ISRAEL PREPARES FOR WAR IN GAZA STRIP, NORTH KOREA DEFIANT, MULLAH OMAR HIDING IN PAKISTAN VILLAGE, AL QAEDA NUKE ATTACK LEADER IN UK
Israel has ratcheted up threats of a massive ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, amid an ongoing war of words with the ruling Hamas movement which has vowed to teach the army a harsh lesson.
"Gaza should not become a second Lebanon," said Immigrant Absorption Minister Zeev Boim on Tuesday, reiterating a phrase used by Israeli leaders recently to mean the territory should not become a bastion of militant resistance.
"Apparently we will not have any other choice but to launch an expanded operation, like Defensive Shield, in order to destroy the stockpiles of weapons and to hit the terrorist organizations," said Boim, a close ally of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused the Hamas-led government of being "defiant," accusing the governing Islamic group of refusing "to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization ... and past signed agreements." He said the group's refusal to open negotiations with Israel has worsened the situation in the Palestinian territories. (Ali Waked)
Doctors in Gaza have reported previously unseen injuries from Israeli weapons that cause severe burning and deep internal wounds often resulting in amputations or death.
The injuries were first seen in July, when the Israeli military launched a series of operations in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.
Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries from shells or bullets, there were no large shrapnel pieces found in the patients' bodies and there appeared to be a "dusting" on severely damaged internal organs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1924524,00.html
Blackhawk helicopters and interceptor jets have begun patrolling Montana airspace along the U.S.-Canada border, and American officials say unmanned drones could be deployed as early as next year.
But the U.S. is playing down the new security measure, claiming it has little to do with Canadians but more to do with the threat of terrorists using Canada as a staging point for attacks in America.
And they say that as long as the terrorist threat exists, border security will continue to be a high priority.
Russian music download site allofmp3.com insisted it was a legitimate business and said US accusations of piracy were merely an excuse to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organisation.
"The US government is conveniently using allofmp3 as an issue to gain further concessions from Russia," said company boss Vadim Mamotin and other executives.
"We operate under Russian law, we pay taxes in Russia and we pay royalties," they said in response to journalists' questions in an online news conference.
Russia has campaigned for 12 years to join the WTO but the United States is still witholding its endorsement of Moscow's candidacy -- it is the only major economy that has not yet backed Russia's bid -- citing shortcomings in several key trade sectors.
Moscow wants to join the organisation both for the prestige of membership and as a means to spur diversification in its own economy, still focused heavily on raw materials export.
But US negotiators have repeatedly returned to the issue of the worldwide music sales of allofmp3.com -- protection of intellectual property being a major stumbling block in Russia's negotiations to join the club.
US Trade Representative Susan Schwab has placed allofmp3.com on a "notorious markets" list and in a speech last month she accused Russian authorities of allowing the website to operate with impunity.
North Korea on Tuesday denounced UN sanctions over its nuclear test as a declaration of war and the United States and others suspected it may try a second bomb test despite international condemnation.
Defiant in the face of sanctions backed by even its closest ally, China, Pyongyang said it had withstood international pressure before and so was hardly likely to yield now that it had become "a nuclear weapons state."
"It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state," official media quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
"The DPRK wants peace but is not afraid of war," he said, referring to the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/861608
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told The Associated Press that Mullah Omar, the supreme Taliban leader who headed the repressive Islamist regime ousted by U.S.-led forces five years ago, is hiding in the southeastern Pakistani city of Quetta.
The Taleban's War On Women, Which Nations Will Go Nuclear Next?, What Is Up With North Korea?, The Korean Nightmare Scenario: WHEN KOREA FALLS, Ireland Sets Date- Again
Despite winning key concessions, Russia and China raised new objections that could delay a vote Saturday on a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing punishing sanctions on North Korea for its claimed nuclear test.
North Korea announced its first test of a nuclear device last week, setting off hand-wringing around the world that a newly armed Pyongyang might sell nuclear weapons to rogue states or terrorists.
But another threat, more likely and more dangerous, may emerge. Pyongyang's test could encourage "near-nuclear" proliferation -- a world in which states master key technologies that are ostensibly for harmless energy-related purposes but can be quickly adapted for deadly, offensive ends.
My own feeling is that the North Korean nuclear program is being done to make sure the current leaders family remains in control of the nation after his demise. This is not lost on the world's dictators. The following article is a must read: THE NIGHTMARE AFTER IRAQ
Kim Jong Il’s succession was aided by the link that his father had established in the North Korean mind between the Kim Family Regime and the Choson Dynasty, which ruled the Korean peninsula for 500 years, starting in the late fourteenth century. Expertly tutored by his father, Kim consolidated power and manipulated the Chinese, the Americans, and the South Koreans into subsidizing him throughout the 1990s. And Kim is hardly impulsive: he has the equivalent of think tanks studying how best to respond to potential attacks from the United States and South Korea—attacks that themselves would be reactions to crises cleverly instigated by the North Korean government in Pyongyang. “The regime constitutes an extremely rational bunch of killers,” Lankov says.
Yet for all Kim’s canniness, there is evidence that he may be losing his edge. And that may be reason to worry: totalitarian regimes close to demise are apt to get panicky and do rash things. The weaker North Korea gets, the more dangerous it becomes. The question that should be of greatest concern to the U.S. military in the Pacific—and the question that will likely determine the global balance of power in Asia for generations—is, What happens when North Korea collapses?
Fariba Ahmedi, a member of Afghanistan's parliament, says the murder of women's rights activist Safia Amajan "will not derail women from the path we are on." Ms. Amajan, a former teacher and school administrator and the head of Kandahar province's women's affairs department, was shot to death on her way to work. She was an outspoken critic of the Taleban. A Taleban commander claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened death to other Afghan women. http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2006-10-13-voa4.cfm
Sen. Hillary Clinton isn't exactly cash-starved as she heads into the closing days of her race against her GOP rival, former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer.
New York's junior senator had about $15.8 million on hand at the end of September, according to campaign finance filings released yesterday, and early this month she donated more than $1 million to other Democratic campaign groups. Spencer spokesman Rob Ryan said, "It's obvious: Sen. Clinton is using this money to fund her run for President." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/461566p-388379c.html
A TIMETABLE that would lead to power sharing in Northern Ireland has been put in place following talks at St Andrews.
A target date for devolution of March 26 next year has been put in place by the British and Irish governments.
Parties from both sides of the divide, including the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, now have until November 10 to respond to the proposals.
Iraq is already in a state of "limited civil war" and progress towards making its army viable is "faltering," a leading U.S. expert says. "Iraq is already in a state of limited civil war," wrote Anthony H. Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent Washington think tank, in an executive summary of his new report published last week and entitled "Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War: Can Iraqi Forces do the Job?"
Cordesman wrote: "What began as a small resistance movement centered around loyalists to the Baath and Saddam Hussein has expanded to include neo-Salafi Sunni terrorism, become a broadly based Sunni insurgency, and now a broader sectarian and ethnic conflict."
Although the Bush administration remains publicly upbeat about the rapid development of Iraq's 300,000-man strong security forces, including an envisaged 10-division army, Cordesman wrote that the development of these security forces remains "slow or faltering."
PLANS previously drafted by the Pentagon predict 52,000 US military casualties and one million civilian dead in the first 90 days of conflict if America attacked Pyongyang.
The US leadership is looking at international economic and diplomatic sanctions against North Korea as its primary response to Monday's nuclear test.
