Two More Mein Kampfs to
Treat with Complacency

James Lee 

James Lee is professor (emeritus) of management in the College of Business at Ohio University. He has served as dean or equivalent in universities in Africa, the Sub-Continent, South-East Asia, and the Middle-East for a total of twelve years.

Both threats to America are somewhat like Hitler’s famous warning, published in two volumes, 1925 and 1927. He gave us many years to prepare for his promised takeover of the world. Its second volume, entitled Die National Socialistische Bewegung (The National Socialist Movement), outlined the political program, including the wide variety of terrorist methods that National Socialism must pursue both in gaining power and in exercising it in the new Germany. Such methods would also be needed in the elimination of the Jews and anyone else who thwarted his move to install his brand of socialism--Nazism--throughout the world.

The two new threats to America were both published in 1998 to ho-hum audiences in America and beyond.

The first of these first appeared in full in the British newspaper The Guardian on February 23rd of that year. It is a threat to all who are “enemies of Islam,” but especially threatening to America given our active military role in Afghanistan and Iraq and our political role in Israel.

It was announced by Osama bin Laden in the name of the Prophet and signed by the following Islamic leaders to attest to its authenticity: Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Laden; Ayman al-Zawahiri, Amir of the Jihad Group in Egypt; Abu-Yasir Rif’ Ahmad Taha, leader of the Egyptian Salafist Islamic Group; Shaykh Mir Hamzah, Secretary of the Jamiaat-ulUlema-e-Pakistan; Fazlul Rahma, Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bahgladesh.

Here are a few important passages from this document that didn’t appear to have impressed our commander-in-chief (President Clinton) or his advisors before the World Trade Center disaster. Europeans are currently being given wake-up calls in the usual jihad fashion with bombs killing people on trains, buses and subways--to add to the alerts from daily suicide killings in Iraq.

Portions in Italics were given as quotes from Mohammad that appear in the Koran.

Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in the Book: “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war.”

. . . and peace be upon our prophet, Muhammad Bin ‘Abdallah, who said, “I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.”

. . . First for over seven years the United States had been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples, being used to that end, but they are helpless.

. . . Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres. . . .

Thirdly, if the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel’s survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. . . .

On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the fallowing fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies is an individual duty for every Muslim. . . . in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and to fight all pagans all together as they fight you all together, and fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and prevail (sic) justice and faith in God.”

. . . The Almighty God said,

“O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered.”

“O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do you prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things.”

Almighty God also says, “So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith.”

After reading this, there should be no mystery to the terrorist killing of Iraqi Muslims and American troops alike. Note, too, the power of this jihad: It renders the differences between Sunni and Shiites irrelevant where it comes to following Muhammad’s orders to fight to death in a war against Americans, pagans, infidels, or Muslims who give aid and comfort to them. (If you find the admonition strange, you must know that Hitler was given to such utterances in most of his speeches in his effort to get all the German citizens fully behind his radical changes in their government.)

The above pronouncement ought to help some understand why winning the war against Saddam Hussein and imprisoning him had no significant effect on the will of the devout Wahhabi Muslims any more than dropping more tons of bombs had on the will of Ho Chi Min to continue to fight, and win, I might add!

President Bush may be right when he believes that if he can hit Wahhabis over the head often enough with democracy, they will give up. I doubt it, however. This suggests that he considers this phenomenon of faith a fairly flimsy trait.

The other 1998 Mein Kampf: The Chinese threat also appeared three years before the 9/11 attack on the W.T.C. It was written by two brilliant Chinese colonels, Qiao Lieng and Wang Xiangsui, and was entitled Unrestricted Warfare. Unlike either Hitler’s Mein Kampf or Osama bin-Laden’s threat on behalf of Mohammad and Allah, this simply tells everybody who reads it how a nation like China, faced with an American military so advanced, can overcome this disadvantage and defeat its enemy.

Here is a quote from the colonels on why their “unrestricted” warfare will work:

Whether it be the intrusions of hackers, a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden, all these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidths understood by the American military. This is because they have never taken into consideration and have even refused to consider means that are contrary to tradition and to select measures of operation other than military means.

As you can see, the 9/11 choice of target was no Arab jihadist invention. Osama reads books in addition to the Koran.

That our military was unprepared for the unconventional warfare it has faced in Iraq for the last couple years--disrupting the electricity supply, the water supply, the oil supply (for export), the police functions and the governmental functions (like killing police chiefs, legislators, mayors and lower governmental bureaucrats)--is certainly no secret.

The colonels’ book simply multiplies these varied attack modes to come up with a great many more subversions and more serious ones at that.

Our military situation in Iraq has borne out the truth in the old quote: “The conventional army loses, if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose” (Editorial in Foreign Affairs for January 1969).

What the colonels described some seven years ago in their book (published, by the way, not by some obscure publisher, but by the Peoples Liberation Army’s Publishing House, a genuine Chinese government organization) is the kind of war that we have been fighting in Iraq, and one involving a greater variety of forms of attacks against us. Here is a sampling of them:

Financial: Entering and subverting banking and stock markets and manipulating the value of the currency.

Smuggling: Sabotaging a country’s economy by flooding its markets with illegal (pirated, etc.) goods.

Drugs: Flooding illicit drugs to help break down the fabric of society though their use.

Media: Manipulating a country’s media either by compromising or intimidating journalists or getting access to the country’s airwaves and imposing one’s own national perspectives.

Technological: Gaining control of or having an edge in particular vital technologies that can be used in both peace and wartime. (Note the Cox Report below)

Resources: Gaining control of scarce natural resources to be able to manipulate their access and market value.

