15. The World We Create
Introducing the Iraq of 2038:
The Future
(left to right) Minister of Foreign Affairs, Famous Comedian/Humanitarian,
(tallest) Restaurant Owner, (tiniest) Architect, (in pink) Ambassador,
(center) President of Iraq, World-Famous Fashion Model, Neurosurgeon
I hope the reader will indulge my fanciful flight of optimism. One thing that Powerful Peace is well-known for (or would be, if it were well-known at all) is the fierce belief that we can will overcome the limits of today – limits of our ability to trust and risk; limits of our ability to imagine; limits of you-fill-in-the-blank.
Stephen Covey (neither the first, nor the last time I quote his instruction) says that all things are created twice – first in the mind, and then in the material. I, for one, will not permit my thoughts to be reduced. I will believe larger, and larger, and larger for the world as it should be; it should be better than it is right now.
This is so urgent, because I have a difficult confession to make: I’m dying.
…Oops. Sorry. Let me rephrase that: I will die.
Mel Brooks
As Mel Brooks has said, “If Shaw and Einstein couldn’t beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.” In other words, I’m going to kick the bucket, in a few minutes or a few decades. If when I kick that bucket the world isn’t better off for my little flicker of life, what a tragic waste it will have been.
A great American once said, “I have a dream“.
It’s high time we followed his example. He knew it was risky to say what he needed to say. He could have stayed home and watched TV that day, instead of going out to say what we needed to hear. He could have stayed home, but he didn’t.
This single person’s dream energized decades of transformation. How much greater, then, if every reader picked up and carried that willingness to dream – and act – according to his or her imagination?
I will not subordinate my dreams and our future to fear and doubt. Dreams are the only part of tomorrow that we own today. The only limits to what might be are those we choose. Since goals pull us toward some version of what we seek, why accept any goal smaller than greatness?
[If you're interested in getting some good news directly from the source, please visit:
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=&g2_itemId=5911
This is the HQ of the Coalition's effort in Iraq. That's where I got this great photo.]
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
14. Say Goodnight to the Sun, Gents
As long as I’m on the topic of amusing little SEAL training anecdotes, the following is probably especially useful to convey the spirit of Powerful Peace. I promise not to turn this blog into a weepy meander down Military Nostalgia Lane…but I will toss this one in:
BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training) is a monumental, six-month contest of wills. It’s a contest between the student…and himself. Several times a day, relentlessly, the instructor staff reminds the class that, “This program isn’t for everyone, Gents”; and, “There’s no shame in quitting – this is a voluntary program”; and, “Just step out of that cold water and walk up to the ambulance truck to get a nice, warm blanket and some hot cocoa”.
These gentle admonitions are designed as a form of PSYOP (Psychological Operations, or, getting in someone’s head) to inspire the half-hearted to throw in the towel and return to the easy life he knew. Only those who really, really, really want to become Navy SEALs will press on through the pain and the endless invitations to comfort.
The events of this essay happened in our class (I don’t know about every class). We had been running, jumping, swimming, and carrying heavy things around for two or three straight days. In other words, with the exception of one forty-five minute nap and four big meals a day, we had been in constant motion for about half the duration of Hell Week. While the students keep going and going, day after day, the school has to activate extra shifts to manage the 24-hour training. We still had two or three days of the same to look forward to.
We had been very cold, very wet, and very tired for the duration. Now, just about halfway through, we were given our once-daily “hygiene” time. This is a brief, frigid, open-air evening shower before pulling on dry “greens”, diving back into the 52-degree ocean water, and rolling in the sand once again. (Hygiene time is also a chance for the medical staff to survey everyone for concealed injuries.)
After this evening’s hasty rinse off and dress up, we were surprised to find the mood calm and non-threatening. Perhaps “surprised” isn’t the right word. Let’s use “wary”.
The staff formed us up on the beach, parallel with the waterline . We knew the drill. We would be instructed to walk slowly into the hated surf, not run pell-mell without discipline. Walking in before submerging increases the discomfort significantly.
The command to move was given, we trudged forward dutifully, and it might as well have been Groundhog Day for the sameness of this miserable march. Suddenly, mere feet before touching the foam, we were called to a halt. We were told to turn around.
