One common element we see in our war against radical, Islamic facism is schools and academics being caught in the cross hairs of the enemy.  The targeting of education by the enemy is not restricted to elementary schools, but extends itself to higher education.  In fact, it is fair to say that targeting education is a tactic being used by Islamic facism throughout the Middle East.

The Taliban have exacted a huge toll on schools and teachers for daring to operate in Afghanistan:

Now there is a concerted – armed – campaign to keep such children away from school. Education – particularly that of girls – is associated with the often-hated government and the occupying Western forces. Their opponents – including the Taliban – burn schools and attack teachers. The Ministry of Education said 267 schools had been forced to stop classes – a third of them in the south where five years after 9/11, fighting is intensifying as the Nato-led troops confront a resurgent opposition.

One reason proferred for this war on education is pragmatic, and has to do with potential future jihadist fighters.  According to Zuhoor Afghan, the top adviser to Afghanistan’s education minister, “Once they destroy a child’s chance for education, there is nothing else for the young generation to do and it becomes very easy to encourage them to join their forces.”

There is another pragmatic reason for the attacks on schools.  According to Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), “the extremists want to show the people that the government and the international community cannot keep their promises.”

Directly east in Iran, February of this year saw the first consequences of the nationwide plan to purge university professors and other academics:

Advaar News, the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat) reported that a professor of Communications Sciences of Tehran’s Allaameh Tabatabaie University is the first to be terminated in the new nationwide plan to purge all professors and academics, specifically teaching Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in universities across Iran. It is also rumored that several other of the professors in other fields of study such as Political Science and Law, will also be terminated soon. It is important to mention that a while ago Dr. Mohammad Gorgani who was a faculty member of the School of Law at this very university was sentenced to 10 months in prison and before serving his prison term was flogged.

Further east in Iraq, true to form, the radical Islamic facists have targeted both elementary schools and higher education.  Regarding the ongoing battle for Saba’ al-Bour, the Iraqi government noted that teachers and their families had been expelled from the city, and promised to increase teacher salaries for returning.  And similar to the approach in Iran to higher education, at least 156 university professors have been killed since the war began, and possibly thousands more are believed to have fled to neighboring countries.

Surveying this redacted and abbreviated list of recent attacks on education, it seems that perhaps there is another reason for this tactic.  Without the presupposition that your world view cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, promulgating your world view by using force to attack education makes little sense.

Whether it is the ease of recruitment of jihadists, the embarrassment of a fragile regime, or the belief in the inherent theoretical weakness of Islamic facism, as we move forward into the future and consider strategy and the consequent tactics of our enemy, one thing is clear.  If history is any indication, we should expect war on education to be a point of doctrine with the jihadists.  This war on education will not be an internal jihad or a “striving” for anything.  History shows us that the jihad on education will be violent.

Friend of the Captain’s Journal, Michael Fumento, recently embedded in Ramadi, and spent his own money to do it.  Given the problematic nature of getting into Iraq and to the units with which he was to embed, I think I might just have given up and gone home.  Michael didn’t and it cost him frustration, time and money to bring his stories back to us.  He is back now and we benefit from his work, but the costs don’t go away.

Another friend of the Captain’s Journal, David Danelo, who manages and edits US Cavalry OnPoint, is reporting from Iraq.  Please drop by Michael’s site and give him a donation if you can.  Also drop by David’s web site and wish him well and tell him you are praying for his safety.  This is the least we can do, and I have for both Michael and David.

ps: I do not see a way to donate to David.  If I find out how I will let my readers know.

Once a peaceful and mixed Sunni-Shi’ite town eighteen miles northwest of Baghdad, Saba’ al-Bour with its dense population and canals has become the cornerstone of the Mujahideen strategy.  Having re-entered the town, U.S. forces are seeing success, but the Iraqi army is still not ready to take handoff in hard core areas of Iraq.

On October 16, the Iraqi government announced an increase in teacher’s salaries, noting that assistance would be provided to the families of teachers who had been expelled from Saba’ al-Bour.  They noted that they had observed an increase in terrorist activities in Saba’ al-Bour, but in fact this escalation had begun much sooner, and has been going on long enough to cause the effective evacuation of the city.

A buildup of the insurgency began a few months earlier.  A jihadist web site is reporting that jihadist forces clashed with U.S. forces on Friday, June 10, in Saba’ al-Bour.  On June 16th, a mortar barrage killed two people and wounded sixteen in Saba’ al-Bour.

