woman has to say, and I expect all of you to listen with respect.”“Black people have been the only warriors in history. White men can't fight. It's because their noses are too small. Courage comes from the nose, not the heart, as the African spiritual healers you call witch doctors have long understood. That's why black people eat their snot. What do you white folk do with your snot? You wrap it up in a little white surrender flag and put it in your pocket. So you don't have no courage.”“All the great warriors in history have been black. Caesar was a black man, and so was his enemy, Hannibal. The Spartans were black. They just dyed their hair blond, to fool their enemies into thinking they were weak white people. Charlemagne was a black man. In French, ʻcharlemagneʼ means ‘kinky hair.’ The Vikings came from Africa, which is where they got those helmets with horns on them. Gunpowder was invented by ancient Zimbabwean scientists, who made it from elephant shit. You ever hear an elephant fart? Black scientists knew there had to be some juju behind that.”“All of America's military heroes were black people. Washington was a black man. We know that because he came from Washington, D.C., which is a black city. General U.S. Grant had a black grandmother, and so did Robert E. Lee. In fact, it was the same black woman, which is why they looked so much alike. Eisenhower is really a black name, and General George Patton got his pearl-handled revolvers from his black grand-daddy, who took them off Simon Legree.”“This racist white-boy society of yours has dissed black men big-time. You've throw’d ‘em in jails and cut off their tails. You've put AIDS in their veins and cocaine in their brains. You've made black mean slack and crack, Jack, and we ain't gonna take it no more.”“And now the black warriors of our black 42nd Division, which I will rename the 1st Division, will teach these Yankee racist, sexist, crackers what happens when they mess with black people," Ms. Mowukuu concluded. “And they don't need no help from nobody.”President Warner was torn. His mind told him the Joint Chiefs' plan made more military sense than did that of his Secretary of Defense, but he had long ago conditioned himself to turn his mind off when dealing with matters touching “racism.”“Thank you for that helpful contribution,” he replied. “I am sure all of us respect what a black woman has to say.” The Joint Chiefs’ heads nodded in unison. “Would the Chiefs care to comment on the Secretary's proposal?”“Mr. President, may I make a suggestion?” said the Army Chief of Staff, General Wesley. “We all deeply appreciate the Secretary's brilliant remarks. But the Army already has a First Division, with a long and distinguished history. May I recommend that the 42nd Division be renamed the Numero Uno Division instead? That would avoid any conflict and also honor its members from Spanish Harlem.”“Ms. Mowukuu, is that agreeable to you?”, asked President Warner.“I believe deeply in multiculturalism, Mr. President, as you know,” replied the Secretary of Defense. “I am prepared to accept that modification.”“Are there any other comments?” asked the President. There were none.“The Secretary's proposal is therefore unanimously approved,” he said. “I think we have seen here how we can all learn if we open ourselves to what our sisters and brothers from diverse backgrounds can offer us. Ms. Secretary, you have the deep respect and gratitude of your country.”The gratitude of what remained of America was small compared to that offered by the General Staff of the Northern Confederation, once “Ms.” Mowukuu’s plan became known to us.That took about 24 hours. One of the Massachusetts State Police who was a Christian Marine had a brother on the White House Secret Service detail. He was in charge of the electronic security of the Oval Office.

The View From Olympus: The Ebola Test

Tuesday, August 5, 2014The rapid spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa poses as a test for the United States. While Ebola appears to have natural origins, its characteristics are similar to what we should expect from genetically engineered plagues, which are likely to be Fourth Generation war's preferred weapons of mass destruction. Ebola, especially the current strain, spreads in ways we do not understand. It is highly contagious. Its lethality approaches 90%. These are exactly the characteristics designers of new plagues will want in their weapons.The test the current Ebola epidemic poses is simple: will we take the measures necessary to protect the American people from it? Those measures are well known to history. At their heart lies quarantine, i.e., keeping infected people away from the rest of the population. When the Black Plague hit Italy in the Middle Ages, some towns protected themselves effectively by a policy of immurement. When plague was detected in a household, the house was bricked up with all its inhabitants inside. How did they survive? They didn't. But the town did.Today, quarantine means stopping all travel between infected regions and the United States. No one from here may go there; no one from there may come here. What if they are American citizens? The quarantine still applies. What is at stake is survival. All "rights" come second.Instead, in an act of mind-boggling stupidity, we have deliberately brought two people known to have Ebola into the United States, with more certain to come. We are assured by the usual authorities that they pose no danger. Since we do not know all the ways in which this strain of Ebola spreads, that is an obvious lie. Should Ebola get started in this country, from these two cases or others that enter because there is no quarantine, millions of Americans could die. In the insane reckoning of the politically correct Establishment, the risk of millions of deaths is less important than the supposed "rights" of two people. In a country whose government was still connected to reality, those who made the decision not to quarantine would be shot.Nor does the problem end if this time we escape an epidemic. The real test is not Ebola. The real test is the Ebola-like plagues that will arise from the Hellish technology of genetic engineering. It is likely that when one of these plagues begins somewhere in the world, the American Establishment will follow the precedent it has set with Ebola -- and millions of Americans will die.How can it happen that a country's leaders show such utter disregard for its people's primary interest, namely survival? The answer is, this is what happens when you feminize -- or to use the old word, womanize -- a culture. Every question, every issue is personalized. It is all reduced to "Oh, the poor little _______(Child, dog, immigrant, loser, refugee, deer eating our gardens, etc., ad infinitium). If you don't immediately melt into a puddle of sympathy, you are heartless, Scrooge, a monster. A womanized society cannot survive, because it cannot defend itself. Worshiping weakness, it becomes too weak to live.The doctor heading the disease centers where the imported Ebola carriers are to be treated was quoted in the New York Times as saying, "These are American citizens, American citizens have a right of return. I certainly hope people's fear doesn't trump their compassion." Those words would make a good epitaph on the tombstone of a country so womanized, so weak, that it could not quarantine a Fourth Generation plague.