We were then told that the speaker understood how hard all of this had been for us, how he knew it was painful; he’d been there, too. We were told that the staff wanted to reward us with a few precious minutes of rest. We were told to turn back around, facing the beautiful Pacific Ocean, and kneel there in the warm, dry sand. The sun was a lovely, swollen, orange ball on the horizon.
Then we heard a soothing, “Say goodnight to the sun, Gents.”
Those five minutes of reflection on past nights, with our joints seizing into this kneeling “rest”, were some of the longest of our lives. We willed the sun to slow down, don’t go so fast – don’t bring another night like the last ones. We were permitted to cool down, motionless, as the night fell without mercy. Finally, far sooner than seemed fair, we were asked to rise and walk into the water.
I don’t remember clearly, but I believe some guys quit right there and got some cocoa.
————-
Powerful Peace is not hot cocoa and fuzzy blankets. A hate-filled terrorist pushing a long knife into the side of a living man’s throat and sawing through the front while he gurgles and kicks is real.
Terrorism is stark, and terrorism is real.
One of the crossovers between my reconnaissance days and my antiterrorism days is an expression I coined: “If you would see in the dark, you must first be in the dark.” Literally, one must stand in the dark for some time before his physical eyes adjust and he can see through the dark. Metaphorically, one must stand in the darkness of humanity’s inhumanity before his psychological eyes can truly see the darkness itself.
I don’t recommend this for most decent folk, but one method I use to “become” the enemy is immersion in the darkness. (It takes a thief….) Most readers would not comprehend what can be found on the Internet; most should not. If it has been done to a person, it can be seen – in graphic, living color.
For those charged with defending, as I’ve said before, innocence isn’t an affordable luxury. The fact that one can’t bear to see a decapitation is no excuse to avoid its existence. The wringing of hands and the lamenting of the state of the world is the domain of the protected; protectors must wade into the water.
Protectors must find the courage to face down their own urge to hate, knowing that it perpetuates the hate. Protectors must find the strength to bear up through the dark night of retaliation.
————-
One final point bears mentioning. Following that fateful evening, hours after I said goodnight to the sun, a marvelous thing occurred: it came back up. The sun warmed my frozen bones and lifted my heart with hope. Every darkness seems absolute, and every trial infinite, but the unbreakable resilience of our human spirit has overcome the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and even my long-winded postings.
(Congratulations, if you’ve read this far!)
It should be obvious by now that I’m not going to “get to the point” of Powerful Peace. It is a process. We will succeed, and we will fail.
We will want to get the cocoa, but we will define Powerful Peace through choices.
Say goodnight to the sun, Ladies and Gents.
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
13. The only easy day was yesterday
This will change not only the length of Powerful Peace postings, but also the frequency. (It’s amazing what one can learn just from scanning good blogs.) I will intend to provide more entries, more often.
It’s up to the reader to determine whether that’s a positive or a negative.
In our SEAL training, a common phrase heard was, “The only easy day was yesterday”. If you know anything about the incredible rigors of the course that turns sailors into SEALs, you understand that this phrase is an example of grim humor.
(Brief aside, here, for entertainment purposes: I called my family when I finished Hell Week, the period of five days during which we run, jump, swim, and carry heavy things around – do pretty much anything active, in fact…except sleep. Apparently I should have waited a couple of days to call. The sound of the tattered remnants of my voice - more like a death rattle – was very upsetting to those of a more sensitive nature.)
“The only easy day was yesterday” is not just funny in SEAL training, it’s true - relatively speaking. Each day we’d rise, knowing how very difficult the day before had been…and that it had in fact been easy, compared to what today would bring.
Mother Teresa
Powerful Peace is similar. As Sheri wrote in a comment after the last piece, “In my book the soft road takes A LOT more courage and strength….” I agree. Mother Teresa springs to mind. (That was a link, by the way - P2’s going high-tech.) She demonstrated unbreakable conviction to caring for people in need. She probably suffered incredible hardship over her decades of service in the stench of the trench. Her “soft road” was hard.
On the other hand, I believe that the hard road can be soft. I have witnessed very self-satisfied individuals who display no sense of caring for strangers, and who appear to possess a general disregard for others’ feelings. Life with this sense of entitlement seems to be quite comfortable, and fairly trouble-free.
