Center for a New American Security

I dont eat, French fries,

I dont eat, French fries, Ex. I eat Freedom fries. Fuck anything French.

You know, if I was an actual

You know, if I was an actual Victorian rather than a 21st-century Internet poser, I'd actually know French. Maybe Tewfik could translate those frog merds for us.

It seems clear that AM has a more open mind than some have given him credit for. Of course, the problem with taking off the ring, or even just toying with the possibility, is that even once you get the danged thing off, the first thing you notice is that the other 8191 PC fobbit communist ringwraiths still have it on. And you don't. Make sure the Post has all the right facts for your obituary.

The thing about this whole torture issue is that it's a strawman, a complete diversion. Like any form of violence, torture is a confession of weakness. Like any confession of weakness, it is inherently disadvantageous in conflict, unless of course it produces an opposite and greater advantage - like decapitating the FLN in Algiers.

When I look at USG versus the Taliban, I don't see a situation in which torture should be necessary, because I see a disparity of force that should preclude any continuing conflict. Obviously, the conflict has continued for quite some time, and most people these days would not bet on USG. So there must be some other factor.

Why does a force lose a war? To lose, the losing party must be deficient in at least one of these categories: (a) money; (b) personnel; (c) equipment; or (d) management. USG, whose defeat seems at the very least plausible, is not deficient in (a), (b) or (c) - at least, not relative to the Taliban. The problem can only be in the department of (d).

What is the organizational error of USG in Afghanistan? Occam suggests at least the hypothesis that the error is a cultural one - the continued tendency to rely, completely irrespective of obvious reality, on counterintuitive, paradoxical anti-maxims as unquestionable axioms of elemental truth. For instance, of the sort that make James Traub in the Times want to fall down on his knees and blow. "The more force used, the less effective it is."

Like a Nigerian spam email, these counterintuitive doctrines are so difficult to believe that they can only be true. And it's not just that they are religious in nature. Little-known fact: they are also religious in origin. "Super-protestant." Those aren't my words - that's Time Magazine in 1944.

Basically, America cannot win in Afghanistan unless it ceases to operate in the fanatical grip of the Mainline Protestant Hippie Jesus Conspiracy, ie, the Carnegie Endowment, the New York Times and other notorious communist subversive hippie-Jesus churches. Whether they do it by winning or by coming home, American soldiers can no longer operate in Afghanistan as armed missionaries, handing out Bibles and chocolate, receiving the Sufjan Stevens Medal for getting your balls blown off without so much as cursing back.

USG has a very simple choice in Afghanistan. Her attempt to liberate the country has failed. She must either leave it, implying defeat, or occupy it, implying victory. She does not appear to be organizationally capable of occupying it - even though she has no shortage of field manuals from the '30s, which tell her exactly how to do exactly that. Not Algerian or Sri Lankan field manuals - her own field manuals.

Therefore, defeat is her only option and she should take it in the ass like a man. However, if she wants to win, America needs to do the following things.

One: declare that Afghanistan is occupied, ie under American military administration for the indefinite future. Disband all official local authorities.

Two: appoint, as plenary administrator, a commanding general with roughly the powers of MacArthur in Japan, governing by decree. Place all non-Afghans in Afghanistan, military or civilian, under his personal command. Exclude or expel all non-Afghans not essential to the war or occupation.

Three: register all Afghans, with full biometrics including DNA. Assign every rural Afghan to a tribal leader, mullah, etc. Assign every urban Afghan to an employer, guild, union, etc. Delegate ordinary law enforcement and judicial services, subject to appeal, to this feudal hierarchy. Place every tribal leader under a district supervisor, who can replace him with his cousin for no reason at all.

Four: find all the Afghans who are not doing something else useful, herd them into jingle trucks, and assign them to sealing the fscking border with Pakistan, Iran, and anywhere else it is not sealed from the other side.

(The problem of quelling a rebellion with a sanctuary across the border, without sealing the border in one way or another, is one of the many ridiculous pointless clusterfscks the US military has engaged in at the behest of traitorous State Department hippie-Jesus communist spies since Dean Acheson defended the Yalu bridges from LeMay and MacArthur. I feel if USG is going to make its wars more difficult for itself in this way, it should at least be done in more of a sporting sense, for instance, requiring the US military to invade and conquer Afghanistan with medieval weaponry only - taking on the Taliban with crossbows alone. Which might actually be doable. If you got to seal the border.)

