(I originally titled this essay “America’s Antidote: High Value Targeting” but decided the odds of garnering the support for types of efforts (non-lethal) required by a majority of the population to take back America are extremely slim)
The day after the day that was the first sentence in the final chapter of the history of “Amerika” (1983), a man approached me in the WalMart parking lot. “I know you.” he said. No, sadly, it wasn’t John Gault but a man I knew through attendance at a local Tea Party. It was ironic that he asked me the same thing the Internationale members asked Lenin when Germany -and the rest of Europe- failed to go communist after the October revolution: “What can we do? …..What can [Is to] be done? Can anything be done?” Well, of course something can be done. And even though he agreed with my profanely emotional -and distinctly kinetic- course of action he recommended I don’t repeat it too loudly in unvetted company.
As mentioned in “America’s Autopsy: An Overdose on the Heroin of Hedonism”, the key terrain in counterinsurgency is the population. Both friendly forces and the enemy (both foreign and domestic) are vying for the hearts and minds of that key terrain. Just as the enemy invests considerable patience, resources and energy into laying the foundation of the insurgency prior to any overt hostile action (if even necessary), the counterinsurgent must use the same tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) as the insurgent ( Insurgency Pyramid. ) The only primary source that has faithfully followed this movement (and plagiarized by every conservative pundit) is DiscovertheNetworks.org . When the bad guys appear to have the perceived legitimacy by the population, the insurgent leadership always wins. It is when the political groundwork is laid and strategic, operational, and tactical measures succeed that the hidden agenda of the insurgent leadership is executed ….as are the “useful idiots” who aided in the subversion. This happened in Vietnam, Nicaragua and many other countries. The biggest surprise for most of those who voted for Socialism in the last election will be that the extent of the unintended consequences will affect them so personally and terribly (“A Viet Cong Memoir”, “The Black Book of Communism”). Just as I believe the guide for fighting Islam should be “Fighting the War of Ideas Like a Real War” by J. Michael Waller (if it had been read and followed by Clinton/Bush, et al we could have killed OBL within two years of 9/11 and not had to invade Iraq going bankrupt in the process), I believe the guide for countering the Socialism/identity politics within America is Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s book “The Disuniting of American: Reflections on a Multicultural Society”,1991. Just as Department of Defense johnny-come-lately counterinsurgency “experts” (Petraeus) plagiarized paradigms from the real experts of the ’50s and ’60s, nascent conservative pundits belatedly ranting against the political consequences of racial politics are really only echoing in hindsight the vision of earlier,more astute observers. Be that as it may, real conservatives need “useful idiots” as much as the insurgents.
There are two approaches to winning the hearts and minds of the population: Kinetic and Non-kinetic. In other words, lethal and non-lethal. Lethal methods are self-explanatory: murder, assassinations, extortion, blackmail, kidnappings, etc. If the leadership of either side is smart these will be measures of last resort. Non-lethal measures are the preferred approach for a side seeking the moral high ground. If circumstances devolve to the point that survival of the State is at risk, as in Columbia against Pablo Escobar, lethal measures can and should be employed. This right to resort to revolution is imprinted indeliby in our Constitution:
“all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their dutyand to provide new Guards for their future security.” Declaration of Independence
Lethal, extra-judicial tactics were successful in Columbia because the State -despite their faults- was still a moral, democratic force. That is not the case in America today. A political body whose first commandment is to get re-elected and whose second commandment is “He who has the gold, rules” has lost all moral authority over its’ people. I think it was Will Rogers who said “I think I finally understand what a statesman is. He’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen”. Envision the scales of justice: the fulcrum is the State. On one side the plate is laden with moral authority/perceived legitimacy. The opposite side’s plate is laden with the use of force. In a democratic society the State evenly balances the rights of its’ citizens with the judicious use of authority to ensure the rights of all of its’ citizens. When the State loses its’ moral authority it must resort to the use of force to retain its’ power and status – ergo Obama’s use of appointed “Czars”. Andrew Jackson (who bore a scar from a British officer’s saber for insolence during the Revolutionary War):
“Who Are We?”
Proclamation to the People ofTennessee
By
Andrew Jackson
General of theTennessee Militia
Circa 1812
[Introduction by the author]: “There was a time when theUnited States had heroes and reveled in them. There was a time when Andrew Jackson was one of those heroes, along with the men and women who stood with him at New Orleansand drove an invading army back into the sea……
……..A population of many ethnic and racial backgrounds who frequently quarreled with one another put aside their differences and joined together to save their city and safeguard their liberty. Their heroic deed and accomplishment proved to many that a union of people had at last taken place in this country. The Battle convinced them that a republican society which rewarded individual effort, not class or heredity, could and would survive. Massachusetts had sent an invitation to the New Englandstates for the purpose of electing delegates to a convention inHarford,Connecticut to discuss grievances about the war and propose amendments to the Constitution to redress them. There was even talk that the convention might attempt to bring aboutNew England’s succession from theUnion. For Andrew Jackson there was never any doubt that he was a citizen of the United States and that designation meant something real and concrete. Just two years earlier when Congress had authorized the enlistment of fifty thousand troops, he, as general of theTennesseemilitia, had issued a proclamation in which he asked the people of the western country a simple question “Who are We?”
He then proceeded to answer his own question: “Are we the titled Slaves of George the Third? The conscripts of Napolean the great? Or the frozen peasants of the Russian Czar? NO! We are the free-born sons of America! The citizens of the only republick [sic] now existing in the world; and the only people on earth who possess rights, liberties, and property which they dare call their own!”
This credo was something Andrew Jackson fervently believed and something he insisted the citizens of New Orleans understand and acknowledge whether they be French, Spanish, Creole, Cajun, whatever. But as it worked out it took a great victory over the British and the rescue of their city to convince them.” (The Battle of New Orleans by Robert V. Remini, p. 44)
The biggest vulnerability of a democratic people is their moral repugnance in using “illegal” means to restore a legitimate State. Prematurely resorting to those measures by the citizens only serve to justify counter-force by the illegitimate State. But, as the Declaration states there comes a time to “throw off the yoke”. Illegal means have to remain a recourse of last resort in dire circumstances. This was the case in Columbia when the government, after several devastating and indiscriminate bombings by drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar inflamed public opinion against him. It was only then that public opinion turned against him. This was no minor feat for the government against an extremely wealthy figure who bought the loyalty of the population by providing free public services like health care and housing. The Muslim Brotherhood is doing the same to gain inroads into less Islam-ardent areas of Africa. The domestic parallels are so blatant a blind man can see them. This includes the de facto recognition of the Sinaloa Cartel by the U.S. government as the eventual monopoly over the legalization of drugs in America.
Restoring America to it’s Creed will not be accomplished by the military. It has been bought and paid for by the military-industrial complex – the incestuous relationship between the Pentagon, Congress and defense contractors. I doubt it will ever be restored through the electoral process as long as both parties in Congress continue their demographic gerrymandering through an incrementally destructive immigration policy. If our Constitution is to be saved – “if it is to be saved at all” – it has to be through the ideals promised by our Founding Fathers being adopted by the population – those concepts written by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. But where he was optimistic about a restoration through dissemination of the American Ideal, I am pessimistic that several generations of image-addicted hedonists will ever surrender the golden tit. Generations of Americans who prefer reality TV over reading books don’t have the capacity to conceive ideals beyond their own outstretched hands. The most accurate “reality TV” show today is really a compilation of all the others: The Walking Dead. As for me and my house …….Remember the Alamo!
