Fitzgerald: Building That Bridge Over The River Kwai, Or, Why Are We In Afghanistan?

(Compiler's note: Hugh understands and had thus written this must read article)

from Hugh @ Jihad Watch

The very idea that because Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan, Afghanistan has a special, irreplaceable importance in the "war against terrorism," is false.

In the first place, the fact that Al Qaeda found Afghanistan under the Taliban (a Taliban nurtured by an American-supported Pakistan, and recognized by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) useful does not mean that Al Qaeda can only regroup in Afghanistan. The terrorist attacks in London were not hatched by those trained in Afghanistan, but by people living in, raised in, Great Britain. Those who bombed the Atocha station in Madrid were not from Afghanistan. Those who killed Pim Fortuyn (a weak-minded Dutchman put up to it by Muslims) and Theo van Gogh were not trained in Afghanistan. The Chechens who seized the theatre in Moscow, or the school in Beslan, were not trained in Afghanistan. Anywhere there are Muslims, ready to participate in Jihad through violence, they will be able to find sufficient weaponry and bombs. Afghanistan is being endowed with a significance it does not possess.

In the second place, the very idea that Americans and other NATO troops must be sent in large numbers to pacify Afghanistan, a vast country, remote from Western bases, difficult to get in and out of (just look at the sums demanded by Kyrgyzstan for the continued use of an airbase), and that requires the collaboration of another meretricious Muslim state that is actually far more hideous and dangerous than Afghanistan itself, Pakistan, is nonsense. Afghanistan, or rather the various ethnic groups within it, can be controlled, or at least the threat coming from them can be managed from afar. The very idea that the only choice is ever-increasing numbers of American troops, and ever more billions poured into Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries on earth, on the theory that Muslim hearts, if they are not with the Taliban, are therefore accessible and winnable, is absurd.

Here and there, just as in Iraq, some locals will prefer to use the Americans, and to temporarily curry favor with them out of self-interest -- that is, out of a desire for American weaponry, supplies, and money. In Afghanistan, local groups and even individual warlords, and Karzai himself, have proven adept at leading the Americans by the nose for quite a while, just as the Pakistani military has managed to do for decades, and as the Al-Saud have done in presenting themselves as not the most dangerous enemies of Infidels, but as "America's staunch ally."

The United States has squandered at least two trillion dollars in Iraq. What is the result? Possibly, a state, and an army, that consists mainly of Muslim Arabs (the Kurds are slowly being squeezed out, and Maliki's "outreach to the Sunni Arabs" will be, predictably, at the expense of the non-Arab Kurds), one that possibly will not be quite as ostentatiously aggressive as was the state run by that obviously hideous despot Saddam Hussein. But so what? How does this improve the Infidel position in the world? What has been accomplished, or could possibly be accomplished, to weaken the hold of Islam on the minds of men in Afghanistan? Nothing at all.

We, the Infidel Americans, have managed or may have managed to hold Iraq together a bit longer by doing everything we could to prevent the fissures, sectarian and ethnic, from leading to open and large-scale hostilities. And we, those American Infidels, were further kindly allowed by the local Arabs and Muslims to spend nearly two trillion dollars on this effort at a time when it is now recognized that economic warfare, and economic damage, is a key weapon in the jihadist arsenal. This remains true whether that damage is inflicted from without or self-inflicted by the assumption of responsibilities that make no geopolitical sense. And every dollar spent on Iraq, on Egypt, on Pakistan, on Afghanistan, on Jordan, on the "Palestinians," represents a transfer of wealth from Infidels to Muslims, one that goes beyond the trillions in unmerited oil revenues the Arabs and Muslims have received.

We have spent that money, and have received, and will receive, no gratitude in return. When Iraq dissolves inevitably into the warring tribes and groups, who will be blamed? America. Americans. And so much of what we spend there, by the way, is on goods (such as oil shipments from Kuwait) and services (contractors, from ditto), that enrich Kuwaitis and Qataris and Bahrainis (when our ships are in), so that we are propping up all of these statelets and peoples who are not and cannot ever be our friends, but who in the end will use and abuse us every which way. And they will do this while we spend time trying to figure out what makes them tick, when what makes them tick are the texts, the tenets, the attitudes, the atmospherics, of Islam.

Tarbaby Iraq is about to be followed by Tarbaby Afghanistan. The military men involved focus on the immediate task at hand. They do not have time to study, or so they think, the texts, the ideology, of Islam. They do not have time, or do not have the inclination, to think beyond the immediate theatres of war -- war understood only in the military sense, or at least in the sense of either making war or "winning hearts and minds" of combatants -- in Iraq and now Afghanistan. Do you think General Petraeus, General Odierno, General McKiernan, has stopped to consider what is happening in Western Europe? Do you think they understand that there many ways to conduct Jihad, and that deployment of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest (already showing its effects on the fear displayed by many in the political and media elites of Western Europe, determined to appease Muslims and meet their demands on so many levels), is a much greater threat to the United States and to the civilization of the West than any conceivable outcome in remote and impoverished Afghanistan, or in Iraq?

Local entanglements of course inevitably engender human sympathies -- sympathies, say, by the American officers for this or that local gunga-dinnish figure, who seems -- and in a certain sense may be -- appealing. But policy should not be based on that kind of sentimentality, and on a handful of local exceptions. We need to weaken the Camp of Islam and Jihad. And we need to do this without unduly squandering men, money, materiel, and morale. Propping up Afghanistan has to come to an end. Instead, officials should be soberly, coldly, even ruthlessly, deciding to manage the situation from afar, through help given to now this, and now to that, local group whose interests temporarily coincide with ours. They should be stopping all this wasteful "construction" that earns no gratitude, and merely rescues Muslims from the obvious consequences of inshallah-fatalism.

The logic of events will in the end require this realization. But how long will it take? Another few years? It ought to have been understood long ago, and would have been, if those making policy had understood, had allowed themselves to study, the meaning, and the menace, of Islam.

In the end, if Obama wishes to staunch the flow of American lives and money, he will have to pull out of Afghanistan and adopt what is suggested here. But he can protect himself from criticism on the right only by adopting, as well, the rationale offered here: pull out of Afghanistan not because Islam, and Muslims, are no threat, but precisely because they are. And resolve never to help them out of their problems, but to allow their political, economic, social, intellectual and moral failures to be on obvious display, not least to themselves. If Infidels, or a sufficient number of them, grasp the connection between the nature of Islam and the failures of Muslim states and societies, then Muslims themselves will have to begin at least to attempt to answer the argument that insists upon that connection. And in so doing, the most advanced Muslims will have to admit, to themselves if not to Infidels, that in fact Islam does explain those failures.

It explains the natural tendency toward despotism of Muslim lands, for the political theory of Islam is not one that pays attention to the will expressed by the people, but rather to the will expressed by Allah. Islam does explain, through its inshallah-fatalism, the economic paralysis, does explain the mistreatment of women and of all non-Muslims, does explain Islam as a vehicle for Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism, does explain the stunting of mental growth among those who are taught to regard themselves as merely "slaves of Allah" in a collectivist Total Belief-System, and discouraged from the kind of free and skeptical inquiry without which no progress in anything can be achieved. Infidels cannot undo all this by rescuing Iraqis, or Afghanis, from the consequences of Islam itself.

They may do so, just possibly, by removing themselves from Muslim countries, keeping Muslims from acquiring the kind of weaponry that can inflict great damage, and halting Muslim immigration to non-Muslim lands while working to reverse as much as possible the aggressive Muslim presence already achieved in those lands, through a fit of criminal negligence by our ignorant-of-Islam elites. This is the way, the only way, to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam. Winning hearts and minds cannot be done, and those who think they can do so with armies, expensively maintained in the wilds of Afghanistan, are committing folly upon folly.

In their inattention to the real context, and their monomaniacal attention to the immediate task at hand -- the wrong task, undertaken for the wrong reasons -- they all remind one of Alec Guinness, as Colonel Bogey, building that bridge, urging his men to do more and more and more, and forgetting, in his mad attention to that bridge, that he is actually building it for the Japanese, helping them in their war effort. And that is exactly what some, both in the military and in the civilian part of our government, appear to be doing: overlooking the larger picture, the only picture that counts.

Intel chiefs face renewed torture claims

The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin

LONDON – Top leaders in the United Kingdom are demanding answers to claims that agents from both of Britain's intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, at least knew of the torture of 10 Britons under a CIA program assembled following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

"There is a case that should be answered," Lord Carlisle said after Binyam Mohamed was processed by authorities at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility and flown to Britain for release.

"We need to know whether there was any presence, condoning or collusion by UK security officials," Carlisle said.