The View From Olympus: Global Warming

The world is heating up, and I am not referring to the atmosphere. Crises are proliferating and intensifying. Five are now on the front burner: Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Ukraine, and Ebola. Three are direct results of past U.S. policy failures. Current American policy is not what the highest conservative political principle, prudence, would recommend in any of them.Iraq is President George W. Bush's gift that keeps on giving. We are once again engaged in war in Iraq, this time against ISIS. ISIS exists only because the U.S. invasion destroyed the state of Iraq. If ISIS has not formally thanked the neo-cons for its existence, it should.The air strikes ordered by President Obama may work tactically. The terrain is open, major weapons systems can be found and identified from the air, and, most important, air power has an effective ground force to support in the Kurdish Pesh Merga. So long as the aim is limited to preventing further advances by ISIS into Kurdistan, we may not get in over our heads.However, our limited means do not accord with what President Obama has adopted as his strategic objective. In an interview on August 8 with Columnist Thomas L. Friedman, published in the August 9 New York Times, the President said

We do have a strategic interest in pushing back ISIL. We're not going to let them create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq, but we can only do that if we know that "we've got partners on the ground who are capable of filling the void."

So are we or are we not committed to blocking ISIS from creating a caliphate? Outside Kurdistan, we have no effective partner on the ground in Iraq. The Iraqi armed forces have proven themselves worthless. In Syria we do have a potential partner capable of filling the void on the ground, the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. But, in yet another policy failure, we have ruled that out. Yet the president's statement, "we're not going to let them create some caliphate,” would seem to commit us to defeating ISIS. It all adds up to a strategic muddle, which is where American policy on Iraq has been ever since we decided to overthrow Saddam, peace be upon his beloved memory.In Afghanistan, the inevitable is happening. As foreign forces withdraw, the Afghans go back to fighting each other. That's Afghanistan, as it has been, is, and always will be. Every American soldier or Marine killed, every dollar spent on our Afghan War since we failed at Tora Bora has been wasted. In the end, they will have gained us nothing. This was all entirely predictable, because it is what happens to every foreigner who invades Afghanistan. The policy failure is astounding. And we still have to evacuate our remaining forces from Afghanistan safely, which may not prove easy.As the Afghan folly fades, the West's new folly, that in Ukraine, grows. Backed by Washington and the E.U., the Kiev government is pursuing maximalist objectives, including complete defeat of the Russian separatists followed by widespread punishment of Russian-background citizens of Ukraine. Little Ukraine is spitting in the bear's face and daring it to take a swipe back. In the previously cited interview with President Obama, Thomas Friedman wrote,

Obama made clear that he is only going to involve America more deeply in places like Syria and Iraq to the extent that the communities there agree to an inclusive politics of no victor/no vanquished.

Why is Obama not applying the same logic to Ukraine? If Washington told Kiev to accept a cease-fire and negotiations to guarantee the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, that would happen. Instead, we are involving ourselves more deeply, through increased economic sanctions on Russia, while allowing Kiev to do as it likes. Once again, the neon sign that reads "Policy Failure" is flashing.Gaza and Ebola are not the results of American policy failures, but our current policies are not prudent in either crisis. Ebola demands a rigid and complete quarantine, now. The price of a policy failure could be millions of dead Americans. In Gaza, 1.5 million Gazans cannot be left under permanent siege, with no means to import, export, or travel. It is appropriate to require a takeover in Gaza by the new joint PLO-Hamas government as a price for ending the siege, but Washington must be prepared to do whatever is necessary to bring Israel to terms, including cutting off aid. In the end, Tel Aviv cannot afford to alienate its only remaining ally, especially after its massive bombing of Gaza alienated public opinion everywhere except in America.Does the fact that all these crises are coming at once tell us something? It does not tell us that the trend will continue. Only two of the five crises, Ukraine and Ebola, could pose any threat to the United States (Russia is still a nuclear power, which those who seek to humiliate her seem to forget). But the pace of crisis development does carry a danger. Policy is, in the end, made by humans. The more messes humans have to deal with simultaneously, the more they feel harried, exhausted, and stressed, the worse the decisions they are likely to make. We are already paying the price for past policy failures. In all five cases, we are seeing yet more failure of policy, more strategic confusion, more folly, more hubris. At some point, one player or another may make one really, really bad decision, like, say, shooting an Austrian archduke (which was not an act of a lone madman but an operation planned and carried out by Serbian military intelligence). As high as the price has been for American policy failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, that price can still go far higher in other places. Saddam, after all, did not have weapons of mass destruction.

tR UPDATE

tR UPDATE: Please excuse our brief hiatus as we transition into our new status as Traditional Right LLC. Hard hitting Traditionalism shall resume later today.