But military contingencies are considered as a matter of course and analysts paint a horrific picture for even the most targeted of US strikes.
A report this week by US-based security and military analyst Stratfor predicts North Korea could return fire on Seoul with "several hundred thousand high-explosive rounds per hour" -- with up to 25 per cent of shells filled with nerve gas.
Other estimates say the US would need at least 500,000 ground troops to secure against a North invasion of the South.
"When US military planners have nightmares, they have nightmares about war with North Korea," the Stratfor analysis says.
Despite the risks, Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations expert Michael Levi, along with several Australian analysts, believe a North Korean nuclear test would increase the likelihood of a US military response.
Pentagon strategists continue to work on military contingencies but all scenarios forecast massive casualties and a high likelihood of escalating war.
When confronted with Pentagon drafts in 2004, US President George W. Bush was reported to have been horrified at the human cost. Updated Pentagon plans outlining bombing of North Korean nuclear sites, border artillery and troop emplacements call for:
US Air Force General reveals details of possible US aerial offensive against Iran should diplomacy fail to solve dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambition; says 'doing it alone' is not an option for Israel
Yitzhak Benhorin
Published:
10.12.06, 14:27
WASHINGTON - Is it possible to halt Iran's nuclear program by military means? For years, this question has been asked by Israeli and US military officials.
Israel prefers Washington to act on its behalf but academics, left-wing politicians and experts say a military option is not on the cards for the Bush administration because of the situation in Iraq.
But retired US Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney thinks otherwise. There is a good military solution to Iran's nukes but it requires courage and determination to act Mcinerney told Ynet in an interview.
McInerney served as a pilot and a strategic commander in the US Air Force for 35 years. Following his retirement in 1994 he served as a commentator for Fox News.
McInerney said Iran should be attacked by fall 2007 if diplomacy fails.
He added that an aerial attack should be backed by a secret land operation aimed at deposing the Ayatollahs.
McInerney said a military operation against Iran should aim at destroying 1,500 targets within 24 to 36 hours, which would delay Iran's nuclear ambitions by at least five years.
He added that paralyzing the Iranian air force and the Shihab 3 missiles aimed at Israel would be among the goals of a US military offensive against Iran.
He said the Iranian Navy should also be destroyed to prevent Tehran from blocking the Persian Gulf.
Overthrowing the Ayatollahs
The retired general estimates that such offensive would significantly destabilize the Ayatollah's regime.
Asked whether the exiled Iranian opposition is capable of governing Iran once the Ayatollahs are ousted, McInerney said the Iranian nation is divided and many citizens opposed to the Ayatollahs would attempt to take power.
Over 4,300 protests took place in Iran last year, he said.
He also noted that only 51 percent of Iranians are Persians while 49 percent belong to different ethnic groups.
He added that the Ayatollahs can be ousted if the US clandestinely supports opposition groups within Iran.
A US aerial attack against Iran would involve the following stages, says Mcinerney:
Even as people were trying to get over the shock after the killing of prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a top Russian banker was shot dead here in a suspected case of contract killing.
Alexander Plokhin, a director of the Moscow branch of Russia's state-owned Foreign Trade Bank, Vneshtorgbank, was shot in the head on the staircase of an apartment building yesterday. Police, who found a pistol cartridge at the scene, said the attack bore the hallmarks of a contract killing, Interfax reported.
To many of us Anna Politkovskaya will remain the epitome of what a journalist should be.
She represented the best traditions of the Russian intelligentsia - highly cultured, courageous and fiercely honest.
A softly-spoken and serious woman who always talked in measured terms, she was deeply concerned about what was happening in her country.
She was also deeply disturbed by the direction the Putin administration was taking it, and despite the huge pressures put on Russia's media to submit and conform, she regularly investigated and reported the many abuses she believed were ruining the country's progress towards a normal state of democracy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6034701.stm
Anna Politkovskaya made her name reporting from Chechnya for Russia's liberal newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.
She was also the author of two books in English, A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya (2001), and Putin's Russia (2004).
Her writing was often polemical, as bitter in its condemnation of the Russian army and the Russian government as it was fervent in support of human rights and the rule of law.
In the House of Farewell, an austere, cavernous funeral hall at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery, the body of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya lay in an open casket Tuesday afternoon as thousands of mourners -- ambassadors, journalists, civil activists, politicians and ordinary Russians -- filed past and paid their final respects.
A well-placed insider said today that some within the intelligence community are taking an alternative view in confirming Pyongyang’s claims that it has a nuclear program.Other than loud words, a few seismic wiggles, acquisition of nuclear technology and materials, and an active missile program, there is little hard evidence of a nuclear program.Some analysts believe North Korea may now be perpetrating a ruse.Those analysts believe Pyongyang may be replacing a failing nuclear program with an active deception program.
Some analysts believe North Korea may now be playing a high-stakes political gambit modeling its strategy after Libya.Gadhafi, once considered one of the more evil leaders on earth, acquired nuclear components and apparently set out to make atomic weapons, yet after apparently failing, agreed to give up his WMD program if sanctions were dropped. http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWNjMzgyZDAzMTc4YWFiYjgzNDdjZTk3ZGRmODkyNTE=
At least 11 000 children in Congo are still in the hands of armed groups or unaccounted for three years after the end of a war in which they were captured and forced to fight, Amnesty International said today.
Democratic Republic of Congo is trying to haul itself back to lasting peace after a 1998-2003 conflict dubbed Africa's first world war, which triggered a humanitarian crisis estimated to have killed nearly four million people. But as the vast country prepares for an October 29 presidential run-off vote meant to open a new era in its history, thousands of children are still being kept as fighters by armed groups ready to return to war if peace fails, Amnesty said in a report.
Congo's government launched a programme across the country - roughly the size of western Europe - two years ago to release child soldiers and reintegrate them into civilian life, but Amnesty said the scheme was failing. http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/central_africa/0,2172,136449,00.html
Women in Ethiopia are most likely to suffer violence at the hands of their partners, says the United Nations.
Nearly 60% of Ethiopian women were subjected to sexual violence, including marital rape, according to the Ending Violence Against Women report.
HOLY WAR IN SOMALIA DECLARED, CALL FOR IRAQ PARTITION GROWS, BUSH CONTINUES CLINTON TERROR STRATEGY, N. IRELAND PAISLEY MEETS WITH CATHOLIC BISHOP AND WORLD SURVIVES, TALIBAN PREPARES FOR NEW PHASE OF WAR!
Here at Civil Defense blogdrive I've advocated splitting Iraq up into at least three different states for years. Well, here's an article from antiwar.com which advocates the same. Clearly this idea is spreading.
The civil war will intensify if these regions are not allowed to govern themselves. Given Iraq's recent history, these groups are fighting each other because they fear that the new central government will be used to oppress whatever group or groups are not in power. The only way to ease their fears is to make the central government weak or nonexistent. As for multiple ethnic/religious groups living in the cities, it is a fallacy that each of the autonomous regions in Iraq would have to be composed of contiguous territories. There could also be more than three regions created. In addition, if, for example, the regional lines had to be drawn so that some members of the Sunni group were a minority in the territory of the Shi'ite group, the Shia might be deterred from violence against them because they had a minority in the Sunni areas, and vice versa.
