What works here works there

One of the stock arguments for "gun control" (euphemism for confiscation and blanket bans) is the comparison between the US and other (cherry-picked) countries. If it works there, it ought to work here.

Putting to one side the question of how well that really works in other countries, consider the operating assumption: what works here works there, or vice versa.

Pres. Bush had that philosophy. He thought we could import democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan If it works here, it ought to work there. 

Influenced, perhaps, by his Methodist theology, he had a theory of human nature:

When it comes to the desire for liberty and justice, there is no clash of civilizations. People everywhere are capable of freedom, and worthy of freedom. This much we know with certainty: The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.

But as he belatedly learned through sorry experience, what works for one country may not work for another country.

The Iraq question

A few weeks ago, GOP presidential hopefuls were asked: "if you knew then what you know what, would you invade Iraq?"

In principle, there are roughly four different answers you can give:

i) A libertarian like Rand Paul would reformulate the question: "Given what I knew then, I opposed the war!"

That would invite a follow-up question: "So why did you think it was wrong at the time?"

ii) The respondent could challenge the question: presidents don't have the benefit of hindsight. They must make important decisions based on the information they have at the time. 

iii) A respondent could say "no." 

That would invite a follow-up question: "So what do we know now which leads you to believe the invasion was a mistake?" 

iv) A respondent could say "Yes, but…"

In other words, he could say it was still the right thing to do, but we should learn from our mistakes. If we had it to do over again, we should change the strategic objective and/or the tactics.

That would invite a follow-up question regarding the alternative strategy and tactics.

Carson on Islam

From D.A. Carson (Love in Hard Places, pp 121-129):

A libertarian reviews American Sniper

http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/16/american-sniper-and-blackhat/print

Handicapping the Iraq war

Now might be a good time to assess the Iraq war.

i) We might begin with a bit of preliminary history. Until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the GOP used to be more dovish and non-interventionist. I don't know if that was philosophical, partisan, or both. Naturally the GOP tended to be opposed to a Democrat incumbent in the White House. And the GOP undoubtedly had genuine philosophical disagreements with FDR on domestic policy. 

ii) Support for both the Cold war and the Vietnam war was initially bipartisan. That changed when Eugene McCarthy and the anti-war movement swung the Democrat Party in its direction. 

iii) The Iraq war is often framed in terms of "neocons." This is an amorphous designation. In its most specific sense, "neocon" designates Jewish-American hawks. They used to be Democrats, but when the Democrat party became dovish, they switched to the GOP. Sometimes it includes disaffected Marxists. 

However, "neocon" is often used for lifelong Republicans who were never Jewish, but always hawkish. It seems to be used to designate people who share a common foreign policy outlook: American exceptionalism, support for Israel, promoting democratic institutions abroad, &c.

Oftentimes, "neocon" is just an antonym for libertarian foreign policy. 

iv) There are different way of assessing the Iraq war. One approach prospective. Given pre-invasion intelligence, was the Bush administration justified in invading Iraq? In this framework, the question is not whether they were right, but whether they were reasonable.

v) That involves a risk assessment. To begin with, you had people like Cheney who were always dissatisfied with how the Gulf War ended. To some extent they used 9/11 as a pretext to "finish the job." When I say "pretext," I don't necessarily mean that was a trumped up rationale. Rather, they took advantage of the heightened security concerns, post-9/11, to redress what they thought all along was a dangerous festering problem. When the political climate shifted in their favor, they seized the moment.

The "neocons" thought our containment strategy was unstable. The sanctions regime would end, at which point Saddam would reconstitute his WMD program. 

vi) There's the question kind of threat, if any, Saddam posed. Keep in mind that right now I'm discussing the pre-invasion outlook. 

One issue is whether there was reason to believe he had WMD. To some extent, that's overstated. For another issue is whether he had a WMD program which he was planning to reconstitute after the sanctions ended. 

vii) Assuming, for the sake of argument, that he had a WMD program, did that make him a threat? If so, to whom? Was he a threat to the US? To Israel? To Iran? To Mideast oil-producers?

Assuming that he was free to develop WMD, did he intend to use them offensively or defensively? For instance, was his intention to keep them as a deterrent to Iranian aggression? Or to blackmail Mideast oil producers?

Whether or not we think the Iraq war was justified depends, in part, on whether we think he posed a direct or indirect threat to our national security. The theory that he was a threat to the US involved the specter of WMD proliferation. 

viii) One theory is that "neocon" advisors and pundits packaged the Saddam regime as a threat to the US, to galvanize support for military intervention, when their real concern was with the threat posed to Israel. There may be a grain of truth to that, although it assumes that "neocons" are monolithically pro-Israel. 

ix) On a related note is the theory that Bush was a simpleton manipulated by advisors who were more intellectually dominant than he. There may be a grain of truth to that theory as well. 

x) Also, there's the allegation that the Bush administration simply lied about WMD. That's an endlessly debated issue. 

On the face of it, it's implausible that Bush would lie about the presence of WMD in Iraq to mobilize support for invading Iraq to disarm when, when the direct result of that action would expose the official lie. But if you're conspiratorial, I suppose you could say the "neocons" used Bush as the fall guy. 

xi) Another way of assessing the Iraq war is retrospective and counterfactual. Did we have the right cause, but the wrong strategy? 

Notice that I'm framing the analysis as a staged argument, in which one thing presupposes another.

If, say, you don't think Saddam ever posed a credible threat to our national security, then your assessment of the war begins and ends further upstream. You reject a key presupposition. If, on the other hand, you take a different view of the pre-invasion intelligence, your analysis continues further downstream. 

xii) One familiar argument is that we failed because we didn't have enough "boots on the ground." We followed an air force strategy rather than an infantry strategy. 

For all we know, that might have made the difference. However, there's a complicating factor. Because Iraq didn't attack us, we had to package the intervention was a war of liberation. If, however, you have too many boots on the ground, that resembles an oppressive, heavy-handed occupation force. Conquerors rather than liberators.

xiii) Another complication is that Iraq wasn't a self-contained theater. The "insurgents" were supplied by Iran and Syria. So there's the problem of mission creep. To successfully fight on one front, you must simultaneously fight on several fronts.  

xiv) Apropos (xii), I think the mission was doomed from the outset. In a traditional war, you win by defeating the enemy. You crush the enemy into submission. Sometimes you leave the country in smoldering ruins. Sometimes you install a puppet gov't. 

That's what we did to the Japanese in WWII. But that's because the Japanese attacked Pear Harbor. Since, by contrast, Iraq didn't present the same provocation, it became an exercise in nation-building. Winning "hearts and minds."

The problem with that strategy is that you cede control of the outcome to the other side. Success or failure depends, not on what you can unilaterally impose through overwhelming force, but on how cooperative the locals are. If they don't play ball, you lose. 

The "neocon" theory was to create a democratic ally in the heart of the Arab world. A regime friendly, or at least not hostile, to US interests. That's nice in theory, but Pollyannaish in practice. 

The Iraq war might have succeeded had we had more limited strategic objectives. But that's in tension with the "war of liberation." If the objective is regime-change, what replaces the regime? it becomes a tar-baby. 

One alternative was to partition Iraq. But that's easier said than done. You must forcibly relocate "sectarian" populations, then enforce the new borders. And it's harder to sell the war on humanitarian grounds. 

xv) In hindsight, and to some extent in foresight, I think it's fair to say the Iraq war wasn't worth it. As it actually played out, it resulted in high causalities (dead, disabled) for US troops. It was catastrophic for Iraqi Christians. It let the Iraqi Muslims out of their cage. And it removed a counterweight to Iran. 

And it plunged the country into civil war, although that's harder to judge, since the Saddam regime had many victims, and sooner or later Iraq was bound to face a post-Saddam regime. That might lead to civil war all by itself. Or, if Uday had been able to maintain power, that might have been just as cruel–or worse. 

In theory, there may have been more efficient ways to prosecute the mission, but as I've noted, these involve their own tradeoffs or complications. It's unclear to me that there was a better way to do it. 

The United States is left with a single viable strategy in Iraq

From today’s Stratfor

The Complexities of Iraq

Iraq consists of three major groups: Shia, Sunnis and Kurds. The United States left Iraq in the hands of the Shiite-dominated government, which failed to integrate the Kurds or the Sunnis. The Kurdish strategy was to create and maintain an autonomous region. The Sunnis' was to build strength in their region and wait for an opportune moment. That moment came when, after the recent election, Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki failed to quickly form a new government and seemed intent on recreating the failed government of the past.

The Sunnis did not so much invade as arise, taking control of Sunni areas and to some extent coordinating activities throughout the region. They did not attack the Kurdish region or predominantly Shiite areas. Indeed, the Shia began to mobilize to resist the Sunnis. What has happened is the failure of the central government and the assertion of regional power. There is no native power that can unite Iraq. No one has the strength. The assumption is that the United States could hold Iraq together -- thus the demand by some in Iraq and the United States that the United States massively intervene would make sense.

