Categoría: ENEMY’ VULNERABILITIES

The ideological adaptation of the minor Jihad to current times.

Introduction.

Islam has to assume that the Jihad, as a “bloody effort in the path of Allah” was necessary for the establishment and defense of the primitive community of believers.

Muhammad took refuge in a cave near Mecca to meditate and pray. Around 610, he began to receive motions, visits from angels sent by Allah (God, in Arabic). “Prophet, hear and write,” they ordered him. But, he was illiterate and had to dictate the verses to his collaborators. They were the Meccan verses of the Khoran, eminently religious. The first to believe his preaching were his wife, Abu Baker al-Sidrique, his father-in-law, Ali, his cousin, and then his son-in-law, his slave… About 40-45 followers formed the Muslim group that lived with him in Mecca.

Towards 615, a group of Arabs from Medina came to see him. The Jews had taken power in the Arab city and they wanted to reconquer it. But they had no guide, no motivating sense or ideology.

Muhammad understood this perfectly. “The Arabs of Medina were a force without ideology” and “he was an ideology without force”. So, “Let us use his force for our ideology”.

The authorities in Mecca were increasingly concerned about visits to the Prophet by foreign Arabs. And, from the beginning, the leaders of the Arab community in Mecca saw the behavior and religious rites of the Muslims as strange.

The situation had to lead to violence. And, they decided to kill the Prophet, at least.

Warned, Muhammad and Abu Baker fled the city. It was the Hegira or march of the Islamic Community from Mecca to Medina (the city of the Prophet) in 622. The small Muslim community followed the longest coastal route, as directed by Muhammad.

When Muhammad arrived in Medina, he pitched his tent on the outskirts. Soon the Arab chiefs came out to greet and receive him as their leader.

An embassy from Mecca went to the Medinan authorities to have Muhammad handed over to them. But, “they have reaped the green,” the chiefs warned the Meccan envoys.

The Jews saw the threat from Muhammad and attacked them. Muhammad defeated them and expelled them from Medina. Here the Prophet received the Medinan chapters or suras of the Koran, of an eminently political nature and of the governance of the peoples.

From Medina, the Muslim forces attacked and plundered several caravans of merchants, some from Mecca and others on behalf of the neighboring Jews.

The Muslims were growing in military capacity and good relations with the neighboring populations. Their tactics using very mobile light units and reiterative attacks, looking for enemy weaknesses or creating them, were effective and novel in combating their enemies.

However, on the other hand, Mecca and other towns in western Arabia were languishing and losing influence. It was the pendulum of History.

From Mecca they ended up sending a contact group to agree with Muhammad on peace and the acceptance of Islam as the religion of the Arabs. The leaders of Mecca accepted Muhammad‘s conditions.

On November 1, 630, Muhammad entered Mecca victoriously. He suppressed the Jahiliyya, the state of idolatry and chaos in Mecca, prior to Islam, and turned the Kaaba, one of the existing idolatrous points, into a center of Islamic piety. Until then, the Muslims practiced Salat, their daily canonical prayers, directing their position towards Jerusalem.

Disconnecting himself further from the Jews, Muhammad ordered a change of direction towards Mecca, specifically towards the Kaaba, and established only 5 prayers a day, according to the solar positions of activity of the Muslims.

Soon the new religion will spread throughout the Arabian peninsula, with Caliph Abu Bakr (632-634) using weapons against the last arabs idolatrous tribes. In 632, the Prophet died in Medina, his favorite city, he was barely 62 years old.

Developments.

Now comes what I call the First Transformation of Islam. Outwardly, its followers denote a continuous (in historical measures, not in chronography) conquering and expansionist activity. This will last until the year 750, at the end of the Umayyad dynasty. These successes are associated by the Muslims with the fact that Allah is with them. It is a growing Muslim century.

In a series of conquests, the Muslims destroy and take the Sassanian Empire, from Anatolia to Persia, through Asia. And, from Palestine, through Egypt, Libya, Ifrigia, the Rif and Hispania, throughout North Africa and the western European peninsula.

Their attempts to penetrate into Central Europe were cut off on October 10, 732, in the battle of Poitiers by Charles Martel, in command of the Frankish troops. Forcing the Islamic light cavalry to face solid defense forces, in a practical adaptation of the phalanxes, supported by archers from their rear. And, with their own heavy noble cavalry attacking the Muslim light cavalry by shock.

