The Temple of the Jaguar God. Zach Neal.

Akim Raschka, (Wiki.)

Zach Neal

After the cooling breezes and azure seas of the crossing, and he was lucky to have good weather for that, the jungle clad hills and olive waters of the Orinoco were a stark contrast. So was the heat. As the old steamer chugged along, painfully wheezing its way upstream, there was little to do but to try and stay cool and get to know the other members of the party.

The stout and sweaty Senor Hernandez owned the boat they were on, skippered by a bald-headed, fiercely mustachioed captain constantly chewing on an unlit cigar. For some reason no one could quite catch the name, no matter how many times they asked. The captain’s nephew, a boy about a year younger than he, Paolo, was the only other hand apparently required for what was almost a small ship.

There was his uncle, of course, looking raffish in a newly-sprouted beard and a bush jacket with an incongruous straw hat of local manufacture. Khaki shorts with a hundred pockets, Argyll socks and desert boots. A monocle on the right eye and a watch-chain hanging. That was his uncle, all right.

Weird Uncle Harry.

William Syrmes, about thirty-five years old, was his uncle’s secretary and trained in archaeological documentation. He would be doing drawings and photographic cataloguing as well as being in charge of the digging. If in fact they found anything. He was still young enough to be boyish still, in spite of his height.

It struck Jeremy that he was there to dig, all expenses paid of course.

Syrmes had broad shoulders, a bull neck and looked like a handy lad in a pinch.

This was even more so regarding Kevin Smith. Uncle Harry had introduced him as a former soldier. He’d been at the Somme. This one had a couple of scars on his upper lip.

His role was guide and adventurer. He was being paid for his time, which was sort of unique among them.

Apparently he’d been up the river before on unspecified errands, in Jeremy’s opinion either gold or gems…something to do with poaching perhaps. Selling guns and whiskey to the natives, although he might have been thinking of a different frontier.

This one could look after himself.

Gerald Day, the perfect gentleman, was paying his own way as he put it. With an interest in antiquities and primitive South American peoples in particular, he was an occasional journalist.

He and Uncle Harry had some sort of gentlemen’s agreement on an exclusive, whether or not they ever found anything. Venezuela, and especially the hinterland, was like the other side of the moon to the average reader. According to Mister Day, people ate up a certain kind of sensationalized adventure.

Most interesting of all, were Mister and Missus O’Dell. An American millionaire, easily late fifties or early sixties, Peter was a collector. He was looking forward to the thrill of discovering evidence of an unknown people and culture, rumoured to exist in the high hills a hundred miles inland. It would make his name as he put it. His wife, Melody, quite a bit younger, was the most perfectly decorative woman Jeremy had seen in quite some time. Yet there was the spark of a deeper intelligence in behind those quiet grey eyes, and it was interesting to note the sick thrill when he caught her examining him in some kind of assessment.

Hopefully he didn’t appear too callow in her eyes, although he knew he was young—very young.

Especially when she looked at him like that—

That didn’t necessarily make him a fool.

So far, nothing much had happened, other than being sleepless from hot steamy nights, queasy from sleeping on a boat, always in motion, bitten by bugs, afraid to drink the water, and almost afraid of going ashore at all. Not after seeing the biggest snake in the world poke its head up and then swim along, outpacing the boat on her port side and then disappearing into the low, overhanging branches and into the dappled green shadows where land presumably met water at some mysterious and unknown point.

Once he’d seen a half a dozen crocodiles, sunning themselves on a sandbar, and heard one or two stories of unknown creatures taking people in the night, he’d been pretty much convinced.

(...end of excerpt.)

Excerpt: Temple of the Jaguar God. Zach Neal.

Hamble, a bit of a ruffian.

Zach Neal

They were in the sixth form at Rugby. The end of term was coming up fast.

Hamble, a year older, threw the letter down, and stared off into space.

“What an extraordinary fellow.”

They’d been having a bit of a nosh-up in the privacy of Jeremy’s room. The two of them had pooled all kinds of hoarded private tucker when Hamble, who always had his nose into everything, scooped up what was another fellow’s private and personal mail. He was a big, hulking fellow with a heart of gold. Jeremy was grateful for his odd friendship—and a bit of protection.

“Floreat Rugbeia. Yes, he did say that.” Hamble shook his head in disgust at the fancy, monogrammed letterhead. “Fellow of the Royal Society, member of the Explorer’s Club.”

Throwing his feet up on the coffee table, he stuck his hands into his waistcoat pockets in a characteristic pose.

“Hah.”

Hamble was from a family of genteel county aristocracy, at least to hear him tell it, up Shropshire way. He could be, or beat on a ruffian whenever he wanted to, which was as often as he thought no one was looking and he could get away with it. Not so much evil, as amusing, thought Jeremy. And why not. Other than school, this part of the world—Rugby School in Warwickshire, was as boring as any other place he’d ever been. To be fair, that wasn't all that many places.

