In the Afghanistan of 1841, with revolts east, west, and south of Kabul, a curiously optimistic Macnaghten wrote to his superiors in India that the countryside was tranquil. How wrong he was. (Sykes, 23-4.)

To improve his image in preparation for a promotion to the Governorship of Bombay, in October of 1841, Macnaghten reduced the monetary subsidy paid to the western Ghilzai tribes by half. The tribes promptly attacked the next caravan that entered the eastern passes reroute from lndia to Kabul. (Sykes, 24.)

A lengthy debate can ensue over making such payments in the first place, much as the debate rages today over pouring money into places such as Fallujah and Ramadi, which have been the source of so much bloodletting of American troops. The fact of the matter is that in the tenuous Afghanistan of 1841, such decisions should not have been made so flippantly for the political showcasing of fiscal responsibility.

In response to the caravan attack, Macnaghten sent a British force against the Ghilzai, and faced surprisingly heavy resistance, mainly in the face of better Afghan tactics and weaponry. On at least one occasion, Shujah's cavalry admitted Ghilzai through the lines to conduct a night attack on the British. While the British insisted on the soon to be outdated British square, or firing from a concentrated line, the Afghans used the terrain for cover and as physical support for their firearms.  While the British relied on their smoothbore muskets, Afghan infantrymen used the jezail, an extremely long and rifled weapon with a much greater range than the British, to target officers and non commissioned officers with near impunity. For all of his blunders, as a result of these battles, Macnaghten recommended recruiting a force of jezailchis to patrol the passes. He was ridiculed in London at the time, but the idea was instituted a generation later with the raising of the famed Khyber Rifles. The modern U.S. military maintains the best arsenal in the world. But they should study the tactics of their enemy and adjust their own, tactics accordingly.

Throughout October of 1841, numerous reports came in from various Afghan sources that an uprising against the British was afoot. During that month, Brigadier-General Robert Sale led a British brigade that was rotating from Afghanistan back to India. He marched the brigade east through the Khyber Pass toward Jalalabad. From a tactical perspective, there were positive aspects to the troop movement. Just beyond Jagdalak, Ghilzai tribesmen attacked the British column and were driven back when British light troops drove the tribesmen from the hills overlooking the passes, foreshadowing a tactic of the future Khyber Riffes. From a strategie perspective, the movement of Sale's brigade out of Kabul spelled doom for the British expeditionary forces left in Afghanistan. Upon arrival in Gandamak, located between Kabul and Jalalabad, Sale received an order to march his forces back to Kabul.

Reports came into the British that Kabul smiths were producing large caches of weapons. Meanwhile, the demeanor of Kabul's shopkeepers toward their British shoppers began to change for the worse. Additionally, Afghan warriors returning from fighting British soldiers in the eastern passes brashly rode right past British cantonments on that where send back to Kabul at this point. Some of the more astute among the British military and political officers were convinced that the Ghilzai, Kohistanis and Durrani were conspiring together for the overthrow of Shujah and the British. Despite all of these combined precursors, those in command refused to make any proactive decisions.

In modern parlance, these reports and collateral clues are respectively known as multiple source reporting and Intelligence indicators. As seen in the reports of the 9/11 commission debates, even in our modern era, such seemingly obvious signs are not always heeded.

In November of 1841, Abdullah Khan Achakzai became the ringleader of a group of Afghan chiefs who spread false rumors that the British were preparing to arrest several prominent Afghans. Ironically, a descendant of Achakzai served as my linguist during Operation Enduring Freedom, a Western-led extort to oust the hardline Afghan leadership from the country. To preempt the supposed pending arrests, a contingent of Afghans attacked the sm all British contingent housed near the Balla Hissar. They killed Sir Alexander Burnes, his brother, Captain William Broadfoot, and their military escort, afterward hacking their bodies to pieces. The Afghans then stole the entire British treasury, which had been foolishly stored in a neighboring house. (Sykes, 27-9.)