Officials for MI5 and MI6 are being caught in the crosshairs of the questions, following allegations they colluded with authorities in Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco and possibly Uzbekistan in the torture of the 10 Britons.

Previously, only MI5 was accused of complicity in the torture of Mohamed under the program. Coalition forces have rejected claims that the detention and confinement program constituted torture.

Documents presented in London's High Court recently, however, contain the allegations that the 10 Britons were subjected to torture, which may actually have been carried out by Egyptians or Moroccans.

Now secret files have emerged that name not only MI5 agents but also officers of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, who allegedly "colluded with foreign torturers,"

The allegations have intensified the assertion that the British government is trying to cover up evidence of both intelligence services being engaged in "collusion with security services in foreign countries where torture is rampant."

Physicians: Obama plan will 'shut down hospitals'

By Bob Unruh

Doctors

are forecasting the closure of hospitals and clinics across America and a mass migration of physicians and their assistances to other careers should the Obama administration succeed in its attempt to overrule their rights of conscience.

"Thousands of conscientious and compassionate physicians, nurses, hospitals and clinics currently serve poor women and those who live in medically underserved areas," said David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association today.

"Many of these professionals and institutions are motivated and guided by longstanding Hippocratic ethics and biblical principles that preclude participation in abortion and other controversial procedures. Infringing on their right to practice medicine according to these life-affirming ethical standards will force them to leave the profession and to shut down the hospitals and clinics," he warned

Stevens was reacting to reports in several newspapers that the Obama administration is moving quickly to rescind a U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services rule that currently protects civil rights and the exercise of conscience in healthcare.

The rule had been adopted under the Bush administration.

"The move to rescind the healthcare provider conscience regulation imperils women's healthcare access, threatens healthcare professionals' freedom to practice medicine according to ethical standards, and exposes the myth of moderation in Obama's abortion policy," he said.

"The Obama administration claims, without offering a shred of statistical evidence, that the regulation has 'created confusion' and will somehow hinder access to healthcare. What can be clearer than not using federal funds to force healthcare professionals to violate longstanding principles of medical ethics like the Hippocratic Oath, which guided medicine for over two millennia?

"The real threat to healthcare access is driving out every healthcare professional who conscientiously practices medicine according to life-affirming ethical standards," Stevens said.

He said that four in 10 of the organization's members "report being pressured to violate ethical standards. Physicians report losing positions and promotions because of their life-affirming views. Residents report losing training privileges because they refuse to do abortions. Medical students report changing career tracks away from obstetrics for fear of pressure to do abortions."

"We hear a lot of rhetoric from abortion advocates about the government not interfering with the physician-patient relationship. Why is this argument no longer employed when the physician and the patient disagree with abortion on demand? It would appear that for all the abortion 'choice' rhetoric, 'choice' is really a one-way street. When it comes to pro-life individuals, abortion choice quickly turns into abortion mandate," Stevens said.

Stevens said Obama's attack on doctors reveals "the myth of their moderation on abortion."

"They have no tolerance for moderate abortion policies like informing parents when their children seek an abortion, banning the essentially infanticidal partial-birth abortions, or protecting the civil rights of healthcare professionals who follow the Hippocratic Oath," Stevens said.

The rule-change plan comes on the heels of Obama's decision to lift the Mexico City policy, which forces taxpayers to support international groups facilitating abortions. Obama also plans to give tax money to the United Nations population program that the U.S. State Department found to have been aiding China's mandatory abortion policy.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Obama's move to demand doctors participate in the abortion industry came earlier today. The report said the move was being made "quietly" even as most of Washington was focusing on the president's budget plan.

WND recently reported on legal challenges to the Bush rule.

Experts for the Alliance Defense Fund and Christian Legal Society then reported they were gearing up to defend three laws that allow medical professionals to follow their conscience and not participate in abortions.

"Medical professionals should not be forced to perform abortions against their conscience," Casey Mattox, litigation counsel with the CLS's Center for Law & Religious Freedom, said at the time.

"Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and their pro-abortion allies are seeking to punish pro-life medical professionals for their beliefs," Mattox said. "Far from arguing for 'choice,' these lawsuits seek to compel health care workers to perform abortions or face dire consequences."

The public-interest legal groups have filed motions to intervene in three separate lawsuits that seek to invalidate a federal law protecting medical professionals from discrimination because they refuse to participate in abortions.

"For over three decades, federal law has prohibited recipients of federal grants from forcing medical professionals to participate in abortions," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "The arguments in the lawsuits themselves demonstrate lack of compliance with these laws and the necessity of the regulation they are challenging."

Obama, while a state lawmaker in Illinois, objected to requiring doctors to provide medical care for infants who survive abortions and advocated virtually unlimited abortion on demand.

During his presidential campaign he said he would not want one of his daughters "punished" with a baby.

House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said the Obama plan "will hurt faith-based health providers and hospitals throughout our nation who are committed to caring for Americans at this critical time. It will also inevitably result in more abortions being performed nationwide."

"It is beginning to look like the administration is intent on enacting [Freedom of Choice Act] incrementally ... through low-key legislative maneuvers and executive orders," Boehner said.

FOCA would overturn all abortion regulations nationwide.

Radio chip coming soon to your driver's license?

By Bob Unruh

Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.

The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver's licenses, or "enhanced driver's licenses."

"Enhanced driver's licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it's less elaborate than REAL ID," Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.

REAL ID is a plan for a federal identification system standardized across the nation that so alarmed governors many states have adopted formal plans to oppose it. However, a privacy advocate today told WND that the EDLs are many times worse.

Radio talk show host and identity chip expert Katherine Albrecht said REAL ID earned the opposition of Christians because of its resemblance to the biblical "mark of the beast," civil libertarians opposed it for its "big brother" connotations and others worried about identity theft issues with the proposed databases.

"We got rid of the REAL ID program, but [this one] is way more insidious," she said.

Enhanced driver's licenses have built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse.

The technology already had been implemented in Washington state, where it is promoted as an alternative to a passport for traveling to Canada. So far, the program is optional.

But there are other agreements already approved with Michigan, Vermont, New York and Arizona, and plans are under way in other states, including Texas, she said.

Napolitano, as Arizona's governor, was against the REAL ID, Albrecht said. Now, as chief of Homeland Security, she is suggesting the more aggressive electronic ID of Americans.

"She's coming out and saying, 'OK, OK, OK, you win. We won't do REAL ID. But what we probably ought to do is nationwide enhanced driver's licenses,'" Albrecht told WND.

"They're actually talking about issuing every person a spychip driver's license," she said. "That is the potential problem."

Imagine, she said, going to a First Amendment-protected event, a church or a mosque, or even a gun show or a peace rally.

Katherine Albrecht

"What happens to all those people when a government operator carrying a reading device makes a circuit of the event?" she asked. "They could download all those unique ID numbers and link them."

Participants could find themselves on "watch" lists or their attendance at protests or rallies added to their government "dossier."

She said even if such license programs are run by states, there's virtually no way that the databases would not be linked and accessible to the federal government.

Albrecht said a hint of what is on the agenda was provided recently by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state's legislature approved a plan banning the government from using any radio chips in any ID documentation.

Schwarzenegger's veto noted he did not want to interfere with any coming or future federal programs for identifying people.

Albrecht's recent guest on her radio program was Michigan State Rep. Paul Opsommer, who said the government appears to be using a national anti-terrorism plan requiring people to document their identities as they enter the United States to promote the technology.

"The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was … just about proving you were a citizen, not that you had to do it by any specific kind of technology," Opsommer said.

But he said, "We are close to the point now that if you don't want RFID in any of your documents that you can't leave the country or get back into it."

Opsommer said his own state sought an exception to the growing federal move toward driver's licenses with an electronic ID chip, and he was told that was "unlikely."

He was told, "They were trying to harmonize these standards with Canada and Mexico [so] it had to apply to everybody. I was absolutely dumbfounded."

WND previously has reported on such chips when hospitals used them to identify newborns, a company desired to embed immigrants with the electronic devices, a government health event showcased them and when Wal-Mart used microchips to track customers.

Albrecht, who has worked on issues involving radio chip implants, REAL-ID, "Spychips" and other devices, provided a platform for Opsommer to talk about drivers licenses that include radio transmitters that provide identity information about the carrier. She is active with the AntiChips.com and SpyChips.com websites.

Opsommer said he's been trying for several years to gain permission for his state to develop its own secure license without a radio chip.

"They have flat out refused, and their reasoning is all about the need for what they call 'facilitative technology,' which they then determined was RFID," he said during the recent interview.

