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Monday, January 19, 2009
Panetta, Preservationists and Problems with U.S. Intelligence
by Steve Schippert
If you want to know what's wrong with the U.S. intelligence community (IC), just read Jeff Stein's latest at Congressional Quarterly's Spy Talk. Before recounting a very telling (and not uncommon) private conversation with a veteran U.S. intelligence professional, he nails it early on.
Word hasn't leaked yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if President-elect Barack Obama has already figured out that when he wants quick answers to what's going on in the world, the last person to ask is the head of U.S. intelligence.
The steady deterioration of personnel and standards of intelligence analysis, especially at the CIA, has been going on for decades, a number of former top intelligence officials I know say.The tip of the rot surfaces from time to time, such as with the 9/11 surprise and the gimcrackery reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The dogs howl and the caravan moves on. Nothing changes, many well placed former intelligence officials have been telling me. But the current, possibly fatal dangers we face demand the problems be fixed.
We've been spending too much time chattering about the operations side of intelligence lately, they say, in particular whether Leon Panetta, the former OMB head and chief of staff to President Clinton, is up to handling the spies and back-alley guys and gals.
But officials have been reminding me that it was the dismally poor analysis of intelligence that enabled President Bush to lead the nation into the disastrous invasion of Iraq — not faulty espionage (such as it was).And it's the analysis served up by the CIA and other spy agencies, they point out, that will guide President Obama's decisions on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea, among other front-burner emergencies.
Nailed. It's weak analysis based on incomplete information (it's intelligence after all, not history) too often communicated in career-safe language rather than with actual analytical conclusions. It's an abject fear of being wrong. Well, if you're afraid to be wrong, you lack the courage to be right. And if that's the milquetoast case, the product you are giving me is nearly worthless.
My colleague Michael Tanji is a former supervisory officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and he understands, painfully, the inner workings of the intelligence bureaucratic Behemoth. His insight is important to consider.
Jeff Stein drives home the point that this is what you get when:
You don't have the stones to do analysis
You don't have the brains to do analysis
You treat analysts like LEGO blocks
Contrary to the common expectation — for those that actually bother to read declassified NIEs and the like — intelligence analysis isn't telling people what they already know. 'Climate change can lead to instability . . .' No kidding? As a matter of fact, analysis in popular culture is more representative of what it should be behind closed doors because, once you suspend disbelief on how they get the information, it inevitably turns out to be exactly the right piece of information a decision-maker needs exactly when he needs it. Unfortunately in real life good information is rare and usually late, so decisions are made with what is lying around and delivered by people who communicate in such a way so as to never be wrong.
And, equally important, the communication is also couched in careful language for the writer (or presenter) to be able to likewise claim some degree of being right. It is too often about the preservation of a career rather than the actual service of intelligence. Intelligence is already an inexact science. It used to be, in fact, an art. Now? Not so much.
I've studied conflicts, regions and groups and written a fair amount of analysis over the years. Some of it has been well recieved, some of it not. Some of it proved on the mark, and again, some of it not so much. But that's OK — that's analysis. For me, one thing has always been constant; I have simply never been afraid to be wrong. I have, however, been very afraid of being still and unimaginative in my general analytical approach. What relatively little I have been able to produce — with limited resources in comparison to the professional intelligence community — I have always been open to being wrong and being criticized (with the latter being quite instructive). If I knew all the facts with unlimited data, I'd be performing the job of either a historian or Nostradamus.
But what good are all the resources in the world if the approach is dictated, consciously or unconsciously, by an instilled and institutionalized abject fear of being wrong? Intelligence analysis is about determining and communicating what we think we know about what we think we know. If it were dealing with known facts, it would be the New York Times (OK, very poor example) and not a National Intelligence Estimate.
Those who consume intelligence products — from the President's Daily Briefing, to National Intelligence Estimates, to on-demand regional/conflict/groups reports and analyses and (closed-door) congressional reports and testimonies — must acknowledge the inexact nature of intelligence and stop demanding perfection. They must understand — and acknowledge to the writers and presenters — that they are dealing with intelligence analysis and not historical record. This will go a long way toward improving the product put before them, which is used to make critical national security decisions.
And while Michael Tanji's experienced insght is important, his solutions to the problem at hand are also straightforward.
The Fix?
Do it right and forget what the commentariat and pure-play politicians think. People who know intelligence know the difference between bad analysis and bad information. Lay blame where it belongs, not on the easy target. Most "intelligence" problems are information problems, or more precisely the lack thereof. Politicians: Don't hold a witch-hunt for collectors who do their jobs. Analysts: fill out your reporting eval forms; meet your collection manager and craft good requirements.
There is no fixing the newbies save for time on task. You could jump-start things by making it attractive to mid-careerists to return to the fold. Read any book on why employees leave (hint: it's not about the money) and it applies to the IC. Fix those things and watch the Lorax come back.
A while ago, while Porter Goss was at the CIA, Michael wrote a report titled simply "Why Intelligence Reform Matters". If you are concerned about or interested in the ailments of the American intelligence community, it's recommended reading.
With all of this, the question being bounced around today is whether or not Leon Panetta is the man for the job. As Eli Lake's report today makes clear, he comes with significant hurdles. Most notably questioned is his role in the extraordinary-rendition policy of the Clinton administration, as a man coming into the Obama administration vocally opposed to such practices. Ironically, the same incoming administration is already seeking to close Guantanamo Bay, the one detention facility under our own auspices (outside the continental United States) expressly for terrorists captured alive.
I remain unconvinced that Panetta is capable of, or even inclined towards, bringing about the needed reforms in the CIA, to say nothing of the myriad other alphabet soup agencies. I am, however, convinced at this point that such reforms can likely only be brought about by a talented and uniquely qualified individual from outside the established ranks of the intelligence community. Leon Panetta just doesn't strike me as "that guy."
The challenges ahead for American intelligence are clearly significant. Optimism, unfortunately, is a scarce commodity.
Timothy Geithner’s vs. Bernard Kerik’s ‘Hiccup’ – Whose is Worse?
by Anthony K. Modafferi III, Esq.
As an attorney and personal friend of Bernard Kerik, the former New York City Police Commissioner, the recent spectacle surrounding Obama’s nomination for Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner, illustrates the overwhelming press bias in favor of Democrat appointees and politicians.
The President-elect nominated Timothy Geithner as the Treasury Secretary who, surprisingly, failed to pay a significant sum in taxes to the IRS for a number of years. Furthermore, while neglecting to pay these taxes, Geithner accepted compensation from his employer, the International Monetary Fund, intending to offset the taxes he had not paid. Geithner’s explanation – that he was not aware of these problems until November 2008 when his nomination to the Obama cabinet was imminent - is implausible.
