Zenpundit Finds a Wellspring of Common Sense About Afghanistan

Fortified Afghan Village

Afghan Tribal Chiefs

Plenty Coups, Crow Chief.

Plenty Coups at Unknown Soldier dedication.

Crow scout, White Man Runs Him, left of Custer's grave, 1876

Mark Safranski of Zenpundit earned a well deserved hat tip from the Small Wars Journal for sending them a lead on Steven Pressfield's blog, It's the Tribes, Stupid. Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae and Killing Rommel: A Novel, has written a five part series that explains the war in Afghanistan by looking at back at ancient history and forwarding to the present, to show that in Afghanistan, the art of war has not changed over time. I had cross posted on Mark's find earlier this month in a post, Zen and Fabius or East Meets West on Tribalism. The subject is important enough to deserve a revisit and hearty endorsement of Pressfield's blog.

Pressfield launched his blog earlier this month to introduce a five part video series that explains the root of war in the remote mountains of Afghanistan is linked to ancient tribal custom. The videos and the supporting blog posts are well worth the time to view and gain insight into what the recent book The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by retired Australian Col. David Kilcullen offers in empirical evidence to support this thesis.

The emerging blog posts have become most insightful in keeping the topic fresh and stimulating thought and comment. Here is a sample.

This blog has been up now for a little more than a week. Many thanks to all who have contributed comments–and to all who will do so in the coming weeks. Now seems as good a time as any to pause for breath and ask, “What have we been trying to say here? What exactly is the thesis of these videos?”

Their target audience, beyond us regular chickens, is those who have a hand in making this nation’s policy. Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Secretary of Defense, Gen. Jones; military and political decision-makers inside the Beltway and “downrange” in Afghanistan and other places. This humble blog is hoping to call your attention to, or heighten the attention you are already paying to, tribalism as it exists and will continue to exist in the parts of the globe where our fighting men and women are deployed and where our vital national interests are at stake.

Read more:

Summing Up: Our First Week and What We’ve Been Talking About .

The latest, carries an echo of soldiering in the American West in the 19th century.

The post begins:

June 22nd, the Washington Post ran an excellent article by Greg Jaffe, titled “A Personal Touch in Taliban Fight.” The piece is about a young Army captain, Michael Harrison, and his up-close-and-personal work as a company commander in the remote tribal villages of the Konar River valley in Afghanistan.

Flashback to 2003, same valley, same U.S. Army—different captain. This is the story of then-captain Jim Gant of Las Cruces, NM, and how he and Capt. Harrison are linked by a gift of honor, a 12-gauge shotgun.

Read more:

Gifts of Honor: A Tale of Two Captains .

This story struck a chord with me, when the connection was made by naming the ancient Afghan tribal leader, Sitting Bull after the famous leader of the Lakota Sioux tribe. Although after reading this account it relates better to another lesser known chief, Plenty Coups of the Crow or Apsáalooke tribe who were known for never officially going to war against the United States. Plenty Coups had a vision that only through cooperation with the white man could the Crow people survive in the future. It became a sad legacy that it took over a century to see the Crow people reach a level of political power equal to the surrounding communities. It is ironic that the fight to gain these rights were led by Dr. Janine Pease the great granddaughter of White Man Runs Him a Crow scout for Custer, who had tried in vain to warn Custer about attacking the large gathering of Lakota-Cheyenne.

American history has many examples of befriending tribal people, then throwing them under the bus when they are no longer needed. Hopefully, we have advanced beyond that point of self-centered ethno-cultural behavior to realize that it truly is "The Tribes Stupid."

Neda! Iran's Boston Massacre?

One of the events that stirred the passions of colonial Americans was an event called the Boston Massacre in 1770, when British troops fired on a group rioting after a confrontation over an unpaid bill by a British soldier. The incident and the aftermath, contributed to the American Revolution. One of the ways that the incident was kept in the public eye was an engraving made by Paul Revere which became a visual rallying cry across the colonies.

Yesterday, I linked a video of the death of a young Iranian women who the world has come to know as Neda. The result of the 40 second hard to watch and even harder to listen too video has spread across the social and mainstream media like wild fire. 17 related articles »

Atlantic online has confirmed her death in this post Confirming The Basij Murder Of Neda

President Obama has spoken out forcefully regarding the deaths as reported in the New York Times article, Tehran Tense After Clashes That Killed at Least 13.

In Washington on Saturday, President Obama called the government’s reaction “violent and unjust,” and, quoting Martin Luther King Jr., warned again that the world was watching what happened in Tehran.