According to the U.S. State Department, which regulates international travel requirements, U.S. citizens now "must show proof of identity and proof of U.S. citizenship when entering the United States from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the countries of the Caribbean by land or seas."

Documentation could be a U.S. passport or other paperwork such as birth certificates or drivers' licenses. But as of this summer, one of the options for returning residents will be an "Enhanced Driver's License."

The rules are being promulgated under the outline of the WHTI, a result of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which requires travelers to present a passport or other identity documents on entry into the U.S.

While the government has expressed confidence that no personal or critical information will be revealed through the system, it also says drivers will need special information on how to use, carry and protect the radio-embedded licenses as well as "a shielded container that will prevent anyone from reading your license."

But Albrecht, the author or co-author of six books and videos, including the award-winning "Spychips: How major corporations and government plan to track your every move with RFID," warns it goes much further.

"This must be nipped in the bud. Enhanced DL's make REAL ID look like a walk in the park," Albrecht said.

"Look, I am all in favor of only giving drivers licenses to U.S. citizens or people that are otherwise here in this country legally," Opsommer said, "But we are already doing that in Michigan. We accomplished that without an EDL, as has virtually every other state via their own state laws.

"But just because we choose to only issue our license to U.S. citizens does not mean that our licenses should somehow then fall under federal control. It's still a state document, we are just controlling who we issue them to. But under the EDL program, the Department of Homeland Security is saying that making sure illegals don't get these is not enough. Now you need the chip to prove your citizenship," he continued.

Opsommer further warned the electronic chips embedded in licenses to confirm identity are just the first step.

"Canadians are also more connected to what is going on in Britain with the expansion of the national ID program there, and have seen the mission creep that occurs with things like gun control first hand … Whatever the reason, as an example, just last week the Canadian government repatriated a database from the U.S. that contained the driver's license data of their citizens," he said.

"Someone finally woke up and realized it would not be a good idea for that to be on American soil … I think it is only logical that we as state legislators really understand how the governments of Mexico and Canada will have access to our own citizen's data. Right now it is very ambiguous and even difficult for me to get answers on as a state representative."

But Opsommer said Big Brother concerns certainly have some foundation.

"So if EDLs are the new direction for secure licenses in all states, it just reinforces what many have been telling me that DHS wants to expand this program and turn it into a wireless national ID with a different name," he said. "We'll wake up one day and without a vote in Congress DHS will just pass a rule and say something like 'starting next month you will need an EDL to fly on a plane, or to buy a gun, or whatever.'"

North Korean Rocket Assembly Under Way

from Global Security Newswire

Assembly of a rocket is reportedly under way at a North Korean launch site, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Feb. 26).

Pyongyang says it is preparing to launch a satellite into space from the Musudan-ri facility, while the United States and other concerned nations suspect that the Stalinist state actually plans another test of its long-range Taepodong 2 missile.

"It appears that (the North) has begun assembling the rocket on the ground," a South Korean government official told the Yonhap News Agency (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Feb. 27).

A newspaper report also indicated that radar and related technology was being tested at the launch site, AFP reported.

"It seems that the North has begun preparations in earnest for a launch," a government source in Seoul told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Feb. 27).

North Korea might reach launch readiness within the next two weeks but could delay action until late March or early April "considering the North's political schedule and the situation on the Korean Peninsula," Yonhap quoted its source as saying.

Seoul and Washington have scheduled a large-scale military exercise for March 9 to 20, followed by a summit early the following month, according to Yonhap. ....

U.S. Pledges to Halt "Illicit" Iranian Nuclear Activity

U.S. President Barack Obama intends to pursue polices aimed at halting Iran's pursuit of an "illicit nuclear capacity," Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 26).

The United States and other Western powers have expressed concern that Iranian atomic activities could support nuclear-weapon development, but Tehran has insisted its nuclear intentions are strictly peaceful.

.... The Obama administration is sending "a mixed signal" about its possible intention to seek dialogue with Tehran on its nuclear program, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Salari said yesterday.

"Somehow in that domain we are witnessing more rationality in the present U.S. administration. They are not talking with the same tone that existed before," he said. "But still, the signal that is reaching Iran from the United States is not a very clear and proper one."

.... Dennis Ross, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recently appointed Southwest Asia adviser, "strongly backs stepping up sanctions against Iran (and) supports profound U.S.-Israeli cooperation to confront Iran's nuclear activities," Iranian state radio said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 24; Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Google News, Feb. 26).

It remained unclear how Ross would affect Washington's Iran policy, the Washington Times reported yesterday. He is expected to help draft a national security directive on the administration's strategies for talking with Iran and for pursuing new economic penalties should the state fail to alter its nuclear policy, one U.S. official said.

The Obama administration is likely to seek negotiations with Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rather than wait for the outcome of the June presidential race, said Patrick Clawson, deputy research head at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Ross' former workplace.

.... The Obama administration is likely to seek negotiations with Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rather than wait for the outcome of the June presidential race, said Patrick Clawson, deputy research head at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Ross' former workplace.

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who is seeking the office again, "has a record of not being able to accomplish very much," Clawson said. "The key decision-maker is Khamenei and not the Iranian president. Therefore, U.S. policy should concentrate on how to engage with the supreme leader."

"There is no way you are going to prevent them from having [nuclear] capability," added Lawrence Korb, a Reagan-era defense official who is now a fellow at the Center for American Progress. "What you can do is prevent them from making nuclear weapons."

The relatively low-profile announcement of Ross' appointment raised questions about how important a role he would play in shaping U.S. policy on Iran, according to the Times. The official has adopted a behind-the-scenes style in the past, former co-workers said (Eli Lake, Washington Times, Feb. 26).

Meanwhile, the 35-nation IAEA governing board is expected to address Iran on Monday at its first meeting since Obama took office last month, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

The board is unlikely to issue resolutions or take other action on Iran's nuclear program, though, because the Obama administration is still reviewing its Iran policy, several Vienna-based diplomats said.

Even if Tehran does not pursue a nuclear weapon, its growing uranium stockpile could still give it a nuclear deterrent, one of the envoys said.

"That's probably what they always wanted," said the official (Albert Otti, Deutsche Presse-Agentur/Monsters and Critics, Feb. 27).

New Security Lapse at Los Alamos Triggers Angry Response From Energy Department

By Greg Webb

WASHINGTON -- Plutonium handling practices are so poor at a major U.S. nuclear-weapon laboratory that they threaten the facility's ability to function at all, Energy Department officials warned in a letter this week (see GSN, Feb. 12)

In January, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico reported to Energy Department officials that an "inventory difference" had "exceeded alarm limits," according to a letter back to the laboratory from two National Nuclear Security Administration officials. The Feb. 23 letter was acquired by the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog organization that has persistently raised alarms over lax security practices at Los Alamos and other nuclear laboratories.

The inventory difference involves improper accounting of materials at Technical Area 55, the facility's plutonium research and processing facility, according to a Los Alamos release issued yesterday. The area is responsible in part for producing the plutonium cores for refurbished U.S. nuclear warheads (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2008).

"It’s fairly clear that the inventory list indicates that the material is in a certain spot, in a particular vault, and when they go to check, it’s not there," POGO's Senior Investigator Peter Stockton told Global Security Newswire today, citing conversations with Los Alamos workers. "They have a discrepancy of something around a kilogram of plutonium."

The lapse, however, never constituted a security or safety threat outside the laboratory, according to the Los Alamos release.

"There is 100 percent certainty that no sensitive materials left the facility," the release says, citing extensive physical security measures the laboratory uses to screen personnel entering and leaving the site.

Stockton disparaged those assurances, arguing that repeated security tests at nuclear laboratories have failed, including a dramatic incident last year at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California in which a mock thief used a lacrosse stick to toss two plutonium containers over a perimeter fence (see GSN, May 13, 2008).

"We’ve had fairly significant tests of the facilities from time to time and it’s been shown that insiders can do you great damage in getting material out of there," he said.

The NNSA letter adopts a threatening tone and expresses exasperation that previous recommendations for improving the laboratory's material control and accounting program have not been adopted.

The latest incident "raises questions about the ability of the Los Alamos National Laboratory MC&A program to accomplish its primary objective, namely to deter and detect theft and diversion of special nuclear material," the letter says.

If not for the physical security measures, "these identified weaknesses in the MC&A program would impact the ability of the facility to continue operations," it adds.

Two officials in charge of the laboratory's material security measures were dismissed within the past month, Stockton said. He praised the NNSA effort to improve the situation.

"We’ve got to give NNSA credit. They really have done a good job on this. They’ve had about five or six teams in the last year out there trying to get this system fixed," he told GSN, but called for a stronger reaction still.