Geithner also appears to have employed a domestic servant that at some point became out of status – in other words, an illegal alien. According to press and media reports, Mr. Geithner also took taxable deductions for his children’s summer camp which, allegedly, he was told was inappropriate.
So here’s my issue: as the Treasury Secretary nominee, it is without doubt that Mr. Geithner’s knowledge and understanding of the federal tax laws is far more comprehensive than Mr. Kerik’s, a career police officer. That being said, will Mr. Geithner be held to a higher standard of accountability regarding his failure to pay taxes that by all accounts, he knew he owed?
Contrast this with the Kerik situation. Kerik was charged criminally with several tax-related counts that experts in the accounting field, including both active and retired IRS agents, have deemed preposterous. The indictment alleges that in 2002, Kerik failed to account for income in the amount of $20,000 and should have paid taxes on that amount. Keep in mind this was a year in which it was reported that Kerik paid more than $300,000 in taxes alone. The IRS would never prosecute such a case criminally.
The press is biased against Mr. Kerik and his former boss, Rudy Giuliani. In Mr. Kerik’s case, the New York Times spent five days from sun up to sun down attempting to locate and interview Kerik’s nanny. This time, unlike the Kerik nomination, Mr. Geithner is the “favored boy” and we can be sure that the press will do everything in its power to protect him from the same scrutiny that Mr. Kerik endured during his own nomination process. That scrutiny ultimately resulted in Mr. Kerik’s indictment for conduct stemming from a prior plea, ignoring the Justice Department’s own policy of refusing to charge conduct related to a prior state action because it implicates the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution. The ridiculous nanny-tax charge which, while killing the prospects for Kimba Wood’s own attempt to become Attorney General during the Clinton years, did not stop her appointment as a federal judge in the same court now trying to criminalize Kerik.
In a nutshell, for more than four years now, state and federal prosecutors have been on a reckless crusade to keep Kerik under permanent indictment. In their zeal to destroy the man – and more so his former friend and colleague Rudy Giuliani – they have stretched the laws, bent the rules, violated attorney/client privilege, deceived a judge and illegally leaked privileged information to the press and media. A prosecutor in the state case even went so far as to order a subordinate to lie under oath before the Bronx Grand Jury in an attempt to secure a conviction against Kerik. Why hasn’t the press investigated Michael Caruso’s claims in a pending federal case that the New York Department of Investigation, headed up by partisan Democrat Rose Gill Hearn, demanded that he lie to the Grand Jury investigating Kerik?
But we know the answer to why Kerik was set-up. Kerik was, and is, a scapegoat for the anger of those who couldn’t stand Giuliani and were fearful that he would be the Republican nominee for President. It was Kerik’s loyalty to Giuliani and his reputation as a no-nonsense manager who stepped on toes to get things done. It was his outspoken and unbending support for President Bush, the invasion of Iraq and the war against terror.
Unfortunately for Mr. Kerik and for our country, Kerik’s “hiccup” is our loss.
Obama Eligibility battle rages on 3 fronts
By Bob Unruh
Court, Congress and college challenged on constitutionality
Officials at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Calif., have been served with a demand to produce records concerning Barack Obama's attendance there during the 1980s because they could document whether he was attending as a foreign national – in one of three fronts now established by those contesting the president-elect's constitutional eligibility for the Oval Office.
The Supreme Court and Congress also both are being challenged to address the worries that Obama doesn't meet the requirements of the U.S. Constitution that the president be a "natural born" citizen.
WND has reported on a long list of legal cases raising questions over the issue, and several of those have reached the U.S. Supreme Court already. Justices have so far declined to give any of the cases full hearings on their merits, but another conference remains on the Supreme Court docket for Jan. 23 on the issue.
"If Obama is sworn in as president, we will file a Petition for Writ of 'Quo Warranto,' a case that will challenge Obama as being ineligible to serve as president because he is 'not qualified,'" said Philip J. Berg, a lawyer who has brought several cases to court. Berg, whose information is on his ObamaCrimes.com website, indicated the issue isn't going away.
Orly Taitz, a California lawyer whose dispute remains pending before the high court, agreed, noting that one of the hearings already is scheduled for the days following Obama's inaugural on Tuesday.
Taitz said her arguments rest on precedents from both the California Supreme Court, which years ago removed a candidate for president from the ballot because he was only 34, and the U.S. Supreme Court's affirmation of that ruling. The Constitution requires a president to be 35.
In one of the latest developments, Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation petitioned Occidental College with a demand for its records concerning Obama.
"The gravamen of the petition is the question as to whether United States Senator Barack Hussein Obama, of Illinois, is eligible to serve as president of the United States pursuant to the requirements for that office in the United States Constitution," he wrote. "The records sought may provide documentary evidence, and/or admissions by said defendant, as to said eligibility or lack thereof."
College officials confirmed they had gotten the notice, but had not decided how to respond, a decision that may be removed from their hands because of the team of lawyers Obama has engaged to prevent such inquiries into his past.
"Senator Obama has filed responsive pleadings in this matter and is represented by counsel, and has the opportunity to object to this production, should he so desire," the affidavit from Kreep said.
"Good cause exists for this production under Subpoena Duces Tecum, in that testimony will be elicited from the original records obtained through the witness named herein, and there is no other process available to secure said testimony," he wrote.
The lawsuits allege in various ways Obama does not meet the "natural born citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
Some allege his birth took place in Kenya, and his mother was a minor at the time of his birth – too young to confer American citizenship. They argue Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan citizen subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time and would have handed down British citizenship.
There also are questions raised about Obama's move to Indonesia when he was a child and his attendance at school there when only Indonesian citizens were allowed and his travel to Pakistan in the '80s when such travel was forbidden to American citizens.
The lawsuit on which USJF is working was filed on behalf of presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others, and describes the potential damage an ineligible president could create.
"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void," argues a case brought on behalf of Ambassador Alan Keyes, also a presidential candidate. "Americans will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal."
On his ObamaCrimes.com website, Berg sent his message directly to the U.S. Congress.
He's asking in an open letter to members of Congress for congressional hearings "to determine the truth regarding qualifications of Barry Soetoro, otherwise known as Barack Hussein Obama…"
"As you must be aware, there are many unresolved questions concerning Soetoro/Obama's status or lack thereof, as a 'natural born' American citizen, as required by 'our' U.S. Constitution," he wrote.
He noted the failure by Congress to challenge Obama's eligibility during the process through which the Electoral College vote was adopted.
"Because of your failure to 'question' the eligibility of Soetoro/Obama, we are headed for a 'Constitutional Crisis.' Yes, a 'Constitutional Crisis' because Soetoro/Obama who appears not to be a 'natural born' U.S. citizen is 'ineligible' under 'our' U.S. Constitution to serve as president," he said.