As in Ukraine, it is not clear that the United States has an overriding interest in Iraq. The 2003 invasion was more than a decade ago, and whatever decisions were made then belong to historians. The Sunni uprising brings with it the risk of increased terrorism and obviously gives terrorists a base from which to conduct attacks against the United States. By that logic, the United States ought to intervene on behalf of the Kurds and Shia.

The problem is that the Shia are linked to the Iranians, and while the United States and Iran are currently wrapped up in increasingly complex but promising negotiations, the focus is on interests and not friendship. The 2003 invasion was predicated on the assumption that the Shia, liberated from Saddam Hussein, would welcome the United States and allow it to reshape Iraq as it desired. It was quickly discovered, however, that the Iraqi Shia, along with their Iranian allies, had very different plans. The U.S. invasion ultimately failed to create a coherent government in Iraq and helped create the current circumstance. As much as various factions would want the United States to intervene on their behalf, the end result would be a multi-sided civil war with the United States in the center, unable to suppress the war with military means because the primary issue is a political one.

That, of course, leaves the possibility of an increased threat of terrorism. There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and some of them are prepared to engage in terrorist activity. It is extremely difficult, however, to figure out which are inclined to do so. It is also impossible to conquer 1.6 billion people so as to eliminate the threat of terrorism. Given the vast territory of the Islamic world, Iraq may be a convenience, but occupying it would not prevent Sunni or Shiite terrorism from arising elsewhere. Defeating an enemy army is much easier than occupying a country whose only mode of resistance is the terrorism that you intend to stop. Terrorism can be defended against to some extent -- mitigated, observed perhaps -- but in the end, whether the Sunni regions of Iraq are autonomous or under extremist rule does little to reduce the threat.

The Kurds, Sunnis and Shia are hostile to each other. Saddam controlled the country through the secular institutional apparatus of the Baath Party. Absent that, the three communities continue to be hostile to each other, just as the Sunni community in Syria is hostile to the Alawites. The United States is left with a single viable strategy: to accept what exists -- a tripartite Iraq -- and allow internal hostilities to focus the factions on each other rather than on the United States. In other words, allow an internal balance of power to emerge.

Opinion: The U.S. Shouldn't Choose Sides Iraq

We don’t know how things are going to develop in Iraq. But I think this sort of thing needs to be said early and said often:

Rand Paul, from this morning’s WSJ:

Though many claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan on foreign policy, too few look at how he really conducted it. The Iraq war is one of the best examples of where we went wrong because we ignored that.

Iraq: Why it was a mistake to “finish the job” and take out Saddam Hussein

We awoke this morning to some of the following headlines:

Wall Street Journal: Islamist Insurgents Advance Toward Baghdad … Overrun Tikrit ...

Islamist militants swept out of northern Iraq Wednesday to seize their second city in two days, threatening Baghdad and pushing the country's besieged government to signal it would allow U.S. airstrikes to beat back the advance.

An alarmed Iraqi government also asked the U.S. to accelerate delivery of pledged military support, particularly Apache helicopters, F-16 fighters and surveillance equipment, to help push back fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot known as ISIS. The U.S. said it has been expediting shipments of military hardware to the Iraqis all year.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said his country faces a "mortal threat" from the ISIS insurgents…

Stratfor: Worsening Violence in Iraq Threatens Regional Security

Summary

Battles continue to rage across northern Iraq, pitting jihadist group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant against Iraqi security forces and their allies. The growing reach of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has escalated an already brutal campaign in Iraq. Alarmingly quick advances by the militants across an important region of the Middle East could draw in regional powers as well as the United States.

Analysis

Using hit-and-run tactics, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIL, has sought to keep Iraqi security forces dispersed and under pressure. ISIL has achieved this by striking at areas where security forces are weak and withdrawing from areas where Baghdad has concentrated its combat power. The jihadists have been working hard to improve their tradecraft by developing skill sets ranging from staging complex ambushes to using Iraqi army equipment effectively in surprise raids. ISIL has also sought to better develop its ties with local Sunni communities. …

New York Times: Iraq Militants, Pushing South, Aim at Capital

BAGHDAD — Sunni militants consolidated and extended their control over northern Iraq on Wednesday, seizing Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, threatening the strategic oil refining town of Baiji and pushing south toward Baghdad, their ultimate target, Iraqi sources said.

As the dimensions of the assault began to become clear, it was evident that a number of militant groups had joined forces, including Baathist military commanders from the Hussein era, whose goal is to rout the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. One of the Baathists, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was a top military commander and a vice president in the Hussein government and one of the few prominent Baathists to evade capture by the Americans throughout the occupation.

“These groups were unified by the same goal, which is getting rid of this sectarian government, ending this corrupt army and negotiating to form the Sunni Region,” said Abu Karam, a senior Baathist leader and a former high-ranking army officer, who said planning for the offensive had begun two years ago. “The decisive battle will be in northern Baghdad. These groups will not stop in Tikrit and will keep moving toward Baghdad.”

The United States really needs to re-think its policies vis-à-vis Islam. I’m not a person who believed the US should have “finished the job” in 2003 – the reference there to the containment policy policy put into place by George Bush 41 – “no-fly” zones to contain the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Hussein was bad, but he in turn had contained the various Islamist forces within his country. The exaggerated threats that “made necessary” the 2003 invasion of Iraq have now come full cycle, to be seen in their full folly.

The U.S. invasion did not settle the region. It has inflamed it. Poor thinking now by two U.S. Presidents has enabled Islamists to become more powerful and entrenched in the region than they have ever been:

Today, ISIS's network of fighters in Syria and Iraq are better trained, equipped and manned than its predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, which U.S. forces fought for years and eventually decimated at the height of the Iraq war, according to the latest U.S. military assessments.

ISIS operates in formations, more like an army than a loose network of fighters, said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official. The group's sophisticated global recruitment network could allow it to redirect suicide bombers from targets in Syria and Iraq to neighboring countries, the official said.

What’s an effective policy for fighting this sort of thing? The 1948 “Berlin Airlift” was a policy that supported western interests in preventing Soviet expansion. The Korean War was a stalemate and a disaster. Eisenhower’s “Cold War” efforts provided an effective policy throughout the 1950’s for containing the Soviet Union. But the “hot wars” in Korea and Vietnam were disasters that accomplished nothing and fomented much damage.

Nixon’s “d’etente” with the Soviets was weak. Ronald Reagan’s military build-up in the 1980’s was the ultimately effective deterrent to the Soviet threat. George Bush 41 learned from that. His response to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 – “Desert Shield” – the build-up of multi-national military defenses along the Saudi border was an effective deterrent. The continuing policy of deterrent, from 1991 through early 2000s, was also an effective policy. The attacks of 9/11/2001 were not from a failure of that policy. And the 2003 invasion – seeking to “one-up” the 1991 “Desert Storm” effort in Iraq, has proved to be a failure. Israel’s security fence surrounding the Gaza Strip has effectively prevented single suicide bombers from crossing its border with Gaza, and the security wall between Israel and the West Bank is having the same effect.

I don’t claim to have all the answers. But it’s not hard to understand what’s worked in recent military history, and what hasn’t worked. We know that “elections have consequences”. It would be good to see some intelligent discussions about these issues over the next couple of years.

I'm tired

The following post by "Old Jarhead" Robert A. Hall is worth reading.

9/11 photos

Here are a series of photos in memoriam of 9/11 from The Atlantic: In Focus with Alan Taylor (who originally created and used to work over at The Boston Globe: The Big Picture):

• "9/11: The Week Before"
  
  
• "9/11: The Day of the Attacks"
  
  
• "9/11: The Decade Since"

Viewing Reality

One of the ironies about the Iraq War is that despite being the most heavily televised war in the history of mankind, the average American knows virtually nothing of what happened there. This is because while the media had access to troops, reporters largely stayed close to their hotels and weren’t on the frontlines. In addition to that, networks (including cable) ran with sanitized images, never lasting for more than the few seconds that needed for their sound bite.

Recently, I’ve been able to watch several videos shot by Pat Dollard, a former Hollywood agent who became an imbedded reporter. The videos he shot are raw, full of coarse language (he’s with Marines, after all), and violence (as it is a war). When I watched the first few videos, I was struck at how intense it was…and I had only watched about 45 minutes. Our troops dealt with this for hours, day in and day out.

You can watch some of the clips at his website here and he’s starting to air episodes of his documentary, Young Americans, on the Big Hollywood website, here. There is obviously a very big content warning. It should not be viewed by minors. Graphically (at least in the videos I’ve seen to date), it’s about on par with movies such as Black Hawk Down. The difference is that this is real, not a movie.

A Reminder

Occasionally, it is worthwhile to be reminded of who the enemy that the US is fighting against in Iraq really is. This article gives some details as to what happened to a six-year-old boy who was kidnapped by Al Qaeda because his father was a policeman:

"They beat me with a shovel, they pulled my teeth out with pliers, they would go like this and pull it," said Khidir, now 8, demonstrating with his hands. "And they would make me work on the farm gathering carrots."

What followed was even more horrific, an ordeal that would last for two years in captivity. Khidir and his father spoke to CNN recently, more than half a year after his rescue by Iraqi police.