Victoria: Chapter 21

We met over breakfast at Mel's Diner, a few blocks south of the State House. That was where our General Staff did most of its important business. The office was useful for doing calculations and research, nothing more. The old American military had loved offices and Power Point briefings because they helped avoid decisions. Our objective was precisely the opposite.We had just eleven people at our breakfast: no horseholders or flower-strewers allowed. They were militia leaders and Guard commanders, plus the commander of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, Lt. Col. John Ross. He'd brought his whole battalion, with their families, north from Camp Lejeune to join us, on an LPH he stole from the Navy by boarding it at night and giving the squids a choice between sailing for Portland or walking the plank. The ship and the battalion together gave us an amphibious capability that would later prove useful. Father Dimitri, now our liaison with the Russians, was also there. The Tsar was friendly and willing to offer discreet help.Over hot cider – coffee was an import we couldn't afford – I started the session with a question. I knew most folks were thinking about what we did not have and could not do, and I wanted them to look at the situation creatively, not despairingly. So I asked, "What are our main strengths (pun intended)?"Three militia leaders answered at once, "Our infantry.""That's a good answer," I replied. "Your militiamen are not only fine infantry, they are light infantry, which is an important distinction. They are hunters, which is what light infantrymen must be. They understand ambushes, stalking the enemy, staying invisible, because that is what you must do to hunt any game, including humans. What about our Guard infantry?""Frankly, it's not as good," said Lt. Col. Seth Browning, who led one of the New Hampshire units. "We got too much training in the American Army, which never understood light infantry tactics. They think you defend by drawing a line in the dirt and keeping the enemy from crossing it, and attack by pushing the line forward. Their tactics are a hundred years out of date, or more, if you've ever looked at the tactics of 18th century light infantry. Roger's Rangers could have cleaned the clock of any infantry unit in the modern American Army.""How do we fix that?" I asked."Can we get some General Staff officers as instructors?" another Guard commander asked."Sure, if you need 'em," I replied. "Do you?"For a bit, the only sound was chewing. Then Sam Shephard, head of the Green Mountain boys (who'd learned a few things), said, "If we know the right tactics, why can't we teach them to the Guardsmen?"At this, the National Guard commanders looked uncomfortable. They saw themselves as the "real" soldiers, because they had uniforms and ranks and knew how to salute. I needed to break this mind-set down, because what makes real soldiers is an ability to win in combat, not clothes or ceremonies. But I also wanted to go easy on their egos. So I asked, "Are any of the militiamen also Guardsmen?"The militia leaders chuckled at this. "Lot's of 'em," Shephard replied. "I guess we don't need to keep that secret any longer. We infiltrated the Guard years ago.""Why not have them lead the training in the new tactics?" I asked. "That way the Guard would train itself."I saw the Guard leaders relax at this point. Nodding heads indicated agreement. "OK, we'll let you make that happen," I said. I'd just given them a mission-type order: they knew the result we needed, and that it was their responsibility to get it. I wanted to get them used to that."John, what about your Marines?" I asked Lt. Col. Ross. "How modern are their tactics?""Well, as you know, the Marine Corps never made the transition to Jaeger tactics," he replied, using the German word for true light infantry, which translates as "hunter." "But I've worked on my unit a good bit. What would help us most is some free-play exercises against militia units, using paint-ball and BB guns. Is anybody willing to play?""Sure," Sam Shephard replied. "we'd love to kick your butts.""You may, at first," Ross responded. "At Lejeune, when Marines played paint ball against the local kids, they almost always lost. But you'll find we learn fast. And I suspect we can teach you a few things about techniques. The American military was pretty good at those.""What else are we good at?" I asked. "Is our infantry our only strength?" Silence told me folks were thinking too small. They knew we didn't have the gear American militaries were used to, so we seemed weak. "What are we fighting for?" I added."Everything," answered the New Hampshire AG, General George LeMieux. "Our lives, our families, our homes, our culture, and our God. If we lose, we lose all of them. The cultural Marxists will throw us in gang-run prisons, take everything we own away from our families, probably take our kids away and turn them over to homosexuals to rear. We'll all be 're-educated,' like the South Vietnamese soldiers were after their defeat, and forced to worship the unholy trinity of 'racism, sexism, and homophobia.' Our only other choice will be to grab our families and what we can carry and run for New Brunswick, and hope we can find some country in the world that will take us as refugees.""What are the federals fighting for?" was my next question."For pay, maybe. For a government most of them hate, unless they are blacks or Hispanics or gays, and sometimes even then," was John Ross's answer."Does that make a difference?" was my final question. The faces all said "Bingo" at once."It makes all the difference," Ross answered. "That's why the Vietnamese and the Lebanese and the Habir Gedir clan in Somalia and the Pashtun were able to beat us. We had vastly superior equipment. But they had everything at stake in those conflicts and we had very little. Now, we have everything at stake, and if federal forces attack us, they will have little. That doesn't guarantee we will win, but it means we can win, because we will have the will to fight and they won't."At this point Browning broke in. "John, I agree we have better infantry, and we have the will to fight. But what about all the things we don't have? What about tanks, artillery, antitank weapons, an air force, and a navy? How do we fight without them?""We've been working on all those, Seth," I replied. "Maine already has a Light Armored Regiment, based on technicals – four-wheel drive trucks carrying .50 cal machine guns or 90mm recoilless rifles – and other 4Xs as infantry carriers. Ross's outfit brought a few Marine Corps LAVs, which give us a powerful core unit. We'd like to raise another Light Armored Regiment in Vermont and New Hampshire, also equipped with technicals. We've got the weapons, and any good body shop can make the conversion.""One ship has already arrived from Russia, and more are coming," said Father Dimitri. "We are sending you machine guns, mortars, which will be more useful than artillery in your terrain, anti-tank mines, thousands of RPGs, shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, and anti-aircraft guns. And a special present from the Tsar himself for Captain Rumford: 100 T-34 tanks, which should be here next week.""Shit, T-34s?" said General LeMieux. "I guess beggars can't be choosers, but those date to World War II. They can't possibly fight American M-1s. Couldn't you spare us something a little more modern, like T-72s?""T-34s are exactly the right tanks for us," I replied. "They are crude, simple, and reliable. They always start and they always run. If they do break, any machine shop can fix 'em. We don't want tanks to fight other tanks. That's what anti-tank weapons are for. The best way to stop an M-1 is with a mine that blows a tread off. We want tanks for real armored warfare, which means to get deep in the enemy's rear and overrun his soft stuff, his artillery and logistics trains and headquarters, so his whole force panics and comes apart.""The Tsar guessed the Chief of your General Staff would understand tanks and what they are really for," said Father Dimitri."As usual, older and simpler is better," I added. "Retroculture also has its place on the battlefield.""What about an air force?" Browning asked. "We'll get killed from the air.""No air force has yet won a war," I replied. "Air power is pretty much useless against light infantry in our kind of terrain, because it can't see them. Night and bad weather still protect vehicles effectively, unless they can find columns on the roads. Our shoulder-fired SAMS and Triple-A will make them fly high, and from 20,000 feet they can't see or do much. Plus, we have some ideas for fighting their air force in ways they won't expect.""And we will have an air force of our own," I continued. "We have mobilized ultra-light aircraft and their owners, which we'll use to help our infantry see over the next hill. We'll have other light planes for deeper reconnaissance and also to serve as fighters to shoot down drones. As has been the case since World War I, the most useful function of aircraft is reconnaissance. Bombing serves mostly to piss the enemy off and make him fight harder, especially when it hits his civilians, which it usually does. Remember, there is no such thing as a 'precision weapon' in real war.""And we've got some guys working on a navy, too," I added. "It won't have ships like the U.S. Navy, but it will have a sting to it.""Don't get me wrong," I concluded. "The feds will have a lot more gear than we will. But there are tactical counters to most of it. The more automated a weapon or a system is, the less it can deal with situations not envisioned by its designers. And the feds are deeply into automation and "systems." Any system is fragile, because they all have lots of pieces, and if you counter any piece the whole thing falls apart. We'll just have to be imaginative and creative and out-think their systems. Other people have done that, like in Afghanistan. So can we.""It's clear the General Staff has been doing some good work," said Fred Gunst, who led a battalion of militia in southern New Hampshire. "But General Staffs are supposed to be about planning. I'd like to know what kind of campaign plans our General Staff is developing.""You're right, and we haven't been idle there either," I replied. "The most important planning is for mobilization and deployment. We've got some stuff in draft for you to take back and talk to your people about. We need their feedback to know if where we're going is practical.""But the gist of it is simple, as plans in war must be," I continued. "We will have three types of forces. The first will be active-duty, mobile forces. We want to have the two regiments of light armor, plus one heavy armor regiment with the T-34s. With those will be three regiments of motorized infantry, in trucks, of three thousand men each. Each regiment will have some heavy mortars for artillery, but we want to keep the focus on infantry. We want lots of trigger-pullers, not mechanics and communicators and other support personnel.""They will be the first line of defense. Behind them will stand ten more regiments of light infantry, made up of first-line reservists. They will be subject to call-up in 24 hours. They will be usable anywhere, but long-distance transport will have to be provided with civilian vehicles. Tactically, they'll move on their feet.""Finally, behind them will stand a universal militia, which will include every male citizen of the Northern Confederation between the ages of 17 and 55. We've got enough AKs and RPGs coming from Russia to give one of each to every militiaman, plus a machine gun and a light mortar to every squad of twelve (three fire teams). They will operate only in their local area, because we can't transport or feed all those folks. But they will form a "web" of resistance to any attacker which will set him up for a counter-attack by our mobile forces and mobilized light infantry.""We've already done some gaming, both of deployment plans and possible enemy options. We're looking to do more, so identify your best war-gamers and we'll tell them what we need worked on. More minds beget more options."“Great,” said Gunst, "but you haven't answered my question. What about campaign plans. We need something like the Schlieffen Plan. Aren't you working on that?""No, and we won't," bellowed a deep voice behind me. Startled, I turned around to find Bill Kraft. Big men can move remarkably quietly. "We want to be Moltkes, not Schlieffens," he continued. "War cannot be run by time-table, like a railroad. Like Moltke, we know what we want to do. If the federals attack, we want to draw them in, encircle them, and wipe them out. But exactly where and how we will do that depends on what the enemy does, which can never be foreseen with certainty. We are gaming some possibilities, as we should. But we must be prepared to act creatively and above all quickly when the federals move, according to the situation they create and the opportunities it gives us. The key to good planning is to understand what can be planned and what cannot.”"I agree with that," said General LeMieux. "It always drove me nuts in the American Army the way they would develop some elaborate operations plan, and then become prisoners of the plan because it took so much time and effort to create. When the enemy did something unexpected, we would still follow the plan as if nothing had happened. Of course, that was in an exercise, so nobody paid a price. But God help them if they do the same thing against us.""I suspect they will, and I also suspect He won't," I replied.