He cited the document published on the Internet by Obama's campaign, the "Certification of Live Birth," as no more than an effort to "quash" questions. Other critics have noted the state of Hawaii granted such certifications to parents of children not born in the state at the time.
"Without truthful information concerning Soetoro/Obama's eligibility to serve as President, 'We the People' have been injured," he wrote.
Taitz took a different route, submitting to the U.S. Supreme Court a motion "to declare that by default, the president elect respondent Barack Obama has failed to qualify under [the] U.S. Constitution."
"Does the burden of proof lie with the petitioner to prove standing and evidence lack of qualification by a candidate/president elect, where election officers rely on a candidate's declaration? OR does the [Constitution] place the burden of proof on the president-elect to provide objective government certified witnessed proofs, with election officers under oath to challenge, examine and declare that the president elect has or has not qualified, enforceable by petition for redress of grievances?"
Not only has the respondent, Obama, "failed to submit proofs … for any of the qualifications," she wrote. "Respondent has hindered discovery."
She argued that having Obama declared ineligible until he would provide documentation would "cause far less political trauma" than allowing his inauguration because it would uphold the constitution.
She also raised the issue of the concealment of Obama's records.
"Obama has refused to submit certified copies of any of his original long form 'vault' birth certificates in Hawaii to any public officer or to any Petitioner. Relevant records in Kenya have also been officially restricted," she said. "Obama has sealed all educational records which might reveal his stated citizenship. These include Punahou High School, Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School."
Her letter included a warning, too.
"Thirty-three democracies descended into tyranny during the 20th century by failing to uphold constitutional protections," she said. "Petitioner humbly prays this Court evaluate the Petitioner's case in context of how best to enforce restrictive qualifications for president to preserve the Constitution and Republic from tyranny."
WND twice has organized opportunities for readers to send FedEx letters to the Supreme Court, asking for consideration of the issue on its merits.
The most recent campaign generated 12,096 messages, following the earlier effort that resulted in 60,128 letters.
Obama has claimed in his autobiography and elsewhere that he was born in Hawaii in 1961 to parents Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan national, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a minor. But details about which hospital handled the birth and other details provided on the complete birth certificate have been withheld by Obama despite lawsuits and public demands for release.
WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi went to both Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
Obama selects a Muslim with ties to Hamas to pray at the inauguration
In "Hamas Inauguration," the featured article at FrontPageMagazine.com today, I explain why Barack Obama's choice of Ingrid Mattson of ISNA to offer a prayer at his inauguration festivities is so unwise -- or worse:
Barack Obama isn’t wasting any time making an impression: he has selected the leader of a group that has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case to present a prayer during his inauguration festivities. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), will offer a prayer at the National Cathedral Tuesday.Superficially, Obama’s choice is understandable: Ingrid Mattson is a Canadian convert to Islam who has carefully cultivated the image of a moderate spokesperson. Yet her organization’s record is not entirely clean. Federal prosecutors last summer rejected claims that ISNA was unfairly named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. And ISNA has even admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, complaining only that the government’s evidence for those ties came from old documents, but offering no proof that the organization had reversed course. In a memorandum on the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy in the United States, a Muslim Brotherhood operative named ISNA as an allied organization in what it called “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
What’s more, in a CNN chat room on October 18, 2001, Mattson offered a subtle defense of Osama bin Laden. She avowed that “only a small number of Muslims throughout the world would support Osama bin Laden’s tactics.” (Emphasis added.) Tactics alone? Is that the only problem with Osama? Does she, then, hold to his goals? Mattson even suggested that “a larger number” of Muslims share bin Laden’s grievances, and that he was popular because the leaders of Islamic countries had failed their people: Muslims, she said, “turned to Osama bin Laden as a spokesperson…because they feel that no one else, including their own leaders, has spoken for them.” This disquietingly echoes the jihadist critique of secular regimes in Muslim countries such as Egypt and Pakistan: jihadists label such regimes illegitimate and apostate because they do not implement Islamic law in its fullness.
In 2002 she even asserted that in countries that were not functioning democracies, “‘extremism’ might seem to be the only rational choice, because extreme actions are the only actions that seem to have an effect.” This again gives the impression that bin Laden’s goals were laudable, and that he was driven by desperation to illegitimate actions in pursuit of a legitimate goal.
Mattson explained during the CNN chat that “Islam allows force to be used by legitimate authorities, to protect people, and to protect Muslim states, just as all nation states in the world permit themselves to use force to protect their security and interests. Again, the problem of individual Muslims taking up arms, becoming vigilantes, in a way, is related to their frustration with the lack of leadership on the part of their own government.” This implies that if the governments of Muslim countries had been waging jihad to protect Muslim states, Osama bin Laden wouldn’t have had to do so. Here again she implies that bin Laden’s goals are sound, only his means are questionable.
Mattson again reinforced the impression that she endorsed al-Qaeda’s goals, if not its means, when she referred (also in the CNN chat) to the “overthrowing of the caliphate” in the 1920s as “a plan of European powers for many years,” and claimed that “this deprived the Muslim world of a stable and centralized authority, and much of the chaos that we’re living in today is the result of that.” This does appear to be an endorsement of the jihadist goal of reestablishing the caliphate and uniting Muslims under its authority in a supranational state which could then, according to Islamic law, legitimately wage offensive jihad warfare against non-Muslim states.
Mattson also excused the virulent and violent Wahhabi movement in Islam, terming it “a reform movement that began 200 years ago to rid Islamic societies of cultural practices and rigid interpretation that had acquired over the centuries.” Mattson thus suggests that Wahhabism was a legitimate reform within Islam, asserting that “it really was analogous to the European Protestant Reformation” and noting that “the Saudi scholars who are Wahhabi have denounced terrorism and denounced in particular the acts of September 11” – but never mentioning the abundant evidence that high-placed Saudis have continued to support and finance global jihad terrorism.
Yet while curiously silent about the excesses and violence of Wahhabism, Mattson blamed the decline of the Islamic world on the West: “Well, the decline began with the colonization of the Muslim world by European powers. One of the first things the colonialists did was to dismantle the institutions of what we could call civil society. The Muslim world has until now not recovered from that dismemberment of its society.”
In reality, the colonial period did not begin until the 18th and 19th centuries, and would not have been able to begin at all had the Islamic world not already been in a period of steep cultural and military decline. Historian Philip K. Hitti describes the decline of Islamic thought as beginning far earlier than the era of European colonialism, saying that “the whole Arab world had by the beginning of the thirteenth century lost the intellectual hegemony it had maintained since the eighth.”
