[NYDAILYNEWS] The imprisoned former U.S. intelligence analyst known as Chelsea Manning...formerly Bradley Manning before he decided to become a girl. He, or she or whatever it was, was a misfit Army intel analyst who decided to leak all the secrets he could lay hands on. Currently doing 35 years in Leavenworth and writing editorials for the New York Times....
is offering advice to President B.O.: contain ISIS, don't bomb them.
And when Chelsea Manning speaks, by Gum people should listen!
"ISIS cannot be defeated by bombs and bullets -- even as the fight is taken to Syria, even if it is conducted by non-Western forces with air support," Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking classified intelligence, wrote in a column for The Guardian newspaper. "I believe that only a very focused and consistent strategy of containment can be effective in reducing the growth and effectiveness of ISIS as a threat."
How does one "contain" a blood-thirsty enemy without inflicting some sort of physical restraint, like maybe shooting the bastards? Words of Power? Phlogiston? Calling up demons?
(If black magicians can call up demons to do their commands, why can't white magicians call up angels and command them?)
Manning, who used to be known as Bradley but had his name legally changed this year after coming out as a transgender person, goes on to share a detailed four-point strategy to "disrupt the growth of ISIS."
Good thing, detailed. Just follow the steps laid out and success will be yours. Or ours. Or somebody's.
Manning draws on his experience as an intelligence analyst in the essay often, suggesting that the U.S. "counter the narrative in online ISIS recruitment videos."
Since he used to be an intel analyst he's got experience that's valuable for setting national policy. I was an intel collector and analyst for 27 years, but no doubt Chelsea has a better grasp of the concept than I do.
He also proposes publicly setting "clear, temporary borders in the region " to "discourage ISIS from taking certain territory where humanitarian crises might be created."
See, being a dumbass, I'd have said that there were already borders in the area. Some of them are the Sykes-Picot style borders that lay out national states, not that they'd be relevant to a grand strategist like Chelsea. Others are linguistic or cultural borders, like the differences between Kurdistan and the marsh Arabs and the Sunni tribes of western Iraq and the fact that some villages and towns are mostly Turkmen or Yazidis or Assyrian or Chaldean Christian or that sort of thing. Y'might also take note of the fact that the humanitarian crises are the result of Islamic State depredations, not that they depredate where there are humanitarian crises. It's that old cause-effect thing all over again.
Manning recommends creating an international moratorium on ransom payment for hostages, a principle already largely practiced by the U.S., and allowing ISIS to set up a "failed state ... in a contained area and over a long enough period of time to prove itself unpopular and unable to govern."
If the U.S. is already doing it, and certain other countries aren't, there's already a "moratorium" on our side that's not being honored by the neighbors. In practice, it's a hard thing to say "No, go ahead and chop his head off, we're not paying." The idea of allowing the Islamic State to just set up in business has several holes in it. One is that Afghanistan was an Islamic State thirteen years ago. It allowed itself to become infested with al-Qaeda and to conduct terror operations worldwide. This Islamic state arrives without even the baggage of the Taliban. Another hole is that humanitarian aspect the little lady or whatever he is was discussing a paragraph or two ago. The locals may not want to be ruled with an iron fist by international terrorists. They shoot people in batches, they crucify people, and they're ordered that all the women in the territory they control be genitally mutilated. Who's going to resurrect the dead, repair the maimed, and give the ladies their sex lives back once the Islamic State does fail? The Soviet Union lasted 75 or 80 years. There's room for a lot of summary executions, a lot of famine and pestilence, and a lot of mayhem directed at the civilized world in that span of time.
The thought just occurred to me, probably not actually suitable for a family publication: If Bradley-Chelsea went ahead and had his/her/its gender "reassigned," and he went to the Islamic State, would his new lady's genitalia need to be mutilated before they let him in? Bet that would hurt.
"This might begin to discredit the leadership and ideology of ISIS for good," he wrote.
They're already "discredited." Even salafists are coming out against them. They're a specific strain of takfiri. Unless they're of that mindset even the rubes aren't cheering for the "home team."
"Eventually, if they are properly contained, I believe that ISIS will not be able to sustain itself on rapid growth alone, and will begin to fracture internally. The organization will begin to disintegrate into several smaller, uncoordinated entities -- ultimately failing in their objective of creating a strong state."
Good analysis, that. Well, maybe not that good. First of all, "proper containment" lacks a lot of detail in definition. Then there's the question of means: How do they get "contained?" You might require, you know, force to do that. The "internal fracturing" is a feature of revolution, q.v. Thermidor to Bonaparte, Bolsheviki to Stalin, that sort of thing. Given sufficient ruthlessness, the power remains; it's the wielders who change. One thing the turbans have shown is that they're ruthless.
But Manning not only offers his own vision, he criticizes the plans already put in motion by the White House, blasting the strategy to bomb the bloodthirsty jihadist group.
Yes, yes. Of course. We're against war and stuff. We will now pause in our analysis while I sing a few verses of "Alice's Restaurant."
There. That's better.
If I wasn't convinced in my heart of hearts, my spleen of spleens, and one or both of my lungs, that You Can Get Anything You Want at Alice's Restaurant (Excepting Alice), I'd suggest that the way to deal with the Islamic State is to bomb it to rubble, bounce the rubble twice, and then send in troops. Any adherent of the Islamic State could expect to be shot on the spot, unless rounded up and shot in batches. That would include the gun toters, the holy men, and the whores who run off to "marry" the bastards for twenty minutes or an hour, overnight cost extra GI. Perhaps we could contract with the Saudis for their state head chopper to assist with the work. The sure knowledge that you're going to be killed, no mercy, no appeal, no spit, would be a pretty good deterrent to enlisting in the jihad.
"When the west fights fire with fire, we feed into a cycle of outrage, recruitment, organizing and even more fighting that goes back decades. This is exactly what happened in Iraq during the height of a civil war in 2006 and 2007, and it can only be expected to occur again," he wrote.
Not it isn't. What happened in Iraq was a specific al-Qaeda evolution, masterminded by Zarqawi and aided and abetted by Ibrahim al-Douri, financed by Soddy Arabia and Qatar and the UAE. Recruitment was done by hundreds of holy men of the salafist and Deobandi suasion. The same thing is happening here, with the Frankenstein's monster of the Syrian revolution against Pencilneck lurching into prominence. The difference at this point is that Iran and its proxies are outright against them, the Saudis and the UAE appear to be washing their hands of the bloodthirsty bastards, and even the holy men are starting to look doubtful. The Caliphate's already not all it was cracked up to be.
The long article, penned from inside a Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Army prison (where Manning is serving her sentence) marks the defamed soldier's first time speaking out since she was taken into custody.
I thought there'd been a previous effort or two in the New York Times, but maybe I'm mistaken.
Manning was sentenced in August for six Espionage Act violations and 14 other offenses related to leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents in 2009 and 2010.
He/she/it was obviously the best judge of whether the material should be kept secret. The fact that it was classified means nothing when opposed to a transgender intel analyst's conscience.
She appears to making taking cues from Edward Snowden, the infamous runaway leaker who also shared confidential documents, who has repeatedly done interviews with the media.