Many opponents of decentralization or partition use the example of the civil war during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Yet that is not the only model. Czechoslovakia and most of the Soviet Union broke up peacefully. Even in the case of Yugoslavia, when Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia separated from Yugoslavia, if the Serbs in those states had been allowed to affiliate with Serbia, a civil war might have been avoided.
The president and those giving him advice should admit the truth to themselves and to the American people: A unified, democratic Iraq is unattainable. Only then can they adopt and sell the radical solution of recognizing the existing de facto partition in Iraq and drastically shrinking or even eliminating the potentially oppressive central government.
An Islamic militia that has seized much of southern Somalia declared a holy war Monday against Ethiopia, accusing its neighbor of deploying thousands of troops to prop up the country's weak, U.N.-backed government.
"I urge all the Somali people to wage holy war against the Ethiopians," said top Islamic leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, wearing combat fatigues and holding aloft an AK-47 assault rifle.
"Ethiopian troops have intentionally invaded our land," he said. "We will counter them soon."
His comments came hours after residents said hundreds of Ethiopian and government troops forced Islamic fighters to abandon Bur Haqaba, a strategic hilltop town. Sheik Yusuf Indahaadde, the national security chairman for the Islamic group, claimed that 35,000 Ethiopian troops were on Somali soil. Foreign observers, however, have put the number in the hundreds.
North Korea may be a starving, friendless, authoritarian nation of
23 million people, but its apparently successful explosion of a small nuclear device in the mountains above the town of Kilju on Monday marks a de
fiant bid for survival and respect. For Washington and its allies, it marks a failure of nearly two decades of atomic diplomacy.
North Korea is more than just another nation joining the nuclear club. It has never developed a weapons system it did not ultimately sell on the world market, and it has periodically threatened to sell its nuclear technology. So the end of ambiguity about its nuclear capacity foreshadows a different era, in which the concern may not be where a nation's warheads are aimed, but in whose hands its weapons and know-how end up.
Democrats were quick to claim Monday, four weeks before a critical national election, that President Bush and hisaides never gave as much priority to countering a new era of proliferation as they did to overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
Bush and his aides contend that Iraq was the more urgent threat, in a volatile neighborhood. But the North's apparent nuclear test raises the question of whether it is too late for the president to make good on his promise that he would never let the world's "worst dictators" obtain the world's most dangerous weapons.
"What it tells you is that we started at the wrong end of the 'axis of evil,'" former Sen. Sam Nunn, the Georgia Democrat
The most alarming thing about Kim Jong-il's new weapons, to many knowledgeable observers, is not the nuclear threat itself. It is the way the world's major powers might respond to them.
The worst-case scenario goes something like this: Terrified by the nuclear threat next door, the Japanese decide to build their own nuclear arsenal, to the deep alarm of China. The United States beefs up its Pacific bases and begins threatening attacks on North Korean missile sites. In response to this new U.S. presence near its shores, China drastically increases its military strength and begins making overt threats, setting off a chain of military escalation. And North Korea, isolated and desperate after losing its last sources of economic support, sells its nuclear devices to al-Qaeda.
“It's more realistic today than it was yesterday,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, who was the U.S. State Department's chief official on nuclear proliferation issues until last year.
I'm still wondering where all the damn outrage is, and I'm not talking about the Foley scandal. On September 29, the Senate voted 100-0 in favor of the pork-swollen Pentagon Budget, which earmarked $70 billion for our ongoing military ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was no debate over the appropriations and not one Democrat voted against the egregious spending. On the same day, the Senate also overwhelmingly approved the dismantling of habeas corpus for "enemy combatants". Twelve Democrats sided with the Republicans to allow the US government to detain people arbitrarily and indefinitely.
We shouldn't be all that surprised the Democrats didn't filibuster the awful bill, which also expanded the definition of "enemy combatant" to include anybody who "has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." Whatever that's supposed to mean. No, the Democrats have long been on the frontlines of the federal government's assault on our civil liberties.
In fact, what we are seeing today is just a logical continuation of a foundation laid during the Clinton era. Before the now well-known Patriot Act there was The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which was signed into law following the Oklahoma City bombing. "The act was wide-ranging, dealing with everything from the making of plastic explosives to trading in nuclear materials," writes Georgetown law professor David Cole and James X. Dempsey in Terrorism and the Constitution.
"Members of Congress immediately felt tremendous pressure to pass antiterrorism legislation," Cole and Dempsey recall. "It did not matter that the proposals in the President's initial bill were directed largely against international terrorism, while the Oklahoma bombing was the work of homegrown discontents Eager to get the bill on the President's desk by the April 19 anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Senate adopted the conference report on April 17 in a 91-8 vote. The next day, the House also adopted the report by a vote of 293-133. On April 24, President Clinton signed The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996."
"To make the death penalty effective," explains civil liberties expert Elaine Cassel in The War on Civil Liberties, "meant making it harder to appeal convictions of capital offenses." Clinton's law, says Cassel, also "[made] it a crime to support even the lawful activities of an organization labeled as terrorist [authorized] the FBI to investigate the crime of 'material support' for terrorism based solely on activities protected under the First Amendment [freezes] assets of any US citizen or domestic organization believed to be an agent of a terrorist group, without specifying an 'agent' [expanded] the powers of the secret court [repealed] the law that barred the FBI from opening investigations based solely on activities protected under the First Amendment [and allowed] the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now called the US Citizenship and Immigration Services) to deport citizens (mostly Muslims) upon the order of INS officials."
Of course, these are but a few of the ways in which the Clinton administration infringed upon civil liberties.
A Taliban commander in Afghanistan says hundreds of Taliban fighters are ready to launch suicide attacks to drive U-S and NATO troops out of his country.
A CLOSE friend of murdered teenager Kriss Donald told a court yesterday how he fought to save his friend's life as they were attacked by a gang of Asian men.
Unemployed Jamie Wallace, now 22, described how he and the 15-year-old schoolboy were attacked as they walked down a Glasgow street in daylight, in March 2004.
Edinburgh High Court heard Kriss was repeatedly punched and desperately resisted attempts to bundle him into a Mercedes.
Wallace told jurors: "I was trying to fight back. We were surrounded."
He also alleged one attacker shouted "white bastard" as Kriss yelled "I'm only 15".
The trial has heard the partially clothed body of Kriss, from Pollokshields, Glasgow, was found on the Clyde Walkway the day after the alleged abduction.
Advertisement
Imran Shahid, 29, his brother Zeeshan, 29, and Mohammed Mushtaq, 27, deny abducting Kriss, murdering him and setting him on fire.
Some people think Bin Laden's network has been devastated by the war on terrorism, but Bruce Hoffman disagrees: The RAND Corporation expert talks to SPIEGEL ONLINE about al-Qaida's structure since September 11, Hezbollah's ambitions in Lebanon, and the chances of American success in Iraq.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Hoffman, five years have passed since 9/11. US officials claim that two-thirds of the al-Qaida leadership have either been captured or killed. Yet you are saying that al-Qaida is on the march. What leads you to that conclusion?
Hoffman: Whatever the percentage of the leadership killed or captured, that was the leadership that existed on 9/11. I find that a tremendous success. I don't want to minimize it. But it is also a dangerously anachronistic view because al-Qaida has been capable of filling that void in five years. The constant succession of "Number Threes" -- people in the post of operations chief, from Mohamed Atef to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Hambali to Hamza al-Rabi, for instance -- proves that. Al-Qaida has a much deeper bench than we thought. They have shown themselves to be more formidable and perhaps more determined than we imagined.