The British in the cantonments received news of the disturbance while the mob was still forming outside of Burnes' residence. British officers recommended sending a regiment to protect the residence and to arrest the conspirators, but British command floundered in indecision.  Finally, General Shelton marched three companies toward Kabul, less than two miles away. Along the way, the general received several contradictory orders telling him to stop, then to continue. In the end, he marched into the Balla Hissar and found an astonished Shujah wanting to know why the general was not quelling the riots in the city below.  During the long British delay, after looting and destroying both Burnes' and the British paymaster's houses, the rampaging mob spread throughout the city, killing men, women, and children, and burning shops and houses. The Shah had already sent one of his own regiments to crush the chaos inside the city. By the time the British contingent arrived in Kabul, the city was in full revolt. All the British managed to accomplish was to extract the Shah's regiment. Afghan snipers had pinned the heavily encumbered force in the narrow alleyways, and house-to-house fighting took a heavy toll on the Shah's troops. Shortly thereafter, the Afghans attacked two outlying forts at Charikar, outside of Kabul, and Shekabad, near Ghazni. The Afghans overwhelmed the British in both forts and the garrisons were massacred. In the meantime, the British supply fort, so foolishly located separately from the British cantonments, and a second detached flour storage area, were attacked and captured, leaving the British with scarce provisions.

News of these Afghan victories spread throughout the country and thousands of armed Afghans flocked to Kabul for an assault on the cantonments.  As the British position deteriorated, the British command ordered General Sir William Nott to send reinforcements from Kandahar. Nott sent a brigade, but the expedition failed to get through the bleak snowy terrain of the harsh Afghan winter. As reinforcements failed to provide any relief, General Shelton was ordered to bring his small force out of the Balla Hissar to support the cantonments. One cannot help but wonder what may have transpired had the British decided to do the reverse and march the entire British force from the nearly indefensible cantonments to the heavily fortified Balla Hissar. The British took the other course of action, abandoned the fortress, and regrouped inside the cantonments.

Shelton's additional forces made little difference. Afghans began firing into the cantonments from the Beymaroo Heights, and attacked British positions from surrounding forts. The British achieved small tactical victories at this stage with small expeditions sent out against the Afghans, but did so with heavy losses. In late November, General Shelton marched a force of seventeen companies of infantry, a hundred sappers, two squadrons of cavalry and one large gun out of the cantonments to take the Beymaroo Heights once and for all. The expedition set out before dawn and took the high ground without a fight. At first light, the British pressed their attack and the Afghans took cover in the Beymaroo Village below, returning fire with their jezails. Grapeshot from the sole British gun forced the Afghans to begin an evacuation of the village, putting the British in a, perfect position to destroy the Afghans' main effort. The tide then turned on four key British tactical mistakes.

The British element that was sent down to occupy the houses took a wrong turn and became bogged down at one of the only barricaded gates into the village. Now that it was light, Afghans in Kabul saw the plight of their countrymen and streamed out of the city to assist the men in the Beymaroo Village. The British in the cantonments could have sent a cavalry charge into the reinforcement's flanks, but did nothing. The failure of Shelton to follow a British standing order never to take less than one piece of artillery into battle now proved costly. The sole field gun that the British were utilizing with devastating results overheated and ceased to function. The longer range, and more effective accuracy, of the Afghan jezails now turned the tide of the battle. To compound matters, Shelton ordered the men to form into two squares on top of the hill, massing the British troops into one large target for the Afghan guns. Finally, the front square misinterpreted General Shelton's movement toward the rear square to gather more reinforcements as being a retreat. En masse, the British fled toward the cantonments. Mounted Afghans rode the fleeing troops down in droves. Only the fact that a moderate nephew of Dost Mohammad commanded the Afghan cavalry prevented the complete slaughter of the fleeing British troops.

In early December, Macnaghten met with Khan and agreed that the British would leave the cantonments and begin the march back to India within three days. The British march was delayed, and during the delay, Macnaghten attempted to divide the Afghan chiefs' loyalty toward Akbar Khan. The conspiracy was uncovered, and during a late December meeting with the Khan and several chiefs along the banks of the Kabul River, Macnaghten was shot, and his body hacked apart. (Sykes, 30-1.)