As soon as I lean toward this criticism, however, I am reminded of my own tendency to judge those who differ from me. Maybe one is self-interested because he learned it and cannot know otherwise. Maybe he is bigoted and insecure because his father was bigoted and insecure. Who knows which moments, out of the millions of moments in each person’s life, carry the greatest weight and most influence his worldview?
It’s helpful to me, when I begin to indulge in self-righteous condemnation, to keep in mind the factors that might lie behind a person’s unpleasant way of behaving. For instance, I know that day is called “day” because I was taught so by people who had learned it from people before them. The same is true in prejudice. Someone may dislike white people because they were taught so by others who were taught so. Where does the chain of blame and judging end?
Jewel Kilcher
It ends at another facet of the Jewel of Powerful Peace: Accountability. Since I know that my perspective is somewhat flawed, and I know that my brother’s perspective is somewhat flawed, it benefits no one for me to try and force my belief on him. If I truly believe in my way (serving in the slums of India, for example), I simply act in that belief. Maybe my deeds, rather than my demands, will soften a hard spirit and gain an ally.
Two caveats: firstly, I know that it was blatantly self-serving to slip a photo of Jewel into a paragraph that has nothing to do with her. I can’t help it. She’s my favorite female singer, followed by Sezen Aksu.
Secondly, I should acknowledge that this was in fact not a brief post, but I would argue that the introduction about SEAL things took a lot of space.
I’ll try to do better next time.
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
12. Olympics and evolved counterterrorism
(From Power vs. Force, by D. R. Hawkins):
“Sports figures symbolize the possibilities of excellence for all of us – and at the level of the champion, they represent mastery.
“High states of consciousness are also frequently experienced by athletes…. This phenomenon is commonly described in terms of pushing oneself to the point where one suddenly breaks through a performance barrier and the activity becomes effortless; the body then seems to move with grace and ease of its own accord, as though animated by some invisible force.
“It’s notable that this transcendence of the personal self and surrender to the very essence or spirit of life often occurs at a point just beyond the apparent limit of the athlete’s ability. The seeming barrier is predicated by the paradigm of one’s own past accomplishments or of what has been recognized as theoretically possible. Take, for instance, the historic “four-minute mile”: Until Roger Bannister tore down that barrier, it was universally accepted that it wasn’t humanly possible to run any faster; Bannister’s greatness wasn’t just in breaking the record, but in breaking through that paradigm to a new model of human possibility. This breakthrough to new levels of potential has correspondences in every field of human endeavor; in many diverse enterprises, those who have achieved greatness have given parallel accounts of the circumstances surrounding their accomplishments.”
[P2: Powerful Peace proclaims a higher plane of Understanding upon which we can directly impact human conflict, including terrorism. This requires the "transcendence of the personal self and surrender to the very essence or spirit of life" referenced above.
It is so damn hard to find the willingness to consider our enemy's waywardness instead of his evil; yet until we bite that bullet and embrace that painful obligation, we remain trapped in a spiral of vain belief that destroying the enemy will ultimately result in peace...unless, that is, we recognize that the true enemy is dis-ease of the heart, mind and soul.]
“The most highly developed martial arts clearly demonstrate how motive and principle are of ultimate importance in extraordinary athletic achievement…. Schools devoted to these arts produce masters whose overriding concern is victory of the higher self over the lower through control, training, and commitment to goals aligned with true power.
“Athletes in the traditional martial arts employ specific exercises to overcome any tendency toward egotism. The dedication of one’s skill, performance, or career to a higher principle provides the only absolute protection.”
[P2: I'm called "jujutsu-ka", because I practice traditional Japanese jujutsu. My black belt is in this destructive art, characterized by its "gentle" redirection of energy and non-linear movements. I have also studied aikido, and my spirit recognizes the profound validity of that art.
The founder of aikido, honored as "O-Sensei" (Great Teacher) by practitioners of many different martial arts systems, became a great jujutsu-ka during the first few decades of his life. In the wisdom of his later years, he developed (or evolved) aikido from this foundation. He would explain that the highest goal of the art was to protect against the aggression of an attacker...to protect the attacker from the aggression of the attacker.]
