The Cost of Not Knowing The Enemy
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The catastrophic failure of America’s generals and civilian leaders is on full display for all the world to see as Americans are left in Afghanistan to fend for themselves while Taliban jihadi fighters prepare for the slaughter they will almost certainly unleash on those left behind when the last U.S. plane is gone.
The message to the entire world: America is fleeing, America is weak, America will not stand and fight when it really matters.
China is certainly paying attention, and the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan likely are too.
For 20 years and 4 administrations, American leaders made an affirmative decision not to know the enemy in the “Global War on Terror.” This intentional ignorance has cost America greatly in lives and treasure, and ensured the U.S. could never defeat the Global Islamic Movement.
You cannot defeat an enemy you are unwilling to identify.
100% of the enemies we face in this war launched against the West by the Armies of Mohammad tell us exactly who they are and why they are fighting.
All of them tell us they are commanded by their god, allah, to fight the entire non-muslim world until “allah’s divine law”/sharia is imposed on every human on earth.
Our enemies tell us sharia is the blueprint for how they fight, and it is the very thing they must impose on the world.
Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (formerly ISIS), the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas, Hizbollah, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Abu Sayef, Tablighi Jamaat, Iran’s constitution, Egypt’s constitution, and the entire Islamic world under the banner of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) tell us sharia is the lens through which they view the entire world and how they must behave in it.
The entire Islamic world is on record – via the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights – that “Human Rights” is defined by sharia.
Yet, nowhere in the entire U.S. government system has the enemy’s doctrine, sharia, been taught to our war-planners, military at any rank, nor inside our diplomat corps.
Sharia is noticeably absent from the U.S. Army War College, Marine Corps University, U.S. Naval War College, Joint Forces Staff College, National Defense University, Command & Staff College, all the military service academies, the FBI, the CIA, the DHS, and everywhere else it should be taught.
The result of U.S. leaders being grossly ignorant about the enemy’s doctrine and objectives? The U.S. government wrote the constitution for Afghanistan which created and Islamic State under sharia, thus giving Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the Global Islamic Movement a victory there.
America lost the war in Afghanistan in 2004 but U.S. leaders were too stupid to realize it.
In fact, our leaders not only do not know the enemy, they have an understanding of the enemy that is exactly opposite of who they are.
Just read from the most widely used textbook in U.S. Islamic schools about Islam – What Islam is All About – and you will see that what 10 year old muslim children are taught about Islam is the same as what Al Qaeda teaches.
“Islam is not a religion, but a complete way of life.”
“The three duties (in Islam) are Da’wah, Jihad, and Encouraging good while forbidding the evil (“good” and “evil” as defined by sharia).”
“When you follow the Islamic way of living life, you are following the Shari’ah…the Shari’ah includes all the do’s and don’ts of Islam…The Shari’ah is the ideal path for us to follow.”
“The law of the land is the Shari’ah of Allah. The leader, or Khalifa of the Islamic nation, implements the Shari’ah in society.”
“The basis of the legal and political system is the Shari’ah of Allah. Its main sources are the Qur’an and Sunnah.”
“Muslims dream of establishing the power of Islam in the world.”
“The word Jihad is most often associated with the act of physically confronting evil and wrong-doing (“evil” and “wrong-doing” as defined by sharia)…If a real Jihad was declared, then we, as Muslims, must obey and follow the rules of Islam in our conduct.”
“If anyone dies in a Jihad they automatically will go to Paradise.”
“The duty of muslim citizens is to be loyal to the Islamic State.”
This means that what Islamic leaders have told U.S. leaders about Islam for decades is exactly opposite of what muslims teach their children about Islam.
So, here we sit in 2021 watching the results of a complete U.S. government system that decided to go to war and stay at war on multiple continents for nearly 20 years with an enemy no one thought was important enough to know.
The incompetence and staggering unprofessionalism of our military and civilian leaders is difficult to quantify.
When an individual’s unprofessional behavior leads to someone’s death, that is legally classified as “Criminal negligence” and doctors and lawyers are put in jail for such behavior.
There are thousands of Americans who lost their lives and hundreds of thousands wounded in this war, both overseas and here at home.
It is high time America holds its generals and civilian leaders to the same standard.
John Guandolo is a US Naval Academy graduate, served as an Infantry/Reconnaissance officer in the United States Marines and is a combat veteran, served as a Special Agent in the FBI from 1996-2008, and was recruited out of the FBI by the Department of Defense to conduct strategic analysis of the Islamic threat. He is the President and Founder of Understanding the Threat (UTT).
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