When Akbar Khan returned from nearly two years of exile in Turkestan, he brought with him thousands of Uzbek fighters. These foreigners were originally welcomed as brothers in the fight against the British. Once the British were gone, ethnic tensions flared and the Uzbek presence was viewed with suspicion. This circumstance occurred time and again prior to the British presence, and repeated itself with various ethnic groups during the Soviet occupation. These same ethnic politics are playing out today in Afghanistan where the Uzbeks, Tajiks and other ethnic groups that led the offensive which succeeded in ousting the Taliban from power, are now resented amongst the majority Pashtun population, from Kabul south through a wide swath of the country.

On New Years day of 1842, after months of appalling indecision, starvation, infighting, and military paralysis, the British signed a humiliating treaty agreeing to leave the country. A few days later, the British expeditionary force marched out of the cantonments. There is still much debate regarding Akbar Khan and the Afghan chiefs' involvement in the pending massacre. While some believe he oversaw the bloodletting, other sources believe that the Khan simply wanted to delay the British forces until Sale's brigade left the Jalalabad fortress and marched into lndia as had been agreed upon in the treaty. This is a distinct possibility. Had the British combined their forces at Jalalabad, it would have meant a formidable fighting force within 130 miles of Kabul. Regardless of the Khan's intentions, the British forces were attacked on the first day's march. The 16,500-person force, containing 4,500 fighting men, traveled only five miles before setting camp. The British did not fare any better on the second day. General. Shelton recommended that they push through the Khurd Kabul Pass before the ravenous Ghilzai had the opportunity to mass their forces, but Elphinstone, counting on promises of food and water from the Khan, opted to stop. When the British entered the five-mile-long Khurd Kabul Pass, a gauntlet of enemy bullets rained down on them from the surrounding hills. Most of the baggage, arms, and ammunition were abandoned at this juncture. In this engagement alone, three thousand men lost their lives. That night, several hundred more died of exposure.

While it would have been prudent to push on, British command again ordered a halt in hopes of resupply. Afbar Khan came into the camp and offered to take personal charge of European women, children, and wounded   officers. The offer was accepted and the majority of these prisoners survived to retell the experience. Over the next few days, the British   expedition marched from one frozen pass into the next, the withering fire of Afghan guns raining down on them. Six days into the march, the last remnants of British fighting men made a final stand, fighting to the death at Gandamak. On January 13th, 1842, British doctor William Brydon struggled alone into Jalalabad to announce the massacre. January 2005 I, (EPW) met with the grandson of William Brydon, himself trained as a cadet shortly after WWII he still remembered the speech Mahatma Gandhi was invited to give.

After the disastrous British retreat in January of 1842, British General Pollock was dispatched to reoccupy Kabul, accomplishing the task in April of 1842. He did so utilizing the military tactic of picketing the flank hills to protect a column on the march in the passes. This was a new maneuver for European military science, but since time immortal, the Afghans had used the tactic of outflanking and crowning the heights to defeat rival armies. Once in occupation of Kabul, Pollock decided that the destruction of the Chahar Chauk, the Grand Bazaar of Kabul, and the outposts of Charikar and Istalif, would suffice in exacting revenge for the massacre. The British destroyed these symbols of revolt, then, in the fall, marched back to India, leaving the Afghans to their fate. (Lt. General Sir George Macmunn, Afghanistan: From Darius to Amanullah, 1977, 151-4.)

Of course the matter was widely debated among British commanders but Jasper Nicolls, Commander-in-Chief of Bengal, issued one of the most succinct lists of causes for the disaster that is available. They are listed as follows:

1. Making war with a peace establishment.
2. Making war without a safe base of operation.
3. Carrying our native army out of India into a strange and cold c1imate where they and we were foreigners and both considered as infidels.
4. Invading a poor country and one unequal to supply our wants, especially our large establishment of cattle.
5. Giving undue power to political agents.
6. Want of forethought and undue confidence in the Afghans on the part of Sir William Macnaghten.
7. Placing our magazines, even our treasure, in indefensible places.
8. Great military neglect and mismanagement after the outbreak. (Ibid.)