ABOUT BRUCE HOFFMAN
SPIEGEL ONLINE
Dr. Bruce Hoffman is one of the most prolific terror experts in the world, and one of the few who began studying al-Qaida long before September 11, 2001. Now a professor at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., he worked for years on counterterrorism for the RAND Corporation think tank, and advised the US provisional authority in Baghdad on counterterrorism in 2004. A new edition of his seminal book, "Inside Terrorism" was published in German this year.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Yet we haven't seen another 9/11, only attacks on a smaller scale. Has the threat deminished?
Hoffman: You must look at terror as a constant phenomenon. It changes continuously. Even before 9/11 al-Qaida was not a monolithic organisation. Certainly today it is not the same as it was on 9/11. It doesn't have a state within a state anymore, as it had in Afghanistan. It doesn't have a network of training camps and operational bases and a very solid command-and-control nexus. But now a lot of those training capabilities have migrated from physical space to virtual space, because the terrorists are using the Internet much more. Possession of Afghanistan should not be equated with being capable of a 9/11-type attack. Much of the 9/11 attacks were not planned in Afghanistan but in Germany, Spain and the US as well. I think that al-Qaida still exercises command-and-control. The attacks on the London Underground in July 2005 show that. And there are indications that the recently unmasked London airliner plot from this summer will, too. Al-Qaida is still alive and kicking and, as the airliner plot may yet show, still thinking in the same grandiose, ambitious terms as before 9/11.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But are Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri still the ones ordering attacks?
Hoffman: That's unclear. But there surely is some command structure that functions out of Waziristan. The pattern of the bombings in London in July 2005 for example was almost identical with older plans by al-Qaida. It was carried out by a cell of British Muslim terrorists enlisted by al-Qaida and directed or assisted by al-Qaida cells in Pakistan just as a foiled plan the previous year to attack targets in the US was. In the wishful thinking mode that we are in, we chose not to believe al-Qaida was behind the London attack, and instead believe it was a case of "homegrown terrorism." But that is a myth. The London bombers were no self-radicalized, self-selected individuals acting spontaneously. The ring leader had visited jihadi camps in Pakistan on at least two occasions, and we believe he met with al-Qaida leaders there. By the same token, it wouldn't suprise me if the foiled airliner plot this summer could also be traced back to the al-Qaida leadership. It was also straight out of their textbook and not something self-radicalized, self-selected terrorists could easily devise, organize and coordinate on their own.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: At the same time you write about several new al-Qaidas that exist today...
Hoffman: Yes, because new structures have emerged. It is not an "either/or"-phenomenon: There are both new cells inspired by al-Qaida and actual al-Qaida terrorists active today. That is why I think al-Qaida is more dangerous than it was on 9/11. Because you have now a vast sea of self-radicalized Muslims in many places in the Muslim world that aren't necessarily connected with al-Qaida but willing to act. So you still have an al-Qaida organization that is operating on its own but is also seeking to tap into that pool of unhappiness and disaffection.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There have been rumors recently about Osama bin Laden being dead or seriously ill. What consequences would his death have?
Hoffman: Bin Laden may be even more powerful dead than alive -- by inspiring people to follow his example of martyrdom. But also alive he is a very influential person, even if he is cut off from communication with his followers. Killing or capturing him straight after 9/11 would have had more impact. The fact that the biggest manhunt in history hasn't led to his arrest until now has already greatly enhanced his standing.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In your book "Inside Terrorism" you cite Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri as saying that al-Qaida has the US where they wanted it: if it leaves Iraq, it would be bad, if it stays in Iraq, it wouldn't be any better. Is he right?
Hoffman: Unfortunately I think al-Zawahiri's analysis is probably among the most astute and insightful. I think what he underestimates though is the capacity of the United States to have a positive impact in Iraq or indeed produce the staying power to see through what it has begun. Al-Zawahiri sees Iraq as a flat line that will continue to get worse and descend into total anarchy. Iraq is not a lost cause. We have to realize though that countering complex insurgencies has generally taken at least a decade. So it is still early days, even three years into the conflict there. Therefore, the accuracy of al-Zawahiri's predicition will have to stand the test of time.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A couple of months ago, the US had to admit that Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorism.
Hoffman: One of our problems is that we don't take seriously what jihadis say. Even before the invasion, Saif al-Adel, the then military chief of al-Qaida, openly incited foreign fighters to come fight there. Why we didn't believe an insurgency would occur still baffles me. The battle cry had already been sounded. Now we even have Iraqi jihadis, something that formerly didn't exist. In this situation it doesn't matter anymore if invading Iraq was right or not. Now the highest priority must be to succeed in Iraq. But that is going to take time. We have to adjust and adapt to our highly innovative and determined adversaries.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The UNIFIL peacekeeping force is concentrating in Lebanon to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. You have studied Hezbollah for a long time. Can you picture Hezbollah changing into a political party? Or will it stay a terrorist threat?
Hoffman: This also is not an "either/or"-question. Hezbollah, on the one hand, has become a major regional political force. But at the same time I don't see them giving up their military potential, since they style themselves a resistance force protecting Lebanon. Hezbollah can thus take tremendous satisfaction in having acquitted itself well against the Israelis this summer and having gained as much as they can for now: international attention, an improved standing with Shiites and even Sunnis across the Muslim world. They are likely to see the time right now as best used to consolidate these gains. The ceasefire will therefore perhaps hold for the time being -- at least as long as it is in Hezbollah's interest.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: For the first time Germany is sending soldiers to the Middle East. The navy is supposed to make sure no arms are being smuggled to Hezbollah via the Mediterranean. Is that a purely symbolic mission?
When the Reverend Ian Paisley, leader of Northern Ireland's largest Protestant political party, held his first formal talks with the local Roman Catholic archbishop in Belfast, perhaps even more unusual than the fact of the talks themselves was that afterward, each side seemed cheerful, almost optimistic.
"It was a very helpful and constructive meeting," the archbishop, Sean Baptist Brady, said in a statement. The talks, he added, "confirmed to me that all of us have a part to play in creating a more stable and prosperous future for Northern Ireland." He called on all sides to "find the courage to take account of the needs of the other and not just those of our own community."
Paisley, the hard-line preacher who leads the Democratic Unionist Party, said in a statement after the meeting that "we had a very good and useful exchange of views across a range of issues." He said he and members of his party discussed poverty, the economy and the benefits of stable self-government in the province with the archbishop and a delegation from the Northern Ireland Catholic Council on Social Affairs. "It is in the interests of everyone to develop the foundations for stability and prosperity for all the people of Northern Ireland," Paisley said.
It would be difficult to overstate the depth of Paisley's dislike of Roman Catholicism. In 1988, as a member of the European Parliament, he interrupted a speech by Pope John Paul II by shouting, "I renounce you as the Antichrist!" He also held up a red poster that read, "Pope John Paul II - Antichrist."
After the fall of the Taliban five years ago, some experts warned of a nightmare scenario in which the Taliban and Al Qaeda would escape from Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan and set up new command centers far out of America's reach.
That nightmare scenario has now come true. The Taliban controls large parts of the lawless tribal areas along the border. In a video obtained by FRONTLINE, the Taliban demonstrate their brutal brand of justice. After executing 17 people, said to be thieves, in front of a crowd of hundreds, they hung the bodies on poles for three days. "We have killed these people and sent them to God," a Taliban gunman says to the camera. "God will bring them to justice."
