Richard K. Betts Quotes

The “adversary” was Pakistan, which was frequently sending military and terrorist attacks into Kashmire much if which has been disputed by Pakistan ever since the Partition of India in 1949. India had a very disciplined and well led military and like most sophisticated military powers did not immediately retaliate for military incursions despite the public pressure to do so. Instead they gave themselves time to plan and organize the logistics for a series of surgical strikes at the terrorist and/or military concentrations Pakistan had deployed close to the border which they launched several days later.

He served Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and both Bushes. The “Cole” was the United States Navy ship that was bombed killing American sailors by Al Qaida. The argument of some against retaliation was that the intelligence and investigatory had not yet assembled incontrovertible proof the Al Qaida had done it.

Dagestan was the poorest of the Soviet States, It was then mainly populated by feuding Muslim sects who were in constant conflict with each other and an Islamic nationalist group that wanted independence from Russia. There were also a large number of bandits in what was a frontier culture of banditry and lawlessness.

In addition to facing regular Confederate Troops, there were irregular insurgents who would fire at and harass normal civilian activity much like the terrorists in the Mideast today. Like today, the insurgents could exist only as long as they were sheltered and assisted by the Southern civilian population. Sherman did not see this as collective punishment as all the people in the small town of Randolph were helping the insurgents.

He served Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and both Bushes

See {620373} for a similar quote. However, there are many who disagree. They point to the Vietnam War as just one counter example. Generally, this tactic has worked for non-democratic nations facing insurgents and terrorists, but has not been very successful for the United States, England, France, Israel and other industrial democracies. These societies have found it difficult to inflict enough terror in the general population to make Luttwak’s tactic effective. The norms and mores of the culture was contrary to the methods that are required, and public opinion forced cessation in the instances where industrial democracies had tried it such as France in Algeria. See {620377}.

Over a century ago, modern Islamists were critical of the Wahhabi sect for their extremism. Unfortunately, the Saudi Arabian royal family whose absolute control of the kingdom could be threatened by an extremist religious movement, cut a deal with the Wahhabi that not only gave them control over all religious and legal interpretations of Sharia in the kingdom, but also gave them large amounts of money with which the Wahhabi expanded and exported their extremist brand of Islam to many other counties—including the United States. A large part of the Islamic terrorism of the end of the 20th century into the 21st was caused by fanatics who had been exposed to Wahhabi schools (madrassas), mosques or materials which are virulently anti-Christian and ant-Semitic. Muslim intellectuals like Muhammad Abduh had warned about extremism in general and Wahhabi extremism in particular.

The terror to which he referred was to the French Revolution’s executing former aristocrats and then including anyone suspected of monarchist sympathies. This quotation shows how fanatics can rationalize evil as justice.

The quotation is notable as it illustrates the great difficulty that modern democracies have with extreme Islamic fundamentalists. Their very perception and world view is so different that often we think of the extremists as insane and they often feel the same way about us.

Grenier was fired by the Republican CIA Director Porter Goss because Grenier had internally been an opponent of Vice President Cheney’s Desire for Torture (like waterboarding) of terrorists suspects and detaining terrorists in secret prisons so the United States legal system could not order the government to stop breaking the law if they did.

Umezu was one of several members of the Japanese War Council, that did not want to surrender even after the second atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki. He and the other hard liners were convinced that the Japanese could inflict such heavy casualties on an invading force of the mainland that the Allies would not insist on unconditional surrender and Japan could negotiate favorable terms. These hard liners had already lived through the firebombing of Tokyo which in casualties was as bad as the atom bomb attacks, and felt that they could maintain a defensive force even if all the major cities of Japan were destroyed. Fortunately for all parties, the Emperor overruled Umezu and the hardliners. Umezu and the other hard liners had personal reasons to want to negotiate terms. They had committed war crimes and did not want to be brought to account. He was tried after the surrender and sentenced to life in prison where he died of cancer after 4 years.

During the Cold War, Yugoslavia was a part of the Eastern Communist Bloc, but was very independent. They had a very experienced military and were the one country of the Eastern Bloc who the Russians could not easily militarily dominate. Tito was a great and feared military leader having killed More Germans per soldier with his army than any of the Allies in WWII. He was also very independent of Moscow and would not follow Russia directives. The Russians decided on assassinating Tito but the attempts failed.

Most sophisticated Muslim theologians would not agree at all with the “permission” he quotes from the Koran. However, there is no hierarchy of belief in Islam and there are tens of thousands of Muslim imams and millions of individual Muslims who believe and teach just what this particular terrorist stated.

See {587287} for a later complementary statement.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey recently described the Iranian leadership as “rational actors.” Lewis, the Western World’s greatest Islamic Historian, was advising regarding the Iranian effort to enrich uranium. The Iranians if they enriched enough could develop a nuclear weapon. Historically, nuclear powers have always been deterred by using them as the retaliation would wipe out most of their country and people. This Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Lewis felt might not inhibit the Iranian leadership who have glorified suicide bombers and have sent tens of thousands of young people to their deaths (and immediately to Paradise) leading Iranian troops through Iraqi minefields in the Iran Iraq War. The national security question was should Iran be allowed to get a nuclear weapon?