Psychological: Imposing one’s national interest by dominating the rival nation’s perception of it own strengths and weaknesses.

Networking: Dominating or subverting transnational information systems.

International Law: Joining international or multinational organizations in order to subvert their policies and their interpretations of legal rulings.

Environmental: Weakening or subjugating the enemy nation by despoiling or altering its natural environment.

Economic: Controlling the targeted country through aid and economic dependency.

In chapter 7 of their book, the colonels discuss in great detail how these and other elements of unconventional warfare not explicitly listed can be combined for the best effect depending upon relevant characteristics of the enemy.

The Cox Commission Report

This Congressionally mandated study produced abundant evidence that the Chinese government had been acquiring sensitive technological information from the U.S. all along. While the study was going on, our Department of Energy was negotiating the sale of a $9 million supercomputer at a bargain basement price of $30,000 to a Chinese businessman who bought it for the Chinese government. More of such breaches of national security took place as Clinton re-oriented his Secretary of the Department of Energy, Hazel O’Leary, to his commitment to “de-nuclearization and greater openness” policy at our research laboratories. She banned the wearing of colored security badges at the national labs and D.O.E. headquarters that revealed who had clearances to enter sensitive areas, under the rationale that such practice was “discriminatory.” She also terminated the standard practice of restricting visits by foreign nationals from sensitive countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, to unclassified areas of the labs. She did away with background checks on most of the foreign visitors to America’s most important nuclear laboratories. After all, if you donate millions to the American presidential campaign, you ought to get something in return, right? 

Another Wakeup Call Being Ignored 

Dr. Constantine Menges’ last book before his death last year, China: The Gathering Threat recognizes and adds to the above threats laid out by the two Chinese colonels in their book. Both note that America is considered by the Chinese government to be China’s foremost enemy, and one that eventually has to be conquered. A former senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Dr. Menges served several years in the White House as a special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and at the CIA. He was also distinguished professor of International Relations at George Washington University. Here are some of the important facts from his book:

Did you know that China:

• Can launch nuclear weapons that in 30 minutes could kill 100 million Americans?
• Has defined the United States as its “main enemy?”
• Has used espionage to steal the designs of nearly all of our nuclear warheads and many other military secrets?
• Has threatened to destroy entire American cities if the U.S. were to help democratic Taiwan defend itself from a Chinese military assault?
• Buys weapons from Russia designed to sink U.S. aircraft carriers?
• Controls more than $200 billion of the U.S. National debt?
• Sells more than 40 percent of its exports to the U.S., which provides much of the money used to build up its economy and its advanced weapons systems aimed mostly at the U.S.?
• Remains, along with Russia, the leading supplier of weapons of mass destruction technology and material to North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, and Cuba?

William Hawkins, senior fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, notes, as Menges pointed out, that “Here we are in the vulnerable U.S., lobbying away for more and more trade with China while ignoring national security interests.” Bill Gertz, national security reporter for the Washington Times, reminded an audience at the Hudson Institute of China’s age-old mantra: “Bide your time . . . build your capabilities. Defeat your enemy without firing a shot.”

At this same meeting, Al Santoli, President and director of the Asia America Initiative, noted that what makes China so formidable is that:

They don’t have to match us strength for strength. Their master plan is for us to become a vassal state as China buys up our debt.

I could see their economic buildup plan as far back as 1986 when they invited me to consider developing a college of business within their Maritime Institute in Shanghai where their merchant ship officers are trained. They wanted them to become expert business managers so they could manage much of their trade and oversee the management of the ports they planned to take over.

Since then I have seen China, through its influence over COSCO (Li Ka-Shing’s Corporation) take control of both ends of the Panama Canal by leases of Balboa Port where the Canal joins the Pacific Ocean, and Cristobal Port where the Canal connects with the Atlantic Ocean. And China has increased its control over American ports, notable among them the lease for Pier J in Long Beach Harbor, our port for Los Angeles.

I should remind the reader here that China has a well-known long history of ignoring agreements, treaties, national laws, and international laws and regulations when it suits their purposes. They ignored our laws when they illegally interfered with our national presidential election with cash contributions to candidates Clinton and Gore, and ignored our laws when they were caught shipping small arms through the port in Long Beach. And just recently they have applied for an extension of their Pier J lease there to add an additional 115 acres to their lease.

Their known financial support of the political regime in Panama means that they could, if need be, likewise ignore their lease agreements to use their presence via their Chinese military-controlled corporation to take actions that go beyond their lease agreement requirements. Just recently the Panamanian government has granted Li Ka-Shing an exclusive option to lease Fort Sherman, America’s former premier jungle warfare center; Albrook Air Force Base, which was a state-of-the-art military air base; and Rodman Naval Base, which has the capacity to supply, refuel and repair almost every type of warship in the world. Li Ka-Shing appears to be trying to gain control over the canal itself by playing a leading role in a major expansion being planned by the Panama Canal Authority and the Government of Panama.

China also has a large presence in Cuba, where it conducts experiments to disrupt our air traffic controls. And China is building up trade relations with many Latin American countries such as Venezuela, where it has long-term deals for oil.

World War II caught America completely unprepared militarily. Our leadership seemed unaware that Hitler had given us, and the rest of the world, fair warning, but was more or less ignored. Later our leadership disregarded Ho Chi Min’s open defiance and his confidence that his warriors would win. He did this without knowing in advance that our Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, in his strategy for winning the Viet Nam war, would be unable to factor in the significant military effects of Ho Chi Min’s spirit in his computer-programmed designs for winning.

Given all the obvious signs, we ought to be planning to deal with China’s plans for our future. We need to keep our fingers off the snooze button and heed our wake up calls!     *

 “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” --Frederic Bastiat