The View From Olympus: The Summer of '14

Events in Ukraine are sendingi a slight shudder down the spine of those who reflect on the summer of 1914. We appear to be a long way from war. Yet the New York Times reports the White House is considering providing targeting data to the Ukrainian armed forces.President Obama does not want war, nor does Chancellor Merkel. The Kaiser did not want war in 1914 either, but he got it anyway. Part of the reason for the catastrophe of summer l9l4 was that no party made much effort to see the situation from their competitor's viewpoint.If we look at the present situation in Ukraine from Russia's perspective, we see that Russia is on the strategic defensive. Her primary objective is to keep Ukraine out of NATO. NATO stupidly has made itself into a threat to Russia. When the Soviet Union was dissolving, Washington promised Gorbachev that if he dissolved the Warsaw Pact; NATO would not expand into central and eastern Europe. That proved to be a lie. NATO has pushed its boundary steadily eastward. It waged an aggressive and unprovoked war on Russia's historic ally, Serbia. NATO continues to present itself to countries such as Poland as directed against Russia.Quite reasonably, Russia sees now sees NATO as a danger and Ukrainian membership in NATO as a direct threat. American combat aircraft stationed in Ukraine would be uncomfortably close to Moscow--as they are now five minutes flying time from St. Petersburg  from airfields in the Baltics. The equivalent would be if Pennsylvania withdrew from the union, allied with Russia and invited Russia to station combat aircraft in Philadelphia. It is safe to say we would not take such a development lying down. Neither is Russia.Operationally, Russia is on the offensive in Ukraine, using (unreliable) proxies to create strategic depth by detaching eastern Ukraine from Kiev. So long as the West refuses to take account of Russia's interests, it is what she must do. I doubt the Kremlin considers it an optimal course, but at the moment it is all that is on offer.Tactically Russia is on the defensive, trying to keep her irregular allies in eastern Ukraine from being overrun. Ukraine, not the pro-Russian fighters, ended the cease-fire, and Kiev's suddenly invigorated forces (dbwtedskyktheir new (their new competence probably came from outside help) are on the offensive, attempting to re-take all of eastern Ukraine. This is a flash point, because Russia cannot allow that to happen so long as there is a danger of Ukraine joining NATO. However reluctantly, Russia will have to do whatever is necessary to keep Kiev from reasserting control.Were Washington and the E.U. to do what statesmen in 1914 refused to do and take account of the other side's interests, a settlement of the Ukrainian crisis would not be difficult. The basic shape of an agreement would cover four points:

1. NATO will not invite Ukraine to join.
2. Ukraine agrees not to seek NATO membership.
3. Following a cease-fire and a general pardon, Russian-speakers in Ukraine will have their rights guaranteed by all parties, those rights being similar to what Francophones have in Canada.
4. Economically, Ukraine will belong to both east and west, serving as a bridge between the two, which could be a highly profitable role.

At present, it does not appear that events this summer will follow the course of those in l9l4. But they are moving in that direction. All parties need to communicate and cooperate to ensure that movement is stopped. The capital best placed to send events on a different course is Berlin. Kaiser Wilhelm II tried, desperately, in 1914, but he was too late. Berlin needs to act now.