“True athletic power is characterized by grace, sensitivity, inner quiet, and paradoxically, gentleness in the noncompetitive lives of even fierce competitors.
“The Olympic spirit resides within the heart of every man and woman…. The nurturing of excellence and recognition of its value in any area of human endeavor inspires us all toward the actualization of every form of man’s yet unrealized greatness.”
[P2: We can begin to explore additional routes to undermine terrorism (such as growing and practicing Powerful Peace) while engaged with all the current means (bullets, rockets, and spy satellites) at our disposal. Our race will not be free from hate and fighting while we sit on this rock together, but it is possible to sit together better.
At one point in America, when the Civil Rights movement was in its heyday, the idea was rejected by some who would lose their privilege, and by others who simply thought it unrealistic. At one point, the idea of an integrated society seemed like fantasy.
Today, the concept of fighting terrorism with compassion for the source society and an intense desire to understand the hatred seems like a fantasy to many....
There is a terrific story by one of O-Sensei's first Western students that sums up the "paradigm shift" of discovering an enemy's motives as human pain and fear. Remind me to tell that story one day.]
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
11. We know loss
Fallen Comrade
We honor a fallen comrade. Hundreds of strangers converge from all corners of our little camp. America the Beautiful plays quietly, reverently, as members from all services, agencies, and companies walk up, one by one, and file into clean ranks.
Now that we finally stand silently at the appointed time, our chaplain takes the podium in his uniform and camouflage-patterned stole, bringing our attention to God’s sovereignty over this solemn occasion. He speaks of a family’s loss and a hero’s honor.
In the adjacent Iraqi town outside the base, a mother and father clutch at each other and weep bitterly. They can not know yet whether their three-year-old daughter will survive the shrapnel wounds torn deep into her abdomen, thigh, and scalp. They know they are fortunate just to have a doctor’s attention; that he lacks anesthesia is a cost of being born here.
Our commander now takes the microphone. He praises the selflessness of this man who had gone forward time and again into harm’s way. He has lost many brothers before; he bears the pain with practiced stoicism. He praises the courage of a good man whose wife and child will never again know daddy’s embrace.
This wife and child have been notified of their devastating loss, of course. An irreplaceable piece of their own souls died on the side of the road, in that convoy, on that day.
The mother and father now sit numb. Their hearts died the instant the doctor failed to save their little girl. They stare vacantly as his staff cares for the small, torn daughters of two other families.
8,000 miles away, in the United States, a nation snarls and chews at itself. Citizens complain that an election will only be the selection of the lesser of two evils. National unity has faded to a distant memory, mere flickers of the brotherhood that boldly shone after those terrible attacks.
The media relentlessly stoke the flames of dissatisfaction, telling those parts of the truth intended to satisfy the sour assumptions of one side or the other. The media create separate realities.
The dead girl’s fourteen-year-old brother had been a gentle boy, destined to musical greatness which would have softened the hearts of thousands. Now, his own heart scarred by hate, he vows to join the resistance against the insurgency and kill as many as possible. Within the month, he will take away three other families’ sons before being shot to death.
Elsewhere in town, a group converges on a lightly-occupied mosque during prayers and takes seven worshipers away at gunpoint. These men are the wrong “type” of Muslim, and their deaths will terrify the neighbors of seven fatherless families.
Seven more mothers are utterly shattered. Each will suffer terribly at the loss of her husband; learning that he himself suffered terribly before death will be worse. Worst of all will be the desperate years of begging to feed hungry children.
My thoughts return to our ceremony in the boiling sun. There is so much loss.
I ache, deeply, for my own. Before he was killed, this was my brother in this world. It is my loss that this good man is dead.
I have lost this little girl, my precious sister in this world.
I have lost the rational, respectful discourse with my countrymen that determines who will lead with one nation’s support.
I have lost the kind boy who would soothe souls with his music.
I have lost the seven husbands and fathers.
We have lost when reconciliation is not pursued with the same aggression as revenge.
We have lost when hate-filled parties thirst for the blood of the other.
We have known loss, today.