"The United States is beginning to recognize that its project in Afghanistan will fail unless it addresses the sanctuary and support that the Taliban enjoys in Pakistan," says Steve Coll. "But the United States has not yet reached the point where it knows what kind of ... policy it is prepared to carry out." WATCH THE ENTIRE FRONTLINE SPECIAL HERE:
Science and religion. Two distinct philosophical choices we are faced with to understand our world. One encourages questioning, discussion and arguments. One encourages no questioning and a general belief that going along is a sign of faith. Even folks who break from religion might catch themselves working for a world of peace and justice, in other words, heaven. Religious thought sees an order and a reason. Scientific thought sees asteroids flying by the planets and wonders when we'll get hit, and uses reason.
Right now across America cities are passing laws against obesity. Here is how the argument goes: our political system is to blame for encouraging a consumerist, fast food culture (guilt) that has caused our kids to get fatter than ever. So we must ban types of cooking oil used by chains and it will all get better then (heaven). Healthier humans, skinny kids. Angels.
Now. What does science show us? It's genetic folks. We have body types that when we try to change them always go back to the original shape. GENETIC:
With the identification of leptin and its receptors by our laboratory, two of the molecular components of a system that maintains constant weight have been identified. Leptin is a hormone secreted by the adipose (fat) tissue that modulates food intake relative to energy expenditure. Leptin also plays a general role in regulating many of the physiologic responses that are seen with changes in nutritional state. Our current research is focused on the genes and regulatory mechanisms that control body weight, leptin's mechanism of action, and its relevance to the pathogenesis of obesity. Other studies seek to elucidate the mechanism by which a single molecule, leptin, can modulate a complex behavior, feeding. Finally, efforts to establish the genetic basis of human obesity on the Pacific Island of Kosrae are also under way.
It isn't McDonald's fault if some people can't stop eating.
Yet in city after city we pass laws based on nothing but a faith that "everyone knows". After you read this link you'll know what 90% of the population doesn't know.
Who has saved more human lives than anyone else in history? Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970? Who still teaches at Texas A&M at the age of 86? The answer is Norman Borlaug.
Who? Norman Borlaug, the father of the "Green Revolution," the dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity that swept the globe in the 1960s.
In the late 1960s, most experts were speaking of imminent global famines in which billions would perish. "The battle to feed all of humanity is over," biologist Paul Ehrlich famously wrote in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb. "In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also said, "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971." He insisted that "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980."
But Borlaug and his team were already engaged in the kind of crash program that Ehrlich declared wouldn't work. Their dwarf wheat varieties resisted a wide spectrum of plant pests and diseases and produced two to three times more grain than the traditional varieties.
Over a billion lives saved because of one man. Yet how often do you hear his name? The argument against, that he created "Frankenfood" that needs far more bureaucracy and by the way we should all only eat organic - is again a utopian faith based idea. There is every reason to suspect that untreated "natural" fertilizer sitting in piles on a field can be a breeding ground for e coli. Science- over a billion saved. Religion? More government control, an unhealthy "healthy" food doctrine and who knows how many dead? http://reason.com/0004/fe.rb.billions.shtml The next post shows religious based belief, even if cloaked in political speak, can bring forth misery and mass death on a scale unimaginable. Just to create, a better world. (Heaven again).
In April 1972, after seven months of testimony, EPA Administrative Law Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. ... The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. ... The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT.”*
Two months later, EPA head [and Environmental Defense Fund member/fundraiser] William Ruckelshaus - who had never attended a single day’s session in the seven months of EPA hearings, and who admittedly had not even read the transcript of the hearings - overturned Judge Sweeney’s decision. Ruckelshaus declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.**
Since Ruckelshaus arbitrarily and capriciously banned DDT, an estimated cases of malaria have caused immense suffering and poverty in the developing world.***
Of these largely avoidable cases, people died.****
That exceeds one needless premature death every 12 seconds for more than three decades. Click on the link to watch the malaria clock move:
good intentions sometimes go awry. Clever appeals often mask a hidden agenda that actually makes life infinitely worse for people on the ultimate "receiving end" of our kind-hearted donations.
Environmental groups like Friends of the Earth importune us for funds to help them battle proposed hydroelectric, coal, gas and nuclear power plants in India and Africa. Put solar panels on huts instead, preserve indigenous lifestyles, they plead. And the money rolls in -- from people, companies and foundations -- to the tune of over $4 billion a year to U.S. eco-groups alone.
The donors get warm fuzzies. The activist groups ramp up another campaign. And 2 billion people in Africa, Asia and Latin America continue to live without electricity -- and without lights, refrigeration, hospitals, water purification or better jobs.
Mothers and girls spend hours each day gathering wood or cow dung -- and more hours breathing acrid, polluted smoke from their cooking and heating fires. Four million infants, children and mothers die every year from readily preventable lung infections -- millions more from dysentery and other diseases caused by unsafe water and spoiled food. A huge brown cloud of pollution hangs over much of southern Asia, as a result of all these fires. http://www.techcentralstation.com/010704F.html
03 May 2006 A key Senate Democrat is defending his proposal to divide Iraq into three autonomous regions with a central government in Baghdad. Senator Joe Biden denies Bush administration assertions that the plan represents a partition of the country, saying it is aimed at keeping the country unified.
When Senator Biden argued in an article in the New York Times earlier this week that Iraq should be divided into Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish autonomous regions, with a central government in Baghdad, the idea was immediately rejected by the Bush administration, which said it amounted to a partitioning of the country.
An influential Republican senator, Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, has called the proposal constructive.
Senator John Warner (R-Virginia), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, fresh from a trip to Iraq, on the war:
“I assure you, in two or three months, if this thing hasn’t come to fruition and if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function, I think it’s a responsibility of our government internally to determine: Is there a change of course that we should take? And I wouldn’t take off the table any option at this time.”
If Senator Warner is now saying that he won’t rule out withdrawal — even as, nationwide, Republican congressional candidates are saying “stay the course” — this is a huge crack in the dike of Republican intransigence.
Ms. Collins, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, echoed Mr. Warner’s calls for a shift in strategy in Iraq. “When Chairman Warner, who has been a steadfast ally of this administration, calls for a new strategy,” she said, “that is clearly significant.”
She said the current approach, which she attributed to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, had not led to an overall reduction in violence or any prospect that American troop levels would come down soon.
“We’ve heard over and over that as Iraqis stand up, our troops will stand down,” Ms. Collins said. “Well, there are now hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops and security forces, and yet we have not seen any reduction in violence.”
Democrats, who have been using their fall election campaigns to tap into intense voter dissatisfaction with the way that Mr. Bush has handled Iraq, quickly seized on the Warner remarks, circulating them in e-mail messages to reporters. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, convened a conference call on Friday afternoon to hammer home the theme that even Republicans believed that the administration must change course. “Warner’s statement is an important, important statement and, I hope, a turning point,” Mr. Biden told reporters.
He that at least two Republican colleagues other than Mr. Warner had told him that once the election is over, they would join with Democrats in working on a bipartisan plan for bringing stability to Iraq. Echoing Mr. Warner’s language, he said, “I wouldn’t take any option off the table at this time. We are at the point of no return.”