"This is where they hammered a nail into my leg and then they pulled it out," he says, lifting up his pant leg to show a tiny wound.

He says his captors also pulled out each of his tiny fingernails, broke both his arms, and beat him repeatedly on the side of the head with a shovel. He still suffers chronic headaches. He remembers them laughing as they inflicted the pain.

…

"He didn't recognize his mother or his grandmother," Abdul Qader says. "But then he saw me in uniform and ran to me. I went flying toward him to hug him. People said be careful; both his arms are broken. So I held him from his waist, and he hugged me, kissed me, smelled me, and then broke into a smile."

In case anyone is wondering, this is what torture looks like. Completely different from Gitmo.

Torture investigations

Jeremy Pierce on torture investigations.

Obama on counterterrorism

The Bush administration came under fire for its methods of interrogation and other aspects of counterterrorism. All these debates will be revisited under an Obama administration. Here's an older analysis of the issues, which is just as germane as ever: see here; here; and here.

Iraq, Al Qaeda, And Media Irresponsibility

Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard has written an article about links between the former Iraqi government, al Qaeda, and other anti-American terrorist groups, as well as how many in the American media have misrepresented those links. I recommend reading the entire article, but here are some excerpts:

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon….

In 1993, as Osama bin Laden's fighters battled Americans in Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there….

According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian organization dedicated to "armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests."…

In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi jihadist groups.

That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known terrorists….

Documents reveal that the regime stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as "under the wings of bin Laden." Although the organization "is an offshoot of bin Laden," the fact that it has a different name "can be a way of camouflaging the organization." The agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to "priorities previously established."…

In describing the relations between the Army of Muhammad and the Iraqi regime, the authors of the Pentagon study come to this conclusion: "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda--as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision."

As I said, this ought to be big news. And, in a way, it was. A headline in the New York Times, a cursory item in the Washington Post, and stories on NPR and ABC News reported that the study showed no links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

How can a study offering an unprecedented look into the closed regime of a brutal dictator, with over 1,600 pages of "strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism," in the words of its authors, receive a wave-of-the-hand dismissal from America's most prestigious news outlets? All it took was a leak to a gullible reporter, one misleading line in the study's executive summary, a boneheaded Pentagon press office, an incompetent White House, and widespread journalistic negligence….

Again, at precisely the same time Zawahiri was "joining with bin Laden," the spring of 1993, he was being funded by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. As Zawahiri's jihadists trained in al Qaeda camps in Sudan, his representative to Iraq was planning "commando operations" against the Egyptian government with the IIS.

Another captured Iraqi document from early 1993 "reports on contact with a large number of terrorist groups in the region, including those that maintained an office or liaison in Iraq." In the same folder is a memo from Saddam Hussein to a member of his Revolutionary Council ordering the formation of "a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil, especially Somalia."…

More recently, captured "annual reports" of the IIS reveal support for terrorist organizations in the months leading up the U.S. invasion in March 2003….

The third section of the Pentagon study is called "Iraq and Terrorism: Three Cases." One of the cases is that of the Army of Muhammad, the al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain. A series of memoranda order an Iraqi Intelligence operative in Bahrain to explore a relationship with its leaders. On July 9, 2001, the agent reports back: "Information available to us is that the group is under the wings of bin Laden. They receive their directions from Yemen. Their objectives are the same as bin Laden."…

A separate memo reveals that the Army of Muhammad has requested assistance from Iraq. The study authors summarize the response by writing, "the local IIS station has been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established. The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that 'this organization is an offshoot of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can be a way of camouflaging the organization.'"…

When bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan in May 1996, the Iraqis sought "other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location." The IIS memo directs that "cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement."…

What's happening here is obvious. Military historians and terrorism analysts are engaged in a good faith effort to review the captured documents from the Iraqi regime and provide a dispassionate, fact-based examination of Saddam Hussein's long support of jihadist terrorism. Most reporters don't care. They are trapped in a world where the Bush administration lied to the country about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, and no amount of evidence to the contrary--not even the words of the fallen Iraqi regime itself--can convince them to reexamine their mistaken assumptions.

Bush administration officials, meanwhile, tell us that the Iraq war is the central front in the war on terror and that American national security depends on winning there. And yet they are too busy or too tired or too lazy to correct these fundamental misperceptions about the case for war, the most important decision of the Bush presidency.

What good is the truth if nobody knows it?

Equivalency

WARNING: The following story contains graphic depictions of waterboarding and other equivalent acts. It is not intended for children.

Equivalency

It was another hot day. Sergeant Mitchell London moved down the alley with the other men in the squad. Unlike the others, London carried no weapon but for his sidearm which he could only use defensively according to the rules of war.

Not that the terrorists cared about the rules of war. They’d just as soon take a shot at London for the sole reason that he had the red cross patch on his arm. Rather than protecting him, it made him a target.

Ahead of London walked Lieutenant Arthur Hawkins. Hawkins was on his third tour in Iraq, and as a result had more combat experience than any two men on his team. This was especially true of the man flanking him to the left, Private First Class Richard Overby. Overby wasn’t even nineteen years old yet, and thus far hadn’t seen any action for the month he’d been deployed.

Overby glanced at Private Jesse Stalder who had taken up position on the opposite side of the alley near a T intersection, said: “You sure he came down this way?”

Stalder nodded. Overby gripped his M-16 in his sweaty palms, looked back over his shoulder at Hawkins. From where they stood, pressed up against the mud-brick walls of the various homes, they were relatively safe. The awning over the west side of the alley provided a bit of shade for Stalder too.

But in Iraq safety was always temporary. A few minutes earlier, they had been relatively safe inside their Stryker vehicle. Then, Stalder had seen a man glance up at them in surprise before he turned, picked up his AK-47, and darted into the alley.

Hawkins left Bravo team back at the Stryker and quickly assembled Alpha to do a quick check of the alley. Combat medic London had tagged along just in case his services were needed posthaste.

The alley was quiet, however. They hadn’t seen any movement at all since they entered, and even the traffic on the nearby road was quieter now. It was almost as if the alley simply swallowed up all evidence of life.

Hawkins felt a bead of sweat on his forehead. He ignored it. Something in the alley felt wrong and he had learned to trust his instincts over his three tours. He motioned to Stalder: check the corner.

Stalder moved forward. He carried the Squad Automatic Weapon, which could be used solo to suppress an enemy position if need be. Stalder reached the corner of the building and glanced around it. There was nothing there. He turned, shrugged toward Hawkins.

And the shot rang out. Stalder fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. It happened so quickly that for an instant no one moved. Then Hawkins broke the silence, yelled: “Sniper! Find cover! London, stay put.”

“Sir, he needs medical help.”

“And that sniper’s waiting for you to go out so he can take you too.” Hawkins picked up his radio and calmly said, “Bravo, this is Alpha. We’re taking fire. Take the Stryker and flank the alley to the North. Copy?”

“Roger, Alpha.”

At that, Hawkins knelt and moved toward the intersection of the houses. He glanced around the corner but couldn’t see the sniper. “My guess, he’s in that building there,” he muttered to himself. Then he moved back around the corner.

Stalder hadn’t moved. Hawkins grabbed a smoke grenade. “Smoke out!” he yelled, tossing it around the corner of the building. He turned back to London. “When the smoke’s built up enough, go get him.”

“Yes sir,” London said. The seconds seemed to stretch on for hours, but he knew that was a figment of his imagination. He also knew that figment or not, Stalder didn’t have much time for London to wait.

“Go now,” Hawkins said. He turned, moving his M-4 to cover the alley for London.

London rushed across the alley and knelt by Stalder’s side. The soldier had fallen onto his face, and London gently rolled him over. The young man had been struck in the neck. The bullet had made its way through his spine. Stalder was already dead.

London turned to call for a stretcher. As he did, he saw an object sail through the smoke screen in the alley. “Grenade!” he yelled, instinctively covering Stalder’s body.

Hawkins jumped back from the corner of the alley less than a second before the grenade exploded, sending shrapnel in a lethal radius. Hawkins was hit in the leg and he stumbled backwards.

Almost concurrently, a barrage of AK-47 fire erupted and the patter of bullets striking brick filled the alley. London had nowhere to move, he was stuck with Stalder’s body on the opposite side of the alley just around the T corner. Across and back from him, Hawkins bit his tongue at the fire in his leg. He grabbed his radio: “Bravo, where are you?”

There was no response. Hawkins tried again before he realized his radio was dead. It had been struck by shrapnel and was now useless. “Give me your radio,” he shouted at Overby. But Overby had run down the alley toward where the Stryker had originally been parked.

There was another explosion as a second grenade went off. Hawkins rolled backward until he saw the entryway into the house. He pushed the door open and slipped inside. The house was empty.

His leg was bleeding profusely now. He quickly pulled off his belt and wrapped it around his leg. He pulled one of his shooting gloves off and rolled it into a ball, placed it against his femoral artery, and tightened the belt around it as tight as he could make it. Then he fell back with his head against the floor of the house.