"A sharply worded letter is a good step, but without financial penalties, improvement is much less likely," he said in a POGO release yesterday.

The laboratory has vowed "to review and improve internal bookkeeping, inventory procedures and processes," says its release.

Top U.S. General Spurns Obama Pledge to Reduce Nuclear Alert Posture

By Elaine M. Grossman

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The nation's most senior nuclear combat commander yesterday took issue with U.S. President Barack Obama's characterization of U.S. atomic weapons as being on "hair-trigger alert" and warned against reducing the arsenal's launch readiness (see GSN, Feb. 17).

"The alert postures that we are in today are appropriate, given our strategy and guidance and policy," Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, who heads U.S. Strategic Command, said at a press conference here.

The White House says Obama intends to make good on a campaign promise to "work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert."

There are growing international calls to do just that. Six nations, including China, New Zealand and Switzerland, recently pressed the U.N. General Assembly to pass a resolution demanding that the world's nuclear weapons be removed from a status that would allow them to be launched in minutes (see GSN, Oct. 24, 2008).

The United States keeps roughly 1,000 nuclear warheads on alert atop ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, according to Hans Kristensen, who directs the Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project in Washington. The land-based missiles can be fired three to four minutes after a presidential order, while the submarine weapons require roughly 12 minutes' notice prior to launch, he said.

U.S. President George H.W. Bush unilaterally took the nation's bomber aircraft off of alert in 1991.

Russia, which has long opposed de-alerting measures for its own force, retains approximately 1,200 warheads at top readiness, nearly all of them on ICBMs, Kristensen said. The British and French together account for roughly 112 nuclear warheads on alert, though he said their weapons might require days' notice to launch.

Chilton said it is misleading to use the term "hair-trigger" when describing the U.S. arsenal, which he said remains safe from accidental or unauthorized launch.

"It conjures a drawn weapon in the hands of somebody," said the general, speaking at a two-day conference on air warfare. "And their finger's on the trigger. And you're worried they might sneeze, because it is so sensitive."

However, the "reality of our alert posture today," he said, is that "the weapon is in the holster."

Continuing the analogy, Chilton said the holster for nuclear weapons "has two combination locks on it," it "takes two people to open those locks," and "they can't do it without authenticated orders from the president of the United States."

At a separate press conference a few minutes earlier, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz also sought to "push back a little" on the notion that "these things are very close to launching."

"That's anything but the case," Schwartz said. "There is a rigorous discipline [and] process involved, should that ever be required, and it is anything but hair trigger."

The Air Force is responsible for managing the ICBM and strategic bomber legs of the U.S. nuclear triad, while the Navy handles submarine-based missiles.

Schwartz became his service's chief of staff last August after Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, citing dissatisfaction with their management of nuclear weapons.

The Air Force discovered last year that mislabeled ICBM fuses had been mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006 (see GSN, March 25, 2008). In 2007, a bomber aircraft crew transported six cruise missiles across several U.S. states, unaware that the weapons were armed with nuclear warheads (see GSN, Sept. 5, 2007).

Schwartz yesterday appeared to suggest that the U.S. military has not yet been asked to review the issue or to determine how Obama's de-alerting pledge might be implemented. He said a description of the policy posted on the White House Web site falls short of "formal direction to study something or do something."

"This matter has been evaluated over the years on numerous occasions," said the Air Force chief. "I have no doubt that we've thought about it. We certainly can and will look at it again, if that's what the new defense team wishes. ... But we'll wait for an appropriate assignment from the White House or from the Office of the Secretary [of Defense] to do that."

For his part, Chilton described a process of "de-alerting" as a fairly radical step.

Returning to the analogy of a holstered weapon, Chilton said a lower level of readiness for the nuclear stockpile would be like "taking the gun apart and mailing pieces of it to various parts of the country. And then when you're in crisis, deciding to reassemble it.

"And we have to ask ourselves: Can we afford that time period for the delivery of the pieces to put it back together?" he continued. "Is that the posture we want to be in as we [review] policy, strategy, force structure and posturing of forces?"

That broad analysis is to take place during the Nuclear Posture Review, a congressionally mandated Defense Department study that is set to begin this year. It is expected to take a fresh look at the nation's deterrence posture and potentially recommend changes in the nuclear weapons approach, given current and anticipated threats.

Kristensen said Chilton appeared to depict only the most extreme scenario for de-alerting the nuclear force, while Obama might opt instead for more incremental measures.

"There is a wide range of measures you could take, from taking the entire force off of alert, to biting off the edges of the alert force in terms of gradually reducing the alert force or ... [adding] delays in the launch sequence," he told Global Security Newswire today.

One underlying objective of building more time into the nuclear-weapons launch process could be to offer a longer window for a president to weigh and potentially reverse a momentous strike order, Kristensen said. He added that Bush's decision to reduce bomber aircraft readiness has not weakened the U.S. deterrence posture.

"We have already taken the bombers off of alert ... and no one has attacked us in almost two decades," Kristensen said. "[Obama] is the one to make the decision ... because if you leave it to the warfighters and the strategists, then it's always going to be impossible to do anything that will change the status quo."

On a related issue, Schwartz raised the prospect that a new nuclear and conventional long-range bomber might not be fielded by 2018 to replace B-2 and B-52 aircraft, as his predecessor had assured (See GSN, Oct. 25, 2007).

"One of the things in a period of austerity is having acquisition programs that deliver on time and on cost," Schwartz told reporters. "And so whether it's 2018 or not, I think, is less important to me than having a viable, manageable program which will actually deliver at endgame."

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley -- a Bush administration appointee the White House announced yesterday it would retain -- said the bomber's prospects are under closed-door discussion as the Pentagon debates the 2010 defense spending plan and embarks on longer-term reviews.

"We don't have any determined outcomes yet on systems of that nature," said Donley, sitting alongside Schwartz at the afternoon press conference. Both noted their view that a new bomber continues to be needed in the coming years.

Obama Sets 2010 Timetable for Iraq Withdrawal

President tells top leaders in Congress that he will end combat operations in Iraq on Aug. 31, 2010, putting a halt to all U.S.-led counterinsurgency efforts and transitioning the mission.....

Ron Paul's opening statement 2009.02.25

Muslim prayer-in-school controversy might be solved

BY ANDREA ALEXANDER

WAYNE — Four students knelt on a classroom floor during lunch at the Albert Payson Terhune Elementary School today and performed the afternoon Muslim prayer ritual.

It was the first time the students had prayed in the school during school hours. And it may end a controversy over what arrangement the district should make to ensure the children’s constitutionally protected right to exercise their religion during school hours.

School parent Rola Awwad has been seeking a private place for her 10-year-old son, Adam, to pray in school since the fall. The district offered to let him pray at recess — either outside or in classroom while his classmates are there. At first, Awwad called the offer “unacceptable,” and the situation attracted attention from Muslim advocates who suggested bringing the issue to the state for resolution. ....

Violence between repo men, car owners on the rise

By JAY REEVES

HALSELL, Ala. (AP) — Alone in his mobile home off a winding dirt road, Jimmy Tanks heard a commotion at 2:30 a.m. just outside his bedroom window: Somebody was messing with his car.

The 67-year-old railroad retiree grabbed a gun, walked out the back door and confronted not a thief but a repo man and two helpers trying to tow off the Chrysler Sebring. Shots were fired, and Tanks wound up dead, a bullet in his chest.

The man who came to repossess the car, Kenneth Alvin Smith, is awaiting trial on a murder charge in a state considered a Wild West territory even by the standards of an industry that's largely unregulated nationally. Since Tanks' death last June, two other repo men from the same company Smith worked for were shot, one fatally.

"It's gotten to where it's a crazy world out there," said Smith, 50, an ex-Marine who preaches part-time and sings gospel music. Smith said Thursday that he fired in self-defense after Tanks fired a shot.

With the U.S. dealing with an economic slide that has cost millions of jobs, the number of vehicle repossessions is expected to rise 5 percent this year. That's after it jumped 12 percent to 1.67 million nationally in 2008, said Tom Webb, chief economist with Manheim Consulting, an automotive marketing firm. That followed a 9 percent increase in 2007, creating more opportunities for bad outcomes in an industry where armed confrontations and threats happen every day.

Joe Taylor, whose Florida-based company insures repossession companies, said licensing and training is the answer to avoiding such violence.

"If a guy is just put right on the street without training, the potential for violence is very, very high," said Taylor, who runs Insurance Services USA.

Federal law says workers can't "breach the peace" while repossessing items, but it doesn't go further to state just what that means, leaving definitions up to courts.

All three Alabama shootings were in the middle of the night, which an industry leader said was a sign of a problem.