[this post is taken from my hardcopy column, accessible through LINKS 2, above]
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
10. Why I Exist
Little Girls Blown up by al Qaeda (Emad Matti, AP)
I was going to do another lighthearted jaunt through a wrapup on the first month of successes and interest shown to Powerful Peace.
Then in my terrorism research I happened upon this photo of two little girls who were blown up by al Qaeda in Iraq at a little girls’ school in Kirkuk on April 2, 2007. In other words, all my clever words don’t count when monstrous behavior is in your face.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. The suffering of these innocent children speaks far more eloquently than I ever can.
This is why hard power (the killing and destroying arts) is still necessary in our struggle against terrorism and human conflict in general. (Sounds hypocritical, doesn’t it?) Using the tools currently at our disposal, we have to stop the men who are doing this now. My brothers are seeing to that as we speak.
I want to suit up and rejoin the mission. I want to pay back, to the group who did this, all that they deserve – with interest. My heart doesn’t ache for these precious, precious girls. It explodes. Forcing out the tears I struggle to stop, my heart explodes like the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device that did this to them, killing their playmates.
Despite my boiling rage, I collect myself and re-assert that we also must grow our soft power even more. We must engage with all societies, especially those that, willingly or otherwise, produce terrorists. Killing alone leads to killing. This is the terrible paradox. It’s almost impossible to imagine breaking the cycle of madness when you feel so hurt and hateful. But there is no other hope for these girls and the millions like them.
If we don’t reduce the violence overall, this will happen again, and again, and again….
This is why Powerful Peace exists.
This is why I exist.
Any questions?
(By the way…the one on the left looks a bit like my little girl. You may not be able to tell in the reduced image on the blog, but her t-shirt was not originally crimson. When her mommy sent her to school, it was white, with little pink letters. She probably got a big hug and a kiss…maybe a silly tickle.)
(Although most of the blood soaking her shirt and pants is likely from a fast-flowing hidden scalp wound, you can just make out that her delicate little right hand is torn as well. She’s terrified and in terrible pain, favoring her hand to keep it from touching anything.)
(She needs desperately to be held, and appears to be reaching for someone…but she just has to sit on a ratty examining table, little gold bracelets dripping blood, and feel a million miles away from the security, love and peace she so deserves…but will never recover.)
(Try to comprehend how desperately I have to fight a descent into hate from this.)
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
9. “Smart” Power
Amazon.com (my only vice) just sent the latest in a long string of excellent books which help provide home-style quality of life during my prolonged stay in Iraq. This book is Joseph Nye’s latest, The Powers to Lead. I have only read the inside slip cover so far, and I was so struck by its Powerful Peaceness that I decided to share an extract in a post:
Joseph Nye
“…Many now believe that the more authoritarian and coercive forms of leadership – the ‘hard power’ approaches of earlier military-industrial eras – have been largely supplanted in postindustrial societies by ’soft power’ approaches that seek to attract, inspire, and persuade rather than dictate. Nye argues, however, that the most effective leaders are actually those who combine hard and soft power skills in proportions that vary with different situations [italics mine]. He calls this ’smart power’.”
I suppose I called it the “toolbox” in earlier P2 writing, but that doesn’t have much zing. We’ll work on it. I might call it, hmm…Smart Power!
In any event, it’s important to re-affirm that such an adaptable and balanced approach, whether in matters of leadership, international relations, or the emotionally-charged and bewildering problem of terrorism, is the highest way of getting to the source of a problem…and therefore, to the beginning of the solution.
By the way – if you think there’s some merit to the ideas being shared in Powerful Peace, you are apparently in pretty good company. I just posted an update to the count-up page announcing 900 hits! As in, 900 hits in less than the first month. Please tell your friends, family, and even the creepy guy that lives two doors down about PowerfulPeace.WordPress.com: August 14th marks the one-month anniversary of P2…1,000 hits would give some wonderful momentum toward a national (global?) membership!
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
8. It’s the Children, Stupid
Lately I’ve used the word “apolitical” to describe myself in this preoccupation with Powerful Peace. This shouldn’t be misconstrued to mean that I don’t believe in politics, or that I’m anarchist. It means, simply, that politics (and many other idols of our time) are lower, and weaker, than P2.