Outside, it had grown quiet. London and Stalder are still out there, he thought suddenly. But he found he had no more strength to get up and check on them. The world was becoming very hazy for some odd reason. Before he could stave it off, he lapsed into unconsciousness.

* * *
London felt chunks of brick strike his helmet as bullets danced against the wall behind him, but amazingly he remained unharmed. After what must have been less than a minute, the shooting ceased. London raised his head from the ground and realized that he was alone in the alley with a dead man.

Only that wasn’t quite true. Two men materialized through the smoke just over thirty yards away, AK-47s at their shoulders. London pulled his sidearm, but it wasn’t very accurate over any great distances. Their AK-47s had the advantage here. The first man spotted him, and called out in Arabic. Then, both of them had their weapons trained on him.

“I’m a noncombatant!” London shouted, tossing the pistol aside. “A medic. Doctor.”

The men moved forward. He kept his arms raised, let them see the red cross patch. They ignored it and instead, the larger of the men circled around behind him as the first kept his AK-47 pointed at London’s chest. The man behind him grabbed his right hand and pulled it back, followed by his left. The man wrapped plastic cord around both his wrists binding them tight.

The man who had tied him stepped to one side and then jerked London to his feet. He looked at Stalder’s body and his SAW and quickly picked up the weapon, putting the sling over his shoulder. Then, he picked up the body.

Gunfire erupted behind them. The first man gestured with his AK-47: move. It was toward the gunfire.

London suddenly realized that it must have been Bravo team shooting. He might be able to make a break for it.

The man beside him had other plans. He kicked the door to a house open and pushed London in. The second man followed, still carrying Stalder’s body. They made their way through the empty house, and got to the front. London could see three other men with AK-47s there in the front yard. They were taking pot shots down the alley. One of them had an RPG too, but apparently had used all his rounds.

The first man pushed London away toward a van that was parked in the back. He then yelled something in Arabic, and two of the three men rushed back. They looked at London in a surprise that quickly melted into something akin to a wolf staring at prey.

The first man pushed London into the back of the van. Stalder’s corpse was thrown on top of him. Then, the remaining terrorist who must have been providing cover fire made his break for the van. Seconds later, they were speeding out of the alley and onto the main streets.

Once the van was moving, one of the men pulled off his turban. He wrapped it around London’s face as a makeshift blindfold. The cloth was hot and sweaty, but London held his repulsion in check. Never a religious man, he found the sudden need to pray.

* * *
Lieutenant Jamison Orion, leader of Bravo team, eased down the alley toward where Alpha had been ambushed. He was flanked by his men, and all of them were nervous. The attack had apparently been a quick hit and run. The terrorists knew they had no advantage in a prolonged firefight, so they used lightning fast tactics instead. Still, the situation was always volatile. It wasn’t over until it was over.

Orion reached the T intersection. He could see evidence of the fight all around him: impact craters from the bullets on the bricks, small blast craters from the grenades, brass casings. At one part of the alley there was even blood that stained the ground crimson.

“Alpha, this is Bravo.”

Still no response. Orion was worried now. The shooting had stopped a few minutes ago as the terrorists had fled. The city streets offered too many avenues for them to seal all of them off. But Orion’s bigger concern wasn’t that they’d escape but that they’d come back, this time with a vehicle bomb.

Orion crouched by the bloodstain, his M-4 shouldered. There was a sudden thump at the entrance to one of the houses. Orion shouldered his carbine and aimed it at the house. The door opened and an Iraqi woman appeared, her hands upraised. She looked terrified, but she waved for the soldiers anyway.

Orion hesitated. The woman said something in Arabic. None of the soldiers with Orion could speak the language, however, and she apparently didn’t know English either. She motioned again in a universal sign: come here.

“Cover me,” Orion whispered to the man on his right. Then he started forward, his weapon still at the ready. The woman pushed the door open a little further and Orion saw the camouflaged leg on the floor. It was US camouflage, and it had been stained red with blood.

He remained cautious, lest it be a trap. He moved another step to examine the house rather than focusing on what he assumed was a dead body. He couldn’t see anyone in the shadows. Still, he knew it was a risk going further into the open.

Finally he glanced down at the body and realized it was Lieutenant Hawkins. The man’s chest rose and fell; he was still alive. Orion moved into the entryway. The woman backed into the corner, still scared. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. Then, he radioed for a medic.

* * *
The van pulled into the warehouse twenty minutes later. Abdul-Khaliq al Kateb could hardly believe his luck. They had meant to prepare a trap for the Americans, but Safwan had almost ruined everything by running down the alley before they were ready. But in the end, it hadn’t mattered because they had killed at least one of the American pigs, and they had captured a second man.

Abdul hadn’t counted on capturing one live. He hadn’t planned for Allah’s bounty, but that hardly mattered at this point. They had everything set up and ready to go. They had used most of the equipment just a month ago on Boulos, the traitorous dog who had tried to pass off information to the Iraqi police. Boulos had learned his lesson. They had videotaped the entire thing and forced his wife and three children to watch what they had done to him before they slaughtered all his seed too.

They had practiced. And now they had one of the greatest demons of all, an American soldier.

Abdul stepped out of the van and opened the back doors. He pulled the living soldier out, and forced him over to the corner where Boulos had been chained. Abdul used the same restraints and he wished Boulos’s blood was still on the metal to frighten the American more.

Oh well. Allah never promised you everything.

Abdul walked back toward the van. One of the men had already dumped the body of the dead soldier onto the floor. They were taking turns kicking the corpse. Abdul let them for a while, then realized the turban blindfold was still on the living soldier. He moved back to the prisoner and read the nameplate on the man’s jacket.

“London.” Abdul knelt and pulled the turban off. “I lived in London for two summers.”

The American showed surprise. That was good, Abdul thought. It gave him an advantage.

“Yes, I know English quite good. Not good as you, but better than them.” He gestured toward the others who had taken off their sandals and were slapping the corpse with them. Then Abdul pulled out a knife from the sheath on his belt. “I think you should see this.”

Abdul turned and said something in Arabic to the others. They stepped back from the body and Abdul smiled. “Take off his shirt,” he ordered in Arabic. Firas, the youngest of them at seventeen, immediately did so. Abdul moved over to the body, turned back and made sure London was watching. Then, he plunged the knife into the dead man’s abdomen.

London looked away. “No!” Abdul shouted. “You look!”

London refused. Abdul gestured to Hatim, and the strong man who had hauled the corpse in all by himself moved over to the American. Hatim smiled grimly, grabbed London’s chin, and pulled until he was looking toward Abdul again.

“If you close your eyes I’ll have him squeeze them out,” Abdul said. He gave London a second to let it sink in before he moved back to the knife. He cut upward through the abdomen until there was a fourteen inch incision. The intestines of the pig—Abdul couldn’t think of this thing as a man—slid out onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. He helped pull out as much as he could until the pig had become an empty vessel. Then, Abdul motioned for Firas to bring him the box from the corner.

Firas did so, a smile on his face. He was eager, the young man was. Abdul smiled back and then opened the box. He pulled out the plastic explosives and packed them into the dead container beneath him. When it was full, he pulled the skin back together and used a heavy thread to sew it shut.

Abdul stepped back from the body. Firas redressed it as Abdul waited. When Firas was finished, Abdul glanced back over to make sure London was still watching. The prisoner was.

Good. Abdul knelt and put the knife at the dead body’s throat, slicing deep into the neck. His arms jerked up and down with intense passion until finally the head was severed. Abdul kicked it over into the corner of the warehouse. Then he lifted the headless corpse and, with the help of Firas, moved it into the van.

Abdul stepped back. He was sweating now. That was good. Allah didn’t like a lazy man. He liked diligent workers, and Abdul fit the bill perfectly. He motioned to Safwan and then stopped, a new idea formed.

Abdul walked back to London. In Arabic he told Hatim, “You can release his head now.” The man did so, and London rotated his head on his neck, probably popping a vertebrae or two.

“You have identification?”

“Yes. In my wallet.”

“Good.” He motioned for Hatim to lift London to his feet. Abdul took London’s wallet from his pocket and opened it. Some pictures fell out, family no doubt. Abdul ignored them. Instead, he picked up the military ID card and tossed it toward Safwan. The card landed in the intestines that he been left on the floor, and everyone broke out into laughter at that.

Except for London, of course. Abdul turned back to the American. “There is just one problem,” he said, his hand resting on London’s right arm. “They may think we found your wallet instead of capturing you. How can we prove we really have you?”

It was a rhetorical question of course, but Abdul enjoyed the way the prisoner’s eyes filled with fear as he wondered what Abdul would do next. Abdul decided not to let him wait.

He grabbed London’s right wrist and simultaneously drew his knife against the base of London’s thumb. London screamed and jerked his arm, but Hatim helped hold it still as Abdul cut into his hand. The knife found the joint and slipped through it. Then the thumb was off.

Abdul released London and held the bloody thumb up at the prisoner. “This ought to prove we have you,” he said cheerfully. Putting the thumb together with London’s ID, he gave both to Safwan and gave the man instructions. Safwan nodded and jumped into the van.