"The smart operators aren't out there at 2 or 3 o'clock at night with people who can put you in a bad situation," said Les McCook, executive director of the American Recovery Association, a trade group for repossession companies.

It was June 26 that the repo man came for Tanks' car in Halsell, a tiny, rural Choctaw County town near the Mississippi line. Tanks already had filed for bankruptcy and was behind on his payments, court documents show.

Tanks heard a noise and went outside with a gun, something anybody would do, said Choctaw County Sheriff James Lovette, who knew Tanks for years. Smith was indicted Tuesday, but no charges were filed against a man and his teenage son who accompanied Smith, said Lovette.

Smith's defense lawyer, Rusty Wright, said Tanks came out of the trailer and fired, and that Smith "just wanted to stop him."

"This is not the gunslinging cowboy that people think about with repo guys," Wright said. "(Smith) wasn't out to kill the guy."

The sheriff declined comment on whether Tanks shot at Smith.

Lovette said Smith worked out of Birmingham with Ascension Recovery, a subsidiary of the Chicago-based Renovo Services. The same recovery firm employed a repo man who was shot and killed on Jan. 8 in Birmingham, as well as a third worker who was wounded while towing a vehicle in the city on Feb. 10.

The CEO of Renovo Services, David Cowlbeck, didn't respond to questions sent by e-mail about the fatal shootings. He called the unsolved February wounding of 30-year-old Jason Williamson "a random act of violence."

"We trust that the perpetrators are quickly apprehended and charged accordingly," Cowlbeck said in a statement.

Lovette is asking the Alabama Sheriff's Association to push a bill limiting the hours when repossession companies can operate and requiring them to contact local law enforcement before working in an area.

"There's a time and place for everything, and 3 a.m. is not it," said Lovette.

The three states that actively license and monitor recovery agents — California, Florida and Louisiana — report less violence than other states, Taylor said. But most state legislatures aren't interested in repossession law until people start dying, he said.

"You don't find many state legislators who have had a car repossessed. They are just unfamiliar with that world," said Taylor.

Tanks was killed just two weeks after he married Georgia Tanks, who keeps a floral spray at the spot where he died beside the car, which is long gone. She wasn't at home the night he was killed because she was away teaching Vacation Bible School in nearby Meridian, Miss. She has filed a wrongful death suit in the slaying.

"It's senseless," she said, wiping away tears as she looked at their wedding photograph. "The legal stuff I don't know anything about. I just know God is going to let justice be done."

Smith, too, is haunted by what happened that night.

"I've played it through in my mind a million times to see if I could have done something different," he said. "I couldn't have."

Obama intel pick works for Chinese government

(Compiler's note: What on earth is going on here. We can and must do better...)

By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – President Obama's nominee for a top intelligence post sits on the board of a major oil company owned by the Chinese government that is widely seen as conducting business deals meant to expand China's influence worldwide, WND has learned.

Charles "Chas" Freeman, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, is slated to head the U.S. National Intelligence Council. The NIC is a crucial component of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, serving as the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the American intelligence community. It provides intelligence briefs for Obama and key U.S. agencies and produces reports that help determine American policy on crucial issues, such as Iran's nuclear program.

Freeman is on the board of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC, which in 2005 tried to purchase the ninth largest oil firm in the U.S. while he was a member. The merger was halted following bipartisan congressional opposition amid fears the deal would harm American national security

interests.

The Chinese oil firm also has been accused of multiple human rights violations.

Freeman has served on the board of CNOOC since 2004. He also founded a pro-China organization, the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, which seeks to promote U.S.-China relations.

Freeman did not return WND requests for comment left with a media representative for his Middle East Policy Council.

CNOOC, the third largest Chinese oil company, focuses on the exploitation, exploration and development of crude oil and natural gas offshore of China. Seventy-five percent of the company's shares are owned by the government of the People's Republic of China.

Chas W. Freeman

In 2005, CNOOC made a staggering, all-cash $18.5 billion offer to buy the American oil company Unocal, topping an earlier bid by ChevronTexaco. Immediately, lawmakers and many policy experts, including a broad array of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, mounted a major opposition campaign to the bid, urging the Bush administration to have the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. determine how the deal would affect national security.

"This takeover is part of a Chinese strategy to move very aggressively into acquiring natural resource assets all over the world to fuel China's continued growth, because China is relatively resource-poor," Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, told reporters in 2005. "It's also part of a Chinese campaign to move, again, very aggressively into the American economy."

There was concern the deal would give China a major foothold in the U.S. economy and would also boost Chinese influence and political clout worldwide, particularly in Asia, where Unocal maintained major holdings in Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh,

"The acquisition would significantly help China achieve its goal of dominating the entire (Asian) region," John J. Tkacik Jr. wrote in a 2005 article in Capitalism Magazine.

Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., similarly warned the acquisition would give China an economic "leg up" in Asia.

Scores of media reports in major news outlets quoted congressmen worrying the CNOOC deal would give the Chinese an energy bargaining chip during U.S. negotiations seeking a tougher line against North Korea's nuclear program.

Human rights violations

Arakan Oil Watch, a human rights organization, issued a report accusing CNOOC last October of human rights abuses and land theft in an oil prospecting venture in Burma. The accusations came less than a month after the U.S.-based EarthRights International expressed concern about China's increasing grip on Burma's natural resources, including through CNOOC's ventures.

The accusations against CNOOC, with Freeman on its board, ranged from land seizure to wanton pollution of rice fields and water systems with oil waste.

"Observers note that the actions by CNOOC are similar to the methods still used throughout rural China when entrepreneurs in cahoots with Communist Party officials want to pursue a development against local peoples' wishes. They simply steamroller opposition," read a report in Irrawaddy, the independent news magazine based in Thailand.

Freeman has a long history of involvement with China. He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's historic visit to Beijing in 1972 and was a member of the advance team that opened the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing in 1973. From 1979 to 1981, Freeman directed Chinese Affairs at the State Department. From that point until 1984, he served as chargé and deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Beijing.

Freeman is the co-founder of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, which, according to its website, promotes a greater understanding between American and Chinese policymakers, researchers and government officials. Among the missions of the foundation is to organize the development of China studies in U.S. institutions of higher education.

Freeman has been widely quoted in the media supporting Chinese policies and even penned a piece praising communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

The Weekly Standard recently obtained an e-mail Freeman posted to a list serve rapping the Chinese government for not immediately breaking up the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

He wrote: "I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e., that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than – as would have been both wise and efficacious – to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China."

Saudi Arabia, bin Laden family ties

As WND reported, Freeman served as president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based Saudi backed nonprofit that received tens of thousands of dollars a year from the bin Laden family and hundreds of thousands more from other Saudi donors.

As chairman of Projects International Inc., a company that develops worldwide business deals, Freeman declared in an Associated Press interview just after the 9/11 attacks he was still "discussing proposals with the Bin Laden Group – and that won't change."

The Bin Laden Group is a multinational construction conglomerate and holding company for the assets owned by the bin Laden family. It was founded in 1950 by Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, father of the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Freeman told the AP that companies that have "had very long and profitable relationships are now running for public relations cover."

He said bin Laden remains "a very honored name" in the Saudi kingdom.

In a separate interview Sept. 28, 2001, Freeman told the Wall Street Journal he spoke at the time to two of Osama bin Laden's brothers following the mega terrorist attacks. He said they told him the FBI had been "remarkably sensitive, tactful and protective" of the family during the current crisis.

Freeman maintained to the Journal that the bin Laden family company was closely aligned with American interests and that the group was part of the "establishment that Osama's trying to overthrow."

Osama bin Laden worked briefly in his family business and is reported to have inherited as much as $50 million from his father in cash and stock. The Saudi Bin Laden Group has invested in the Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment firm to which former President George H. W. Bush served as adviser. Former President George W. Bush sat on the board.

With additional reporting by Ashley Rinsdberg.

U.S. spy agency may get more cybersecurity duties

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The spy agency that ran the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program may get more responsibility for securing U.S. computer networks, President Barack Obama's intelligence chief told Congress on Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair said the National Security Agency, which is responsible for codebreaking and electronic spying, should assume a greater role in cybersecurity because of its technological prowess and current role in detecting attacks.

"There are some wizards out there ... who can do stuff. I think that capability should be harnessed and built on," Blair said in testimony to the House of Representatives intelligence committee.

Blair acknowledged that many Americans distrust the agency, which operated former President George W. Bush's secret program of warrantless electronic spying on some Americans' overseas phone calls.

"The NSA is both intelligence and military, two strikes out in terms of the way some Americans think about a body that ought to be protecting their privacy and civil liberties," Blair said.