Nothing burns my cookies like watching the United States Senate, communally 100 of the most powerful people in the world, bicker childishly and toss votes back and forth across the aisle like some deranged tennis match; “49-51.” “51-49.” “Love.” (How much are we paying you? How much trust are we investing in you to lead??)
Far worse than childishly clannish, of course, is whorish. This is that aspect of a leader’s “selling out”, of betraying one’s constituents and one’s own conscience, for some personal gain. I suspect the most common motivator for personal gain here is simply job security; dancing with insincerity for the privilege of retaining privilege; elect me so I can think up why you should elect me next time. This is all the more pathetic when one considers the great potential for contribution many of these talented folks would have out in the real world.
(I’m not saying, “senators are whorish”. I’m saying some senators are whorish. It’s certainly not up to me to identify who serves and who is served among our statesmen. If you’re a senator and you’re reading this, you know who you are. Now you should stop surfing the ‘Net and get back to work. Please.)
(For all the other readers who aren’t senators: I really don’t think your boss will mind if you surf on the job a little, just to look at Powerful Peace.)
You may say that I don’t understand the intricacies of successful governance, that there is more to settling national debates than simply voting one’s conscience, because I haven’t been a Senator. That’s true, I haven’t. Yet.
The following declaration has the potential to burn many, many cookies, but I’m convinced of its truth: Religion itself is lower, and weaker, than Powerful Peace. I’m not talking about God, Who is above all. I’m talking about the infinite spiritual splittings of doctrine and practice among mankind. I am a believer myself, but in my faith tradition we are taught that all men are brothers, and that I should love my neighbor as myself.
Our scripture does not say that loving one’s neighbor may be selectively applied based on my particular feelings about another person and my mood at the time. (If you have a version of the text that says such, please email me or post a Comment so we can all look it up.)
I know a great many Christians who commonly act much less Christlike than the Mahatma Gandhi, who revered the teachings of Jesus but never called himself a Christian.
—————————————————————————
Now that I’ve deliberately violated every social courtesy by exploding both religion and politics into this conversation, I hope to have captured your attention. Also, having defined what Powerful Peace is not (neither politics nor religion), it should be easier to determine what it is.
It’s the children, stupid.
In Post #2, “That No Child Should Suffer” (07/07/08), I wrote that “It isn’t right for any three-year-old to know the terror of exploding rockets, mortars, bombs, or IEDs.” (Again, if you disagree with this statement and have some evidence to back it up, please contact me right away.)
We are an amazing race. We humans can really get our bloomers in a bunch on petty disagreements…so on the greater matters of war and terror it is absolutely essential that we trace back to something we can agree on in order to move forward:
Kids deserve better. If nothing else, kids deserve better.
Maybe after a time, when we’ve stood back and thought about this for a while, we’ll grow up to a point where we are even able to think that not only precious, helpless children deserve better. Maybe…brace yourself…other adults (dare I say foreigners?) deserve better!
Mr. Caveman (NOT P2! ... but not far off, either)
Maybe everyone deserves better – better than small, brutish squabbling as we imagine the cavemen doing because primitive survival depended on reacting like animals. (If you’re reading this, Mr. Caveman from the TV commercials, I mean no disrespect. It’s just a convenient example. I’ll give you guest photo placement by way of apology.)
…Maybe even I deserve better – better than the miserable world I give myself when I place my own desires above others’ needs. Has the reader ever thought about that?
I can choose to be kind to a stranger. For example, I can provide a simple, cost-free smile that brightens an otherwise drizzly day. That cheered man, upon noticing I’ve dropped a train ticket, might be inclined to run and catch up to hand it to me.
I can choose to be small to a stranger (and often do). I can rush past him rudely and give him stinkeye when he attempts to recover his place in line. How do you suppose this same man in these different circumstances might respond to my dropping an expensive ticket? Do you think he might smile while he kicks it under the train?
Did I not create those environmental conditions that I then experienced over those ten seconds?
This is Powerful Peace. It’s wildly simple. It’s frustratingly difficult. It’s compleksimplicity, and I’ll have a lot more to say about compleksimplicity when the spirit takes me.