But there has been a significant increase in the level of hostile activities in the area, especially over Ramadan.  On Wednesday, October 11, a Black Hawk Helicopter was downed, and the Mujahideen Shura Council claimed responsibility.  This group is composed of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Victorious Army Group, the Army of al-Sunnah Wal Jama’a, Jama’a al-Murabiteen, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Islamic Jihad Brigades, the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades, collaborating to meet the “unbelievers gathering with different sides

Once a peaceful and mixed Sunni-Shi’ite town eighteen miles northwest of Baghdad, Saba’ al-Bour with its dense population and canals has become the cornerstone of the Mujahideen strategy.  Having re-entered the town, U.S. forces are seeing success, but the Iraqi army is still not ready to take handoff in hard core areas of Iraq.

On October 16, the Iraqi government announced an increase in teacher’s salaries, noting that assistance would be provided to the families of teachers who had been expelled from Saba’ al-Bour.  They noted that they had observed an increase in terrorist activities in Saba’ al-Bour, but in fact this escalation had begun much sooner, and has been going on long enough to cause the effective evacuation of the city.

A buildup of the insurgency began a few months earlier.  A jihadist web site is reporting that jihadist forces clashed with U.S. forces on Friday, June 10, in Saba’ al-Bour.  On June 16th, a mortar barrage killed two people and wounded sixteen in Saba’ al-Bour.

But there has been a significant increase in the level of hostile activities in the area, especially over Ramadan.  On Wednesday, October 11, a Black Hawk Helicopter was downed, and the Mujahideen Shura Council claimed responsibility.  This group is composed of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Victorious Army Group, the Army of al-Sunnah Wal Jama’a, Jama’a al-Murabiteen, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Islamic Jihad Brigades, the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades, collaborating to meet the “unbelievers gathering with different sides

Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” III.4: “Thus, what is of supreme importance is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”  Tu Mu comments, ‘He who excels at resolving difficulties does so before they arise.  He who excels at conquering enemies triumphs before threats materialize.’

The Iraq-Iran border was a problem from before the war began.  Michael Rubin noted with some dismay the lack of U.S. responsiveness to the huge influx of fighters, Iranian intelligence assets, and cash that came from Iran into Iraq before the war.  I noted that the border is still problematic, with a flow of traffic so significant that the Iraqi border guards cannot keep up with it or adequately inspect all traffic.

Turning west to the Anbar Province, discussing Michael Fumento’s reporting on Combat Operation Posts, we saw that there was a well-worn path into Iraq in use by foreign fighers:

The impact of the FOB system was shown to me on a map. The foreigners who come into this area do so along a mini-Ho Chi Minh trail from the west, namely Jordan and Syria. And the foreigners tend to be better trained. Certainly any good sniper will come from that route, because Iraqis are terrible shots and hence crummy snipers.

I mentioned that the U.S. would see success in the war in the al Anbar Province by turning this trail into a shooting gallery.  The fighers would die or turn around at the border.  This might have been wishful thinking.  In the continuing theme of inadequate force projection, the Washington Post has an enlightening article on the porous Iraq-Syria border.

U.S. troops in the area are concerned that controls are too loose. For instance, the passport office is sparse and includes a single officer sitting at a desk behind a barred window where travelers line up to show their passports. The officer simply enters the information from each passport into a small ledger.

“The only thing he’s really doing is nothing more than creating a historical log,” said 1st Sgt. Richard DeLeon, 40, of Shafter, Calif., also a member of Apache Troop. “We can’t scan your passport to find out if it’s fake, we can’t scan your photo. You can come in if you have a legitimate passport or a good fake. The weapons are already in Iraq. All you really need to do is bring money.”

Turning our attention for a moment towards the proliferation of weapons, in an interesting finding by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, we have learned that there are many missing U.S. weapons in Iraq:

The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons – almost 4 percent of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons it began supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003, according to a report from the office of the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The missing weapons will not be tracked easily: The Defense Department registered the serial numbers of only about 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided – less than 3 percent.

1st Sgt. Richard DeLeon isn’t the only one who is concerned about the presence of weapons in Iraq.  Speaking of the U.S. plan to arm the Sunni tribes who have allegedly sided with the government to hunt down al-Qaeda, Iraqi authorities have expressed deep concern over the final disposition of the weapons:

New Iraqi Army Brigadier-General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi, from Anbar province, said: “I cannot imagine 30,000 more guns in the Iraqi field. I hope they will reject the idea. Iraq needs more engineers and clean politicians to solve the dilemma of the existing militias rather than recruiting new ones to kill more Iraqis. The idea sounds to me [like] turning the country into a mercenary-recruitment center.

Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” III.4: “Thus, what is of supreme importance is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”  Tu Mu comments, ‘He who excels at resolving difficulties does so before they arise.  He who excels at conquering enemies triumphs before threats materialize.’

The Iraq-Iran border was a problem from before the war began.  Michael Rubin noted with some dismay the lack of U.S. responsiveness to the huge influx of fighters, Iranian intelligence assets, and cash that came from Iran into Iraq before the war.  I noted that the border is still problematic, with a flow of traffic so significant that the Iraqi border guards cannot keep up with it or adequately inspect all traffic.

Turning west to the Anbar Province, discussing Michael Fumento’s reporting on Combat Operation Posts, we saw that there was a well-worn path into Iraq in use by foreign fighers:

The impact of the FOB system was shown to me on a map. The foreigners who come into this area do so along a mini-Ho Chi Minh trail from the west, namely Jordan and Syria. And the foreigners tend to be better trained. Certainly any good sniper will come from that route, because Iraqis are terrible shots and hence crummy snipers.

I mentioned that the U.S. would see success in the war in the al Anbar Province by turning this trail into a shooting gallery.  The fighers would die or turn around at the border.  This might have been wishful thinking.  In the continuing theme of inadequate force projection, the Washington Post has an enlightening article on the porous Iraq-Syria border.

U.S. troops in the area are concerned that controls are too loose. For instance, the passport office is sparse and includes a single officer sitting at a desk behind a barred window where travelers line up to show their passports. The officer simply enters the information from each passport into a small ledger.

“The only thing he’s really doing is nothing more than creating a historical log,” said 1st Sgt. Richard DeLeon, 40, of Shafter, Calif., also a member of Apache Troop. “We can’t scan your passport to find out if it’s fake, we can’t scan your photo. You can come in if you have a legitimate passport or a good fake. The weapons are already in Iraq. All you really need to do is bring money.”

Turning our attention for a moment towards the proliferation of weapons, in an interesting finding by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, we have learned that there are many missing U.S. weapons in Iraq:

The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons – almost 4 percent of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons it began supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003, according to a report from the office of the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The missing weapons will not be tracked easily: The Defense Department registered the serial numbers of only about 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided – less than 3 percent.

1st Sgt. Richard DeLeon isn’t the only one who is concerned about the presence of weapons in Iraq.  Speaking of the U.S. plan to arm the Sunni tribes who have allegedly sided with the government to hunt down al-Qaeda, Iraqi authorities have expressed deep concern over the final disposition of the weapons:

New Iraqi Army Brigadier-General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi, from Anbar province, said: “I cannot imagine 30,000 more guns in the Iraqi field. I hope they will reject the idea. Iraq needs more engineers and clean politicians to solve the dilemma of the existing militias rather than recruiting new ones to kill more Iraqis. The idea sounds to me [like] turning the country into a mercenary-recruitment center.

By now, John Kerry’s foolish and adolescent insult to U.S. servicemen and women has gone viral.  Michelle Malkin and Dan Riehl are covering this story and I won’t repeat the details.  In summary, Kerry said that if you don’t study hard, you end up “stuck in Iraq.”  Matt Drudge is carrying a humorous picture of what appears to be eight soldiers holding a sign up that says “Halp us Jon Carry – we R stuck (backwards K) hear n Irak.”

It is nice to see that this unit’s morale is high, and that they can find it in themselves to invoke humor in order to respond to Kerry’s insult.  But on a more serious note, Kerry made the statement because of the moral bankruptcy of his world view.  Kerry imagines that schooling, the state, a diploma, luck, chance, or some intangible or perhaps unknowable thing causes a man or woman to take up a job.  More to the point, Kerry imagines that being a warrior is a job.  And thus Kerry insults military men and women.

As opposed to the monastic view of the world in early medieval times, where the only holy and good thing was separation from the world, the reformation taught us something different about God’s calling in our lives:

In this view, Christians were called to be priests to the world, purifying and sanctifying its everyday life from within. Luther stated this point succinctly when commenting on Genesis 13:13: “What seem to be secular works are actually the praise of God and represent an obedience which is well–pleasing to him.” There were no limits to this notion of calling. Luther even extolled the religious value of housework, declaring that although “it has no obvious appearance of holiness, yet these very household chores are more to be valued than all the works of monks and nuns.”

