Center for a New American Security

I just read a sentence in the International Herald Tribune that will have no doubt caused some British Army veterans a high degree of consternation:

[Water cannons] have not previously been used in Britain, but they have been regularly deployed by the British against crowds in Northern Ireland.

Rep. Peter King wonders whose side Eric Holder is on with respect to the investigation into alleged torture conducted by our intelligence agencies. That's all fine and good, and I am glad Rep. King is so tough on Islamist terrorism, but I imagine there are those in the United Kingdom who wonder whose side King was on in the 1980s when he shamelessly carried the PIRA's water.

"You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder's hands," he said.

Civilians killed during The Troubles (1968-1998): 1,857 (and an additional 705 from an army currently fighting alongside U.S. Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan)

Okay, I will admit that I had never even heard of the Continuity IRA until yesterday. (So many forms of the IRA: the IRA, the PIRA, the RIRA, the OIRA, the anti-treaty IRA ...) One of the things I have noticed while reading these reports on the events in Northern Ireland -- besides how unified the peoples of Northern Ireland seem to be at the moment against violence -- is the way in which these splinter groups are dangerous because of the way they attract young men looking for a purpose. While some revolutionary movements have broad appeal and legitimacy, many of the world's militant groups we see are mostly collections of young men looking for meaning to their lives. In this way, of course, terrorist groups are a lot like the United State Marine Corps. But whereas the latter applies disciplined violence in the service of both the status quo and a democratic process, the former apply more or less indisciplined violence against the status quo and often with few checks or controls over behavior. I realize this is one of the more obvious observations this blog has ever made. But as I read these stories out of Northern Ireland, I find myself wondering whether or not the key issue in combating terror is combating the "disaffected young men" problem. I suspect this problem will get worse, not better, with unemployment rising throughout the developed world.

By the way, Edward Gorman has it right.

Easily the most eerie aspect of the last couple of days for me has been the sound on my car radio of Martin McGuinness, allegedly once a senior IRA commander, sounding just like a Northern Ireland Secretary of State from the Eighties.

I think this is because McGuinness knows these attacks are as much a challenge to Sinn Féin as they are to British rule.

I don't worry about the guys whose numbers Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams have on their cell phones. I worry about the guys whose numbers they don't have on their cell phones.

A police officer was shot dead in Northern Ireland last night as dissident republicans intensified their terror campaign aimed at destabilising power sharing in the province.

The policeman was shot in the head before 10pm in the Lismore area of Craigavon in north Armagh, 26 miles south-west of Belfast.

Later, around 12.20am this morning, there were reports that a black car had been raked with gunfire on the outskirts of Craigavon. There were unconfirmed reports that the car had earlier been rammed by a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) patrol.

The murdered PSNI officer, believed to have been an experienced officer who had been in the force for more than 20 years, was part of a patrol that had been called out to the Drumbeg estate after reports of suspicious activity in the area.

Earlier tonight, I sat across from Craig Mullaney as he drank Jameson on the rocks while I drank Bushmills neat. Honestly, can we all just agree that politics aside, Bushmills is a far superior whiskey?

There was some good news, though, to come out of Northern Ireland today:

Speaking earlier today before the claim of responsibility, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, called the attack "wrong and counter-productive" and, in an unprecedented statement, said his party had a "responsibility to be consistent ... the logic of this is that we support the police in the apprehension of those involved in last night's attack".

It was not until a vote at a special meeting of Sinn Féin in early 2007 that the party ended decades of opposition to the province's Protestant-dominated police force.

...and...

Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, said: "I was a member of the IRA, but that war is over now. The people responsible for last night's incident are clearly signalling that they want to resume or re-start that war. Well, I deny their right to do that."

...and finally...

At midday, hundreds of churchgoers from churches across Antrim gathered at the police cordon near the murder scene to hold a prayer service. Traffic was halted as congregations from the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist churches came together to pray for the victims.

1. Pentagon's Unwanted Projects in Earmarks (Washington Post)

Guess who is funding the infernal F-22 over the objections of the Pentagon's senior leadership? The evil Republicans! Oh, wait... No, as it turns out, it's mostly Barack Obama's own party which is to blame.

2. Experts Warn of Troops' Loss of Logistical Support (Washington Post)

Logistics, Logistics, Logistics. And not just in Afghanistan. The number of helicopters needed in Afghanistan is going to leave Our Brave Boys (and Girls) in Iraq stretched as well. I would link to the testimony delivered by Roger Carstens (CNAS alum) this past week but found the House Armed Service Committee website most unhelpful. The simple Senate Armed Services Committee website, by contrast, rocks.