[See post #21, "Compleksimplicity I"]
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
7. Colonel Cardinal’s Iceburg Theory
Today is a momentous occasion – I get to present another’s words, revealing concepts very similar to Powerful Peace…but which were developed by a separate team seven years ago, and re-introduced last week! This thinking couldn’t get much buy-in back then; I know the feeling.
An image of terror
Dr. Richard Hoffman, yet another former SEAL, is a friend of mine from RAND Corp. When he recently discovered P2 he sent the following article, published just two weeks after Powerful Peace went online. It’s very important thinking; try and see just how much overlap there is between our two venues.
Before I give him the floor, let me “prep the room” with near-identical excerpts of our main points, written by different men in different times and places but showing the fundamental truth of Powerful Peace:
P2 Post 4, Becoming Your Enemy: “We need to connect with the centers of these populations…Western agencies already have representation in many global communities to institutionalize a concerted effort to engage with reasonable representatives…open exchange and cooperation can starve the very roots of terrorism. Statecraft and interpersonal engagement are more important, in the long run, than military might.“
Dr. Dick Hoffman, RAND Corporation: “We need to shine light on the moderate Muslim majority. We need to warm their environment to Western cooperation and trade…. Engaging and supporting Muslims so they can effectively resist the extremists in their midst is ultimately how we as a world community would melt these violent organizations…. Acknowledging the limits of the military “surge” and implementing the diplomacy recommendations from the Baker-Hamilton Commission would be a start.
—————————————
Colonel Cardinal’s Iceberg Theory
July 29, 2008
Immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, I had the pleasure of working for Colonel Chuck Cardinal. He was the director of the Pacific Command’s inter-agency coordination group for counterterrorism, and I was one of his Special Operations planners. He was an earnest, practical leader who sought to clarify issues with collegial discussion.Under his guidance, we assembled professionals from the U.S. Departments of Defense, Justice, Treasury and State, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency, to develop a plan, setting aside diverging agency agendas and challenging the accepted notions of fighting terrorists.
We developed a good plan for the Pacific Theater. The flag officers liked it and approved it. And even though the plan had to compete with other priorities in 2002, it received some support and saw partial implementation.
As we continue to pour invaluable resources into our sixth year in Iraq, and the U.S. public and politicians wonder what we should do next, now may be a good time to revisit the overarching theory of our campaign plan in the Pacific: Colonel Cardinal’s Iceberg Theory.
It’s simple. It’s clear. But it was difficult to win acceptance for this theory because it was a counterintuitive response to the horrific attacks on Sept. 11.
After 19 al-Qaeda operatives flew airplanes into buildings, our leaders saw those attacks as a global jihad. They extrapolated al-Qaeda’s capabilities into an expansive network that threatened free-minded people throughout the world. Our leaders launched a “global war on terror” and gave al-Qaeda the epic jihad it wanted – elevating its marginal cause into a global military threat, characterizing its members as holy warriors rather than violent criminals.
Back at Pacific Command, our staff avoided this emotional vortex and professionally considered all facets of the attack and an appropriate response. We considered the desire to destroy al-Qaeda tactically, and the realistic capacity of our military to combat nonstate militias operationally.
The result was a campaign plan with numerous lines of operations interwoven across diverse objectives.
The next step, as with any plan, was to convince commanders these suppositions were worth trying. Here is where Colonel Cardinal, now retired, stepped in. With decades of experience convincing generals, he knew we needed a simple graphic representation. Colonel Cardinal pushed us to explore all sorts of depictions – bone charts, matrices, clouds. I’ll never get back the days I spent conceptualizing the plan into a Rubik’s cube where different efforts, objectives and countries could be twisted in various sequences to arrive at a solution.
Then Colonel Cardinal floated his Iceberg Theory. This analogy depicts Islamic extremists as an iceberg drifting in a sea of moderate Muslims. Icebergs, like terrorist networks, are only partially visible. They depend on the surrounding sea to remain dark and cold enough to support their frozen existence, much as Islamic extremists depend on their surrounding Muslim cultures to remain ignorant and dormant enough to acquiesce to their presence in their neighborhoods.
The model also depicts overt U.S. military force as a cloud that darkens the sea of moderates while it strikes at the iceberg, chipping what little ice is exposed into the sea, chilling the environment and making terrorist networks actually grow larger.
