Exploiting fault lines is a two way street

Islamic enemies of the West have used our values against us in their campaign to accomplish their caliphate goals. Madrasah schools in the East that are now too often indoctrination centers for young people are one example tolerated by the West. Mosques that are really compounds for organization, meetings, gathering and distribution of funds, and recruiting centers are another example. That there has been an aggressive expansion of mosques through construction of buildings and assignment of paid mullahs out of Arab training centers to locations in the West (and some of the East) is now a decades long and subtle program; a program plan now overshadowed by the Western war on terror. While all this suggests some central control going on under the radar for decades (probably correct), it certainly suggests a disparate group of idealists (many would say religious fanatics) with common goals exploiting our Western values. The most frustrating example is when caught, most demand Western value rights and legal benefits, and then they get them. The same demands in the East, as in the Red Mosque in Pakistan, are often met with death, and the mullah is disguised as a woman, to boot.

The same enemy group is starting to show itself less as Islamic religious fanatics than as Arab and Persian Islamic religious fanatics. This belief suggests things may be more tribal and less religious, though the two are undeniably linked from the enemies points of view.

Here is the first fault line we of the West can peel away. While Islam has 1.4 billion followers, the Arab and Persian peoples (and their leaders; the enemy being religious thugs, idealists, and opportunistic egomaniacs) are a much smaller group. Let us peel off the biggest Islamic nation, Indonesia, for example. And then its version of Islam with all its animist subtleties is not highly regarded by the Arabs and Persians, who have a more autocratic and higher view of themselves anyway.

“Exploiting fault lines” and “peeling away” are code words or buzz words for just recognizing our enemies are not ten feet tall, and have their problems, too. Like a living thing, they have a brain and a heart, and the rest of the body, and a savvy person will exploit any vulnerability to kill this enemy. Then we Westerners can have breathing room to wonder why, and do what we always do; try to improve the lot of humanity.

The second fault line to exploit is the funding of our enemies. Building mosques and madrashahs, and running them costs money. Travel for suicide bombers to go to training schools in Syria, and then to their assembly area in Iraq, costs money. Support of the recruiters costs money. Export of extreme Islam to Indonesia, or the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, or Pakistan, costs money. Support of Hezbollah and Hamas costs money. Sending recruited suicide cells to the West costs money. Buying all the suicide bombing equipment costs money.

Most of this money to fund all this comes from Arab and Persian oil income. And the collectors of all this money are few, as in maybe scores or hundreds in terms of tribes, dictators, and nation state treasuries. To attack this income source (and its comptrollers) as a war fighting decision to peel away the blood life of our enemies is obvious. It appears our western political leaders have chosen otherwise. Wouldn’t US Congressional hearings on this subject be interesting?

The third fault line to exploit is one of the brain, or our enemy’s ability to command and coordinate. One can argue that fellows like Osama Bin Laden have been so isolated in trying to hide, or hide his death through his peers, that they have little to no real effects on day to month to year operations. If this idea is correct, then we (our governments) in the West have done a good job in slowing things down.

The simplest way to summarize all this is the idea of center of gravity. What is important to our enemy? And how are we exploiting their vulnerabilities in our national defense? If ever there is a subject and time for congressional hearings, it is now. Our Constitution suggests all this. Do our present congressional leaders even have a hint as to what to do? Do they care about what the voters (their constituents) even think?