It will be a test of wills to see if the death of one young women, whose dying gaze locked on the camera for a moment before she lapsed into unconsciousness may become the image that propels Iranians to reject their current government. The image of her dying in the street, an innocent bystander, shot down in front of her father as she watched the demonstrations blocks away will touch the soul of every father in America on this day we reserve for honoring fathers. How it plays to the soul of the Iranian people is for them to use.

The direct confrontation is easy to suppress, but a national strike where everyone stays home and refuses to work will soon shut the country down and in the long run be more effective. The fragile economy will collapse and people will suffer by not having enough to eat, but they will be alive and able to rebuild.

A Few Thoughts on Iran

This past week the news out of Iran has come via Twitter and Utube, that in our time is as significant as the telegraph was when it began to send instant reports singing along wires in dashes and dots, over one hundred and fifty years ago. At first, the MSM was out of the loop and spent the week catching up to what is becoming a replay of 1956, 68, and 89 when the population of a repressed society took a stand. Armed with green headbands and cell phones millions of Iranians took to the streets to send out 140 character bursts of information that in it's brevity resembled those early telegraph messages.

As the week progressed Congress responded with resolutions as the President held his bully pulpit in check amid some criticism that he needed to speak out more forcefully. The blogs have blazed hot with opinions and reports linking the Twitter reports as some began to write thoughtful pieces that tried to make some sense of what we as a people who value liberty as our bedrock creed should do or not do to help the Iranian people.

Thomas Barnett leads off today with this piece written for Esquire magazine.

Having followed the machinations of Iran closely for the last two decades (hell, I pretty much got a major player fired for following the place so closely), there's no doubt in my mind that Tehran's theocracy — sensing the looming furor we've seen from its contested outcome — fixed last week's Iranian presidential election. Not that former prime minister Mir Hussein Moussavi would have won the election outright, but it's entirely conceivable that, if the fix wasn't on, he could have forced a second-round fight with an uncertain outcome — or, worse, the sort of angry popular protests (and, worser still, angry mourning prayers) we're witnessing at this moment. Clearly the religious regime was having none of that (yes, it could have been worse and, yes, there could have been even more thousands of Tweets and riot officers). So the powerful mullahs, I'm pretty sure, chose to manipulate the vote count and portray President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's otherwise probable victory as an undisputable landslide.

Read more: Why Obama Should Let Iran's 'Red-State' Regime Die on Its Own

In a related post Barnett calls attention to this article written the day before the Iranian election.

"What If Israel Strikes Iran?" by John R. Bolton, Wall Street Journal, 11 June 2009.

Tom defines the article this way.

The gist appears in the call-out text: "The mullahs would retaliate. But things would be much worse if they had the bomb."

Iran won't close the Straits of Hormuz, nor cut its own exports to raise global prices, nor directly attacks U.S. forces in either Iraq or Afghanistan, nor launch missiles against Israel. It will unleash Hamas and Hezbollah and that's about it.

Then Bolton tries to sell with contrary logic: "This brief survey demonstrates why Israel's military option against Iran's nuclear program is so unattractive, but also why failing to act is even worse."

The deuce you say.

Read more:

Bolton's breakdown on Israeli strikes--a green light subtly lit

Others have added their views and support.

Iran: Helping Tweets Stand Up to Bullets By Nicholas Kristof

Arguing Iran by abu mugqawama

My worry: Budapest '56, Tehran '09 by Tom Ricks Foreign Policy Blog

Facebook, Google Go Persian, Aiding Iran’s Activists at Danger Room at Wired

Some of the Web’s leading firms are rolling out new features, to accommodate worldwide

interest in the protests in Iran — and to not-so-subtly help out the pro-democracy movement inside the country.

Iranian Election: Clockwork Orange at Threatswatch

Much like Stanley Kubrick's 1971 movie Clockwork Orange, Iranian elections are irresistibly difficult to watch. And this election has all the hallmarks of being more than just another sequel, but rather that rare occurrence where it is even more compelling (and irresistibly difficult) than any of its serial predecessors. One of the smartest - and most principled - Iran experts, my friend Michael Ledeen, explains ably just why this is. Their [open demonstrators by the thousands] candidate is the former...

The Tragedy of the Iranian Elections at Steve DeAngelis of Enterra Solutions

It's hard to recall an event that held so much promise but resulted in so much crushed hope as did the Iranian presidential election; perhaps the events twenty years ago in China's Tiananmen Square comes close. The run up to the election was really quite extraordinary. The debates were candid; the accusations were as mean-spirited as any found in U.S. elections; and enthusiasm for change was high. Washington Post op-ed columnist Anne Applebaum notes that even in light of subsequent events, the election did expose a soft underbelly of Iranian politics.