Government concern over computer network vulnerability has risen as computer hackers become more sophisticated.

"A number of nations, including Russia and China, can disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure," Blair said. "Cyber-defense is not a one-time fix; it requires a continual investment."

Billions of dollars are at stake. Defense contractors Northrop Grumman Corp, Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co are working on classified cybersecurity projects for the U.S. government.

Software and telecommunications companies also are likely to play a major role, said Democratic Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, whose Maryland district includes the NSA.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama ordered a 60-day cybersecurity review and named Melissa Hathaway, the top cyber official with the intelligence director's office, to a White House post overseeing the effort.

Some lawmakers have said the Homeland Security Department, which plays a leading role in U.S. computer security and is in charge of protecting federal civilian networks, is not up to the job.

Blair said he agreed: "The National Security Agency has the greatest repository of cyber talent."

"They're the ones who know best about what's coming back at us, and it is defenses against those sorts of things that we need to be able to build into wider and wider circles."

Policing Terrorism in the United States: The Los Angeles Police Department's Convergence Strategy

(Compiler's note: An excellent must read article.)

By Michael P. Downing, Deputy Chief and Commanding Officer, Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, Los Angeles, California, Police Department

ocal law enforcement agencies around the world face an increasingly complex set of problems with the emergence of globally coordinated criminal networks and national security threats. Modern-day criminals have proved themselves to be transnational in reach, linked by sophisticated networks and highly adaptive in their thinking. In response, local police agencies such as the Los Angeles, California, Police Department (LAPD) are developing strategies that are equally adaptive and networked. The linchpin of these strategies is and must remain convergence.

The word convergence is used variously by different disciplines. In this context, the intent is to describe the process of bringing different elements together to achieve a result beneficial to all. As a real-world example, the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain Project (http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/) puts anthropologists and other social scientists alongside combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq to help the military better understand local cultures.

This concept translates well to policing in the context of counterterrorism. To face a relatively new adversary, police have been required to bolster old strengths, such as investigative skills, while acquiring new information, such as specific knowledge of terrorist organizations. These developments are fostered often by collaborative, multidisciplinary environments, which can cast light on the way forward. This article highlights some of the efforts the LAPD has undertaken to achieve a high level of convergence in working to prevent terrorist activities on U.S. soil.

A New Reality: Global Events with Local Effects

For local police to successfully meet the challenges posed by terrorism, the time-tested approaches that emphasize prevention must converge with new ones that focus on prediction. The systems designed to protect sensitive information must converge with efforts to cooperate and collaborate with law enforcement partners in the United States and abroad. Self-contained, territorial methods of operation must give way to strategic relationships and the development of an international consciousness that remains anchored in local communities.

In relation to terrorism, these strategies are driven by a new reality: extreme ideologies often have global implications. The groups that hew to these ideologies and embrace the use of violence can achieve a global reach. The impact of this new reality is that terrorist attacks can have devastating effects on the United States and its interests—no matter where in the world such attacks occur.

Local law enforcement agencies in the United States must assume that an attack that takes place in a remote location could be part of a global effort with a local operational component. The attack could be replicated locally, could be supported or advanced by local operators, or could even be exploited by local extremists to advance their political agendas. Therefore, it is essential that local law enforcement agencies start to look beyond U.S. shores for the harbingers of future regional issues.

Two examples of geopolitical changes in the past several years demonstrate the need to appreciate international perspectives. According to World Bank estimates, the number of poorly governed “fragile” states—those characterized by weak institutions and vulnerability to conflict—jumped from 17 in 2003 to 26 in 2007.¹ This is significant because failed states can serve as breeding grounds for criminals such as terrorists, who are all too eager to exploit a weakened government and population and who often develop transnational reach. In terms of tactics, it is interesting to note that suicide attacks took place in seven countries from 1981 to 2000. The number of countries has jumped to at least 20 since 2001.² Although it is not a foregone conclusion that the United States will suffer a suicide attack, this is a trend that merits the close attention of the law enforcement community.

Already, the United States faces a vicious, amorphous, and unfamiliar adversary. In simplistic terms, the terrorist threat can be separated into three categories: homegrown terrorists inspired by an ideology promoted by al Qaeda or other groups; terrorists who come to the United States to raise money to conduct operations here or abroad; and terrorists who have footholds both in the United States and overseas and operate in both arenas.

In the experience of the LAPD, the principal threats are local, self-generating, and self-directed. If there are direct connections with overseas groups, these are most likely to be initiated by the local actors. One such example was found in Lodi, California (see figure 1 for a timeline of terrorist activity since September 11, 2001), where U.S. citizens sought terrorist training in Pakistan. This consideration is not intended to minimize the international threat, but it serves as a caution that the number of U.S. local threats will likely increase.

Figure 1. The graph illustrates that over time, terrorist attacks have become more inspired by rather than controlled by al Qaeda. For U.S. law enforcement agencies, this means a greater emphasis must be placed on identifying homegrown, al Qaeda–inspired terrorists and developing a greater understanding of the local environment that produces them.

Strengths of Local Agencies in Counterterrorism Efforts

The United States has many more layers and jurisdictions than countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel, and Australia. One need only look at the numbers. Covering 3.79 million square miles and home to more than 300 million people, the United States contains roughly 3,000 counties and about 2,500 cities with 10,000 or more people.

The country boasts more than 16 federal intelligence agencies and 17,500 local law enforcement agencies that employ more than 750,000 local law enforcement officers. This decentralization of law enforcement responsibilities presents both a challenge and an opportunity: a challenge to develop lasting, effective collaboration among diverse agencies, but an opportunity for special skills and expertise to be developed and shared throughout the U.S. law enforcement community. Whether that opportunity will be realized will be decided by how effectively agencies collaborate—with each other, with the private sector, with academia, and with their communities.

The strengths of U.S. local law enforcement agencies are drawn from the powers of search, seizure of evidence, and arrest; a community policing infrastructure; the growing ability to manage, share, and analyze information; the proven ability to identify and interpret suspect behaviors; and established relationships that can carry an investigation from inception to completion.

Local police also add the critical elements of speed, resources, and numbers to any situation. They are able to deploy rapidly and can quickly summon more forces if needed. Managers in the field are accustomed to making decisions in dynamic and high-stakes incidents. Investigators, particularly in large police departments, have considerable resources at their fingertips and are supported by a solid investment in their training. Many police departments throughout the country are faced with a high workload. The natural outcome of this fast pace is that the officers and investigators have substantial breadth and depth of field experience.

These strengths all make local police supremely capable of being valuable contributors to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Just as terrorists’ modus operandi evolve, so do policing efforts. Police are designed to quickly adapt and align their resources to changing circumstances in the field. They are also the force most attuned to subtle changes and warning signs in the community.

In the terrorism arena, the main strength of local agencies is their experience in investigating individuals and enterprises. The investigation of individuals has created a robust understanding of how broad networks and enterprises with varying degrees of culpability are linked through relationships. The crime-fighting model used to investigate organized crime, gangs, and narcotics trafficking enterprises—their structures, the players, and their strategies—is being applied regularly to the investigation of terrorist networks.

This modern approach was embraced after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in recognition of the dearth of information about other possible terrorist activity in the country. Agencies following the model cast a wide and deep law enforcement net that both attempts to catch culpable individuals and targets the larger enterprise. Resources are focused on detecting more traditional crimes such as fraud, smuggling, and tax evasion to assemble the puzzle pieces and understand the networks of terrorist operatives in local communities. This approach has helped agencies develop a richer picture of the operational environment and likely has played a significant role in preventing another attack in the United States.

The convergence of these tried and true policing strategies when applied to the problem of terrorism has yielded success. Local police, particularly those from the larger antiterrorism units, are contributing to the knowledge base of their state and federal colleagues—particularly when it comes to understanding the dynamics of networks and decentralized groups. These cases and the resulting lessons learned have increased the stature of local law enforcement operations and earned local agencies a legitimate seat at the intelligence table.

Progress since September 11

In the past, turf battles and the need for jurisdictional supremacy at all levels of the U.S. law enforcement community led to key intelligence failures. Although there is still much work to be done, in the last seven years, information sharing in the United States has improved both vertically and horizontally: vertically, meaning between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the nation’s 17,500 state and local police departments, and horizontally, among the state and local departments themselves. The changes made in communication between local and national intelligence units since the September 11 attacks can be put into three categories: culture, capability, and awareness.