This list proves interesting given some of the challenges coalition forces faced in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Adding Up The Strategic Lessons.

In the Sudan, we saw that the British government's inability to make a decisive decision in replacing the Mahdi with a viable leader led to a costly war and the death of thousands of British soldiers and scores of Sudanese. The episode demonstrated how it is often better to make a bad decision in helping to support a potential friendly leader, rather than make no decision at all and allow the enemy to make it for you. In the power struggle between Gordon and the Mahdi, we saw that winning the support of the general population in any type of insurgency or counterinsurgency campaign is an absolute must. Gordon's prideful sense of fair play in not gaining valuable intelligence from a Muslim soldier and the subsequent loss of the war and his life, demonstrated to us the importance of human Intelligence.

In British Somaliland, we saw that near the beginning of the conflict, for political reasons, the operational commander was denied permission to pursue enemy forces into Italian Somaliland, allowing the enemy a lifeline to continue the conflict. The British failed to use the Mullah's brutal tactics, and the divisiveness of the clans, against him. Instead, at one stage, the British withdrew to the coast, creating a power vacuum in which a third of the population was killed. The British experience in Somaliland taught us the concept of mission creep.

Also in Somaliland, a key British mistake was becoming too deeply involved in minor affairs of the indigenous people that did not affect Great Britain's strategic necessity. In fact such involvements, led to local resentment and actions, which in turn required further energy consuming interaction, negotiation and/or armed response.

The British goals in Somaliland were to keep their colony of Aden supplied with meat and the African coast opposite the colony free of hostile forces. Despite these simple goals, the British allowed themselves to get dragged into a twenty-year counterinsurgency campaign over a wide swath of East Africa.

Today there still is an Islamic Front in Africa, see Case Study:

In Palestine, in contrast, we observed the British military in support of an insurgency. T.E. Lawrence taught us the importance of understanding the mindset of the indigenous people. Specific to the Arab world, we saw how the strong bonds of family, the drive for profit, development of relationships, and the clan, tribe, and family hierarchy, affected the British ability to mobilize against the Turks. Lawrence wrote of difficult times when relations were strained between the British and Arabs due to religious, ethnic, and cultural differences. Lawrence pointed out the importance of learning the local language, developing relationships with Arab leaders, and staying in the background while those leaders move their people in the desired direction. Lawrence taught us that our indigenous allies in war might not be our preferred allies in peace. It will be necessary to encourage personnel changes as friendly governments are formed. In those instances, it is important to provide proper employment for those that fought the battles, least they turn against you.

We learned that in post World War I Iraq, the British military occupational forces started relying on an Indian administrative model that was not a good fit for the Mesopotamian region. It was sometimes brutal, led to micromanagement down to an unnecessary level, was expensive, and left the indigenous Arabs out of the political loop. Few of the British political officers assigned to Iraq had any knowledge of Iraq's laws, customs, languages or culture, and they did not have sufficient experience in civil administration. In addition, the British military allied itself with questionable leaders regardless of their ethnic, sectarian or tribal persuasion, leaving the Iraqi people with little hope of controlling their own affairs. Once the British did begin turning Iraq's affairs over to the Iraqis, they gave the bulk of responsibility to unpopular Diaspora Iraqis, Christian Assyrians, and foreign Sunni Arabs, leading to further animosity, especially among Iraq's Shi'ite population. The British Royal Air Force's indiscriminate bombing of villages that would not comply with British law only deepened the resentment.

We witnessed that the British faced serious problems with anti British nationalism from the very officers they put in charge of Iraq's security forces and trained to stabilize the country. These military and police officers eventually became the senior officers and politicians who drove the British from the region. We watched as the British invocation of the mandatory administration over Iraq led Iraqis to launch a full scale revolt. Once the fatwas were issued sanctioning revolt, the tribes along the Tigris and Euphrates answered the call, eager to be rid of heavy British taxation and an unforgiving judicial system. We saw that following the rebellion, due to a fear of Shi'ite fundamentalism, the British put their World War I allies, the affluent and educated minority Sunni Arabs, into power. Having shunned the numerically superior Kurds and Shi'ites, sectarian violence went on for years, even after the British were forced from the country.