Uncle Harry, Dr. Harold C. Fawcett, Ph.D., was an alumni of their good old alma mater. Not that Jeremy Crowe was so fond of it. Not hardly, always with the low grades, and not a snow-ball’s chance of shining at either the letters or the games. If it wasn’t for Uncle Harry, Jeremy wouldn’t even be here. The financial support was more than welcome. Otherwise he would have to go out and muck and toil for his livelihood, something Jeremy wasn’t all that enthused about. He was still young enough to dream of better things.

Rugby school.

Harry was his mother’s younger brother and had made his fortune quite young, with a fortunate dig in Mesopotamia.

To be good at games was everything, but sweat and strain as he might, run like hell after the ball, bigger fellows, not all of them older men, made him look decidedly sick.

“And he’s a doctor?”

“Yes. Of a sort.”

“Are you going?”

Jeremy raised his eyebrows.

“Egads. I hadn’t really thought all that much about it—” There was that family connection, and some sense of obligation.

Something he’d always hated.

“Well, you’d better make up your mind. Pretty damned quick, old cock.”

“Yes! I suppose I should.” Jeremy raised the tea cup and drained it.

Hungry as always, no matter how much he ate, it never seemed to translate onto his lanky five-foot, eight-inch frame.

Flipping his hair out of his eye, Jeremy picked up the letter and read that last part again.

“Wire me soonest. Will provide money and tickets. We leave from Southampton on the ninth. You have to do something for the summer holidays and this is the opportunity for a little adventure. Yours, your Weird Uncle Harry.”

He sighed, deeply. The thoughts of another long and lonely summer at home in Norfolk drained his resistance. Stuffy country society versus the Spanish Main—or so it seemed.

His mother fussing around, all things great and small, and his father’s evil eye upon him.

Disapproval, questions, what is your big plan in life young man—

Disapproval versus the Spanish Main.

Hmn.

Perhaps not—

Harry was at least fun, the bugger always had been.

“Huh. I suppose there’s nothing else for it.”

Venezuela—some sort of mad archaeological expedition. The Temple of the Jaguar God.

And why not?

Why not indeed.

Harry always had been his favourite uncle.

Last Christmas, the last time he’d been around the manor, Jeremy’s facetious name for his father’s rectory, he’d been spouting Lewis Carroll.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.”

One thing he knew for sure—his father would always be poor.

If he wasn’t careful, so would he.

(End of excerpt, the story is 'The Temple of the Jaguar God', an homage to the Boys Own Paper of a more innocent age. > Ed.

The War of Information.

The Iraqi and Lebanese insurgencies, BlueHypercane, (Wiki.)

Zach Neal

The terrorism threat of ISIS/Daesh is composed of phases. The first phase is military. This can only be dealt with using a coordinated military strategy. It can only happen on the ground, in a specific location, that is to say Syria and Iraq and contiguous territories. This is just what you don’t have with so many players, so many factions, and so many splinter groups.

They’re fighting each other just as much as they’re fighting ‘the West’. They are fighting for independence, they’re fighting for ideology or religion, they’re fighting in some cases for national survival. ISIS/Daesh is fighting to found a fundamentalist nation-state, one with obvious expansionist aims.

Combatants are scattered all over the place and this is why outside powers will often choose a side or group to act as proxies.

I can’t say whether Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election promise to pull aircraft out of the conflict is the right decision. My instinct is that it’s not. If you don’t contribute to the effort, you have little moral weight in negotiations that may ultimately lead to a solution. 

The Canadian news establishment has just reported that Mr. Trudeau has told the G-20 conference that Canada will withdraw strike aircraft and focus on training Kurdish fighters—to be our proxies, and this will be our contribution.

In the past, ISIS/Daesh threatened Canada and its citizens. As a citizen, I suppose I’ve calculated the odds. I’m not too worried about it. Yet some of my friends are worried and people do worry. They will worry. There is that hysteria after a successful attack. Hysteria is no basis for sound decision-making.

It really isn’t that difficult to pull off a successful attack against unarmed civilians, in a peaceful, orderly context such as the typical Canadian city. This is especially so with the martyr mentality, where personal survival is not a big consideration.

Some have argued against allowing 25,000 refugees into this country. The public relations ‘victory’ that this would bring is a plus. Screening will be done on all applicants. I have a fair amount of confidence that this can be done properly, and yet at the same time, it probably is a good way to sneak moles, long-term undercover operatives, into Canada or any other country. 

Yet the fact is, that they will be thoroughly screened.

With everyone’s attention on refugees, the next terror cell leader may very well fly in from Tokyo on an Indonesian or other passport. The fact that everyone is focused elsewhere, would be a big help to such an individual, especially if they haven’t attracted prior notice and if they’ve been in and out of the target country multiple times with no issues already. Yet refugees will no doubt be monitored, some more closely than others, after arriving in this or any other country. Most would cheerfully accept that, in some limited sense, serene in the knowledge that they are innocent, and that they are welcome here, and then there is the whole fact of their escape, their survival, and ultimately, they will prosper and come to love this country. I have no doubt they will thank their God for that mercy.