Abdul turned back toward London. It was amazing, he thought. After a while you didn’t even notice the screams the pigs made as they were slaughtered.

* * *
The pain was worse than anything London had experienced before. Even as it racked his hand, his mind was contemplating. No sir, couldn’t turn off that brain of his. He mentally calculated the odds that he could get the thumb successfully reattached. Given his current position, chained to a wall and in enemy custody, the odds were roughly equivalent to the odds that he would spontaneously combust. Even if soldiers marched in right there, and even if they had stopped the van and had his thumb in hand (so to speak), the odds that it could be reattached were still low.

How could he do his job without a thumb? He had wanted to be a surgeon after his stint in the Army was up. But that wouldn’t happen now. Not unless he got really skilled with his left hand.

The man who had cut his thumb off was busy setting up a video camera. London felt a shudder travel down his spine. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have to survive before we can learn to use a scalpel with our left hand.

* * *
Abdul turned on the light above the camera. Everything appeared to be in working order. He smiled at London as it whirred next to him. “You threw away your gun in the alley very fast,” Abdul said, his tone slightly above mockery. “They have such cowards in a professional army?”

London bit his tongue against the pain of his missing thumb. “I’m a…noncombatant,” he managed. “A medic.”

“Ah.” Abdul waved his hand dismissively. “You are a coward. Just like a woman.”

“I’m a medic. I’m wearing a red cross on my arm. You are committing war crimes here.”

Abdul laughed. “War crimes? There is no crime in war. There is only survival and death.”

“You will be prosecuted.”

Abdul laughed again. “Arrogant American. You always think your cavalry will show up and rescue you.” Abdul stood. “Enough talking.”

“The world—”

“I said silence!” Abdul screamed. The sudden shift in his voice startled London. “If you speak again, I shall have your tongue.” He waved his knife at London’s face for confirmation. After a second, Abdul turned toward Hatim and nodded.

Hatim pushed a table over next to London. Its legs squealed against the concrete floor, a sound not unlike running a fork over a chalkboard. The table was bare except for a vice clamped to the side. Hatim calmly turned the screw, opening the vice’s gaping maw. When he judged that it was open wide enough, he stepped back and let Abdul return to the camera frame.

* * *
London swallowed hard as he looked at the table. The vice was an angry mouth, and he feared what the terrorists planned to do with it. The main terrorist—London began to call him Knife-man—was making a speech to the camera, gesturing with the knife and shouting Arabic slogans. The only thing London recognized was the occasional Allahu akbar. Each utterance of it filled him with terror.

Knife-man finished his speech and motioned toward the Big Bruiser. Bruiser grabbed London by the shoulders and pushed him toward the table.

My head! The thought shot through his mind as Bruiser forced his head toward the vice. “No!” he shouted. “Not my head!”

Knife-man kicked him in the ribs. It drove the air from his lungs, but Bruiser was too strong for him in any case. He fought for as long as he could, but in less than a minute his head was in the vice and Knife-man was tightening it.

The pressure was immense. It felt as if his sinuses were about to collapse. London lay across the table, face down, his head in the vice. The two metal plates were positioned just over his ears, and they burned as they were crushed into the side of his head.

Knife-man knelt by him, patted him on the back of the neck. Then, he jammed something cold and metallic against London’s teeth. He tasted blood from his mashed lips, heard the terrorist command: “Open.”

The metal smashed into his lips again, and he opened his mouth. It was a pair of tongs, and Knife-man pried his jaw open as wide as he could. London jerked on the table, but Bruiser sat on his back to let him know if he jerked too hard he could snap his own neck.

Knife-man switched the tongs to his other hand and pulled out a pair of pliers. He pushed them into London’s mouth, caught the man’s tongue.

“I told you to remain silent,” Knife-man said. He jerked London’s tongue down at that, then he released the tongs. London was forced to keep his mouth open now to keep from biting his tongue. It was pulled out further than it ever had been before and he had to suppress the urge to gag. Knife-man turned toward the young terrorist and said, “Firas!” He followed it with a command in Arabic.

London couldn’t tell what was going on anymore. His eyes watered from the sting of the pliers on his tongue. Knife-man spoke softly: “Did I ever tell you Firas was a first rate football player? He could kick a ball a kilometer.”

To prove it, Firas turned and kicked London’s jaw as hard as he could. The blow struck London’s chin and knocked him out cold, but not before his teeth clamped down on his outstretched tongue, severing it.

* * *
Abdul watched the prisoner go slack. Blood poured out of his mouth, pooling on the concrete floor. Even so, Abdul knew he could get more of the tongue with his knife. With the prisoner unconscious, he’d be most cooperative now.

Abdul pulled London’s mouth open again and then pushed his knife into the man’s mouth. He cut with sharp, jerky motions, not caring if he jabbed a section of London’s uvula out too. He only finished when he was satisfied he had as much of the tongue as he could get.

Only then did he go back to the camera and turn it off. He would let the prisoner regain consciousness on his own. In the meantime, they stripped him down naked and tied him face-down on the table. When he woke up, they’d roll him over. But they didn’t want him to drown on his blood while he was unconscious. That would be uncivilized.

* * *
Safwan drove the van through the streets careful to bring as little attention to himself as possible. As he drove, he picked up the cell phone and dialed a number. A few seconds later, the connection went through:

“Hello Rafiq,” Safwan said. “I have another story for you.”

On the other end of the line Rafiq took down the information. When he hung up the phone he scratched his chin for a moment. In his hand he held a news bulletin he had received just before the phone call.

The United States Army was missing two soldiers. They offered $20,000 for information leading to the return of their soldiers. Rafiq ignored the number on the bottom of the bulletin and called a separate number. If he played this right, he would be very rich soon.

* * *
London slowly came to. His mouth was on fire, yet it felt strangely…empty. He ran his tongue over his teeth, but couldn’t feel any of his teeth at all. The fire burned stronger and he realized that they must have jerked his teeth out.

Even as he thought that, his chin flared in pain and he remembered the kick. He had bitten through his tongue on impact. It wasn’t his teeth he was missing at all.

He jerked his head up, realized he was strapped down. Pain erupted from his wrists and he tried to curse, but all that came out was an “Uuungh.”

“Look who’s awake,” Knife-man said. He stepped over to the camera and turned it back on. “I was beginning to wonder if we needed to get some smelling salts for you.”

London said: “Uungh.”

The man laughed. London dropped his head again; the effort of lifting it hurt his neck too much. He was hanging off the end of a table, and he could see his hands chained to the table legs too. There were manacles, but they didn’t look right. In fact, he could see blood dripping from them, and he realized suddenly what it was.

With his thumb cut off, his right hand would have slid right out of the manacle. They had fixed that problem by bolting the manacle through his wrist. He looked at his left wrist and saw they had done the same there too, although they hadn’t cut any fingers off that hand yet.

Yet.

London screamed again, his voice reduced monosyllables punctuated with gutturals from the back of his throat.

The Knife-man had stopped moving now. London felt the man’s hand grab his thigh then, and he realized his legs had been bound so he was spread-eagle across the table.

“You said you do not fight, just like a woman,” Knife-man said. As he did, London heard the sound of a metal blade sliding past another metal blade. “I guess a woman won’t need these then.”

London screamed again, but there was nothing he could do. Fiery pain erupted, and the world seemed to spin white for a second. He couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even think. All he could do was scream.

It felt like an hour had passed, but it was only seconds. Knife-man returned and dropped his testicles on the floor in front of London’s face before he stomped on them.

London’s tears streamed down his face. Knife-man grabbed his chin and pulled his head up, looked into his eyes. “Now you have a reason not to fight.”

He dropped London’s head and motioned for the Big Bruiser. The Big Bruiser held something in his hand and as he stepped toward London, he let the end of it drop.

It was a whip. London tried to plead—he couldn’t get used to not having a tongue. Bruiser didn’t even laugh, he just looked methodically down at London, drew his arm back, and let the whip go.

* * *
Abdul watched Hatim whip the American and counted the blows in his head. When Hatim reached twenty, he raised a hand. The American’s back was raw now. Blood ran down the sides of his ribs, pooled on the table.

“Turn him over,” he ordered in Arabic.

Hatim bent and released London’s left manacle from the table. He fastened it to the loop the right arm was in, then released the right arm. He pulled it back across until it was in the left loop. London lay there, his arms crossed.

Hatim went to the other end of the table and released London’s right foot. “Hold this,” he snapped at Firas. The teen obeyed, and Hatim released London’s left foot from the table. He picked it up and said, “Turn him now,” to Firas.

They did so, pulling London over to his side and then onto his back. London screamed in agony as the open cuts raked across the table. He arched his back and Hatim slammed his fist into the American’s solar plexus.

“No, Hatim,” Abdul ordered. “See to the irons.”

Hatim frowned but obeyed.

Abdul looked at the American. He had no head support, but he was trying to keep his head up. Abdul could wait until the American gave up. With his back in pain, it didn’t take long.