The five daily prayers of Salat, composed of standing and bowing, kneeling and lying down, with head turns and the repetition of verses from the Koran, exert an increase in religious piety, love of Allah and belonging to the prayer group among the faithful.

Here would end the historical emergence of the lesser Jihad. The historical opportunity for which does not exist today.

The proof is that the lesser Jihad is not named in the Koran, it does not exist directly in the commands of Allah. It is not necessary, nor transcendent. It is occasional and temporary in the plans of Allah.

And, it must be replaced by “another suitable type of effort in the path of Allah”.

This would be the effort of personal inner development (ascetic), seeking the purification and inner improvement of believers.

This concept exists in the Sunna, where it is called the Greater Jihad and could be promoted by the pious ulemas (ideologists) and muftis (jurists).

Since the emergence of the four main Sunni ideological schools, from the year 750 until after 1000, the principle of the effort of Personal Reflection, the ICHTIHAD, also gained strength in Islam.

These are 250 long years, because in History the facts are unraveled. Without rigid borders that cut their temporal and mental spaces. In which the Second Transformation of Islam will occur: the Ideological one. Where the body of doctrine will be elaborated for the practical application of Islam, in all areas of men’s lives.

The Ichtihad will allow the development of Arab culture, both in relation to civil aspects (science, commerce, art, literature), as well as the enrichment of its «ideology». And it is the basis of ideologues and jurists such as the Palestinian al-Chafii, in Cairo, founder of the most elaborate and brilliant Islamic school.

Ichtihad is a source of lucidity, creativity, enrichment, progress and peace, on the path of personal and collective effort towards Allah (who is really the religious core and reason of Islam), when the Umma (Arabic name of the Islamic community) has already spread and multiplied enormously throughout the world.

But, towards the 11th century (5th century of the Hegira), the ulemas and muftis close the door to ichtihad.

The methodological approach of Islamic progress is altered. And, from then on, it is imitated, repeated, creativity is slowed down, sypnosis are abused.

At the same time, the arts, sciences, civil and social studies of Muslims are languishing. The fear (always paralyzing) of fulfilling the demands (real or forced) of Islam arises. Perhaps the appearance of the fifth ideological school of Islam has an influence here. The last, the hardest and most intransigent, the violent one. Without it, Muslims would not have INSTITUTIONAL ideological support to evolve locally and temporarily to violence. The Salafi school, which wants to imitate the Salaf or the pious predecessors, because they were supported by Allah in their extraordinary successes, for their fidelity and piety.

(To be continuing)

Russia and its Super Hypersonic Ballistic Missiles

Introduction.

Russia, the predatory Empire, which sells raw materials, oil, natural gas, electricity, rare minerals, and buys and copies technologies of all kinds and more sophisticated goods and maintains an incomplete Armed Forces. In 2024, they totaled some 900 thousand active troops.

The structure of these has an immediate officialdom, Junior Officials and Officers, in charge of carrying out the orders of the battalion commander. The orders of the battalion commanders are received from their brigade commanders (general brigadier), where the operational action of the forces is specified: making the tactical actions of the subordinate forces have a transcendence, an already operational importance, in the «higher plans».

The non-commissioned officers, corporals and sergeants, rise from the troops, from among the most active, experts and, perhaps, loyal. There are no non-commissioned officer academies in Russia, which would prepare them for their duties in the ranks. And these “classes” (the non-commissioned officers) are the ones that accompany, inspire and directly command the soldiers in all kinds of military operations.

The troops see them “as one of their own, not necessarily always the best.” And they consider this promotion to be their merit, distinguishing them from the troops. The officers, in turn, maintain their training status, command and prerogatives.

It is difficult to find here the weft and the plot for the forces of an army to always function in harmony, efficiency, training and professionalism.

We exclude the Rocket and Space Forces, Special Forces, Engineers and part of the Artillery and Armored Forces. They are an elite that boasts of it. And, on which Russia and its ruling class depend for its survival.

Valery Gerasimov is the Chief of the General Staff. And, in view of the successes that Russian soldiers were achieving in their combats and other operations in Ukraine, Putin also appointed him Chief of the Special Military Operation Forces in Ukraine. And, practically, Valery disappeared from the sight of the public and journalists.