The people who are arguing against admitting refugees are essentially conservative in their views—they’re going to argue against any form of immigration, under any circumstances and it is best to note that tendency.

The second phase is terrorism. This can be fought in several ways, some of which take place at our own borders and within those borders. It can also be approached on the ground in the Middle East, (or any great international transportation hub), using intelligence resources and the surveillance techniques available. This is in order to identify and apprehend bona fide terror suspects before they reach our borders.

After a successful terrorist attack, the natural impulse is to react—to do something under the pressure of events and public opinion.

After 9/11, the United States, its citizens and its government were humiliated. They were grieving. They were in a state of shock—and loud voices cried out for justice, for vengeance, and for war. Ultimately, they got their way, they got their victory, and it was impressive enough when seen on TV. The legacy of that is symbolized by Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. also lost a lot of moral authority among secular, moderate Muslims, and because of their actions, have contributed to the radicalization of some of the more marginal members of that and their own society. This is true even with modern, precision-guided weapons, which cannot guarantee that there will be no collateral damage among innocent civilian populations.

The ‘successful’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really haven’t negated the problem of terrorism. Some of that terrorism was refocused on the region, as factions engaged in a power struggle which still ensues. We have won a thousand battles and the war continues.

The third phase is financial. Wars, insurrections, cannot be conducted without funding. This is the most covert phase and therefore the most difficult to combat. Air strikes to take out oil targets, all that seems simple enough. Who are the customers buying the oil? Where is that oil going? I tried to explain to my brother that it really doesn’t have to go that far. It just has to be cheap, and available, and someone will buy it. There are a thousand middlemen. There are pipelines, roads, trucks, ships all over the region, and everyone likes money. Some of them probably do hate ‘the West’, or at least don’t like us quite so much as they like their own people. That part is understandable. Using Intelligence to follow the money trail and the arrest and criminal prosecution of principals would appear to be the only effective strategy. It is also extremely time-consuming and requires long-term commitment from a number of parties. It also requires thorough cooperation among quite a number of countries, some of which are unstable, disintegrating like Syria, or ambiguous in their attitudes.

Some of them are not particular friendly to the West, like Iran.

Some of those states have limited control within their own borders. Some of their infrastructures are known to be corrupt, and sympathetic to the enemy. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim country. They may well sympathize to a certain extent, in ISIS/Daesh’s struggle with the Shia Muslims, whom they view as heretics. Yet the inevitable result of a strong, fundamentalist state right on their borders can only be to destabilize the Saudi kingdom. Internal opposition forces, conservative or fundamentalist social forces can also see that and try to take advantage of it for their own political gain. There is no doubt that some of the money supporting the terrorists and ISIS/Daesh comes from within Saudi Arabia. It comes from plenty of other places as well, including the U.S., the U.K., and probably every western country where there is money to be made and, essentially, sent home to fuel the revolution. Foreign governments and security services can only offer so much assistance. 

They will do whatever they want within their own borders, this is the logic of power and the holding of power in your own country. To act unilaterally within the borders of Saudi Arabia can only be perceived in negative terms by the Saudis. The fact is, it is up to the Saudis to clean up their own backyard—with all the attendant risks of doing so. For the record, it is also true that the state of Israel, with its continuing policy of occupation, colonization and exploitation of Palestinian lands contributes greatly to instability in the region. This festering sore of western foreign policy (for we have not been able to stop it), also contributes to the radicalization of individuals.

The fourth phase is informational. It is the war of information, and I think it’s vital how we frame this to ourselves and others: this is not and should not be about ‘Islam’, it is and should be about terror, violence, and the rule of law, both domestic and international.

The war of information is broken down into several aspects. The enemy tries to learn about us and we learn about them. That’s intelligence-gathering. Then there is the propaganda war, where they make statements in the media and we make statements in the media. We’re talking back and forth to each other, essentially, an important and timeless aspect of war. Then there is the whole problem of surveillance of friendly populations who may harbour small numbers of enemy operatives. There is a huge amount of information to be collected, analyzed and disseminated. In any conflict, there is communication between enemies. The apocalyptic message of ISIS/Daesh will not appeal to many, and this is certainly true among Muslims themselves. Many of them are secularized and would like nothing better than to continue on that way, making small and incremental social changes that are relatively non-threatening and do not destabilize their own country and their own home. They can make those social and political decisions, reflecting the will of the common person, using their own value system and paying heed to their own sensibilities.

It is so much better if they have the opportunity to do that in peace, plenty and prosperity.

There will always be information and disinformation in a conflict.

This is as true in peace as it is in war.

END