* * *
Now the world was upside down. London could feel his body going into shock. He felt cold, tried not to shiver. Each shiver sent a spasm of pain through his body. He knew he was losing a lot of blood too. If this continued much longer, he could simply die from that.

Knife-man had a glass vial in his hand. It looked like a test-tube of some kind. London wondered if Knife-man had gotten a biological agent of some kind. Maybe anthrax or something. Whatever it might be, it couldn’t hurt more than this.

There was a sudden snap. Knife-man had broken the vial. London watched as the man knelt by Stalder’s intestines, which were still unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Knife-man poked and prodded them with the broken end of the glass tube. Then he stood back up and looked over at London once more.

“You must be thirsty.”

And he was. It was the loss of blood: his body needed to replace the fluids. It was also getting very hot in the room. They had built a large fire in the corner where Big Bruiser was currently working. Even so, London felt another shiver course down his body.

Knife-man stepped next to London and put the vial down on the table top. London couldn’t see it now, it hurt too much to raise his head. He could hear Knife-man at work though. Seconds later, Knife-man returned with a jug of water. He grabbed London’s head and pulled it up, then tipped the jug toward his mouth: “Drink.”

London felt the water rush into his mouth. It sloshed around and he gagged as he tried to swallow. Without a tongue his mouth felt completely different, but at least he couldn’t taste the horrible Iraqi water. It would have been worse this time because it was tinged with his blood too.

He managed three swallows before he started to choke. He coughed, shook his head. Knife-man pulled the jug up and gently lowered London’s head once more. Then he moved back to the other side of the table and picked up the vial once more.

“Tell me, my American friend, did you ever learn about a man named Tycho Brahe?”

London couldn’t answer. If he could have said something, he would have said that the name was familiar but he couldn’t place it. Knife-man seemed to tell that already.

“He was a scientist from Denmark, a true infidel. He drank beer constantly. He was a decadent swine, an American before America was founded, you see?”

Knife-man walked back to the front of the table where London could see him once more. “Do you know how he died?”

London shook his head. Knife-man continued his trek out of view once more, moving toward the end of the table where London’s feet were.

“He was at a banquet, and he drank too much beer again. After a time, his bladder was quite full. Yet he felt that it would be…impolite to leave too soon. He held his bladder so long it burst. It was a very painful way to die, don’t you think?”

Knife-man didn’t give London a chance to respond. He had moved back up to the side of the table once more. “There are many ways to make it so someone cannot urinate. An infection, for instance, could cause swelling which will block the urethra. And there are several ways to get an infection too. This is just one of those ways.”

Knife-man grabbed London’s penis in his left hand and pushed the glass vial into it with his right hand. London screamed and tried to jerk away. Knife-man gave the vial a quick twist, then snapped it off, leaving the glass inside the glans.

He returned to the head of the table. “Are you still thirsty?” he asked jovially.

* * *
Safwan stopped the van in the lot. He picked up the package that contained London’s thumb and ID. He glanced back at the corpse in the van: it was starting to stink. He’d be glad when the body dump was finished.

Safwan saw Rafiq’s car in the designated place. He would give Rafiq the information to air on Al-Haqq news, and then be on his way. When dark fell, he’d drop the body of the dead soldier and wait for it to be discovered. When the Americans showed up, or if they were unlucky and it was just the Iraqi police, he’d detonate the C-4 in the corpse, hopefully killing several of the infidels. But that wouldn’t be for a while.

Safwan exited his van and quickly trotted over to Rafiq’s car. Rafiq rolled his window down as Safwan approached. “You have it?”

“Yes,” Safwan said, glancing around. He passed the package to Rafiq.

“What are your demands for the Americans?”

“Free all our brothers and sisters from prison and give us eight million dollars, or the second soldier dies.”

Rafiq laughed. “You know they’ll never agree to it.”

Safwan smiled. “Just as we’ll never let the American live.”

They both laughed at that. “Here, let me get you your money.” Rafiq reached under the driver’s seat. As he did, Safwan turned to glance back up the road…and saw his van was gone.

“What?” he started. “My van!”

“Do not move,” Rafiq said. Safwan felt a stab of fear in his heart. He turned and saw the pistol in Rafiq’s hand.

He had left his weapons in the van.

“How could you do this?” Safwan shouted. He heard the footfalls behind him. He slowly raised his hands. “Allah will cut you down for this, infidel dog!”

Safwan spat at Rafiq. Rafiq simply smiled and watched Safwan was pulled to the ground and tied up. Only then did Rafiq grab his cell phone and dial the number he had memorized from the bottom of the bulletin.

* * *
“Lieutenant Orion? There’s a Rafiq from Al-Haqq on the phone for you.”

Jamison Orion nodded and picked up the phone. “Salaam, Rafiq. How are you?”

“Salaam, Yeshua. I am doing quite well.”

“Why do you keep calling me Yeshua? I told you my name is Jamison.”

“Yes, but you are a Christian, are you not?”

“Yes, Rafiq.”

“Then why are you ashamed to take Yeshua’s name?”

“I’m not ashamed, it’s just not my name,” Orion said. To keep this from continuing, he quickly interjected: “But that’s not why you called.”

“Of course not. I hear you lost two men and are providing a reward for them.”

“And you have information, I presume.”

“You might say that.”

“Look, it has to be actionable information in order for you to get any of the money. Unless you have someone who saw the whole thing, you’re not getting anything.”

Rafiq laughed. “I have better than that, Yeshua. I have one of your missing men. He is dead, unfortunately. But I also have the man who delivered the body. He, my good friend, is not dead.”

This is too good to be true, Orion thought, but he couldn’t squelch the sudden hope in his heart. “Where do you have this man, Rafiq?”

* * *
Abdul stood next to Hatim and looked at the glowing metal. It was ready. He nodded at the big man, then said, “How would you feel about a little target practice?”

Hatim laughed. He looked at London, still screaming and writhing on the table. “His fingers?”

“Yes, Hatim. Let us use the .22.”

Hatim smiled. When they had tortured Boulos, this had been the best part.

* * *
Knife-man returned to the table. He held a metal device in his hand. London tried to pull away as Knife-man knelt in front of him, but it was difficult to move when you were bound flat on your back to a table, your arms stretched over your head. Knife-man grabbed his left wrist and unhooked the manacle from the table. Then, he pushed London’s fingers into the metal device. There were two rings with a metal shaft on one side. One ring rested at the base of the finger and one at the finger tips. They were splayed out at the top, so as London’s fingers travelled into the next ring his fingers spread out.

Knife-man did the same to London’s right hand, which hurt more because of the missing thumb. Then, Knife-man went to his feet and unhooked both of them from the table. As he did so, Big Bruiser grabbed both of London’s wrists. When Knife-man gave the word, the Bruiser dragged London off the table. The edge cut into London’s back, riding over the area that had been whipped. London felt his voice-box crack and he almost passed out. Then he was on the concrete floor.

Big Bruiser pulled him to his feet. London could hardly walk from the pain in his groin, but Bruiser had ways to convince him to move. In short time, he stood against the wall at the far end of the warehouse. Bruiser quickly ran a chain through the metal attachments Knife-man had put on London’s fingers. The chain ran through a pulley system. Bruiser used it to pull London’s arms up over his head until London was forced to stand on his toes. He felt like each of his fingers were going to pop out of the socket at any minute.

Knife-man had returned, along with Soccer Boy who had kicked him in the chin earlier. Soccer Boy held a contraption that looked like a piece of wood with small roofing nails in it, which was exactly what it was. He placed the board under the arches of London’s feet. Now the only thing keeping him from impaling himself on the nails were his fingers, held up above his head by the chain.

As he stood there, he realized that Knife-man had turned the camera around to film this spectacle too. London clenched his eyes shut for a minute. He wasn’t sure what the terrorists were planning, but he knew it couldn’t be good.

The terrorists had lined up behind a table about ten yards away from London. There was a .22 hunting rifle on the table, as well as a box of ammunition. Soccer Boy picked up the rifle first and put in a single round. He turned, aiming toward London.

Oh no, they’re gonna shoot me.

There was a pop and a chunk of concrete next to his left hand exploded, raining dust down on London. He looked up at the wall stupidly, and only then did he see the flecks of red blood and other crater impacts there.

They were going to shoot his fingers off, one by one.

To confirm this, Big Bruiser picked up the rifle next. He fired and London felt the shot tear through his left middle finger. He screamed again, that monosyllabic “Uuungh!”

The terrorists just laughed.

* * *
Abdul let the others shoot at the American. He watched disinterestedly as they slowly made their way through the American’s left hand, and then his right. When he only had two fingers left, they had both been pulled from their sockets, and his feet had been impaled on the nails. Still, the fingers held his arms above his head until the final shot by Firas tore half of his ring finger off and gravity helped rip through the flap of skin that kept him up.

When the American hit the ground, Abdul motioned for him to be brought back to the table where he had been earlier. Abdul had already reattached the vise to the table: it would be important that the American not be able to move his head, else he could kill himself too quickly.

Hatim tossed the American on the table. Blood poured freely from both hands, staining the concrete floor. Abdul held London down as Hatim tightened his head in the vise once more. This time, he was lying on his back, staring upwards.