Efficiency Is Not A Conservative Virtue

The word "conservative" has been warped and twisted into so many new meanings contrary to what it once meant that one can only pity it. Some attach it to the belief that any "market outcome" is for the best in this best of all possible (i.e. capitalist) worlds. That is the belief of Dr. Pangloss and his heirs, the libertarians (sorry, Herr Leibnitz), not conservatives. Others attach it to the endless quest for efficiency and efficiency's close cousin, cheapness, that now disfigures the “Globalist” economy. Such "conservatism" elevates as its First Commandment the iron law of wages, with the ironic result that it becomes an argument for Marxism.But efficiency has never been a conservative virtue. Conservatives' respect for traditions, customs, and habits and their understanding of society as an organic creation of many generations mean they value and protect lots of things that are inefficient, from the tripartite division of the American government through small family farms and local businesses to Flanders & Swan's slow trains. We recognize that a modicum of efficiency is desirable lest institutions cease to produce anything. But to us, it is markedly less important than age, beauty, and having and helping others to have an enjoyable life. Our utopia is The Shire, not the World of Our Ford.As usual the best corrective to any notion that conservatives are Taylorists pursuing an eternal quest for the cheapest price comes from Russell Kirk. In The Politics of Prudence, the best one-volume introduction to a truly conservative politics, Dr. Kirk wrote:

An economy obsessed by an alleged Gross National Product--no matter what is produced, or how--becomes inhumane. A society that thinks only of alleged Efficiency, regardless the consequences to human beings, works its own ruin. . . In his book The Economic Role of the State, (W.A.) Orton ironically describes the cult of Efficiency:"Let us therefore praise the great god Efficiency," Orton writes. "All he demands is that we make straight his path through the desert and purge the opposition . . . How much more mastery is evident in the controls of a supersonic plane than in the clumsy splendor of some medieval shrine! How much higher a peak of human achievement! Human? Let us not be too particular about that . . .

Later in the same volume, Dr. Kirk personifies the quest for cheapness as Cyrus P. Whittle, a Yankee schoolmaster in George Santayana's novel The Last Puritan. He writes,

So America's contribution to the universal "democratic capitalism" of the future . . . will be just this: cheapness, the cheapest music and the cheapest comic books and the cheapest morality that can be provided. This indeed would be the revolution of revolutions, the Gehenna of universal monotony and mediocrity. This is Cyrus P. Whittle, telling himself that not only is America the biggest thing on earth, but America is soon going to wipe out everything else;...

Substitute "Globalism" for America (though with America's elite Globalism's greatest proponent) and you have something pretty near our situation. What brings Dr. Kirk's denunciations of cheapness and efficiency to mind is the current quest of the conservative movement for a new agenda, one that speaks to the problems of today and tomorrow, not yesterday. My modest proposal is that opposition to efficiency, the quest for ever-greater cheapness and the resulting destruction of the American middle class, should be part of that new agenda.All of us who live in the nation's heartland know the real story. There has been no economic recovery. Why? Because the number of good jobs, jobs that pay a man enough to give his family a middle-class standard of living, continues to shrink. Young people entering the labor market find nothing but minimum-wage jobs that offer only 28 hours a week (more and the employer is into Obamacare). They cannot make enough to leave home and begin an adult life, much less start a family.The quest for efficiency not only lowers wages and hours, it increasingly turns the lucky person who gets a job into a wage-slave. All his time, 24/7, belongs to his employer, who demands it through the incessant ringing or beeping of some hellish electronic device, a human leash. Any failure to respond risks a return to joblessness. The iron law of wages, indeed.Conservatives should be in the lead in demanding government regulation of employers' demands on employee's time, the bleats of the libertarians be damned. Such a movement is underway. The July 16 New York Times reported it in a front-page story:

As more workers find their lives upended and their paychecks reduced by ever-changing, on-call schedules, government officials are trying to put limits on the harshest of those scheduling practices.The actions reflect a growing national movement--fueled by women's and labor groups--to curb practices that affect millions of families, like assigning just one or two days of work a week or requiring employees to work unpredictable hours that wreak havoc with everyday routines...

Women's and labor groups, very well, but where are conservatives? In Washington, no doubt licking the boots of their Wall Street donors, who endlessly chant "efficiency, efficiency." But efficiency is not a conservative virtue.Ironically, treating workers so badly they hate their jobs and their employers is not even very efficient. Another New York Times piece, from the July 5 "Business Day" section of the newspaper, "Paying Employees to Stay, Not to Go," relates how some fast-food chains have improved their bottom line by paying their workers decent wages. One of those chains, the quality of whose burgers I can personally attest to, is In-N-Out Burger, based in California. Their hamburgers are competitively priced, but they pay all their employees a minimum of $10.50 an hour. A nascent chain in Michigan, Moo Cluck Moo Burger, starts everyone at $15. The Times reports that, the iron law of wages to the contrary, these restaurants find paying decent wages benefits them because their employees remain with them, saving on training costs, and they provide much better customer service. Any businessman will tell you it is far more efficient to keep a customer than to try to attract a new one.Not only should conservatives be in the lead of movements to pay living wages and respect employees' right to private time, we have something unique to contribute. What? When Big Business (conservatives are suspicious of anything big) replies, “We won't be competitive internationally unless we continually cut wages and (to avoid benefits) hours,” conservatives have an answer: bring back tariffsThe destruction of the American middle class can be explained in two words: free trade. Free trade averaged our wages with those of countries such as China and Korea. They went up, but we came down. Wall Street didn't, of course; it profited vastly from free trade, by moving jobs overseas. That too can be subject to tariff, in the form of an export duty of, say, 300% of the wage paid to the worker in India who replaced an American. The Establishment has made the word “tariff” unacceptable in polite society, but conservatives are in a position to change that. If we pronounce tariffs acceptable again, to whom will Wall Street turnAmerica built its industry and its comfortable middle class under tariff protection. Now, we need tariff protection to rebuild both. As a 19th century Republican might have said, "Here's to the tariff, the gold standard, and prosperity! Huzzah!”