3. An Absurd Kerfluffle at the American University of Beirut

My friend Sean Lee, an instructor of English at my alma mater, had the crazy notion that maybe -- just maybe -- Lebanon's ban on films and books deemed "sympathetic to Jews" or filled with "Jew content" might be a tad bit anti-semetic. Angry Arab jumps into the fray, telling Sean he has no right as the "White Man" to speak up. This whole thing is ridiculous. Lebanon's censorship is a serious issue, and an instructor at AUB has every right to ask why he can't assign his students The Diary of Anne Frank. That other scholars would criticize Sean in this way is, frankly, shocking. (Note: AUB is subject to the laws of Lebanon. If The Life of Brian is banned by the authorities, the university has to follow this ban. So don't start writing angry letters to your congressman asking him to cut off funding to AUB.) If anything, these bans re-enforce sectarian identities -- all works deemed "offensive" to Christians and Muslims, like The Da Vinci Code, are also banned -- and explain how AUB can produce highly-intelligent and learned yet anti-Semitic Holocaust-deniers.

4. Two Soldiers Killed in Northern Ireland (Guardian)

This is, incredibly, the first time British troops have been killed in Norn Ireland since 1997. Splinter groups are believed to be at their strongest in years, and all (Protestant) eyes will be on Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin to see how they respond to this. Remember, just 20 months ago the British Army more or less declared victory in Northern Ireland.

It's Good Friday, and that means Abu Muqawama is off to church in a minute. But it also means the 10-year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland (which was actually signed on 10 April, but whatever -- we'll run the risk of annoying Pope Gregory XIII and go with the lunar calendar). The UK and the IRA, it has emerged, had high-level contacts in the years prior to the agreements, and that leads some to say that Israel should cultivate similar contacts with Hamas. Should they? We here at Abu Muqawama stay out of Israel-Palestine arguments, but this debate on engagement between Rob Malley and Rob Satloff is worth listening to because it has obvious relevance to counter-insurgency strategy. When -- and under what conditions -- do you meet your enemy at the negotiating table?

Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely recently stated that "all insurgencies are sui generis," meaning that all insurgencies take place within a specific social, cultural, historical and geographic context. The implication is that just because an army might have some experience fighting one insurgency, it doesn't necessarily mean they've cracked the code on fighting all insurgencies. In Iraq, you could argue that going into the war not knowing anything about fighting insurgencies at all was preferable to going into the war thinking you know exactly how to fight an insurgency because of experience in, say, Northern Ireland. In instances, for example, where the Brits tried to "police" southern Iraq in the old imperial fashion, it didn't work out too well in the long term. And most British generals with whom Abu Muqawama has spoken seem to agree that while neither the U.S. or British military has done a perfect job learning how to fight COIN, the Americans are way out ahead in the learning process.

The bottom line is, there are lessons from each insurgency that can be applied to others. And FM 3-24 does a good job of compiling general rules and lessons that aren't rooted in one specific historical example.

Fouad Ajami, one of the earliest and most strident backers of the Iraq War, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Iraq entitled 'No Surrender.' That title -- and the op-ed -- will no doubt appeal to many regular readers of the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, but the words remind Abu Muqawama of the old football chant, and that gets him thinking about how the Irish insurgency of 1966-1998 ended 10 years ago this week. Did it end in decisive victory? Did it end with the 'terrorist' leaders killed and defeated?

Hell no. It ended with the IRA's statements practically written for them at 10 Downing Street. (Who knew that P O'Neill was actually A Blair?) This kind of collusion will no doubt disappoint hard-liners on both sides, but you know what? That is how bloody insurgencies sometimes end.

Abu Muqawama isn't even going to get into the heart of Ajami's op-ed -- the predictable slandering of the State Department, the even more predictable and uncritical love letter to the U.S. military -- because it's not worth it. But there's a lesson in the British experience in Northern Ireland for both sides. On the one hand, hand-wringers on the left shouldn't necessarily fret about the shady deals we're making with sectarian leaders on both sides of the Sunni-Shia divide in Iraq. These deals may be ugly, and they may come back to haunt us. But if you think it's all peace and love between Protestants and Catholics in Belfast these days, you're crazy. What's important is that the days of open warfare are over. We may have to deal with sectarian tension and violence for quite some time in Baghdad too.

And for those of you on the right who consider anything less than 'total victory' -- whatever that is -- to be for the weak-kneed, there's a lesson for you too: Martin McGuinness has the blood of British soldiers on his hands. But do you know how he keeps himself busy these days? Opening IKEA stories with Ian bleeping Paisley. And that suits most people just fine. Sometimes you can strike deals with your enemies, and that's crucial in wars you can't kill your way out of. So forget all that 'No Surrender' crap and get serious.

The Guardian has a special week-long report on the way the Irish Insurgency of 1966-1998 (aka The Troubles) ended.