And finally much like the contemporary relationship with Afghanistan, the British used cash, in the form of currency and weapons, as their principle form of diplomacy. When that didn't work, they resorted to force. Thus we saw that the British made two fatal errors that cost them thousands of lives. First, they were too passive in responding to armed incursions in and around Kabul. Second, they failed to establish a dominant presence in the capital itself, putting themselves out of touch with the Afghan people and allowing the Afghan militants to attrite their personnel, and their morale.

In going about the conquest of Afghanistan, we observed how the British made the baffling decision of bringing a despised former ruler to the throne. He was different in religion, culture, and ethnicity from the vast majority of Afghans. We saw that early in the campaign, the Dost Mohammad offered a truce and a compromise government, with himself as prime minister. Regardless of the fact that the Dost had never actually opposed British intentions in the region, the British refused. We learned that once the British took over, they imposed heavy taxes on the Afghans and used the money to fund the very military that propped up the despised ruler, acted against the Afghan people without local input, and so stringently enforced the taxation. We witnessed how the British initially ignored major indicators that a rebellion was likely. When British officers in Kabul were killed and the British treasury was stolen, the British failed to retaliate, making them appear weak. We saw that when it became obvious that an Afghan revolt was imminent, the British commander of forces requested additional troops and permission for an aggressive campaign but was denied. There is no thing guaranteeing that the recommended campaign would have been successful, but it is nearly doctrine to state that the best defense is a successful offense. Any decision would have been better than the decision the British made to do nothing. Then, out of the blue, Dost Mohammad defeated a small British force just outside of Kabul, rode into the city, and surrendered to the occupiers. In return, he was rewarded with a comfortable exile in the Punjab. With this to look forward to as punishment, it is certainly not surprising that the Dost's son, Akbar Khan, and the other Afghan chiefs, risked fighting against the British. Sadly, several of the tribes that took part in the subsequent British bloodbath were, at one time, potential allies. For example the Durrani tribes of Kandahar were enemies of the Dost, but the British failed to cultivate a relationship with them. Groups not opposed outright to our cause should always be co-opted. Most importantly, the British showed that the key to success in maintaining a presence in the Islamic world is to understand that within the region, actions against a Western presence have really been a history of individuals taking advantage of the indigenous peoples' dissatisfaction with their quality of life, in order to further their own aims.

In both the Sudan and Somaliland, the conflicts ended when the British sent a significant force on a dedicated effort to kill the Mahdi's khalifa successor and the Mullah. British forces pursued these men until they were eliminated, and their forces were destroyed or otherwise ineffective. Once the leaders were dead, their movements died in the harsh African landscape. In Palestine, it is clear that if the Turks had tracked down and killed Lawrence, Feisal, and the small handful of prominent Arab tribai chiefs, the Arab Revolt would have disintegrated into the desert sands. In the Gulf, we saw how the British delay in retaliating for the massacre of its crew, along with the initial weak response, only served to embolden further jihadist outrages. In Afghanistan, Britain's failure to kill Dost Mohammad, his son Akbar, and the other rebel leaders, cost them the lives of 17,000 British and Indian subjects. I conclude that the British experience in Africa and Asia clearly demonstrates that the best strategy in dealing with Islamic militant groups, while the laborious political goals that led to the Western presence in the first place are met, is to identify the leaders and eliminate them quickly.

Although on the very fringes of the Islamic world, one could ad that he Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 turned over the various "Malaysian" straits to the British. When the British tried to impose the same tribute on the local populace that the Dutch had, Naning refused, leading to the Naning War of 1831-2. In 1831, a British expedition was defeated. A second expedition in 1832 defeated the Naning, but the war negatively affected British diplomatic and economic goals for the next forty years. During the Selangor Civil War of 1867-73, two Malaya states went to war, each supported by a Chinese secret
 society. The British intervened on behalf of one side, and later turned the area into a British protectorate. In 1874, the British Resident attempted reforms that were contrary to local custom. In retaliation, the Sultan and many local chiefs conspired together and had him killed. During the subsequent Perak War of 1875-6, British troops responding to the Resident's murder deposed the Sultan, and arrested the local chiefs implicated in the attack. During the Malay Jungle Wars of 1948, the British used Malay ethnic and religious leaders to successfully defeat Chinese Communist incursions into the country. This was arguably one of the best-fought counterinsurgencies in history.