Victoria: Chapter 20

Book 2: War

On July 27, 2027, the blacks of Newark, New Jersey rose against their oppressors and took over the city.The rising itself was hardly unusual. For years now, urban blacks had regularly celebrated the coming of summer by rioting. It followed a standard pattern. After about a week of hot weather, the Boyz of the F Street Crew would drop in on their G Street opposite numbers and toss a Molotov cocktail into an abandoned building. Since most buildings in  American cities had been abandoned, this was no big deal. To keep face, the G Street Roaches would return the favor. Then, honor assuaged, the two Crews would band together and visit another neighborhood, where a few more buildings would be set ablaze. By this time, others were getting the message, and the gangs began to move out beyond their usual turf. A general Pax Diaboli prevailed when it was time to riot, and the borders were relaxed so everyone could join in.The real sport was not the rioting and burning, but the looting. In effect, the whole city had a blue light special going. The merchants were cleaned out, but unless they were Koreans or Jews they usually weren't burnt out; the gangs wanted them around next year so the street fair could continue. The merchants still made money, thanks to the hundreds of percent markups on the stuff they sold the rest of the year.Where were the police and the government? The police, like most else, had long since divided along white/black lines, and white cops no longer went into black sections of town, for the good reason that they might be shot if they did. Many black cops and local black politicians were in bed with the gangs, who really ran the place because they controlled the streets. All the politicos wanted was a portion of the take, which they got. In return, they did the "Oppressed Victims’ Boogie" anytime higher authority threatened to mess with the gangs. One hand washed the other.The real losers in all this were the honest, working blacks, still a majority, who lived in a state of perpetual terror. They hid during the riots, swept up afterwards and otherwise kept their mouths shut. Until that 27th of July.The rioting started in the usual way. It had been blazing hot in Newark for more than a week, with nighttime temperatures staying in the 90s. On the 25th, a few fires were set. The tomtoms beat through the night, and on the 26th the looting began. But that evening, outside the Mt. Zion A.M.E. church, the script changed.The congregation had gathered at about 5 PM, more for safety than worship; black rioters usually didn't fire-bomb black churches. The preacher, one Rev. Ebenezer Smith, delivered an unusual sermon:

For more than a century and a half, black people in this country have been battling their oppressors. But we have forgotten something important. We have been so busy fighting oppression that we have forgotten to ask just who our oppressors are.Maybe at one time our oppressors were white people. But that is not true any more. I have never seen a slave owner, or a slave dealer, or even a slave. They were all dead long before I was born, before my father and his father were born.I have never met a member of the Ku Klux Klan. There may still be a few of those somewhere, but I doubt if there are any within a hundred miles of Newark. If I did meet a Klansman in his white sheet, I would laugh.I have never been oppressed by a white person. But I have been oppressed by other black folks almost every day of my life. So has everyone in this church.We are oppressed when we fear to walk home from the bus stop, because another black man may rob us. We are oppressed when our schools are wrecked by black hoodlums. We are oppressed when our children are shot by another black child for their jacket or shoes. We are oppressed when our sons are turned into crack addicts or crack dealers by other blacks, or our daughters are raped by other blacks, or taken into prostitution by other blacks.We Christian black people are oppressed today worse than we have ever been in our history. Our lives are worse than they were in the deep South under segregation. They are probably worse than they were when we were slaves, because then we were at least a valuable piece of property. The black toughs with guns who terrorize this city and every black city in this country do not value us at all. They shoot us down for any reason, or no reason at all.It is time for us to fight our real oppressors, the drug dealers, the whore-mongers, the gang members. The fact that they are black makes no difference. They are our black oppressors. They are not our brothers. They are worse enemies than whites ever were. It is time for us to battle them, and to take our city back from them.

He then equipped his congregation with baseball bats and led them out into the street.Singing "Onward Christian Soldiers," they proceeded to beat the crap out of any gang member they caught. Other honest blacks, seeing what was happening, came out and joined in. Some had guns, others had ropes, kitchen knives or tires and gasoline cans.When they turned the corner onto Newark's main street, a bunch of gang members opened fire on them. A few fell, but the rest came on. They mobbed the gang members, hanged a few from the nearest lamppost and "necklaced" the rest, stuffing a gasoline soaked tire around their necks and setting it on fire.The Internet was the command and control system. Video of burning Boyz soon filled the cell phone screens, and more decent blacks poured into the streets. By midnight, it was full-scale war, blacks against orcs. It turned out there were still a lot more blacks. The gangsters, pimps, whores, drug-dealers, and drug-users ended up lumenaria, in such numbers that the street lights went out, their sensors telling them that it was dawn. It was.The next day, for the first time in decades, Newark knew peace. The citizens had taken back their city. The corrupt mayor and his cronies fled, and the Rev. Ebenezer Smith was the city's new "Protector." He appointed a "Council of Elders" to help him run the place, and ordered armed church ushers and vestrymen to patrol the streets.Across America, people of every race cheered. When the good Reverend Smith appealed for help restoring his city, it came. Every part of the country sent shovels, bricks, mortar and money. Construction workers, white and black, came with bulldozers, trucks, and cranes. The NRA offered a thousand pistols to help arm the new City Watch, and the Carpenters' Union built gratis a handsome gallows on the town square – with three traps, no waiting. The Council of Elders voted to make car theft, drug and handgun possession, and prostitution hanging offenses.

***

It took a while for the politically correct establishment to react. But they did, because they had to. One of their most useful lies was that they represented the "oppressed." Now, their own slaves had rebelled and taken over the plantation.On August 3, 2027, as Newark was beginning to pick itself up off its knees, the Establishment tried to kick it in the head. The governor of New Jersey, a Republican woman, with the former mayor of Newark standing beside her, announced that "the rule of law and due legal process must be restored in Newark" (a place where for decades all the law and due process had protected was crime and criminals). To that end, she was ordering the New Jersey National Guard to occupy the city, restore the mayor to office and arrest Rev. Smith, his Council of Elders, and his City Watch. They would be charged with “hate crimes.”The next day, the lead elements of the New Jersey Guard, with the mayor hunkered down in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, entered the city. They were met by a vast crowd of Newark's citizens, carrying Bibles and hymnals, led by their clergymen. They laid down in the street before and behind the convoy to block it, then approached the Guardsmen, not to threaten them but to plead for their help.The moral level of war triumphed. Faced not with rioters but with crying, begging women and children quoting Scripture to them, the Guard fell apart. The Guardsmen were ordinary citizens themselves, and like most normal people, they thought what had happened in Newark was great. The black Guardsmen took their weapons and went over to their own people, and the whites and Hispanics went home, with the sincere thanks of Newark's citizens. The mayor was dragged out of his Bradley, marched by Newark's new soldiers to the town gallows, and hanged.In Washington, the Establishment sensed that if they lost this one, it was over (they were right about that). So on August 5, President Sam Warner, a "moderate" Republican who had won with 19% of the vote in a 13-way race, announced he was sending the 82nd Airborne to take Newark back for the government. In a move so politically stupid only a Republican could have made it, he waved around a Bible and said, "The United States Government will not allow this book to become the law of the land."That was the final straw. All across the country, Christians held rallies for Newark. Bus loads of militiamen, mostly white, headed for New Jersey to help the city defend itself. Military garrisons mutinied, with the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune moving on Ft. Bragg, the base of the 82nd Airborne. That didn't come to a fight, because the Christians in the 82nd took over the post and said they would not obey orders. In New York State, the Air National Guard painted Pine Tree insignia on their aircraft and said they would bomb any federal troops approaching Newark.Here in New England, our friends in Vermont beat us to the punch. On August 8, Governor Ephraim Logan of the Vermont First Party addressed an emergency session of the State Legislature. In Vermont fashion, his words were few but to the point:

Vermont was once an independent republic. We joined the new United States because they represented what most Vermonters believed in: limited government, serving the people, guided by virtue.The government now in Washington represents none of these things. It seeks to run and regulate every aspect of every person's life. It lords over the people, far worse than King George ever did, and it regards citizens as nothing but cows to be milked for money. It lives and breathes vice of very kind, and holds virtue in contempt.The federal government no longer represents the will of the people of Vermont or the United States. I do not know what other Americans will do, but I know what Vermont should do. It is time for us to resume the independence we won and voluntarily surrendered. I ask you for a vote of secession from the United States and the restoration of the sovereign Republic of Vermont.

The Vermont First Party held a large majority of the seats in the legislature, so the outcome was foreordained. It was the moment they had long been waiting for. Most of the legislators from other parties joined in too. On August 9, 2027, Vermont became a republic again.In Maine, we moved swiftly to follow Vermont. Our Resolution of Secession was passed on August 22, by a referendum, with 87% of the voters saying "Yes." New Hampshire's legislature had already voted secession on August 14.We knew we were all in this together, so when the governors of the three states met in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on October 12, Columbus Day, and recommended we join together as the Northern Confederation, it was accepted by our people. Our flag was the old Pine Tree flag of America's first revolutionaries, with its motto, “An Appeal to Heaven.”The Confederation would be a loose one, like the original American Confederation; we had all had enough of strong central governments. We would have a common defense, foreign policy, and currency, and no internal tariffs, but otherwise each state would continue to handle its own affairs. The three governors would make up a Council of State to handle common problems; that would be the only federal government, and the capital would rotate every six months among the states so no federal bureaucracy could grow.Elsewhere in the old United states, South Carolina seceded on August 24, followed quickly by North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Their representatives met in Montgomery, Alabama in early September and formed a new Confederate States of America. Virginia, dominated politically by the non-Southerners in northern Virginia, held back this time, as did Florida and Texas; the latter two feared the reaction of their large Hispanic populations if they left the Union, and for good reason. As it turned out, the Union wasn't much help.The Rocky Mountain states pulled out too, and established a new nation named Libertas. Oregon, Washington and British Columbia had long been calling themselves Cascadia; they had had their own flag since the 1990s. They quickly made it official. A few more states set up independent republics, while the rest waited to see what would happen.At General Staff Headquarters in Augusta – now the General Staff of the Northern Confederation – we knew what was going to happen; war. We also knew it wasn't going to be a War Between the States, not this time. That would be part of it, but probably just the beginning. The deep divisions that ran through America's "multicultural" society in the early 21st century did not follow state boundaries. Yet those divisions would be the most important ones in the war that was to come.As Chief of the General Staff, I faced two main responsibilities: getting the Northern Confederation's forces ready for war, and developing contingency plans. To that end, I called a conference of our principal officers, including the Guard leaders from Vermont and New Hampshire, in Augusta on October 30, 2027.

The View From Olympus: Two Wars

The crisis over the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine continues to escalate in ways that suggest part of the Western reaction is agenda-driven. While it appears the airliner was shot down by a Russian-made SA-11, no other Russian involvement has been yet been found. The July 23 Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that senior U.S. intelligence officials "offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement." The officials said

they did not know who fired the missile or whether any Russian operatives were present at the missile launch. They were not certain that the missile crew was trained in Russia... In terms of who fired the missile, "we don't  know a name, we don't know a rank, and we're not even 100 percent sure of a nationality."

Despite all these uncertainties, voices in the West howling for a confrontation with Russia grow louder, with both neo-libs and neo-cons heading the pack. At the same time, the most interesting question hanging over the shoot-down continues to be ignored: did the Ukrainian government have foreknowledge of  the event?As I pointed out in an earlier column, the speed and choreography of Kiev's reaction suggests prior preparation. That in turn suggests foreknowledge. While it is unlikely Ukraine itself shot the plane down, if it knew the shoot-down was coming and did nothing to stop it, it shares responsibility with those who fired the missile.Ukrainian foreknowledge of the event could have taken many forms. Kiev may simply have known that the pro-Russian forces had SA-11s and calculated that if it kept the airspace open, an airliner was likely to get hit. Ukraine may have had agents on the scene. Those agents could have acted as agents provocateur, encouraging the SA-11 operators to shoot at anything flying.The most likely way Kiev may have set up the incident, from what we know now, was to fly a Ukrainian military aircraft near the Malaysian airliner. The July 23 New York Times, reporting on the same conference with U.S. intelligence officials noted in the Plain Dealer, reported that

The officials added that the current American assessment was that the separatists had mistaken the civilian plane for a Ukrainian military jet. The most plausible explanation to me is a mistake," said one of the intelligence officials . . .

According to the previous day's Times, during a briefing by two senior Russian military officers,

the Russians said a Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 fighter jet that was airborne at the time briefly approached the same 33,000-feet altitude as the Boeing 777 and was within range to bring it down with an air—to-air missile.