Third, entirely outside the constitution, there is the possibility of a military coup d’etat. Rumors of a coup have swirled in Baghdad for at least a year. Over the weekend, when Maliki announced a sudden, and unprecedented, curfew banning vehicular and pedestrian traffic in the entire capital, there were reports that an army coup d’etat had been thwarted. One Iraq expert I talked to told me that perhaps some of the Iraqi army units being moved into Baghdad as part of the current crackdown might be candidates to seize power in the Green Zone. Of course, such an action would have to be encouraged and sponsored by the U.S. command in Iraq and the CIA, which—according to Iraqi sources—has a firm hand on Iraq’s own intelligence service. But a military coup would be a very brutal and bloody affair, instantly pitting the more Sunni-friendly army against the Shiite establishment and its paramilitary forces. On the other hand, Iraq’s military, unlike the police and Interior Ministry forces, has earned the grudging respect of many Iraqis, who see it as more neutral and even nationalist force.
Fourth, there is an option somewhere in between the second and third options I’ve just outlined, namely, the imposition of a strongman—perhaps someone like former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi—by the military, but with the military acting behind the scenes. It would depend on getting at least passive support from Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has despaired of Iraqi politics of late and withdrawn. This option would have an exceedingly high degree of difficulty, however, and this week Allawi, in London, denied rumors that he is involved in plotting a coup d’etat.
But options like these are being actively bruited about inside and outside the Bush administration. All of them are high-risk strategies—and because U.S. involvement in such schemes would likely be revealed in short order, it would mean that any Iraqi government created in such circumstances would suffer enormously from being seen as a U.S. puppet.
As early as 1998 this paper urged the government to prepare for a whole new, evolved method of warfare. What we faced was laid out for all to read. It still matters:
Asymmetric Warfare, the Evolution and Devolution of Terrorism; The Coming Challenge For Emergency and National Security Forces
By: Clark L. Staten, Executive Director & Sr. Analyst Emergency Response & Research Institute 04/27/98
"Terrorism will remain a major transnational problem, driven by continued ethnic, religious, nationalist, separatist, political, and economic motivations." (1)
The nature of global conflict is changing. It is the considered opinion of the Emergency Response & Research Institute (ERRI) that there is a general paradigm shift underway in regard to how future conflicts will unfold. This transition is one of form rather than substance. Mass violence, injuries and deaths will continue to occur, although we believe they will happen in different places and in differing ways than one might currently imagine.
With Russia's conventional forces on the verge of dissolution, the likelihood of a massive massed tank battle on the plains between Europe and Russia is almost a forgotten possibility. Similar circumstances in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, or near of the DMZ between North and South Korea are also becoming increasingly unlikely. Although circumstances regarding another conflict with Iraq are still possible as this is written, probable prospects there would suggest that the United States (at worst) would undertake a strategic bombing campaign, rather than committing large numbers of ground troops to massed combat.
What is far more possible, however, in the coming decade, are an increasing number of "brush-fire" wars, counter-insurgency campaigns, hostage rescue operations, "drug wars," low intensity conflicts, urban combat, and "peacekeeping operations" that will require a vastly different set of tactics, equipment, training and skills than conventional military engagements of the past. Future conflicts, at least in the near term, may not involve commitments of massive numbers of troops to fixed battle zones, but will likely involve combating small units of fanatical terrorists using Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and other sophisticated tactics and technologies.(2) As Commandant of the of the Marine Corps General Charles C. Krulak, likes to say, the United States will often be fighting engagements that are more like Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia than they are like Desert Storm. (3)
Why Is This Occurring?
Of great concern is the fact that any number of what were previously considered essentially stable countries are experiencing religious, ethnic and other internal conflicts with increasing numbers of separatist movements trying to carve up larger countries into smaller and more tightly focused ethnic areas. Some of these conflicts are ancient and have been the cause of fighting for hundreds of years. Others are more recent and the result of demographic shifts, changing political regimes, or religious/ideological shifts.
Add to these factors political and ethnic internal disintegration caused by faltering economic circumstances in several parts of SW Asia, the Far-East, Africa, South America and elsewhere and you have a combustible mix that is certain to fuel future conflicts in a number of parts of the globe for the foreseeable future.
Marine Corp Colonel Gary I. Wilson, a long-time observer and analyst of emerging trends in non-conventional warfare, also says that he believes that changes in terrorist tactics, methods and operational activities are a naturally occurring phenomena. He draws similarities between bacteria that naturally mutates in order to become resistent to antibiotics or other adverse conditions. His comparison would suggest that terrorists and their methods also mutate, or change in form, in order to find new ways to survive and better project the strengths of the terrorists against the weaknesses of opposing civilizations.
According to James Denney, ERRI Senior analyst, global societies traditionally contain a myriad of subcultures that are based on strongly held ethnic, religious, cultural and ideological beliefs. In instances where many subcultures interact, new subcultures are generated in much the same way as a living cell generates another and another, until finally a new entity is created. Thus the structural integrity of a given society becomes increasingly complex.
Most incumbent ideologies in the postmodern era are struggling to maintain their dominant identity within their sphere of influence. Because of conflicting ideologies, presumptive religious and ethnic diversity has not materialized in many societies. For this reason, the concept of vertical ethnic and religious integration has given way to horizontal migration and factional polarization within these societies.
This is an engineered dynamic which creates a breeding ground where fanatical ethnic and religious tribalism has emerged as fractal subcultures, vying with each other for inclusion, with mutually exclusive and often conflicting agendas. This situation results in ethnic and religious migration to both geographic and political positioning within the existing society.
Through centuries of serial discrimination, imperious rule and unrelenting subculture manipulation, diversity has successfully been restricted while rulers continue to rise through the incumbent ideology or ruling system. Any perceived threat to the incumbent ideology will always be met with resistance, deflection, threat or illusional compliance, while the status quo is maintained. In some cases, a "preemptive defense" is commonly employed, whereby on one or more pretext, estranged factions are exterminated. Employing this methodology, the incumbent ideology (read government/ruling class) is insured passage from one class of rulers to the next, while those deemed unworthy or contemptible by the "powers that be" are manipulated, bypassed or ignored. This marginalization is often the motivation for violent acts.
How Is It Happening/What is Changing?
Very few countries, today, have the wherewithal to undertake a major attack on any of the major countries of the world...particularly the United States. Thus the reason that terrorism is both evolving and devolving. (4) Most nation-states have recognized the fact that they can no longer engage in open combat nor overtly support terrorism without fear of military retaliation or even openly declared war with the United States or her allies.
Take this evolution theory one step further and you will find that as "terrorist organizations" begin to gain some measure of political legitimization and press attention, that even they will diminish their open support of sabotage and acts of violence against innocent civilians. Obviously, few rational people will vote for or openly support an organization that publicly admits it kills women and children in pursuit of its goals.
Additionally, it would appear that smaller and smaller splinter groups are breaking from the main force body. These ultra-radicals, if you will, have become the enforcers of the extreme ends of an ideology or belief and it is they who will use unconventional tactics to carry out particularly heinous acts. This devolution of terrorist organizations into smaller and more compartmentalized groups makes detection of these small cells increasing more difficult and intelligence gathering and analysis efforts even more valuable.
In addition to the concept of smaller cells of non-attributable, non-state actors, evidence would suggest that there are also cells of what we have called "virtual sapper squads that are put together just for the purpose of committing one act and then disbanded and dispersing back into the population of a friendly nation. (5) One of the first examples of this that was recognized by ERRI was the World Trade Center bombing. It is believed that this is done to further obscure the identities of the perpetrators, enable their escape and evasion and to further complicate the process of ascertaining their motives.