Finally this from Threatswatch (Warning Disturbing Content) Neda: The Voice of Iran

Her name was Neda. It means the 'voice' or the 'call' in Farsi. And in a struggle largely fueled by Iranian women's demands for rights, Neda most tragically becomes the Voice of Iran. It is heartbreaking to watch, with her...

I have refrained from writing too much about this situation. My son's mother is from Iran and that side of the family has many members still living in Iran. They have my prayers and have asked me to not write too much as they believe that the time unfortunately is not ripe enough for a true regime change. The ruling elite and their Revolutionary Guard still hold all the cards as well as the arms to suppress any uprising. Gandhi like non-violent protests have no effect on a regime that from it's earliest beginning, sent children off to be martyred by the tens of thousands in the Iran/Iraq War and is willing to hang and stone women for social crimes.

Zen and Fabius or East Meets West on Tribalism

Zenpundit has a great post up expanding on a post by Fabius Maximus. These are two of the most talented bloggers on the web today and the post linked below is ample proof.



In a post entitled Pressfield’s Reified Tribalism, Zen, writes.



Late last night, I was pinged by Fabius Maximus who had just written a post about historical novelist Stephen Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire, The Virtues of War and The Afghan Campaign. I do not read enough fiction, so while I had heard of Pressfield because his books are very popular among milbloggers, I did not know anything about the man specifically. I was intrigued by FM’s post, here is an excerpt which will serve to introduce the subject at hand:


Advice about our long war - “It’s the tribes, stupid”



Zen goes on to provide analysis of Pressfield's view.



Pressfield has been thinking about his concept for some time, having penned an op-ed piece for Dr. Chet Richards at DNI back in 2006 entitled “It’s the Tribes, Stupid” which I encourage you to read. Today, there is an impressively slick vblogging, presentation by Pressfield on a site of the same name “It’s the Tribes, Stupid”. Pay close attention: this is what a bloggging series looks like with a budget and Hollywood production values. Agree or disagree with Mr. Pressfield’s argument ( and I shall do both) he is demonstrating “how” to use the online medium professionally in order to propagate a meme ( he just needs help maximizing the virality, but the components are “good to go” for anyone who cares to pick up the torch). It is first rate work, take a look for yourself at Pressfield’s intro piece:



Zen's full post is well worth the read and invites a lot of discussion. It closely follows a post by Zen highlighting The Kilcullen Doctrine. Both posts are on a converging trajectory that link much of the combat we are experiencing in today's "Long War" is a result of the reaction of tribal societies to an outside invader. As I read these posts and am currently reading The Accidental Guerrilla, I can not help but draw some relationship to the conflicts between the Europeans and Native American tribal societies that lasted for from 1607 to 1890. The difference on surface is that in North America the tribal societies were defeated and replaced with European settlers. They were never able to create a unified strategy, or have the material assistance from a third party to sustain their resistance. In our early 20th century effort at nation building we tried with mixed success to make the Philippines into a mini eastern version of the United States. In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow. We fought a long guerrilla that cost over 4000 American dead as well as over 200,000 Filipinos. Today, the outlying islands still fester with the tribal resistance to the central rule from Manila.


In Afghanistan we are trying to change a tribal society that has chosen to live their lives in that manner, into a society that we think they need via our integrated social view of modernity. The ideology provided by Islam seems to act as a conduit that keeps the tribes together to focus their wrath against the Western forces that they see encroaching on their way of life. Since our goal is to try not only nation building but some level of societal integration that includes women's rights and western style values, the path seems to be one that must be walked with care of picking one's way through a minefield. Our current military leadership seems to be getting this message and understand the need to find what the French in 17th century North America called the "Pays d'en haut". or The Middle Ground: Indians, by Richard White.

Anyway I have rambled a bit to throw out a few thoughts about this complicated subject. I urge anyone reading to take the time to visit the links and join the discussion.

UPDATE FROM THE DEN OF ZEN: Slapout’s Recommended SSI PDF on Tribalism

"A Sixty Second Pause to Remember Before Returning to Our Regular Programing" Main Stream American Media

Every since 1942 and again in 1944, the month of June will be remembered for two crucial battles in World War II. The dates run concurrent, June, 4, 5 and 6, marking the anniversary of the Battle of Midway and Operation Overlord or D-Day. I have linked stories from the United States Naval Institute Blog to revisit these important events. Keep in mind at the time they occurred the media when given the go ahead reported the events unvarnished without a hint of self-loathing that seems to color much of how today's media reports their version of the news.