Mattson has also tried to set Jews and Christians against once another. Speaking at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in March 2007, Mattson said: “Right-wing Christians are very risky allies for American Jews, because they [the Christians] are really anti-Semitic. They do not like Jews.” Yet Mattson would be hard-pressed to produce any anti-Semitic statement from Christians who support Israel – any statement, in other words, comparable to an article posted at IslamOnline, “Jews as Depicted In the Qur’an,” which concludes:
After this clear explanation, we would like to note that these are but some of the most famous traits of the Jews as described in the Qur’an. They have revolted against the Divine ordinances, distorted what has been revealed to them and invented new teachings which, they claimed, were much more better than what has been recorded in the Torah. It was for these traits that they found no warm reception in all countries where they tried to reside. Rather, they would either be driven out or live in isolation. It was Almighty Allah who placed on them His Wrath and made them den of humiliation due to their transgression. Almighty Allah told us that He’d send to them people who’d pour on them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection. All this gives us glad tidings of the coming victory of Muslims over them once Muslims stick to strong faith and belief in Allah and adopt the modern means of technology.What is Mattson doing to combat these attitudes within the Islamic community? She never addresses them.
If Ingrid Mattson truly intends to be a voice for reform and moderation within the Islamic community in North America, and to reassure those who are justifiably alarmed by Obama’s invitation to her, she should explain her troublesome statements – especially those that apparently portray Osama bin Laden in a favorable light. She should also explain ISNA’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and confront honestly the elements of Islamic teaching that jihadists use to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims. Unless and until she does these things and others that would conclusively demonstrate her moderation, non-Muslims are justified in being appalled at Obama’s choice.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Pelosi Open to Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials
The House speaker suggests to "FOX News Sunday" that the law might compel Democrats to press forth on some prosecutions of Bush administration officials, saying they may not "have a right to ignore" them.....
Plague has swept through al Qaeda terror training camp, killing 40...
ANTI-TERROR bosses last night hailed their latest ally in the war on terror — the BLACK DEATH.
At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages.
Epidemic ... in Britain in 1665
The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside.
The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East.
It trains Muslim fighters to kill British and US troops.
Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
One security source said: “This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease.
“It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda.”
Black Death comes in various forms.
Bubonic Plague is spread by bites from infected rat fleas. Symptoms include boils in the groin, neck and armpits. In Pneumonic Plague, airborn bacteria spread like flu.
It can be in the body for more than a week — highly contagious but not revealing tell-tale symptoms.
Deadly ... the plague bacteria causes horrific symptoms
The al-Qaeda epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers. The group, led by wanted terror boss Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.
The extremists supporting madman Osama bin Laden went to Bejaia and Jijel provinces — hoping the plague did not go with them.
A source said: “The emirs (leaders) fear surviving terrorists will surrender to escape a horrible death.”
AQLIM boss Droudkal claims to command around 1,000 insurgents. Training camps are also based in Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria.
AQLIM bombed the UN headquarters in Algiers in 2007, killing 41. Attacks across Algeria last year killed at least 70 people.
In an interview last July, Droudkal boasted his cell was in constant contact with other al-Qaeda “brothers”.
North Korea Says It Has ‘Weaponized’ Plutonium
The North Korean military declared an “all-out confrontational posture” against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had “weaponized” enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs. ....
Saturday, January 17, 2009
US Plots Major Upgrade to Internet Router Security
The U.S. federal government is accelerating its efforts to secure the Internet's routing system, with plans this year for the Department of Homeland Security to quadruple its investment in research aimed at adding digital signatures to router communications.
DHS says its routing security effort will prevent routing hijack attacks as well as accidental misconfigurations of routing data. The effort is nicknamed BGPSEC because it will secure the Internet's core routing protocol known as the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). (A separate federal effort is under way to bolster another Internet protocol, DNS, and it is called DNSSEC.)
Read about the six worst Internet routing attacks.
Douglas Maughan, program manager for cybersecurity R&D in the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, says his department's spending on router security will rise from around $600,000 per year during the last three years to approximately $2.5 million per year starting in 2009. (Read about "4 open source BGP projects being funded.")
"BGPSEC is going to take a couple of years to go through the process of development and prototypes and standardization," Maughan says. "We're really talking . . . four years out, if not longer, before we see deployment."
Experts hailed the move, saying BGP is one of the Internet's weakest links.
"The reason BGP problems are so serious is that they attack the Internet infrastructure, rather than particular hosts. This is why it is a DHS-type of problem," says Steve Bellovin, a professor of computer science at Columbia University who has worked with DHS on routing security.
BGP is "one of the largest threats on the Internet. It's incredible -- the insecurity of the routing system," says Danny McPherson, CSO at Arbor Networks. "Over the last 15 years, the security of the Internet routing system has done nothing but deteriorate."
McPherson says routing security has been a chicken-and-egg problem for the Internet engineering community.
"There doesn't exist a formally verifiable source for who owns what address space on the Internet, and absent that you can't really validate the routing system," McPherson says.
With its extra funding, DHS hopes to develop ways to authenticate IP address allocations as well as router announcements about how to reach blocks of IP addresses.
"The hijacking attempts that have gone on with routing are much more nefarious than the ones in the DNS," says Mark Kosters, CTO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), adding that DNS attacks tend to get more press. "People don't realize how open for attack the BGP structure is. The DHS effort is trying to close that all up."
BGP security targeted in 2003
The U.S. federal government first discussed the vulnerability of the Internet's routing system in its "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," which was issued in 2003. The Presidential directive identified two Internet protocols -- BGP and DNS -- that require modifications to make them more secure and robust.
Since then, the feds have made progress on adding authentication to DNS. Last fall, the U.S. federal government announced that it would adopt DNS security extensions known as DNSSEC across its .gov domain by the end of 2009. The feds also are exploring ways to deploy DNSSEC on the DNS root servers.
The federal push for DNSSEC gained momentum last summer after a significant DNS vulnerability was discovered. Security researcher Dan Kaminsky discovered a DNS bug that allows for cache poisoning attacks, with which a hacker redirects traffic from a legitimate Web site to a fake one without the user knowing.
DNSSEC prevents hackers from hijacking Web traffic by allowing Web sites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses using digital signatures and public-key encryption
Now the feds are looking to add digital signatures and a public-key infrastructure to routing information, which is vulnerable to attack when it is shared between numbering registries, ISPs and enterprises.
New BGP security measures would prevent incidents such as when Pakistan Telecom blocked YouTube's traffic in February 2008.
Bellovin says most famous router-security breaches, including the Pakistan incident, were accidents.
"More and more of them, though, are malicious," Bellovin adds. "Every few weeks, there will be a posting to [the North American Network Operators Group] about some prefix hijacking."
DHS to fund multiple efforts
DHS is funding two key initiatives related to enhancing routing security: Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), which adds authentication to the delegation of IP address blocks by the registries to ISPs and enterprises; and BGPSEC, which adds digital signatures to BGP announcements. (Maughan says he's modeling the BGPSEC initiative after the agency's DNSSEC effort, which has involved the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] and the Internet Engineering Task Force [IETF].)