Concurrently such a strategy confuses the issue of tracing ties between the operatives and to nation-states, who sponsor, finance and offer refuge to these killers. International legal and moral justification of military retaliation by the victim state may also become even more difficult, if not impossible.
Threats from Multiple Simultaneous Vectors
By the advent of the 21st Century, not only is it likely that many of the conflicts facing the United States and her allies will be of an asymmetrical and devolving nature, and it is also likely that the threats will come from diverse and differing vectors. Particularly of concern is the possibility that conventional terrorism and low-intensity conflict will be accompanied or compounded by computer/infrastructure attacks that may cause damage to vital commercial, military, and government information and confront communications systems. (6) Unfortunately, it would appear that while the United States gains tremendous advantages from its advanced information and battlefield management systems, we also become increasing vulnerable to cyber-attacks from our adversaries.
In other words, we would anticipate efforts to cause widespread fear by computer-generated attacks on electrical, water, banking, government information, emergency response systems and other vital infrastructures, while simultaneously suffering terrorist tactics involving multiple conventional explosives and/or chemical/biological/nuclear devices. (7)(8) Even a country as large and sophisticated as the United States could suffer greatly at the hands of an educated, equipped, and committed group of fewer than 50 people. At the present time, such an attack could realistically be expected to cause an effect vastly disproportionate to the resources expended to undertake it.
The Battle For Hearts and Minds
In the Post-Cold-War era, our enemies, including Sadam Hussien of Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Yasar Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and any number of others have discovered that they can win the "hearts and minds" of the world's people through the selected use of real information, disinformation, manipulation of the press, propaganda, and other psychological (Psy-Ops) warfare methods. In fact, some would even go so far as to suggest that Mr. Hussien actually won the latest stand-off with the United States (early 1998), over Chemical/biological Weapons and inspections of his palaces, as he was able to manipulate public opinion in the United States and elsewhere and split the former allied Persian Gulf coalition. (9)
With assistance of diplomats from a number of Arab countries, Russia, and France, all of whom have a vested economic interest in ending United Nations sanctions against Iraq, Hussien was able to both prevent the bombing of his country and be authorized by the U.S. to sell even more petroleum, obstensively to buy food and medicine for the Iraqi people. A historical perspective might suggest, however, that such programs and funds have probably enabled Iraq to rebuild presidential palaces and maintain key weapons and military assets.
It is believed by ERRI analysts that such psy-ops and propaganda programs will continue to have an increasingly more influential impact on future conflicts, and that our military and political leadership should seriously consider expanding efforts by U.S. psychological warfare operations and units to counter these developments. (10)
Most Serious Concerns
In recent years, terrorists and insurgent movements have discovered that they can multiply fear in a civilian population by undertaking even more violent and deadly tactics. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of State reviews of recent terrorist incidents would suggest that they believe that there are a fewer number of incidents, but that those that do occur are more deadly. Additionally, and all too frequently in recent years, terrorist and terrorist groups are no longer taking credit for their acts. It is believed that this anonymity may also be contributing to larger and more reprehensible atrocities.
The Impact of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
According to Richard K. Betts, some of the most important implications of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) have not yet registered with the public. Betts asserts that the nature of the potential use of WMD’s is changing. Rather than being weapons of deterrence, as they were during the "Cold War," they are increasingly becoming the weapons of choice of what were formally considered "second-rate" military powers or even non-state groups. (11) It is believed that these formerly impotent players on the world stage may believe that they have found a way to leverage non-conventional weapons to cause great fear and will use these weapons to attempt to intimidate legitimate governments.
Further and more fearsome, Cmdr. James Campbell, in his recent examination of the terrorist use of Chemical/Biological/Nuclear weapons, offers us a view of a "Post-Modern Terrorist," free of constraints provided by sponsoring nation-states, who have discovered that the use of WMD's affords them the ability to wield disproportionate power to cause massive numbers of casualties, even within the continental United States. (12)
At least some experts find this future use of WMD's in concurrence with recent trends in statistics involving terrorist attacks. A study of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. State Department (DoS) documents would reveal that they believe that there are a fewer number of terrorist incidents, but that they have produced a greater number of wounded and dead. In other words, non-state actors and post-modern terrorists, with their apocalyptic visions and belief that they are acting on behalf of some higher power, are likely to use WMD to maximize their kill ratios and send a larger and more fearsome message to their perceived enemies.
The Effects of Economic Terrorism
Perpetrated by mercenaries, ideological or religious zealots-- it doesn't matter which -- corporations and business networks will undoubtedly become future targets of terrorism. More enlightened terrorists have discovered (maybe already in some countries), or will discover soon, that the path to the fear and chaos that they crave most may be more easily achieved by a wide-scale attack on infrastructure/economic targets, thus causing a general breakdown in society and facilitating civil unrest and rioting. Evidence of insurgent attacks on economic targets have been clearly demonstrated in places like Corsica (banks, court houses), Greece (Bank, car dealership, and businesses), Colombia (multiple oil pipeline bombings), India (attack on multiple commercial buildings in Bombay), and Sri Lanka (bank and commercial building attacks). (13)(14)
These concepts, and the inherent threats thereto, will become even more evident and viable in future megatroplises where millions will live in what will be in reality a very fragile and easily combustible (in more than one sense of the word) environment. It is believed that these future societies of largely urbanized populations will be even more vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation by insurgents using terror and low intensity warfare tactics.
There is even a possibility that the terrorist acts could be paid for by legal or extralegal multinational corporations that would benefit from the destruction of existing business competitors in a given city or region, or by less scrupulous business concerns that want to subvert or cause destabilization of an existing (and unfriendly) governmental system. Some evidence of these phenomena is already in evidence in Colombia, Pakistan, Burma and parts of the former Soviet Union.
An excellent example of this emerging situation might involve further study of a recent United Nations report that the GNP of the drug and crime driven "underground economy" in Pakistan is probably greater than that of the official government. Although sufficient studies are currently unavailable, this is also probably true in Colombia, and it is becoming increasingly likely that the same trend is developing in parts of the former Soviet Union, where organized crime "mafia organizations" have infiltrated or subverted legitimate business for their purposes. Needless to say, these patterns do not bode well for the future of the legitimate governments in these and other areas of the world.
Solutions and Recommendations
The prevailing thinking and overall mindset within military, diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement, and emergency service communities may need modification in order to meet and combat these newly evolving patterns involving non-state actors and asymmetric warfare. Conceptually, the preparations, tactics, and strategies for fighting numerous "brush fire" conflicts and larger numbers of small scale but high-impact terrorist incidents, could prove a major challenge for those with an entrenched large force "Cold-War" mentality.
Those that are still mired in fighting another "Desert Storm" or want to continue to live in the comfortable past of a largely bi-polar, superpower-driven global situation may be in for a rude awakening as the nature of asymmetric conflict unfolds in the coming decade. There are few, if any, countries that can militarily challenge the United States in open combat at the present time. Some seemingly astute assessments would suggest that China may become a future adversary with the industrial and conventional military power to eventually confront America and her allies, but they also point out that this capability is still evolving and that it may take China a minimum of three to five (3-5) years, or more, to become a major threat to the United States and overall world stability.