A Chief must have his Advanced Command Posts so close to the active enemy, that it facilitates the leadership of the Chief.

During the Polish-Soviet War, from February 1919 to March 1921, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Chief of the Red Army in the Field, had his command post in Kyiv, 500 km from the Front. And, Jozef Pilsidski, the Polish Supreme Commander, continually visited his divisions on the Warsaw front, half surrounded by the Reds. The Reds acted like an Asian horde, living off the territory they trampled, for their vital human needs. Suddenly, Pilsudski counterattacked and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army retreated to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

There are four stages in the trajectory of offensive missiles in which an anti-missile system could act.

They could be destroyed in flight in the atmosphere (even over enemy territory), shortly after their launch. The smoke trail that the engine throws out and the burning flames that accompany it can be detected immediately by satellites and reconnaisance aircraft.

Some attacking missiles could be altered in their trajectory by the strong and punctual action of an electromagnetic field, which acts on their control and guidance device. And it can do so throughout the post-launch stage.

Once fragmented or not, active warheads with multiple ogives, when the targets are already close, can be acted upon, by following final ballistic trajectories. These are easily calculated by the defense against aircraft (DCA).

In the final phase of flight, both missiles and their active multiple warheads can be intercepted by friendly missiles and aircraft, during descent or approach to their target.

An interested perceptive reader can already glimpse the crux.

One of the most important effective factors of the defense system is the Time of Arrival at the Enemy Target.

Current combat systems work up to speeds of Match 3, perhaps 4, more than 3700 km/h.

The Oreshnik (Hazel) 9M729 attack missile, launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome in the Astrakhan region, reached the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on the Dnieper River.

The Russians (Putin) wanted to show clearly what they have.

We must keep in mind that propaganda tends to deceive the enemy as best as possible. One way is by magnifying real, possible and uncertain successes.

The Hazel weighs about 50 tons and its approximate theoretical speed is Match 11, more than 13,500 km/hour. It is not an intercontinental missile, because its characteristics make it difficult to make a parabolic journey as short as the one in fact (Kapustin Yar-Dnipro).

Short-range missiles, up to 500 km, are considered part of reactive or rocket artillery and their attack operations zones are in the enemy tactical zone and in its operational rear. Here the enemy units reform and recompose, rest, supply themselves, advance to occupy combat positions or retreat towards their operational rear in that sector of the front. And, here there are almost no Units in Combat Readiness, for the defense of those areas.

Apparently, the Hazel is capable of carrying 6 submissiles, each of which would carry up to 6 attack warheads, with or without nuclear charge. The Hazel would fly at an impossible speed for the defense against aircraft (DCA) to work with. Because, simply, the data from radars, detection aircraft, would arrive already outmatched, no aircraft or missile of its own could reach and destroy it. It would be like the fox seeing and reaching the Road Runner.

In the Beginning it was the long range. The great enemies were the United States versus China and Russia. Both groups of enemies being geographically far away. The Europeans were stammering in the military nuclear field.

But everything evolves. France, Great Britain and Germany, the latter with its American military bases, were and could be, at first, effective aviation bases with nuclear capabilities.

Russia realized this and began to prepare its medium-range nuclear warhead missiles, capable of destroying nuclear vectors in Western Europe and attacking factories and logistics hubs and cities on the subcontinent.

This was achieved by vectors with a range of 500 km to 5,500 km. A new field of military air operations was born, unthinkable a few decades ago.

It soon became necessary for everyone to control and regulate medium-range vectors. On December 8, 1987, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, which stopped the proliferation of these weapons.

But on 02/01/2019, under Trump, the United States suspended the Treaty, accusing Russia of continuing to test-launch this type of medium-range missile. The next day, Russia also abandoned the Treaty.

And a new battlefield was left open, messy and unfinished.

The Soviet Union is “no longer that”. The Russian Federation is a corrupt and backward country, to which a market economy has been applied. Its military industry is quite suited to its interests.

The Hazel supposedly has a range of 6000 km, which puts it squarely in the category of an intermediate or medium-range missile. And its capabilities crown it as the “Queen of the Party”.

How much does it cost? How many Hazels can they manufacture in a given period of time? Will they dare to use it with atomic nuclear warheads? Do they all work equally well? Is there reproducibility in the manufacturing series? These are fission bombs with a capacity of “tens of thousands of kilotons” of destruction.