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With RPKI, the regional Internet registries are putting together a public key infrastructure to authorize IP address delegations from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to the five regional Internet registries, including ARIN. Then the registries would authenticate the assignment of IP addresses and IP routing prefixes known as autonomous systems that are used by network operators.
"The idea here is that you'd like the delegation of address space to be secure or signed so it is not forgeable," Maughan says, adding that the RPKI initiative deals with the administrative side of IP address delegation. "The reason that's important is that when you start to do the routing protocol [security], you want the registry or registrar or ISP to be able within the protocol to authenticate that the address space they're claiming to have is theirs."
APNIC, the Asia Pacific registry, and the European registry RIPE NCC are running RPKI prototypes. ARIN plans to offer a beta RPKI service in the second quarter, Kosters says.
Production-quality RPKI deployment is "still a couple of years out," Kosters adds.
"By the end of this year, the four biggest [registries] will be offering certificates to their members at least as a managed service," says Stephen Kent, chief scientist for information security at BBN Technologies. "The next big issue is getting the big ISPs who are their members involved. . . . The good news is that what we're talking about here requires no router hardware or software changes. That's an important thing to make it viable for the ISPs."
Despite its promise, RPKI is controversial because it gives unprecedented operational authority to IANA and the regional Internet registries. For example, RPKI opens up the possibility that the registries could purposefully stop routing traffic to a particular block of IP addresses from a rogue nation such as Iran or North Korea.
"If you use RPKI with BGP [security], you're fundamentally changing the Internet infrastructure. You're going from a distributed, autonomously operated routing structure to one with a root and authoritative sources," McPherson says. "We're going to have to accept that trade-off to secure the routing infrastructure.’’
The next step is securing BGP so that routing announcements are authorized. BGP maintains a table of IP routing prefixes that shows how blocks of IP addresses can be reached. Today, there is no way in BGP to tell whether a route announcement is real or spoofed.
BGP is used by ISPs as well as enterprises that multihome their networks, which involves using more than one carrier for continuity of operations.
At issue is how to add digital signatures to BGP so that ISPs and enterprises can authenticate BGP updates and prevent man-in-the-middle attacks that allow someone to redirect BGP traffic.
"Every instance of routing hijacks that have happened over the last several years are proof that [securing BGP] needs to be done," Maughan says. "The way that the bad guys can do this is essentially advertise that they own the address space, and if people have no way to prove otherwise, then the protocol supports the hijack."
The Internet engineering community needs to develop a standard for securing BGP that involves as little cryptographic overhead as possible. The two existing proposals -- Secure BGP (S-BGP) by BBN's Kent and Secure Origin BGP (SoBGP) by Cisco -- haven't been deployed because they require routers to manage too many layers of digital certificates, experts say.
Maughan says DHS plans to fund research related to S-BGP and SoBGP as well as new standards work within the IETF.
"There hasn't been any new work in BGP security in a few years," Kent says, adding that he hopes to receive some of the new DHS funding. "DHS is attempting to re-initiate this work."
A secure routing infrastructure will require enterprises to operate a certificate authority function so that they can digitally sign and certify that they own a particular IP address block and have the authority to subdelegate it, outsource it or make some other decisions about how its traffic is routed.
What securing BGP does is that "when somebody sends out an update that they are now routing traffic for a particular autonomous system, you can validate that because those BGP updates will be signed," Maughan says.
Major BGP attack needed?
Despite the federal efforts, some experts say the Internet engineering community needs a massive threat akin to the Kaminsky DNS bug before it will take action to secure BGP and the rest of the routing infrastructure.
"The real barrier to securing BGP is that we just haven't had a serious enough attack," Maughan says. "If people start losing significant money because there's some type of attack on the routing infrastructure, I think you'll see a whole lot more interest."
At last August's DEFCON show, a pair of security researchers detailed a BGP exploit that would allow an attacker to eavesdrop on unencrypted Internet traffic by tricking routers into re-directing traffic to the attacker's network. However, this type of BGP eavesdropping incident is rare.
"The most sophisticated attacks as was demonstrated at DEFCON are things that probably are not occurring very frequently because the bad guys have easier ways to accomplish what they are trying to do," Kent says.
The new BGPSEC funding falls under DHS’ Secure Protocols for Routing Infrastructure program. Maughan says the agency received an additional $12.5 million appropriation for cybersecurity R&D in the federal 2009 budget, and between $2 million and $3 million of that money will go to improving router security.
U.S. War College member insists Islam does not "promote kidnappings, beheadings and other unlicensed hostile actions"
After posting a report regarding the U.S. Army War College's failure to examine Islam's war doctrines, including a faculty member's (Sherifa Zuhur's) assertions that Hamas has been "villainized" by the media, I received several e-mails from concerned people questioning Ms. Zuhur's "credentials" -- some alluded to her sincerity and intentions, or lack thereof -- to teach at the War College. One e-mail sent the following, rather telling, response made by Zuhur, after being asked to, "Tell us about your recent monographs on Islamic Rulings on Warfare and on Saudi Arabia":
I wrote Islamic Rulings on Warfare with my co-author Youssef Aboul-Enein to counteract the idea that Islam promotes kidnappings, beheadings and other unlicensed hostile actions as a matter of course.We explored the literature on jihad and other forms of fighting, their ethical and tactical aspects, how these appear in modernist, revisionist views and are manipulated by extremists. My monograph, Saudi Arabia: Islamic Threat, Political Reform, and the Global War on Terror, examines the factors leading up to calls for political reform in the Kingdom, and the campaign against al-Qa`ida fi Jazirat al-`Arabiyyah which has been operating there. I call into question the grand strategy of the global war on terror, but conclude that its recommendation of increasing freedom and political participation has value.
Interesting. One must wonder, however, about some of her blanket assertions: Islam does not "promote" kidnappings? What about the inconvenient fact that the founder of Islam, Muhammad, whose sunna, or "example," must be literally adhered, regularly kidnapped people -- particularly women? As Serge Trifkovic reminds us:
Having established himself as the ruler of Medina, Muhammad attacked the Jewish tribe of Banu-‘l-Mustaliq in December of A.D. 626. His followers slaughtered many Jewish tribesmen and looted thousands of their camels and sheep. They also kidnapped 500 of their women. The night after the battle Muhammad and his brigands staged an orgy of rape. As one of the brigands, Abu Sa’id Khudri, later remembered, a legal problem needed to be resolved first: In order to obtain ransom from the surviving Jews for the captive women, Muslims had pledged not to violate them:More to the point, Koran 4:3 legitimizes forceful concubinage -- that is, forcefully kidnapping women and making them sex-slaves -- slaves who are counted as animals at that.We were lusting after women and chastity had become too hard for us, but we wanted to get the ransom money for our prisoners. So we wanted to use the Azl [coitus interruptus]. We asked the Prophet about it and he said: "You are not under any obligation not to do it like that [contained in Sahih Bukhari, second only to the Koran in authority]."