The theory explains what we have done wrong, and it suggests what we should do to make things right. We need to shine light on the moderate Muslim majority. We need to warm their environment to Western cooperation and trade. We need to stir moderate actors in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran, and support their efforts to help their neighborhoods subdue the extremists.
Look at the localized results in Iraq’s Anbar province after U.S. forces shifted tactics from fighting the tribes to engaging them. When U.S. forces moved units off their sequestered citadels and into the neighborhoods, the moderates had enough support to begin melting al-Qaeda and shrinking their network.
Look at the Gallup study set forth in John Esposito’s and Dalia Mogahed’s new book “Who Speaks for Islam?” After 50,000 interviews of Muslims from over 35 countries, it found 93 percent declared themselves moderates.
Look at the list of moderate groups described in the recent RAND study “Building Moderate Muslim Networks.” Consider the moderate teachings and ascendance of Egypt’s Grand Mufti, Sheik Ali Gomaa, described in U.S. News & World Report.
The sea of moderate Muslims exists. We need to stop chilling that sea with our conventional strategy of invading states and attacking extremists. We need to seek multilateral measures that promote moderate Muslims, their legitimacy and regional stability.
Acknowledging the limits of the military “surge” and implementing the diplomacy recommendations from the Baker-Hamilton Commission would be a start. Engaging and supporting Muslims so they can effectively resist the extremists in their midst is ultimately how we as a world community would melt these violent organizations.
Hoffmann was a Navy SEAL at the Pacific Command from 1998 to 2002. He recently finished 20 years of service and is currently a defense research analyst at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.
Link to the original:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080729/news_lz1e29hoffman.html
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
6. “I tried to reason with them, but they couldn’t hear me over their RPG’s….”
Let me paraphrase a classic “Naked Gun” movie scene in which Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) encounters a thug sent to kill him. The assailant yells, “I got a message for you from da Boss!” then opens fire while screaming obscenities. Frank stands mystified in the line of fire for a few seconds and finally shouts back, “You’ll have to stop shooting! I can’t hear the message!”
Leslie Nielsen
The title of this posting is the text of a comment posted by “Xfrog61″, a dear friend of mine and fellow recently retired SEAL. The RPG’s he mentions are the Rocket-Propelled Grenades that were fired at him as he worked here in Iraq. His comment is a facetious reference (you’d have to know his excellent wit) to my apparent desire to hold hands with terrorists/insurgents and sing Kumbaya.
While on the surface he appears to oppose my position outright, I could not be more excited about having this counterpoint expressed so succinctly. This is exactly why open dialogue is important. “We” (P2 and Xfrog61, or The West and The East, or We and They) can begin to understand what we don’t understand about the other by just saying what we think is going on.
I don’t have time to go deep into this subject right now, but I promise it will come. Please review earlier postings to understand the “compleksimplicity” of the message of Powerful Peace, which does in fact include the following:
Sometimes you gotta shoot somebody.
The idea of Powerful Peace isn’t to attempt to reason with an insurgent bringing an RPG to bear at me. In that moment, there is only one option if I hope to see kith and kin again. You know what I’ll choose.
Powerful Peace isn’t “either-or”. Either-or is the enemy of P2, because it says such things as, “either you claim my religion – or I can kill you”; “either you’re in my political party – or I can’t respect you.”
…“Either you’re with us……or you’re against us”.
In contrast, responsible living is “all” - as in “all options” - according to what’s right. A hammer will drive home a screw, but poorly; I could probably, eventually, drive in a nail with a screwdriver – but I’d need some ibuprofen afterward!
The use of the dialogue tool is to engage with the community that breeds the guy that wants to kill me with an RPG.
Ultimately, the idea is to engage with communities that don’t yet even have guys that want to kill me with an RPG. For example, I would like to reach a potential “guy with the RPG”…years before his radicalization.
As I wrote in the posting “4. Becoming Your Enemy” (8/30/08), “the next evolution of [terrorist] threat mitigation [is] elimination, before the hateful cause exists, by working with the source”.
Powerful Peace is apolitical. There is no party that holds a monopoly on making a safer world for our families. Every human is a stakeholder.
Thanks, Xfrog61- I owe you a cup of coffee!
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
Subscribe here!