Underlying this new attitude is the notion of the vocation or “calling.” God calls his people, not just to faith, but to express that faith in quite definite areas of life. Whereas monastic spirituality regarded vocation as a calling out of the world into the desert or the monastery, Luther and Calvin regarded vocation as a calling into the everyday world. The idea of a calling or vocation is first and foremost about being called by God, to serve Him within his world. Work was thus seen as an activity by which Christians could deepen their faith, leading it on to new qualities of commitment to God. Activity within the world, motivated, informed, and sanctioned by Christian faith, was the supreme means by which the believer could demonstrate his or her commitment and thankfulness to God. To do anything for God, and to do it well, was the fundamental hallmark of authentic Christian faith. Diligence and dedication in one’s everyday life are, Calvin thought, a proper response to God.

For Calvin, God places individuals where He wants them to be, which explains Calvin’s criticism of human ambition as an unwillingness to accept the sphere of action God has allocated to us. Social status is an irrelevance, a human invention of no spiritual importance; one cannot allow the human evaluation of an occupation’s importance to be placed above the judgment of God who put you there. All human work is capable of “appearing truly respectable and being considered highly important in the sight of God.” No occupation, no calling, is too mean or lowly to be graced by the presence of God.

Sin has created the necessity for police and armies.  War is certainly not the desired state of affairs, but as long as there are evil men on earth, there will be war.  As opposed to the shallow and foolish notion of all war as being evil, we know that there are good wars which serve as protections against evil.

As opposed to empty-headed ideas of warrior as a job, those who fight have been called by God to war in our stead.  It is not a job; it is a vocation.  Totally aside from irrelevant issues about how much education our servicemen and women have, it is God who has put in them the desire to be warriors, it is God who sustains them, it is God who has given them their victories.  It is God who has called them to this vocation.

And thus it is God whom John Kerry has offended.  And that is no joke.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War, III.29: “He whose generals are able and not interfered with by the sovereign will be victorious.”  Tu Yu comments, “Therefore Master Wang said: ‘To make appointments is the province of the sovereign; to decide on battle, that of the general.’ “

In a word-picture of the intransigence and inertia at the Department of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld has agreed to funding for more Iraqi troops.  This is tacit acknowledgement that force projection is not currently large enough.  This might have been an effective strategy a couple of years ago with the defeated but still intact Iraqi army if Paul Bremer had not disbanded them, but it raises the question whether more of the same co-opted troops can quell the violence?

The police are under enormous sway by the Sadr-controlled militia:

“How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don’t even trust them not to kill our own men?” asked Capt. Alexander Shaw, head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western Baghdad. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure we’re ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence.”

Seventy percent of the Iraqi police force has been infiltrated by militias, primarily the Mahdi Army, according to Shaw and other military police trainers. Police officers are too terrified to patrol enormous swaths of the capital. And while there are some good cops, many have been assassinated or are considering quitting the force.

“None of the Iraqi police are working to make their country better,” said Brig. Gen. Salah al-Ani, chief of police for the western half of Baghdad. “They’re working for the militias or to put money in their pocket.”

U.S. military reports on the Iraqi police often read like a who’s who of the two main militias in Iraq: the Mahdi Army, also known as Jaish al-Mahdi or JAM, and the Badr Organization, also known as the Badr Brigade or Badr Corps.

Similarly, many pragmatic and tactical problems associated with the Iraqi army are surfacing, and we have discussed the fact before that often as not the Iraqi soldiers actually hinder U.S. troop efforts to secure regions.  But the biggest problem with the use of either the U.S. forces or the Iraqi army to secure Iraq is that this is not desired or even allowed in some instances by Prime Minister Maliki.  When the blockade of Sadr city is ended by order of Maliki’s government, al Sadr’s political capital is both confirmed and increased.  Politicians are deciding on strategy, battle plans and tactics rather than the military.  The military is the tail being wagged by the dog.

As recommended by F. J. Bing West in the September-October 2006 edition of Military Review, the “government in Baghdad must drive a wedge between Shiite extremists and the Shiite militias, and similarly split al-Qaeda and the religious extremists from the Sunni “mainstream” insurgents.”

But with the current Parliamentary system of government in place, Maliki will not disarm the Shi’ite militias.  He loses his coalition if he does.  Further, as long as the Sunni population believes itself to be the recipient of the raw end of the deal in a new Iraq, it is difficult to see what the incentive is for the Sunnis to split with al Qaeda, the Fedayeen Saddam and other Baathists.