• Culture: Local and state law enforcement agencies are now recognized as critical to intelligence efforts to prevent terrorism—efforts that blend seamlessly with their core mission to detect and deter crime and protect communities. This was not always so. Only after the September 11 attacks were these agencies woven into the national security fabric, and the art of policing was acknowledged and embraced. The change in the culture has been reflected in numerous documents, studies, and initiatives in the past seven years, including the president’s National Strategy for Information Sharing and a recent RAND Corporation study that stated that “policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts” to defeat al Qaeda because its network of individuals needs
to be tracked and arrested.³

• Capability: Analytic capabilities have improved in large part because of the establishment of 58 fusion centers in 46 states.


• Awareness: Local police are becoming better able to recognize behaviors consistent with the crimes related to terrorism.

Role of Local Agencies in Intelligence Gathering and Analysis

As the U.S. government and federal law enforcement agencies have embraced police as true partners, local law enforcers themselves have rallied. For the first time in U.S. law enforcement history, senior officers from every major city police intelligence unit in the nation have come together to form an Intelligence Commanders Group (ICG), part of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Major city police departments are those that employ more than 1,000 law enforcement officers and serve a population of 500,000 or more. The 64 top-level intelligence commanders that constitute the ICG work in concert to share intelligence and ensure interagency cooperation.

In May 2008, this group delivered a position paper, Twelve Tenets to Prevent Crime and Terrorism, that detailed the priorities of local law enforcement agencies.⁴ This paper addresses 12 issues ranging from the classification of intelligence documents to the federal grant process and calls for changes in all.

The ICG document is a prime example of how police are collaborating in new ways to influence homeland security policy at the federal level. Their newfound voice is coupled with a desire to consider thoughtfully all of the serious responsibilities that come with their role as “first preventers” of terrorism—particularly when it comes to intelligence gathering and sharing.

With an increased role in the intelligence arena comes the increased responsibility on the part of police to protect civil liberties and operate in a legitimate and transparent fashion. The growth of intelligence-gathering operations at the local level must be proportionate with the creation of safeguards against abuses. It is important that local law enforcement agencies carefully and accurately define those they suspect will commit a criminal terrorist act. This task must be executed with a balance and precision that inspires the support and trust of the U.S. population so that local residents will partner with the police in the pursuit of their lawful mission.

The support and the trust of the public are essential to “softer” law enforcement strategies aimed at countering extremist ideologies and influence at the local level. Although the primary objective remains to hunt terrorism suspects and disrupt their operational capability (that is, recruiting, funding, planning, surveilling, and executing operations), the broader strategy must include efforts that target terrorists’ motivations.

Outreach and partnership efforts aim to increase the safety and stature of communities to create a network of individuals who feel it is in their best interest to create an environment hostile to criminals of all stripes. Such a network can be achieved by providing excellent police service and building solid relationships with community members.

This point is not merely an academic one—it has operational consequences. By getting communities, including those that may be breeding grounds for violent ideologies, to buy into the idea that local agencies are operating in the communities’ best interests, these agencies foster an environment in which tips and leads can come from those same communities, increasing the ability to gather information. Ultimately, it is these communities—aided by law enforcement and other resources—that foster environments hostile to the proliferation of criminality in any form.

Recent LAPD Counterterrorism Cases

The LAPD created its Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau in 2003. It now has close to 300 officers dedicated to counterterrorism, criminal-intelligence gathering, and community mobilization efforts.

The LAPD Counter-Terrorism Bureau’s mission has four goals:

• Prevent terrorism by effectively sharing information aimed at disrupting terrorists’ operational capability and addressing the underlying causes associated with the motivational component


• Protect the public and critical infrastructure by leveraging private-sector resources and hardening targets


• Pursue terrorists and the criminal enterprises that support them


• Prepare the citizenry and the city government for consequences associated with terrorist operations against the city

The LAPD has gained considerable counterterrorism case experience over the past few years. The following cases are but a sample of those that have come onto the LAPD’s counterterrorism investigative radar.

Hezbollah Funding Case: The arrest of a major terrorist funding group by a task force comprising members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the LAPD working alongside the FBI illustrated the interrelation of criminal acts and the funding of terrorism, as well as the increasing global reach of local cases. This group raised money for Hezbollah by selling narcotics. It then laundered a portion of the funds by selling counterfeit products such as clothing and cigarettes in the United States and Latin America.

Black Rider Case: The Black Rider Liberation Party, a spinoff of the Black Panther Party, threatened to take over four police stations in Los Angeles and shoot and kill as many police officers as possible in furtherance of its black separatist and antigovernment agenda. Traditional policing tactics, including surveillance (using both technical and nontechnical methods), source development, search warrants, and the introduction of an informant, resulted in the arrest and prosecution of this domestic terrorist group. Property recovered during the investigation included numerous large-caliber automatic and semiautomatic weapons; a military handbook on intelligence and interrogation; night vision goggles; bulletproof vests; knives; a crossbow; a police scanner; and manuals on police field operations, sniper procedures, and bioterrorism.

Jam’yyat Al-Islam Al-Saheeh: One case serves as an excellent example of the prison radicalization process, the nexus between street-level crimes and terrorism, and how homegrown terrorists are often inspired by ideology and events overseas but have no affiliation with a larger terrorist organization. It also illustrates how local police are key to identifying terrorism suspects who were not previously on the federal law enforcement radar.

Kevin Lamar James was a former Hoover Street Crip gang member who, while in prison, founded a group called Jam’yyat Al-Islam Al-Saheeh (JIS). While serving a 10-year sentence for robbery and possession of a weapon in prison, James converted a fellow inmate who, once released in 2004, was instructed to recruit others for terrorist operations against the United States and Israel. The convert did as instructed; in 2005, the four-person cell actively started researching such targets as military installations, Israeli offices, and synagogues and funded its operations through a series of gas station robberies—all orchestrated by James from behind prison walls.

One of these robberies led to the cell’s discovery and capture by local police in the summer of 2005. The search warrant that resulted from the robbery of a Torrance, California, gas station led to the discovery of jihadist propaganda and an overarching conspiracy to wage war against the United States. The four men involved were indicted in October 2006. Three of the four, including James, have pleaded guilty. The fourth was found mentally unfit to stand trial and is in a federal prison facility under psychiatric care. One of the four—the man whom James sent out to recruit others—was the first to be sentenced, receiving a 22-year federal prison term in June 2008. During his sentencing hearing, Levar Haney Washington told the judge that the members of JIS waged war against their own country because they opposed U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and stated that “calamities affecting the Muslim world” had influenced his outlook. The cell had robbed gas stations because oil is a political symbol, he said.⁵

Animal Liberation Front: The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an extremist group whose members have committed arson, vandalism, and other crimes that often do not rise to the level of a federal violation—placing them directly in the wheelhouse of local law enforcement agencies. The leaders of this underground movement often cloak themselves in the protections of the First Amendment right to free speech while leading a criminal lifestyle, committing crimes such as petty theft and robbery to sustain both themselves as individuals and the larger criminal enterprise. This rejection of authority enables local agencies to track and ultimately catch the leadership culpable for more pedestrian crimes such as burglaries. The ALF’s ultimate objective is to eliminate animal euthanasia and the use of all animals in laboratory testing in universities and science centers. In the pursuit of these objectives, elements of the group have become more violent.

California Department of Motor Vehicles: Another case provides an example of a crevice criminal market—in this case, embedded in a trusted government institution—that provides the logistical support for lower-level crimes all the way to potential terrorism-related cases. Workers at the California Department of Motor Vehicles provided a significant number of suspects with false documents. The documents in question appeared legal in every way other than the assumed name. This enterprise is in the process of being disrupted and dismantled through such traditional policing methods as extensive investigation and using informants against the targets.

LAPD Counterterrorism Programs

Even as the LAPD gains valuable real-world experience through cases such as those mentioned in the previous section, it must keep improving its capabilities and methods to stay ahead of the threat. The LAPD must also continuously develop ways to forge partnerships and foster collaboration among agencies. Sun Tzu, the oft-quoted Chinese general from the sixth century, wrote that “if you know your enemies and you know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.”

The following programs (some of which are identified in figure 2) demonstrate just some of the areas in which the department has concentrated its efforts to achieve its ambitious goals.

Figure 2. The graphic depicts a convergent approach to information/intelligence collection that feeds into operational decision making, both in terms of critical operational decision making and deployment or tactical resource allocation. The double-sided arrows illustrate the fact that in this system, intelligence can feed operations or operations can feed intelligence collection requirements.