Quite sufficient, quite sufficient.

THE WAR BETWEEN ISRAEL AND IRAN. An apocalyptic war? First Part.

Introduction.

We have before us, face to face, the two most dangerous and extraordinary rivals that exist on Earth. They are the Jews or Israelites and the Shiite Islamists.

What gives them similarity? Both have a strong religiosity, resistant to anything, which is part of their identity and the essence of their life.

The Jews or Israelites.

The Jews are a small people, who have survived the vicissitudes of History in a truly unique and special way: persecutions, pogroms, genocides, collective exiles, attempts at religious assimilation, collective guilt received, deportations.

According to their ideology, they are the people Chosen by God to guard and carry through History the Plan of Yaweh for Humanity. They hold, treasure the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. This is where their merit, stamp and superiority are consecrated.

The Israelites have deviated from this many times, but Yahweh‘s anger has always been appeased. Among other things, because God needs them to complete his plan for men. Yahweh has been sending his warners, messengers or prophets to correct them, and he has punished them collectively with exiles, famines, nomadism, a sign that it was the people who had turned away from Him.

For the sons of Israel, God is not a Father. This is implausible. God is a “Great and Powerful Creator Lord”, with all the characteristics in superlative. He leads them along his paths, rewards and punishes them. He made them at his image and likeness; but that does not mean that God has eyes, ears, legs and hands. And, He is Loving with all his creatures.

Only Christians see and feel in God a Father, in Jesus a Brother Redeemer and in the Spirit, the Guide and Consoler of their earthly life, gently and serenely.

This belonging gives the Israelites a reassuring security. They are not proselytizers, they do not seek to spread their religion to others, even to their foreign cohabitants. The others do not belong to the people of God and have nothing to do with Salvation. This is the marrow, the central essence and the core of everything.

This gives the Israelites an unprecedented, solid and secure courage in the face of a terrifying Nuclear War. Which Israel, from the start, does not seek, nor desire. They advance in the battles, without worrying about the greater number of enemies, because Jahweh Fights at their Side.

If God wants it will happen and they will be taken by the angels to Jahweh, at the culmination of History.

The Shiite Muslims.

There is a great ideological and practical difference between Sunnism and Shiism.

The latter feels persecuted, because of the dynastic orthodoxies (it defends the rights of the Prophet’s family to lead Islam) and ideological orthodoxies (it admits fewer sources of revelation, limiting the Hadiths, the sayings and deeds of the Prophet, by their origin – who communicated them- and line of transmission), which the Shiites proclaim and defend.

A’isha, the third and most cultured of the Prophet’s wives, would have been a caliph if she were a man, and Ali, cousin, son-in-law, husband of Fatima, the favorite daughter of Mohammed, are the two main and reputable creators of Hadith for Sunnis and Shiites. They begin like this: I saw…; I heard…; I knew… and the successive transmitters are also added. This chain guarantees the traceability of the hadith.

Omar, the second caliph after Abu Bakr, worked to purify and organize the Hadiths and the texts of the Khoran.

The schism of Islam was consolidated on October 10, 680, when the troops of Yazid, the second Umayyad caliph, defeated and killed Hussein Ben Ali, grandson of Mohammed, in the battle of Kerbala, in Iraq. The total number of casualties on both sides in the decisive battle of Kerbala was seventy.

The supporters of Hussein “son of Ali” (that is, Ben Ali, pronounced in English as Bin Ali. And then we call him as we hear his name, Bin Ali), were called in Arabic shi’at Ali, in short, Shi’is.

Everyone knows, from the displays on the news, the rituals of self-flagellation that devout men practice on certain Iraqi Shiite holidays.

A powerful reason for this sense of sorrow and suffering may be the great demographic inferiority of the Shiites. 90% of Muslims are Sunnis, who occupy the Holy Places of Islam and are spread throughout the world. Of the remaining 10%, the vast majority is Shiite, more than 86%, and the rest corresponds to small fractions, such as the Alawites of Syria, the Turkish dervishes. All of the latter are “heresy within the heresy” for Sunni Muslims.

In effect, the Shiites are like an island (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, which are bordering and with a majority only in Iran and Iraq) surrounded on all sides by the ocean of the Sunnis.

(To be continued)