As for beheadings, perhaps Zuhur is not familiar with Koranic verses 5:33, 8:12, and 47:4 -- all of which sanction beheading the infidel? Koran 47:4 simply states “Therefore, when ye meet the infidels, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives."
As for "other unlicensed hostile action," where does one begin? Here's one: Muhammad had assassins go to the home of a matron figure named Umm Qirfa, tie each of her legs to a different camel, and then drive the camels in separate directions until the old woman was split asunder (see Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari). He also ordered the assassination of an old poet, and legitimized lying and deception to do so -- whence the famous Islamic maxim, "War is Deceit."
One therefore has no choice but to conclude that Ms Zuhur is being either disingenuous (taqiyya/kitman) or ignorant (sign of the times), or blindly utopian (typical academic) or all of the above -- either way, not fit to instruct post-9/11 America's forthcoming guardians. It's bad enough that this sort of fluff counts as "authoritative" around government types; but that it has also come to permeate one of the last bastions of American security, the U.S. Army War College -- just consider its name -- is beyond ominous.
Obama Supporters Desecrate US Flag
The official flag of The Obama States of America was on display today in Baltimore:
Inside Charm City posted this on the US Flag Code: “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.”
Obama also announced his permanent campaign, Organizing for America, today to push his agenda on America. This sounds like an offshoot of his Marxist Youth Corps that he talked about back in November.
It's moves like this that may explain the sudden surge in firearm sales after the November election.
Hail King Obama: President for life
As Inauguration Day approaches and Barack Obama prepares to assume his first term as president, some in Congress are hoping to make it possible for the Democrat to not only seek a second term in office, but a third and fourth as well.
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary is considering a bill that would repeal the Constitution's 22nd Amendment prohibiting a president from being elected to more than two terms in office.....
Fresh Clues of Iranian Nuclear Intrigue
By GLENN R. SIMPSON and JAY SOLOMON
WASHINGTON -- U.S. security and law-enforcement officials say they have fresh evidence of recent efforts by Iran to evade sanctions and acquire metals from China used in high-tech weaponry, including long-range nuclear missiles.
Iran's efforts are detailed in a series of recent emails and letters between Iranian companies and foreign suppliers seen by The Wall Street Journal. Business records show one Iranian company, ABAN Commercial & Industrial Ltd., has contracted through an intermediary for more than 30,000 kilograms (about 66,000 pounds) of tungsten copper -- which can be used in missile guidance systems -- from Advanced Technology & Materials Co. Ltd. of Beijing. One March 2008 email between the firms mentions shipping 215 ingots, with more planned.
The United Arab Emirates has informed the U.S. that in September it intercepted a Chinese shipment headed to Iran of specialized aluminum sheets that can be used to make ballistic missiles. A month earlier, UAE officials also intercepted an Iran-bound shipment of titanium sheets that can be used in long-range missiles, according to a recent letter to the U.S. Commerce Department from the UAE's Washington ambassador.
Evidence of Iran's efforts to acquire sensitive materials also is emerging from investigations by state and federal prosecutors in New York into whether a number of major Western banks illegally handled funds for Iran and deliberately hid Iranian transactions routed through the U.S. One focus of the inquiries is the role of Italy, including the Rome branch of Iran's Bank Sepah and Italy's Banca Intesa Sanpaolo Spa. Banca Intesa said it is cooperating in the inquiries.
The developments could present President-elect Barack Obama with an early test in responding to what many Washington security officials now say is a rapidly growing threat to the region, including U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia.
All of the high-performance metals Iran has been acquiring also have industrial uses such as commercial aviation and manufacturing, making it difficult for intelligence agencies to be absolutely certain how the materials are being used. "We can't say we know it would, or would not, be used for military purposes," said proliferation expert Gary Milholland of the nonprofit Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, noting that broad economic sanctions on Tehran led by the U.S. mean Iran has to go to unusual lengths to find high-grade materials for industrial use as well as weapons.
Still, he added, "There doesn't seem to be any real doubt or debate whether Iran is going for the bomb or whether Iran is using front companies to import things. Everyone agrees on that around the world."
Officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency said they believe Iran could have enough fissile material for an atomic weapon sometime this year, though it would need to be further processed into weapons-grade uranium. That assessment was echoed Thursday by Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael V. Hayden. U.S. and European governments have grown increasingly alarmed in recent months at the speed they believe Iran is developing ballistic-missile and nuclear capabilities. Last year the United Nations Security Council, which includes China, formally imposed sanctions on Iran's military and most of its banks for nuclear proliferation activities.
A spokesman for Iran at its U.N. mission in New York declined to comment. China "has been strictly implementing" U.N. proliferation sanctions on Iran, said a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing. The export of restricted items such as high-grade metals, which include specialized aluminum and titanium, is prohibited, he added.
The patchwork of proliferation agreements don't cover certain materials. Sales to Iran of a powdered form of tungsten copper are prohibited by a nonproliferation accord China has agreed to adhere to, but documents about Iran's tungsten copper purchases refer to ingots, which aren't banned in the agreement though they can be used to make missiles. High-grade tungsten copper alloy withstands ultrahigh temperatures and thus can be used in the fins of long-range missiles to greatly enhance their accuracy, according to proliferation experts.
George Perkovich of the pro-disarmament Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said use of the ingots may be an attempt to legally circumvent the restrictions. Chinese merchants, he said, "take a legalistic approach to whether it is prohibited under the treaties," while on the Iranian side, "if there's a problem where somebody's not supposed to sell them stuff, their view is, that's the sellers' problem.' "
Because of economic sanctions and the small size of Iranian banks, the banks have long relied on big European multinational banks to finance their international trade and wire transfers. Many of those transfers flowed through New York City.
Documents detailing Iran's metals acquisition efforts are being reviewed by U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence officials, people involved in the matter said. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said he is conducting a broad inquiry into illegal transactions by Iran. Last week, Lloyds TSB of London agreed to pay $350 million to settle U.S. sanctions-busting charges with Mr. Morgenthau's office and the Justice Department. The bank admitted it violated U.S. law but said the practice has ceased.
"There are nine other banks that we think were doing this," said Mr. Morgenthau in an interview, including Barclays PLC of the U.K. A Barclays spokesman had no comment beyond a prior disclosure confirming the inquiry. Other banks under scrutiny in the probe include Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, people with knowledge of the inquiries said. Credit Suisse "is cooperating with the New York County District Attorney's Office, the U.S. Department of Justice and other governmental authorities," the bank said in a statement. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment.