All this is normal military occupation policy from a historical perspective, as practiced without even thinking about it, by every century except the late 20th, from Caesar to Taft. Again, USG has official documents from the '30s which tell it exactly how to do this kind of shit, and make it work every time. And it did work every time. With 1930s equipment. There is no need to actually confine our forces to retro gear, badass though that might be.

What does this all have to do with torture? Here is the problem. It's not that USG needs to torture to win in Afghanistan. It's that USG cannot win in Afghanistan unless its forces have the right to torture. If they have that right, they will not probably not need to use it. If they don't have it, they'll fantasize about it as they do now, knowing it would work just as nicely for them as it worked for Trinquier and Bigeard.

Why does USG in Afghanistan need the right to torture? Because USG needs to exercise unconditional sovereignty over Afghanistan - ie, to occupy it and rule it under military law, with all judicial functions delegated to the military commander. This is the standard meaning of the word "occupation" under classical international law - military sovereignty. Sovereignty most certainly includes the right to execute, torture, etc.

If the sovereign does not have the right to torture, he either has the power to torture, or he does not. If he has the power but not the right, no purpose is served by not also granting him the right. If he does not have the power to torture, this lacuna in his authority cannot be imposed by divine intervention - rather, some other authority must have the power to prevent him from torturing. For instance, "international public opinion," ie, the New York Times. Or the Supreme Court. Or whoever. For instance, that authority could change its mind, in which case torture could happen. The power to oversee justice is indistinguishable from the power to tolerate injustice.

If sovereignty is split in this way, unity of command is not achieved. Rather than exercising undivided sovereignty, the commander is sharing sovereignty with the New York Times (or whoever). There is no guarantee that such an authority even shares the goal of victory; or, even if it shares this goal, that it shares responsibility in the case of a defeat. This is simply a bad command structure. Someone has to decide whether USG should torture, or not. Why shouldn't it be the commander on the spot? Who else will be able to assess the question better?

And more to the point, split command cannot be split on just one hot-button issue. If the New York Times has the power to prevent the Pentagon from torturing in Afghanistan, it also has the power to prevent the Pentagon from taking all the other politically-incorrect steps it needs to take. For example, the measures above - none of which involve genital application of the field telephone. But all of which would deeply offend Protestant Hippie Communist Jesus, and thus are completely impossible under the present command structure.

Money quote: Trinquier: "The

Money quote:

Trinquier: "The question of whether one is for or against torture is totally unimportant. Torture is a weapon that will be employed in any war of subversion. That one has to know."

Thanks for posting this, Andrew!

Ha - you should hear me

Ha - you should hear me after a few cans of that. Personally I'm most proud of "she should take it in the ass like a man."

For the French-challenged

For the French-challenged out here, a small summary of the video. Corrections and addenda welcomed, as I'm not a native speaker of French (or English for that matter).

Trinquier praises the exactness of Pontecorvo's movie, but takes exception at the torture scenes, which damage the image of the French Army. Not that he denies the fact of torture: “la torture est une arme qui s’emploie dans toutes les guerres subversives” (torture is a weapon employed in all war against subversion), he says, and adds that insurgents in this kind of war know they’ll be tortured if caught. (He also adds that they will talk). This does not trouble him morally, since the war was against a “terrorist organisation” and the French Army was responsible for protecting the civilian population. He closes with an appeal to Clausewitz, who intimated that war is violence, and violence by itself is unlimited. Interesting that Trinquier mentions, at the very beginning, that the war was lost because the French government could not bear the expenses, as it had to build the welfare state.

Saadi took no exception from Trinquier’s reasoning, only using it to justify terrorism, not torture. So, according to Saadi, in the “revolutionary war of all the people”, the insurgent will use “all means possible” to liberate the country.

At the end, a small debate ensues on the feelings of the audiences of the film. Trinquier mentions that the pieds-noirs see it as a tale of a victory within a larger defeat, while Algerians see it as a tale of defeat within a larger victory. Saadi retorts that it reminded Algerians of all the suffering they had to go through.

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