After defeating a declining Spanish Empire, the USA made the mistake of assuming that the Filipinos were incapable of governing themselves. They brashly marched into the capital of Manila and accepted Spanish surrender of the archipelago with no input from the native people who had shed copious amounts of their blood to ensure a compliant surrender. The resulting four-decade counterinsurgency against the very Filipinos, who gave us the Spanish Pacific Empire on a platter, cast nearly 4,200 American combat deaths. Much higher then the number of combat deaths the US has experienced in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and every other foreign theatre combined, since 9/11. The American counterinsurgency effort there provides a number of lessons that can be applied to the current counterinsurgency in Iraq. Afghanistan and Iraq share the common points of being Muslim dominated states that the U.S. and coalition forces have invaded since September 11, 2001.

But as if like I suggested some time back the United States would have  managed to gain permission to operate from a friendly country somewhere in Southeast Asia, its military could have been poised to  strike the  jihadists  training camps. To be more specific, all the way from Moroteo on the Atlantic coast of North Africa to Indonesia on the southwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan will take years, just as it did in India after the British divided the country and left.

However the political futures of Afghanistan and Iraq that look different. Afghanistan has a historically tenuous political climate with only sporadic moments of truly centralized governmental control. While this will mean a painstaking movement toward a viable government capable of functioning without outside assistance, it has allowed for an easier than expected transition in the post- Taliban era. President Karzai is not universally liked throughout the country, but because Kabul has so little control elsewhere, he is at least nearly unanimously tolerated. This allows for him to slowly build the pillars of a working government without to much resistance. Events in Iraq, on the other hand, are moving much more rapidly in the political arena. There is no Karzai-like figure who is capable of stepping in and pleasing all factions. With two of the three major ethno-religious communities jockeying for coalitions, and the Sunnis threatening the entire political process by force, there will likely be no trickling down of viable government. Instead, Iraq may go the path of Indonesia after Suharto where coalitions formed and the seeds of a working government derived from the bottom-up.

Indonesia provides an example of a predominately Muslim country with a varied mix of ethnic and religious groups, all of which, to same extent, feel threatened by the others. Fundamentalist groups of all faiths have formed as counterweights to each other. Once tensions have settled in one area, these groups often move on to another location where tensions are simmering. Maintaining the group becomes an end in and of itself; they are constantly seeking another reason to justify their existence, and religious tensions actually have overarching political and economic overtones. ("Indonesia: The Search for Peace in Maluku," Asia Report 31, 8 February 2002, 2.)

The military created many of the Muslim gangs that operate throughout the country, and use them to suppress secessionist movements, fight democratize opposition, and discredit politicians. Many of the gangs, in a bid to remain viable and keep their people employed, have radicalized, joined the likes of AI-Qaeda, and are now beyond the scope of the military's ability to quietly reel them in. The D.S. did the same thing in Pakistan in the 1980s to fight Soviet aggression in neighboring Afghanistan, spawning the region's legions of Islamist warriors. One should be careful not to repeat these mistakes in the future.

A British failure that we have seen repeated to some extent was their inability to initially understand the often-violent Muslim world they entered. Once the British did develop an understanding, their troops often allowed the pendulum to swing too far in the other direction and became as savage, if not more savage, than the natives themselves. The middle ground solution is what will serve our interests the best as our troops are deployed throughout the Muslim world in the service of our strategic interests: treat the vast majority of the population with dignity and respect, while ruthlessly combating aggression.

Doing so, one should also respect the region's customs because it wins the hearts and minds of the rest of the people and keeps them from joining the insurgence, including as we have seen learning their language. Where English has only been the most widely spoken language in America for less than two centuries. Arabic has been the predominate language in the heart of the Muslim world for at least 1,400 years.