ABAN Commercial & Industrial Ltd. had accounts at the Rome branch of Iran's government-owned Bank Sepah, records show. Bank Sepah has longstanding ties to Banca Intesa, although no evidence has surfaced to date showing that Banca Intesa facilitated illegal acquisitions of sensitive materials by ABAN, people with knowledge of the matter said.
ABAN is run by two top officials of Iran's Aviation Industries Organization, the documents show. That agency is already under U.S. and U.N. sanctions. Efforts to contact the firm by phone and fax for comment were unsuccessful.
An Oct. 14, 2007, invoice says ABAN contracted for 30,900 kilograms of tungsten copper alloy from a firm in China in exchange for €2.1 million ($2.8 million). Additional orders were made in 2008, according to a March 27, 2008, email to ABAN from Advanced Technology & Materials Co. "I was very happy talking to you on the phone," an AT&M executive told an executive at ABAN in the email. "By now we had sent 215 pieces" of tungsten copper, he added.
ABAN didn't respond to requests for comment. Dan Hong, a lawyer for AT&M, said in an email that AT&M received warnings several months ago of allegations "that we have business dealings with Iran." But he said the firm has never heard of ABAN. "AT&M never signed any contracts with and exported to Iran" the specialized metal, he added. "We checked our business records carefully."
Records show AT&M supplied the tungsten copper to an intermediary firm called Liaoning Industry & Trade Co. Ltd. That firm couldn't be reached for comment.
Another document reviewed by the Journal is a Jan. 10, 2007, message from an executive at a Chinese metals company to Shahid Sayyadi Shirazi Industries of Iran, regarding the impact of U.S. banking sanctions on payment for a shipment of unknown material. Marked "Top Urgent!" the letter observes that the payment was arranged through Bank Sepah.
The Chinese executives "are worrying the payment may be blocked by USA or UK government through their bank/treasury system," states the letter, from an executive other business records show had shipped tungsten copper to Iran. "You are kindly required to consider the matter and check carefully and seriously with Bank Sepah if the payment can be effected safely under the current situation."
Bank Sepah has denied financing illicit weapons programs. Shahid Sayyad Shirazi Industries is part of Iran's Ammunition Industries Group, according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, and has been under U.N. sanctions since March 24, 2007. Efforts to contact the firm for comment were unsuccessful.
—Sabrina Cohen and Siobhan Gorman contributed to this article.Friday, January 16, 2009
Beware of the Big-Government Tipping Point
By PETER WEHNER and PAUL RYAN
For most of our nation's history, our approach to economics has favored enterprise, self-reliance and the free market. While the American economy has never been entirely laissez-faire, we have historically cared more about equality of opportunity than equality of results. And while Americans have embraced elements of the New Deal, the Great Society and progressive taxation, we have traditionally viewed welfare as a way to help those in dire need, not as a way of life for the middle class. We have grasped, perhaps more than any other nation, that there is a long-run cost to dependency on the state, including an aversion to risk that eventually enervates the entrepreneurial spirit necessary for innovation and prosperity.
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Chad CroweThis outlook, once assumed, is now under attack due to a recent series of political and economic events.
The first is the unprecedented intervention by the federal government, in the form of a $700 billion relief package intended for our financial institutions after the credit crisis last September. This was followed by extending billions of dollars of federal assistance to America's auto makers in order to prevent their imminent bankruptcy -- the first emergency bailout that went to companies outside the financial sector. We understand why the federal government did this, and even supported legislation that, while hardly perfect, prevented an economic meltdown.
Nonetheless, the consequences of this undertaking are enormous. Not only has the size of the expenditures been staggering -- there is talk of another stimulus package worth an estimated $825 billion -- but we are witnessing a fundamental transformation of government's relationship with the polity and the economy.
The last several months are a foreshadowing of a new era of government activism, rather than an unfortunate but necessary (and anomalous) emergency action. We will soon shift from a market-based economy to a political one in which the government picks winners and losers and extends its reach and power in unprecedented ways.
This shift is exemplified by the desire of President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress to push us toward government-run health care.
For all his talk of allowing consumers to select their own health-care coverage, Mr. Obama's proposal, as he laid it out in his campaign, will provide strong financial incentives for employers and individuals to sign up with a new, Medicare-style government plan for working-age people and their families. This plan will almost certainly use a price-control system similar to the one in place for Medicare, allowing it to charge artificially low premiums by paying fees well below private rates. These low premiums will serve as a magnet for enrollment and will devastate the private companies trying to compete in the health-insurance market. The result will be the nationalization of the health-care sector, which today accounts for 16% of U.S. gross domestic product.
Nationalizing health care will be profoundly detrimental to the quality of American medicine. In the name of cost control, the government would make private investment in medical innovation far riskier, and thus delay the development of potentially lifesaving treatments.
It will also put America on a glide path toward European-style socialism. We need only look to Great Britain and elsewhere to see the effects of socialized health care on the broader economy. Once a large number of citizens get their health care from the state, it dramatically alters their attachment to government. Every time a tax cut is proposed, the guardians of the new medical-welfare state will argue that tax cuts would come at the expense of health care -- an argument that would resonate with middle-class families entirely dependent on the government for access to doctors and hospitals.
Of course, this health-care plan is occurring against our particular fiscal backdrop: Without major reform, our federal entitlement programs will soon double the size of government. The result will be a crushing burden of debt and taxes.
In short, we may be approaching a tipping point for democratic capitalism.
While the scope of the challenge should not be underestimated, those of us worried about this fundamental reorientation of politics and economics have several things working in our favor. Among them is that a public accustomed to iTunes, Facebook, Google, eBay, Amazon and WebMD is not clamoring for centralized, bureaucratic government. The strong American instinct for individual initiative and entrepreneurship remains intact.
In addition, confidence in government -- from Congress to those responsible for oversight of the financial system -- is quite low.
Our sense is that at the moment, the public is not thinking in terms of "big government" or "small government." Instead, Americans want efficient government -- one that is modern, responsive and adaptive. People want government to act as a fair referee, providing guardrails that allow individuals to rise without intrusively dictating individual decisions.
If conservatives hope to win converts to our cause, we need to understand this new moment and put forward an agenda that reforms key institutions in a way that advances individual freedom, without creating an unacceptable level of insecurity.
This is no easy task, and it must begin with providing a compelling alternative to what contemporary liberalism and Mr. Obama are about to offer. This especially includes health care, where we must start by recalling that our current health-insurance system was designed to meet the needs of a 20th century economy and World War II-era employment laws. It is hopelessly outdated, yet the Obama plan would make the system even more sclerotic.
The core of our message needs to be a commitment to creating a health-care plan that meets the demands of the modern economy. We need to convince concerned citizens that we can help the uninsured find coverage in the private sector and use market incentives to contain costs. The result will be a system that makes it possible for everyone to afford health insurance, including those with pre-existing conditions.