Instead, given a reasonably effective foreign policy, our assessment would respectfully suggest that the near term threat to Americans and our country's security may bring a confusing mix of "stateless actors," separatist and fringe "independence movements," insurgency operations, terrorist attacks, the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Information Warfare (IW), and other unconventional threats. The nature of our defense thinking, training, weapons, equipment, intelligence operations, and national emergency response systems must be redefined and redirected in order to meet these threats that are concurrently both devolving and evolving.
It should not be forgotten that our most important asset in our war with terrorists, and in our defense against other non-conventional threats, rests with the young men and women of our nation's national security and emergency service communities. While useful in more conventional circumstances, "Stand-off" missiles, ICBM's, Nuclear Weapons, and other theatre weapons are practically useless in our response to insurgents, revolutionaries, and terrorist threats. That responsibility will undoubtedly fall on smaller groups of highly trained, better-equipped, and highly motivated anti- and counter-terrorist operatives and agencies, who will monitor, infiltrate, close with and destroy those that would engage in this insidious type of future warfare. Our people will make the difference, if we give them the resources to accomplish the task.
Finally, it is recommended that Congressional and Presidential funding, policies, and other initiatives take all of the issues presented above into consideration in a comprehensive way. This strategy must encompass providing leadership, reallocating necessary funds to the most appropriate efforts, and bringing all of the available public and private assets to work together to study and devise strategies to confront this new and dynamic threat. All of the levels of government, academia and related businesses must find a way to better communicate, cooperate and coordinate in an effective manner. Ultimately, we must ensure that we, as a country, are prepared to confront the asymmetric challenges of the future.
References:
1. "Global Threats And Challenges To The United States And Its Interests Abroad," by Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, USA Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Feb. 5-6, 1997
2. The Fourth World War; Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism, by Marenches, C. and Adelman, D., Willam Morrow and Company, Pg. 30
3. "World Without Symmetry--Terrorism," Navy Times, 22 Sep 97
4. "Emerging, Devolving Threat of Terrorism," by Wilson, G and Fuller, F., EmergencyNet News Daily Intelligence Report, 11/30/96, Vol. 2, No. 335. On the internet at: http://www.emergency.com/devlthrt.htm
5. "THE LONG LIST OF SUSPECTS; Possible Theory of [Terrorist] Motivation," by Macko, S., EmergencyNet News Daily Report, Wednesday, July 24, 1996, Vol. 2, No. 206. On the Internet at: http://www.emergency.com/tersuspc.htm
6. "The IW Threat from Sub-State Groups: an Interdisciplinary Approach," by Rathmell, et al, Presented at 3rd International symposium on Command and Control Research and Technology, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, June 17-20, 1997. On the Internet at: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/orgs/icsa/terrori.htm
8. "Reflections on the 1997 Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP) Report," by Staten, C, ERRI Special Report, 10/23/97. On the Internet at: http://www.emergency.com/pcciprpt.htm
9. "Losing the War of Words," by George C. Wilson, Editorial, Washington Post, 30 Mar 98, Pg. 25A
11. "The New Threat of Mass Destruction," by Betts, R., Foreign Affairs, January/February, 1998, Pg. 27
12. Weapons of Mass Destruction - Terrorism, By Campbell, J. Interpact Press, 1997, Pg. 4-5
13. "Indian Bombings Caused By 'Foreign Extremists,' According to Police," By Staten, C., EmergencyNet News Special Report, 03/1/93. On the Internet at: http://www.emergency.com/bombay.htm
14. "Analysts Predict More Terrorist Attacks In Sri Lanka," by Jeremy Zakis, EmergencyNet News Daily Intelligence Report, Sunday, March 8, 1998 Vol. 4, No. 067. On the internet at: http://www.emergency.com/srilnk98.htm
This article, "The Evolution and Devolution of Terrorism; The Coming Challenge For Emergency and National Security Forces", was published in the Journal of Counterterrorism and Security International, Winter, 1999 edition, Vol. 5, No. 4, Pg. 8-11
The GOP Record The roots of Republican failures in Congress.
GOP Senators in particular helped to steer President Bush away from his underwhelming initial choice of White House counsel Harriet Miers toward the distinguished Samuel Alito. With the High Court playing an ever more decisive role in our political life, this may be Mr. Bush's most significant legacy beyond the war on terror.
Republicans also deserve credit for financing the war, which is more than many Democrats say they'll do if they run Capitol Hill. The extension for two more years, through 2010, of the 15% rate on dividends and capital gains will also help sustain the economic growth that is throwing off record revenues to pay for the war even as the budget deficit declines. The recent compromise on terrorist interrogations may also turn out to be historic, putting Congress's imprimatur on the Presidential powers needed to fight an enemy that violates the normal rules of war. Toss in bankruptcy and class-action reform, and some free-trade agreements. That's about it for the good news.
On the liability side, the list of flops is extensive, starting with making the tax cuts permanent, repealing the estate tax and immigration reform. Senate Democrats did their part to kill the first two, but House Republicans get credit for fanning public worry about immigration and then pretending that a 700-mile fence will solve the problem.
Social Security reform was never going to be easy, and Mr. Bush's war-driven decline in job approval meant he couldn't move any Democrats. But that still doesn't excuse such prominent Republicans as Tom Davis (Virginia) and Roy Blunt (Missouri) for resisting their President's reform effort behind the scenes. So frightened were they that they never even brought the subject up for a vote.
Perhaps the most puzzling abdication was the GOP failure to do anything at all on health care. The window for saving private health care from government encroachment is closing, and both business and workers are feeling the pinch from rising costs. Yet Republicans failed to make health-care savings accounts more attractive, failed to let business associations offer their own health plans, and failed even to bring to a vote Arizona Congressman John Shadegg's bill to avoid costly state mandates by letting health insurance be marketed across state boundaries. The biggest winner here is Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign.
Republicans have many explanations for their paltry record, some of them even accurate. The troubles in Iraq sapped Mr. Bush's support, dividing Republicans while uniting Democrats who saw a chance to regain power this fall. Hurricane Katrina blew away whatever hope there was of spending restraint and changed the national conversation from GOP priorities. And Tom DeLay's ethical troubles, and eventual ouster as Majority Leader, created a leadership vacuum.
Yet none of this excuses the more fundamental problem, which is that too many Republicans now believe their purpose in Washington is keeping power for its own sake.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she offered to resign as President Bush’s National Security Adviser as part of a broader house-cleaning following the president’s re-election in 2004.
"I did tell the president at one point that I thought maybe all of us should go, because we had fought two wars and we ... had the largest terrorist attack in American history," Rice disclosed Sunday night while en route to the Mideast.
"And when he asked me to be secretary of state, I said, 'I think maybe — maybe you need new people.' " She did not say what the president's immediate response was.
Fielding questions aboard her plane, Rice strenuously denied a claim in Bob Woodward's new book, "State of Denial," that her relations with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once deteriorated to the point where Bush had to intervene to ensure Rumsfeld would return Rice's calls.
"Secretary Rumsfeld has never refused to return my phone calls," Rice said, noting the two talked every day as part of routine "principals' calls" involving senior officials.
"The idea that he wasn't returning my phone calls is simply ludicrous," she said.
Two months later, EPA head [and Environmental Defense Fund member/fundraiser] William Ruckelshaus - who had never attended a single day’s session in the seven months of EPA hearings, and who admittedly had not even read the transcript of the hearings - overturned Judge Sweeney’s decision. Ruckelshaus declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.**