Plus, Nations that are most susceptible to ethno-religious conflict are generally poor and unstable and have a history of violence.  But especially young men throughout the Muslim world see the results of violence every day of their lives. Combine this with their perception that the world is moving on without them. Unemployed and without skills in a world that requires the later to achieve the former, these men feel threatened by our global society and are prone to react via the only way they know how. They are easy prey for charismatic leaders seeking foot soldiers in radical causes. Islamic extremist groups give these socially deprived young men a sense of belonging, and the opportunity to lash out at the Western world. They attack it through a skewed emersion into their readily available Islamic faith. (Elliott Leyton, Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer, 2001, 27, 141, 358.)

The US (that allows for capital punishment) would do wise to infiltrate jihadist group, to determine who their leaders are.  Because whether these Islamist leaders kill with their own hands or they send others out to do their bidding, these individuals are multiple murderers. With attributes similar to serial killers elsewhere, the leader of the Islamic fundamentalist group are often from the middle class and have some type of college education. In an extended campaign of vengeance, he murders innocent strangers, taking targets of opportunity from the social type that he feels has rejected or excluded him. In this case, the target is Western society. They feel no remorse for innocent civilians, whom they falsely view as legitimate combatants, and mentioned earlier on this website, bask in a media coverage that provides them celebrity status. It is foolish to say that by targeting the leadership of these Islamic terror groups, one is resorting to the same terrorist tactics that these enemies utilize, since terrorism is the targeting of civilians to force a change in political perspective. And to a terrorist, national weakness -the tendency to cut and run-looks exactly like national weakness.

The lessons terrorists took away from early attacks on Americans were simple: if you kill Americans, they will quit. Thus, combating jihadists cannot be viewed as an international law enforcement issue. While law enforcement plays a significant role in combating violent Islamic fundamentalists, the very rules and laws that make for effective police work in the civilized world inhibit it in curbing terrorist acts. Treating al Qaeda bombings as homicide investigations will not stop them. Arrests of key leaders is important when feasible, for the sole reason that quality interrogations can lead to much needed intelligence on the rest of the group. (Ruth Wedgwood, "Combatants or Criminals? How Washington Should Handle Terrorists: Fighting a War Under Its Rules," Foreign Affairs Volume 83, Number 3, May/June 2004, 126-9.)

In fact they are like organized, highly trained paramilitary units that were and are conducting offensive campaigns against a variety of nations and social systems with whom they consider themselves to be at war, warriors and soldiers fighting for a cause.

It was initially a reading of The Savage Wars of Peace, by historian Max Boot (2003), that brought me on the idea to take a closer look at British colonial history in the context I presented so far, it would be fair to let Max Boot have the last word even in this case. Of course he specifically talks about the US, whereas my intent was to refer to the coalition forces as a whole:

“If the American goal is to re-create Ohio in Kosovo or Haiti, then the occupiers are doomed to be disappointed. But if the goals are more modest, then American rule can serve the interests of occupiers and occupied alike. Put another way, "nation building" is generally too ambitious a task, but "state building" is a more realistic objective. The apparatus of a f1inctioning state can be developed much more quickly than a national consciousness. Successful state building starts by imposing the rule of law . . . Any nation bent on imperial policing will suffer a few setbacks. The British army, in the course of Queen Victoria's little wars, suffered major defeats with thousands of casualties in the First Afghan War. . . This did not appreciably dampen British determination to defend and expand the empire; it made them hunger for vengeance . . . Britain battled the "enemies of all mankind," such as pirates and slave traders . . . Today America faces equivalent tasks-battling terrorists . . . Many of the steps Britain took . . . were hard to justify on a narrow calculus of self interest. It acted simply out of a sense that it was the right thing to do . . . In any combat operation, blood will be shed, not only on the D.S. side but also among the enemy . . . If Americans cannot adopt a similarly bloody-minded attitude (as that of the nineteenth and twentieth century British), then they have no business undertaking imperial policing. (Boot, 2003, 346-9.)

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