Tax credits, high-risk pools, insurance choice and regulatory reform can form the basis of a transformation from today's enormously costly and inefficient third-party system into one driven by ownership, choice and competition. And at the nucleus of this redesigned system will be the patient-doctor relationship.
If we hope to succeed in making our case, it will require a concerted education campaign that relies on hard data and facts, rigorous and accessible public arguments, and persuasive public advocates.
This is quite a tall order. But if we do not succeed in resisting greater state involvement in the economy -- and health care is meant to be the beachhead of this effort -- we will move from a limited welfare state into a full-blown one. This will reshape, in deep and enduring ways, our nation's historic sensibilities. It will lead here, as it has elsewhere, to passivity and dependence on the state. Such habits, once acquired, are hard to shake.
Between now and the end of this decade may be one of those rare moments in which among other things will turn decisively one way or the other. The stakes could hardly be higher for our way of life.
ILLEGAL Immigrants ravage U.S. infrastructure
Video: Hamas in Their Own Voices
Strategic collapse at the Army War College
This sentence is particularly alarming:
“Two weeks ago, Ricks [1] reported on a new [2] publication by Army War College research professor Sherifa Zuhur on Hamas and Israel that informs readers that Hamas has been misunderstood due to the misreporting by ‘Israeli and Western sources that villainize the group.’”So, according to Zuhur, the Hamas organization that is caught on video brainwashing children to hate Israel and kill Jews, training children to be terrorists, and using children as human shields, is not really so bad, but has been “misunderstood” because of reporting that “villianizes” the organization.
Remarkable!
Government policies should truly reflect understanding of the nature of the threat we face and take the necessary actions to combat it.
We know there are many people throughout the government who share our concerns about political correctness run amok. But when the Army War College publishes a report with absurd claims like Zuhur’s, it should be eminently clear to us that the voices of political correctness are overpowering the voices of sanity and reason.)
by Patrick Poole
A faculty member publicly defends Hamas while students are not allowed to read texts on militant Islam.
If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
This famous maxim by the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu is familiar to every student of military science and strategy. His counsel is simple: understand your enemy, understand yourself. Nearly eight years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, however, important segments of our military infrastructure dedicated to training and educating the next generation of military leaders have woefully failed to heed Sun Tzu’s advice. Two recent blog posts by Washington Post military correspondent Tom Ricks related to policies and publications by the U.S. Army War College give evidence to this strategic collapse in the War on Terror.
Two weeks ago, Ricks [1] reported on a new [2] publication by Army War College research professor Sherifa Zuhur on Hamas and Israel that informs readers that Hamas has been misunderstood due to the misreporting by “Israeli and Western sources that villainize the group.” Zuhur concludes that Hamas isn’t so bad after all, so we all just need to get along and embrace the terrorist group through negotiations — a view apparently endorsed by the Army War College when it published her defense of Hamas.
A second post last week, “[3] Fiasco at the Army War College: The Sequel,” records an exchange between Ricks and defense expert and author [4] Mark Perry. Assessing the academic state of affairs at the War College, Perry informed Ricks:
It’s worse than you think. They have curtailed the curriculum so that their students are not exposed to radical Islam. Akin to denying students access to Marx during the Cold War.
This is hardly the first complaint that the military has failed to investigate and assess the strategic writings related to radical Islam and Islamic war doctrine. William Gawthrop, former head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Defense Department’s Counterintelligence Field Activity, says in a military intelligence journal article that:
As late as early 2006, the senior service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered. (”The Sources and Patterns of Terrorism in Islamic Law,” The Vanguard: Journal of the Military Intelligence Corps Association, 11:4 [Fall 2006], p. 10)
One effort to remedy this strategic deficiency identified by Gawthrop was undertaken by Joint Chiefs of Staff analyst Stephen Coughlin, who published his finding in his master’s thesis at the National Defense Intelligence University, [5] “To Our Great Detriment”: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad. In his thesis, Coughlin examines texts from multiple schools of Islamic jurisprudence to evaluate the respective traditions on jihad and their contemporary use by Islamic terrorists, concluding that failing to investigate these sources has left our military “disarmed in the war of ideas.”
Coughlin’s thesis had barely seen the light of day before he was [6] sacked from his position with the Joint Chiefs, having running afoul of another Pentagon official, Hesham Islam, a top-ranked Muslim advisor to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who took issue with Coughlin’s academic analysis.
Another vocal critic identifying this wide gap in our military’s strategic studies is Army LTC Joseph Myers. He has recently voiced his concerns in an [7] interview with Congressional Quarterly and in a [8] review article published in the Army War College journal Parameters, where he argues that understanding the Islamic doctrine of war is a basic necessity for our military leadership:
To understand war, one has to study its philosophy, the grammar and logic of your opponent. Only then are you approaching strategic comprehension. To understand the war against Islamist terrorism one must begin to understand the Islamic way of war, its philosophy and doctrine, the meanings of jihad in Islam — and one needs to understand that those meanings are highly varied and utilitarian depending on the source.
In an [9] assessment published last May, Myers adds that the failure to study the strategy of jihadists leaves our own military strategy aimless and increases our long-term vulnerability to further terrorist attacks:
National security strategy is policy and policy implies a theory — a theory for action. To date we have no concrete theory of action because we have no fully articulated global threat model. We are seven years into a global war with armed combat and many dead and wounded, and yet still lack a common analytic paradigm to describe and model the enemy. It is a stunning failure to propel the country to war without a fully elaborated threat model that clarifies and specifies the enemy and makes clear our true objectives.
The lack of a threat model and a theory for action explains our schizophrenia, our failures, and homeland security shortcomings.
Understanding the enemy — “the threat,” his threat doctrine and the authoritative statements, sources, and philosophy undergirding that doctrine — is a primary duty. That is the first step in developing a threat model. It is the vital step in the [10] Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield process, to template enemy doctrine by laying it over the terrain: the physical, human, and cultural terrain to understand its manifestations in reality. These are the first relevant questions to be answered for U.S. national security analysis.
This intellectual and strategic groundwork for the “long war” against Islamic terrorism will never be accomplished as long as our senior service schools and military academies continue to neglect this vital area of strategic study. Regardless of what one might think about the relation between Islamic theology and jihadist justifications for terror, it is a fact that they believe they are operating in accordance with Islamic tradition. Islamic war doctrine ought to be studied on that basis alone.
But returning to Sun Tzu’s maxim, perhaps the root of our military’s strategic schizophrenia is not so much about our refusal to understand our enemies as much as it is a failure to understand ourselves. As a nation, we no longer have a sense of who we are, what we believe, or even why we fight. At the height of World War II, would a faculty member at the Army War College have even considered attempting to defend Nazi fascism or Japanese imperialism, as War College professor Sherifa Zuhur has now done with Hamas? That is a fitting testimony of how far we are from both aspects of Sun Tzu’s counsel.