“Look at all that blood,” Abdul said. “We don’t want you to bleed to death, do we?”

London sobbed. It was an unusual sound with no tongue, but Abdul was getting used to it now. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll make sure that won’t happen.”

He held up the red-hot iron. Hatim had already secured the prisoner’s wrists. Abdul set the burning iron onto the skin, cauterizing the wounds. Each time the scent of burning flesh rose into the air, reminding Abdul of cooking meat. It made him slightly hungry.

When all the finger stubs were cauterized, Abdul took the remaining poker from the fire. He climbed up onto the table, stood above London. “Have you heard of the expression, ‘In the world of the blind the one-eyed man is king’?”

London cried out something, tried to jerk his head but couldn’t move it because of the vice.

“Allow me to crown you the king of the blind.”

Abdul slowly lowered the poker toward London’s left eye. London screamed and tried to roll, but he was weak from his injuries and the vice grip was strong. “Shhh,” Abdul said. “We must be careful not to go into your brain with this.”

The poker got closer. The heat of it brought tears to London’s eyes. He screamed again and again, but Abdul didn’t flinch. He kept the poker steady and methodically lowered it centimeter by centimeter.

He heard the hiss as the water in London’s eye boiled away. Then, the poker was into his eye socket, smoke rising into the air. London screamed again, and Abdul carefully pulled the poker back out. Then, he climbed off the table and grabbed the jug of water. He sloshed it over London’s face, let it pool in the burned out eye socket. He poured the remainder of it down London’s throat.

* * *
Safwan sat in the cold, dark room. He had been handcuffed, but that was it. The interrogator had talked to him for several minutes, but Safwan refused to talk to the Iraqi pig. Safwan was Jordanian, but even so he knew that the Iraqis who helped the Great Satan were worse than demons themselves, the traitors.

The interrogator had conferred with someone and had left. Safwan could hear the footfalls as the soldiers returned. This time, they brought a stretcher with them.

“Get on there,” one of the soldiers ordered. The translator repeated the order in Arabic. Safwan didn’t really need the translator, he understood English fairly well. But he supposed it was better to obey only after he heard the translator to keep up the pretense.

Safwan lay on the stretcher. The soldiers strapped his arms and legs down. Then, they raised his feet up until they were higher than his head. He felt the blood rushing down; it gave him a slight headache.

“You are going to tell us where our other man is,” one of the soldiers said, and it was dutifully repeated by the translator.

“Go to Hell,” Safwan responded.

The soldier pulled out some cellophane. “You brought this on yourself,” he said, although the translator didn’t repeat that one. The soldier wrapped the cellophane around Safwan’s mouth and nose, then poked a hole it so Safwan could breathe through his mouth.

“Last chance,” the solider said. Safwan cursed in Arabic. The soldier simply reached down and picked up a jug of water. He poured it over Safwan’s face, into the hole in his mouth. Safwan jumped in surprise, felt the water rush into his mouth. He gagged.

They’re going to drown me! He tried to spit the water out, but couldn’t. It was pouring in too quickly. He thrashed, and after a lifetime the soldier stopped. He spat the water out and gasped for air, tears streaming down his face.

“You ready to talk now?”

“Yes!” Safwan shouted before the translator could say anything. “I talk!”

The soldier put the water down and tore the cellophane off Safwan’s face. He raised the stretcher so his head was higher than his feet again. “Good. Where is Sergeant London?”

Safwan gave an address.

* * *
Abdul-Khaliq al Kateb set the camera up one last time. The American lay moaning on the table. He had turned yellow, his penis swollen. While Abdul wished he could take the time to wait for London’s bladder to burst, he knew he couldn’t do that.

Safwan had disappeared. And that meant he might have been captured. He should have arrived earlier that morning, but there had been nothing. Nor had there been any word on the news about the recovery of the dead American soldier. There had been absolutely nothing.

And that had Abdul worried. So, while he would have preferred to take his time, he knew he had gotten as much out of this soldier as he could get. It was time to slaughter him.

Abdul pulled his knife out and stood in front of the camera to give his final speech.

* * *
Orion moved into position on the perimeter. He only wished he’d be able to take part in the actual rescue itself, but that had been given to the Delta boys. He watched as the inconspicuous van plodded its way down the street toward the warehouse.

* * *
Inside the warehouse, Hatim saw the van too. “Abdul, it’s Safwan!” he shouted back toward Abdul. Abdul cursed, knowing he’d have to delete that section from the video.

“No names!” he shouted at Hatim. Still, it was good news that Safwan had returned. That meant maybe they could wait for London’s bladder to burst after all.

* * *
The van stopped outside. Faris had already pressed the button to raise the garage door. The sun reflected off the windshield, and he couldn’t see the driver through the glare. He waved anyway.
Then the door was up and the van started forward. As it crossed by him, he realized that it wasn’t Safwan at the exact instant the soldier in the back of the van shot him.

* * *
Abdul jumped in surprise at the report. Hatim had turned for his weapon but the van door was already opening. Soldiers rushed out, guns firing. Hatim jerked as a bullet tore through his lower abdomen. He collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain.

Abdul rushed toward the prisoner, knife ready. He grabbed London’s head, raised his chin and pressed the blade toward London’s throat.

The bullet tore through his elbow and his hand went numb. The knife fell uselessly to the ground an instant before one of the Delta team struck him in the side of the head with the butt of his rifle. Abdul fell to the ground in a heap. He gazed up at London’s surprised eyes before the world faded to black.

* * *
Orion heard the radio: “We have package. Repeat, we have package. Veronica. I repeat, Veronica.”

Orion’s heart leapt at the news. Veronica was the code word meaning London was still alive. The radio continued: “We’re going to need a chopper for an immediate cas-evac.”

“Roger that. We have an LZ a block west of the warehouse. Whiskey Charlie Niner, secure LZ Alpha.”

“Roger,” Orion said into his radio. He motioned to his men. “Let’s go!”

LZ Alpha was nothing but an empty field. It was used by the children to play soccer, but they quickly scattered as the troops appeared. Orion crouched down and scanned the houses, looking for any shooters.

There were none.

He heard the chopper blades overhead. The wind kicked up from overhead as he saw the Hummer pull onto the field. The chopper dropped down quickly and the Delta troops moved the stretcher into the helicopter. It took off again quickly.

Orion fell back with his men, and they returned to their Stryker vehicle. There had been no shooting for this mission, and for that he was grateful. They had gotten London too, and that meant that Rafiq would be getting the full $20,000.

“Everyone give yourselves a hand,” he said. “Mission was a success.”

* * *
It was winter. Sergeant Mitchell London (Ret.) sat on the couch in the living room as the talking heads shouted at each other. Normally, he wouldn’t have watched any of it, but they were talking about Colonel Davis.

One of the Iraqi translators that the Army used had alleged that Davis had supervised the torture of inmates. He even had proof: a grainy, cell-phone video of waterboarding.

Davis had been court-martialed for it. London watched from his remaining eye as the media played a clip:

“We need intelligence to save lives. I did only what was necessary to save the lives of my men.”

The video of Davis stopped, replaced by the face of an analyst. “Chuck, I know the rationalization is that this saves lives. But the reality is that torturing prisoners of any kind, it’s just makes us like them.”

“That’s not fair!” Chuck shouted back. “We’re talking about waterboarding here. It doesn’t even cause physical damage.”

“It’s equivalent. If we accept this there is no difference between us and them.”

“There is obviously a difference. There’s a difference between something that causes no physical harm and the torture Al Qaeda does: eye extractions, limb removal—”

“I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for now,” the main talking head broke in. “A controversial subject to say the least. Is waterboarding equivalent to torture or not? Call in and give us your opinion.”

London would have done just that. But he had no fingers to dial with.

On Conspiracy Theories

Since the subject of the Iraq war brought this up (albeit unintentionally), I thought it might be helpful to do a quick examination of the nature of conspiracy theories in general. However, since certain people have a habit of being unable to read anything but instead assume that each paragraph I write must somehow be about them, I’ll explicitly state right now that this entire blog post is not a response to anyone in particular. If you think it’s about you, it’s not.

Then again, I am the conspiracy.

Umberto Eco quotes Karl Popper: “The conspiracy theory of society … comes from abandoning God and then asking: ‘Who is in his place?’” (Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, London, Routlege, 1969, iv, p. 123; qtd in Eco, Umberto. Foucault’s Pendulum. 1988. Orlando : Harcourt, Inc. p. 601). And this often does seem to be the case. If we lack divine oversight, we have a void to fill; so we manufacture our conspiracies.

But it doesn’t have to be grand Illuminati-type conspiracies. Eco writes:

Take stock-market crashes. They happen because each individual makes a wrong move, and all the wrong moves put together create panic. Then whoever lacks steady nerves asks himself: Who’s behind this plot, who’s benefiting? He has to find an enemy, a plotter, or it will be, God forbid, his fault (ibid p. 603).