In every battle there is a moment when the combatants, and the world, seem to catch their breath. It is a fleeting moment, lost in the blink of an eye. But in that same blink, everything changes. Such moments are borne of desperation, of courage, of plain dumb luck. But they are pivotal - for what was before is forever changed afterwards.

Until 1019 on the morning of 4/5 June 1942, things had gone badly for the US and its allies. With few exceptions, the Allies were fighting a losing battle in the Pacific. Indeed, as events unfolded that morning, it appeared as if the rout was on. The attacks by land-based air forces from Midway had utterly failed culminating in the loss of many aircraft. The strikes by the torpedo aircraft were decimated - an entire squadron of TBDs shot down with only a sole survivor to claim witness. An entire air group missed the Japanese carriers and the battle altogether and of the remaining forces, they were scattered and disorganized. The future was looking grim. At 1019, Hiryu’s senior lookout shouted he had spotted dive bombers attacking Kaga from overhead. Despite being thrown into a hard turn, Kaga was struck by a 500 lb bomb and then successive strikes utterly crushed her…

Read more: 67th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway: 4/5 June - Forces Engaged

And for a brief look back:

“I can run wild for six months … after that, I have no expectation of success.”- Fleet Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

In racing there is a saying - ‘luck is where preparation meets opportunity’ Perhaps there is no truer an example than the Battle of Midway. Popular literature seems to emphasize the American forces stumbling into a heaven-sent scenario of laden carrier decks and little to no opposition to the dive bombers, while giving short shrift to the preparation that enabled them to make use of that opportunity. How so?

Read more: Midway 67 Years Later - Lessons Learned

And from Operation Overlord.

65 years ago today, the liberation of France commenced under the command of General Eisenhower. We have all seen the footage of the battleships pounding the shores and men disembarking from thousands of landing craft. The CG Historian’s Office has compiled an outstanding site for those who want to learn more about the CG’s role in the liberation of Europe.

Read more The U.S. Coast Guard & D-Day and D-Day Photos.


Now lets jump ahead sixty five years and see what the media finds important to our culture.
Fabius Maximus in his masterful insightful manner has these two posts about our current main stream media (MSM) or the "Drive by Media" as some have dubbed what currently passes for information gathering and dissemination organizations.

Fab begins:

Summary: This post examines our broken mainstream media, a vital component of America’s observation-orientation-decision-action loop (the OODA loop). Mark Steyn provides a a current illustration; Lewis Lapham shows that this results from a long period of decay. At the end are links to other articles on this subject.

The apparatus by which America sees the world, the news feeds of the mainstream media, are broken. Both its business model and its ability to function (in terms of meeting our needs). These problems re-enforce one another.

(1) “Monday, the President ate a burger“, Mark Steyn, op-ed in Maclean’s, 21 May 2009 — “Maybe if they’d covered the love child instead of a fast food foray, papers wouldn’t be dying.” I recommend reading it in full.

Read the whole post:
The media – a broken component of America’s machinery to observe and understand the world

And in a follow on Fab offeres these biting comments and insight.

It’s often the little vignettes that show the nature of America’s broken observation-orientation-decision-action loop (the OODA loop). In this case, step one: seeing events. The US media presents a sanitized version of reality, to avoid challenging our preconceptions or spoiling their narrative. Getting America back on track requires fixing this problem.

Today we have a telling little incident from Treasury Secretary Geithner’s trip to pacify our Asian creditors. The European media tells the story. Too bad most Americans did not hear of it.

The Times

“Chinese assets are very safe,” Mr Geithner said, answering a question after his opening address at Peking University this morning. His answer was greeted with laughter by the students, who question the wisdom of China spending huge amounts of money on US bonds instead of improving domestic living standards.

Read the whole post for your morning brain food.
We’re ignorant about the world because we rely on our media for information


Drawing a link between the events of over sixty years ago and how our media behaves today serves to illustrate how shallow both the media and the public sense of responsibility have sunk. I have students who constantly compare today's events with interpretations of history provided by the MSM in it's zeal to berate those whom they personally dislike and fawn over those whom they favor. This is not so much a stretch when one considers that if the media personally likes you for your looks, personality and speaking style, that you can almost get away with anything short of killing your wife in public. Given the focus of most of today's media, the reporting of the events of June 4 and 5 1942 and June 6, 1944 would have focused on how many men we lost and the cost to the treasury instead of the fact that we defeated an enemies advance towards our west coast or forced an entry into a continent held hostage.