Suspicious Activity Reports: The LAPD developed and implemented the Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) process for reporting suspected terrorism-related incidents and tying them firmly into information collection procedures, tracking systems, and intelligence analysis. This is considered the first program in the United States to create a national standard for terrorism-related modus operandi codes. The SAR program is an example of the convergence of skills that police have used for decades to observe traditional criminal behavior with the new behavioral indices of those associated with terrorist recruitment and the planning and execution of operations. This initiative, which fits nicely with the federal government’s National Strategy for Information Sharing, is in the process of being rolled out nationally. Once the SAR program is institutionalized throughout the country, local, state, and federal agencies will have a common standard for collecting, measuring, and sharing information about suspected terrorism-related incidents. This program has the potential to become the bread and butter of U.S. fusion centers, and it can inspire the so-called boots on the ground and the community to get involved in the counterterrorism effort.

Operation Archangel: More than 85 percent of the critical infrastructure in the United States is privately owned. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the LAPD implemented Operation Archangel, which has become a national model for critical infrastructure protection. This program, which represents convergence of the private sector with the police system, was recently documented in the award-winning film Archangel: Protecting Our Freedom, which was distributed to 64 major cities and to the U.S. Congress.

National Counter-Terrorism Academy: The LAPD pilot tested the National Counter-Terrorism Academy (NCTA), the first such academy created by local law enforcement agencies for local law enforcement agencies. During the five-month pilot program, which ended in July 2008, nearly 60 police, fire, and private security personnel from 25 agencies received a comprehensive overview of international and domestic terrorist threats and were aided in the development of intelligence-led policing (ILP) strategies to counter those threats in their jurisdictions. This multiagency, multidisciplinary student body served as a prime example of the convergence of various disciplines in the counterterrorism effort. The NCTA will train many more in 2009, with NCTA programs in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California. The LAPD has also formally proposed the creation of a National Consortium on Intelligence-Led Policing (NCILP) that would serve as an ILP training and education resource for state and local police departments across the United States. The NCILP would design five separate curricula to teach state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies how to apply ILP strategies to the fusion of intelligence on counterterrorism, narcotics trafficking, gangs, organized crime, and human trafficking.

Hydra: The LAPD facilitated the acquisition of a training system, called Hydra, that tests and improves the decision-making skills of agency personnel during simulated critical incidents. This will be the first Hydra system in the United States and will grant the LAPD access to the training scenarios of 32 other installations throughout the world. In doing so, the department will firmly converge its training efforts with those of major police departments in such countries as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Terrorism Liaison Officers: Terrorism liaison officers (TLOs) are casting an ever-wider net to train more people in the city as public data collectors. They are trained on what and how to report suspicious behavior/activity that has a nexus to terrorism. This is one prong of an effort to institutionalize counterterrorism awareness in the area commands and throughout the LAPD. The ultimate goal is to blend crime-fighting and counterterrorism efforts seamlessly.

Muslim Forum: The LAPD recently held its first-ever Chief’s Muslim Community Forum, hosted by Chief William J. Bratton. This meeting brought police and Muslim leaders from throughout the greater Los Angeles area together to enable the LAPD to better understand how it can protect and serve their communities. The LAPD is in the process of developing a documentary film that will highlight the diverse Muslim communities in Los Angeles, their relationships with local law enforcement agencies, the challenges faced by both U.S. Muslims and law enforcement agencies, and the way forward. Community mobilization, an essential part of the crime-fighting model, is particularly important when applied to populations that may feel targeted by society or the police. One goal with Muslim communities has been to converge their community-building efforts with those of the LAPD; by opening channels of communication and fostering trust, opportunities to improve police service to those communities would arise.

Additional Capabilities

The following list enumerates some of the LAPD’s capabilities that best enable it to work toward its goal of convergence.

Information Sharing: Working in concert with regional and federal partners in the seven counties served by the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, the LAPD continues to build its capacity to collect, fuse, analyze, and disseminate both strategic and operational intelligence (see figure 3). The LAPD is aligning the information collection and dissemination process with an eye toward accountability to ensure that “first preventers” have the needed information in a timely manner. The “all crimes, all hazards” approach to this center ensures analysts’ ability to bring to light relevant trends to generate actionable intelligence. This fusion center epitomizes the model of convergence.

Figure 3. This graphic illustrates the LAPD’s preventive and predictive model of intelligence collection and distribution. The LAPD’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau’s Major Crimes Division and Emergency Services Division, as well as the Joint Regional Intelligence Center and the Real-Time Analysis and Critical Response Division, create a real-time, four-lane superhighway of information and intelligence. The CompStat process, criminal and intelligence investigations, crimes that provide funding mechanisms for terrorist networks, and technology that provides even more focused information all provide for a richer picture of local intelligence

RPPICS: The LAPD has developed a technological tool, called the Regional Public Private Infrastructure Collaboration System (RPPICS), that enhances communication both within the LAPD and with the private sector. This program converges technology with the goals of hardening targets and the inclusion of the private sector in counterterrorism efforts.

Human Intelligence: The LAPD created a human source development unit to increase its ability to develop actionable intelligence in specific areas—a measure taken with an eye toward understanding the environment of homegrown extremists and what to target in that environment.

Intelligence Investigators: The pioneering of the Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Section demonstrated the success of a hybrid model of cross-training that equipped intelligence officers with the tools traditionally available to analysts. The new model requires that each investigative team be responsible for producing link charts, timelines, financial analysis, and so on. This helps investigators to see the criticality of analysis by identifying their own knowledge gaps and adjusting their investigations accordingly. This new approach has shortened the time span from the identification of a problem (a terrorist indicator) to its representation (in the form of analyzed intelligence) and the realization of investigative goals.

Cyber Investigations: The LAPD has developed the ability to hunt for signs of radicalization and terrorist activities on the Internet—a capability that provides a plain-view means of identifying and gathering information on potential threats. Information gleaned from this open source, fed into the radicalization template, and combined with a thorough understanding of operational indicators is critical to articulating suspicion and justifying the increased application of enforcement measures.

Conclusion

U.S. local law enforcement agencies have come a long way in terms of adapting to the increasingly complex threats of today’s world. However, as terrorist groups embracing asymmetric warfare tactics attempt to create a larger footprint on U.S. soil, agencies must not grow complacent.

Police hold the key to mitigating and ultimately defeating terrorism in the United States. Local agencies throughout the country have the ideas and the technology to create counternetworks and to mount effective defenses and offenses. Through multijurisdictional, multiagency efforts, police can cast a redundant network of trip wires to determine whether individuals or enterprises represent an active threat that warrants investigation or enforcement action. But agencies will need to be flexible, adaptable, and transparent enough to collaborate with one another. They will need to develop more meaningful and trusting partnerships and to create policy that maximizes law enforcement resources. Most importantly, they will need to work with communities to counter the extremism that foments acts of terrorism. Policing must be a convergent strategy that fights crime and disorder while creating hostile environments for terrorists.

The theme of convergence illustrates the coupling of local resources, namely police, with the ability to recognize ordinary crimes that terrorists have been known to commit in preparation for their operational attack: committing traffic violations, obtaining fake identification papers, smuggling, human trafficking, counterfeiting, committing piracy, drug trafficking, or participating in any other criminal enterprise that intersects with terrorists’ needs. Local police serve as the eyes and ears of communities; as such, they are best positioned to observe behaviors that have a nexus to terrorism. It has been the LAPD’s goal to institutionalize the idea of counterterrorism efforts throughout the department and the communities it serves—not to make counterterrorism measures the priority, but a priority.

Converging community policing and counterterrorism strategies and implementing them under the guiding philosophy of intelligence-led policing will focus law enforcement efforts and better equip agencies to partner with communities in the pursuit to make the United States safe. Ultimately, the success of all of these convergent strategies will be measured by the prevention of terrorist acts, the countering of extremist ideologies and their local influence, and the resiliency of U.S. communities in the face of man-made and natural disasters. ■

Notes:

¹Karen DeYoung, “World Bank Lists Failing Nations That Can Breed Global Terrorism,” Washington Post, September 15, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401859.html (accessed December 23, 2008).
²Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat (New York: Random House, 2006).
³White House, National Strategy for Information Sharing: Successes and Challenges in Improving Terrorism-Related Information Sharing, October 2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/infosharing/index.html (accessed December 23, 2008); and Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation, 2008), xvi, http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG741-1.pdf (accessed December 23, 2008).
⁴Major Cities Chiefs Association, Homeland Security Committee,Twelve Tenets to Prevent Crime and Terrorism, May 2008, http://www.majorcitieschiefs.org/pdfpublic/MCC%20Twelve%20Tenet%20Final%205%2021%2008.pdf (accessed December 23, 2008).
⁵H. G. Reza, “Man Sentenced to 22 Years in L.A.-Area Terror Plot,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/23/local/me-cell24 (accessed December 23, 2008).