Foucault’s Pendulum is a great book if you want to see how it is possible to generate a conspiracy. It’s actually quite easy to develop a plausible-sounding conspiracy theory (by “plausible-sounding” I mean only that those who do not understand logic will easily fall for it) using simple connections that occur in life, even by accident. These connection are necessary because, at some level, everything actually is connected. In fact, I can offer a challenge of sorts for anyone who wishes to do so in the comments section: Offer up two random facts or two random objects and I guarantee I will be able to find some kind of link between them. It’s very easy to demonstrate this with a quick example of my own: Trees and concrete.

A tree is connected to concrete because a twig looks like a crack in the sidewalk. We can continue the thread. An apple is connected to New York through popular metaphor, but why should that be? Well, New York has concrete sidewalks, and thus it can be linked to a tree. For this reason, New York is also called the “Big Apple”; it is a reference to the original Garden of Eden via apple trees (the traditional fruit Adam ate) and concrete sidewalks.

Now the terrorists attacked New York City because they were representing Adam’s fall from Eden. Since the fall impacted the whole world, they chose the World Trade Center. Since Genesis also mentions such rivers as the Euphrates, which happens to be in Iraq (where the real Eden was located), the New York City Eden was really a faux Eden. Thus the terrorists were purging the world of a fake Eden. This is further documented by the fact that the terrorists also attacked the Pentagon. Why there? Because the Pentagon is a pentagram (an obvious Satanic symbol), and attacking it would demonstrate more fully the real reason for the attack: the metaphoric fall from grace of the Adamic line….

I could continue with the illustration, but need not. Naturally, my usage of the conspiracy terms is weighted toward the Cabalistic mystical version of conspiracies since (God knows I hope this next bit is actually accurate) no one reading this blog would take them seriously, and therefore it should be easier to see the flaws in the “logic.”

The logical problem with all this is the same problem we get when trying to match any specific trait to any specific causal event in biology (or any other science for that matter). I wrote about this earlier in this post where I quoted David Raup (who was speaking about extinction specifically):

Once we have the lists, we must search for common denominators: characteristics shared by most victims but not survivors, or vice versa. This is straightforward, and we have seen the results in the case of mammalian body size. The problem is that organisms have a virtually unlimited number of characteristics that might be important: anatomical, behavioral, physiological, geographical, ecological, and even genealogical. We can compare lists of victims and survivors with so many different traits as we have energy. If the lists are not long, it becomes virtually inevitable that we will find one or more traits that match the lists closely enough for us to make a case.

If we find an interesting correlation by this procedure, we can apply standard statistical tests to evaluate the possibility that the correlation is due to chance alone. Each such test asks, in one way or another, “What is the probability that the random sprinkling of a particular trait among species would, by chance, yield a correlation as good as the one we observe?” If that probability turns out to be very low—say, 5 percent or less—we feel comfortable in rejecting random sprinkling and concluding that the observed correlation is true cause and effect.

The fatal flaw in this logic is that testing cannot be adjusted for the fact that we tried many traits before finding a promising one. Remember that one out of every twenty completely random sprinklings will, on average, pass our test if odds of twenty to one are considered acceptable—as is common in scientific research. Because it is virtually impossible to keep track of the number of traits we have considered—many were discarded at a glance—we cannot evaluate the test results for any one trait.

This problem is not unique to paleontology, or to science either. If you have difficulty accepting my reasoning, try some experiments yourself. Take some baseball statistics or election results or anything that will provide a list of winners and losers. Fifty or a hundred results should be adequate. Then inspect the list to see what characteristics the winners or the losers have in common. The pattern does not have to be perfectly consistent—a statistical tendency is enough—and you are free to change the ground rules as you go along. You can even redefine winner and loser if this will help. Pay special attention to the smaller category of outcomes. For example, you may wish to compare characteristics of first-place baseball teams with those of all other teams. The shorter list (first-place teams) is more likely to have things in common than the longer list. If so, you may be able to venture conclusions like “Most managers (or all, if you are lucky) of first-place teams are firstborns, whereas managers of other teams follow the national average.”

This problem permeates conspiracy theories. We can find connections between a small list (the conspirators) and a big list (all the events in the world) and draw any sort of conclusions we want. “George Bush was in Skull & Bones; so was John Kerry; therefore the 2004 presidential election was rigged by the Skull & Bones Society.”

Yet when we take any two individuals, it’s easy to find characteristics that are common to them that are not common to the majority of people. For instance, the majority of people do not have bald heads; Vin Diesel and Paul Manata have bald heads; therefore, we have established some kind of correlation between the two of them even if that correlation is meaningless. Because we automatically reject all the non-compatible traits, we don’t even have to think about them: Vin Diesel is an actor; Paul Manata is a blogger. This doesn’t help us correlate the two individuals, therefore we don’t think about these two traits.

The problem is, unless we account for the traits that don’t match, we cannot determine the statistical likelihood that the traits that do match are actually meaningful traits. Suppose that there is a 1 in 20 chance that a trait between two people will match but will do so for completely random reasons, not implying any true correlation. Diesel and Manata have a trait in common. Is this part of the 1:20 chance of random correlation, or is this a significant trait commonality? Without knowing the totality of traits involved (which, as shown above, we largely ignore when they don’t match) it is impossible to determine if there is a meaningful correlation.

So consider: Cheney worked at Haliburton. Haliburton is offered a contract in Iraq. There’s a linkage there, but is it meaningful? Haliburton happens to be one of the only companies that can do what Haliburtan does. Is the contract due to Cheney or due to the company’s purpose for existing? Without knowing all the things that do NOT imply correlation, we cannot determine whether the Cheney-Haliburton link is statistically meaningful or just a random correlation.

Raup offered his own example, which I summarized in my previous blog post:

Raup gave a tongue-in-cheek example using the World Wide Atlas from Readers Digest’s 1984 edition to demonstrate that the most populous cities begin with letters in the last half of the alphabet, therefore people tend to flock towards cities that have this attribute. The data is simple. The seven most populous cities (in 1984) were: Tokyo-Yokohama, New York City, Mexico City, Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto, Sao Paulo, Seoul, and Moscow. All of them start with letters in the M-Z range of the alphabet. The next seven cities, however, were: Calcutta, Buenos Aires, London, Bombay, Los Angeles, Cairo, and Rio de Janeiro. Of these, only Rio de Janeiro does not fit the pattern. Thus, Raup states (again, tongue-in-cheek): “The statistical likelihood that this was caused by chance alone is so small that rejection of a hypothesis of randomness is routine. Cause and effect is clearly indicated (p. 99).”

What does this tell us of conspiracy theories in general then? Mainly, conspiracies are built entirely on unsubstantiated linkages between people, events, dates, et al. and you cannot tell the difference between a legitimate link and a random link due to the fact that all things are inherently related (if, for no other reason, than the fact that all things exist and are perceived by the mind of the one inventing the conspiracy theory). Secondly, a good conspiracy must never reveal itself, for a conspiracy revealed is an impotent conspiracy. Thus, conspiracies must always be small and, as a result, completely impotent. This paradox—a conspiracy must be impotent if it is to refrain from being impotent—is part of the reason it’s so irrational to believe in conspiracies. If they were actually capable of doing something, the conspirators would stand out from the background noise of regular random events, and since the goal of any conspiracy is to remain undetected, conspirators must limit themselves to acting only when it is plausible that something other than the conspiracy acted. Which only begs the question: if the conspiracy could have piloted planes into the World Trade Center, but Islamic terrorists are more than willing to do the same thing, for what intellectual reason must we hold to the conspiracy?

Finally, conspiracies are almost always invoked as a way to put some agent in control of the chaos. Denying God’s sovereignty, random actions serve no purpose. If a tree falls on me in the forest, it’s so unlikely that it obviously must have been pushed by someone who cleverly remained hidden from view. Perhaps George Bush used an NSA satellite with a laser beam to cut the tree and make it fall on me. It’s better to be the victim of an agent than the victim of a random quantum flux. So if the tree falls on me, who benefits? Obviously the doctors do. So they must be in collusion with Bush (Bush is a given for any proper conspiracy theory). Perhaps my coworker who insulted me yesterday is in on it too. As is Greenpeace, because trees falling on me demonstrate Global Warming. Therefore, they caused it.

While this example is ridiculous, it’s no less sound than saying: If there is war in Iraq, who benefits? Obviously the oil companies benefit, because they can go to Iraq and steal the oil there. Obviously the terrorists (read: Marine Corps) benefit because they get a recruiting tool. Obviously Bush benefits because of the surge in patriotic behavior (although we were smart enough to neutralize this, and now it’s too late for him to alter his mistake). Obviously the military R&D folks benefit because they can go out and test weapons that they wanted to test. Obviously the ammo suppliers benefit, as do hospitals who care for the wounded, and morticians everywhere. But the state benefits the most because it can trample on everyone’s rights without anyone caring. Therefore, they caused it.

Anyone can correlate anything. But a twig on a branch is not a crack in the sidewalk no matter how similar they look. There is no great crack-inducing conspiracy (other than the Freemasons, of course…which includes the Skull & Bones Society, come to think of it)….