The Sukhoi-25 is a ground attack aircraft, not a fighter, and the only air—to-air missile it would carry would be short range. If the Russian statement is correct, the Sukhoi would have been close enough to the airliner to make misidentification easy.Why aren't we hearing more about Kiev's possible role while demands for “getting tough with Russia reverberate? Because Russia is re-emerging as the most conservative great power, in defense of Christian culture and against political correctness. Both neo-libs and neo-cons accept the cultural revolution of the 1960s, so they see Russia's role under President Putin as defender of the Faith as a threat. There is an agenda here, and it is one conservatives should oppose. As they used to say on Dragnet, "Just the facts, ma'am."The other war of note is that in Gaza. Despite its far higher casualties, Hamas is currently in the stronger position strategically. Israel can only meet its stated war goal if it completely stops the rocket fire from Gaza. That is almost physically impossible, even if Israel occupies the whole place--at a high cost in IDF casualties that will continue so long as they stay there. Hamas wanted an Israeli ground invasion, because that allows them to get at the IDF. The only way Israel can achieve its war aim is with a negotiated agreement, and Hamas is so far sticking to its war aim of lifting the blockade of Gaza. In that sense, this war is aimed as much at Egypt as Israel, since the blockade is enforced by both countries. Unless Hamas relents and agrees to a cease-fire with the blockade still in place or is overthrown and replaced by a different regime, it is likely to get what it went to war for. As usual, comparative attrition is a poor way to judge who is winning. At the moment, it's Hamas.

Rand Paul's Reading List

The neocons and other assorted interventionists clearly have Rand Paul in their cross hairs. Paul is currently leading GOP presidential primary polls, and he apparently has the interventionists spooked.

I have been critical of Paul on immigration and foreign policy from the paleo-Right, but he has the right enemies, so I find myself in the difficult position of frequently desiring to defend him against the attacks of his enemies without endorsing his approach in total.

The first volley in this latest battle was fired by Texas Governor Rick Perry in a Washington Post editorial accusing Senator Paul of “isolationism.” Paul fired back with a reply in Politico.

Now comes round two. The Weekly Standard published an article criticizing Senator Paul’s suggested reading list for the thoughtcrime of including books that don’t conform to neocon standards of acceptable opinion. Paul quickly removed the list which was a mistake, because it gives the appearance that there really was something to be ashamed of, as this gloating column from the same Weekly Standard author shows. It would have been better for Paul to defend the list and attack his enemies for thought-policing. Then perhaps the list could have been taken down later if Paul and his team judged it to be more trouble than it’s worth, but taking it down right away empowers his interventionist critics.

Now The Washington Free Beacon has jumped into the fray with a typical “point and sputter” hit piece. The Free Beacon appears to specialize in enforcing neocon hive mind Right-think. Tom Woods calls it, in his wonderfully sarcastic way, a “thought-monitoring website in the mold of ThinkProgress on the left.” You may recall that it was the Free Beacon, and this same author, Alana Goodman, that “broke” the story that Jack Hunter/The Southern Avenger had once written and said things that neocons found objectionable.

Someone needs to inform Ms. Goodman that the “point and sputter” hit piece is an increasingly tired cliché. The “point and sputter” is characterized by its practice of simply dropping statements and quotes in an article, often short and without context, as if they are self-condemning. If someone says, for example, that we are controlled by reptilian aliens that reside inside the spaceship Moon, then I’ll accept that as self-condemning and we can move on. But if someone suggests, for example, that our interventionist foreign policy plays a role in Muslim hostility to America, then you have to be living in some sort of neocon Beltway bubble to think that is self-condemning. In fact, that our foreign policy plays a role in Muslim hostility is not really a debatable assertion, as that expert in Muslim hostility, Osama Bin Laden, made clear following 9/11. It clearly does, and I dare any interventionists to forever sacrifice their intellectual credibility and say it doesn’t. So what is at issue here is not the truth of the statement but what to do with the information. Keep doing what we are doing despite the costs because it is necessary and proper or stop doing it because it does us more harm than good. Implications that such a statement of obvious fact is instead “blaming the victim” or “moral equivalence” are shameless and unworthy of anyone claiming to be a serious commentator.

I don’t have the word limit to refute Ms. Goodman’s hit piece point by point, but I’ll point to a few examples of the “point and sputter” technique to demonstrate the intellectual bankruptcy of this lazy slur tactic.

First, note the title of the hit piece, “Rand Paul Scrubs Anti-Israel Reading List from Website.” The reading list was not “non-interventionist.” It wasn’t even “isolationist.” It wasn’t “dangerous” or “naïve,” also favorite interventionist charges. It certainly wasn’t “radical” or “liberal.” It was “anti-Israel.” Really Alana?

Then there’s this beauty: “One of the recommended titles, Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency by Patrick Buchanan, has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for containing ‘anti-Semitic rhetoric.’” Oh well then, if the Anti-Defamation League says it’s anti-Semitic, then I guess that settles it. It must be anti-Semitic. Again, what kind of neoconservative bubble do you have to live in to believe that the ADL deserves to be the final authority of what is anti-Semitic and to accept such an accusation at face value? The ADL supports gun control. Does that settle the issue for Ms. Goodman? The similar “hate” watchdog group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, designates the Constitution Party and the Family Research Council as hate groups? Does she accept those designations at face value?

And what is some of the evidence presented that Buchanan’s book is anti-Semitic? “In the book, Buchanan accused ‘the Beltway Likud’ of plotting the war in Iraq ‘long before 9/11.’” The phrase “Beltway Likud” was unhelpfully provocative, but that neocon hawks were itching for military intervention in Iraq before 9/11 is a matter of undisputed fact. Is Ms. Goodman not familiar with the “Clean Break” report? Is she not familiar with the Project for a New American Century? This is not obscure stuff. If Ms. Goodman is unaware of them, then perhaps she shouldn’t be writing about foreign policy.

I could go on, but here is the point. For thoughtful, reasonable, well intentioned people, it is not enough to just scatter shot a bunch of short quotes without context in an article and pretend they are self-condemning. It’s a cheap shot, it’s PC grandstanding, and it’s intellectually lazy and dishonest. It’s not how civilized ladies and gentlemen conduct a debate. If you are going to make an assertion, you have to back it up. Responsible journalists and commentators who cover foreign policy should not act like agents of Madison Avenue and make cheap appeals to emotions. They should engage in an honest intellectual debate. Articles in the Free Beacon about “anti-Israel” reading lists are not up to that standard, and discredit both the author and the website.

Dan E. Phillips, MD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia. His work has been published at Lew Rockwell, Chronicles Magazine, Intellectual Conservative, the Abbeville Institute blog, and several other places. He can be contacted at danphillipsmd@gmail.com.