Tag: Counterterrorism

We Are Back To National Security

The latest terrorist attack in London has us Americans again thinking about national security…..we will put some of the insanity aside and start ranting on about protecting ourselves from the coming range war with terrorists.

Our security will depend on the federal budget…who gets what and who gets cut….all paths lead to the national security….if true how does this new proposed budget look on that front?

US President Donald J. Trump’s draft budget, which proposes to increase defense spending by slashing funding for the US Department of State and foreign aid, would imperil national security efforts and weaken the US stance on the world stage, according to two US lawmakers—one a Democrat and the other a Republican.

“You cannot balance the budget on the back of discretionary spending,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA). “If [increased defense spending] comes at the expense of the State Department, it’s not a recipe for success; it’s a recipe for making our national security weaker.”

Source: Lawmakers: Trump’s Budget Will Weaken National Security | RealClearDefense

Money could be a problem with our security but what about the policies that the money will fund?

The recent North Korean missile tests raise questions about contradictions in President Donald Trump’s national security policies. During his campaign Trump implied that the United States should fight fewer wars overseas and demanded that US dependents, Japan and South Korea, do more for their own defense, perhaps even getting nuclear weapons. Yet a recent article written by David Sanger, a national security reporter for the New York Times, noted that Trump had tweeted that North Korean acquisition of a long-range missile “won’t happen” and that his administration was considering preemptive military strikes on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs or reintroducing US tactical (short-range) nuclear missiles into South Korea, which were removed twenty-five years ago. So which is it – demanding US allies do more or ramping up America’s efforts to make them even more reliant on American power? And this is not the only Trump policy contradiction.

Source: Inconsistencies in Trump’s National Security Policies by — Antiwar.com

We need to hold our national security in the same arms that we hold some of our outdated beliefs.

National security policies will effect us all….we should pay closer attention and stop worrying about the midgets in this world.

War On Terror: A Rethink Is Needed

I know that we hear daily just how well we are doing in our fight against terrorism…..daily reports on amount of baddie dead or just how well our “allies” are proceeding…..

Personally, I feel that the tactics we are employing are stale…there may be other tactics in the making but from where I sit we are spinning our wheels on the War on Terror……

Trump is now in command…..but the people he has put in charge are champions of the stale policies of the past….we need a rethink and soon……

Although Donald Trump had good inclinations on some foreign policy issues during his campaign and transition period — for example, staying out of unneeded brushfire wars, reexamining U.S. alliances, and pushing wealthy allies to do more for their own security — his policy toward “radical Islamic terrorism” always needed some work.

Now, having been president for only a short time, this policy — including slamming the door shut on the legal immigration of refugees (including desperate Syrians fleeing from the country’s civil war) and entry of people from seven predominantly Muslim countries — needs a lot of work.

In the meantime, to show that he is doing at least something for Syrian refugees, he is talking to Arab allies not affected by the ban — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — about setting up safe zones in Syria to keep refugees there.

Source: Trump Needs to Rethink Terror Policies – Consortiumnews

Keep in mind…we cannot defeat terrorism….for terror is a tactic not a entity…..

This should take priority….something that should not be decided over brunch at some golf club…..if not it will only get worse…..

FBI Agents to Infiltrate Political and Religious Groups

In these days of massive fear the country has allowed the police and military to invade their privacy on the premise that they will be much safer if these groups have access to your stuff.

I read an article that talks about the FBI and their infiltration of groups in the name of security……

Beneath the FBI’s redaction marks are exceptions to rules on “undisclosed participation.”

President Trump has inherited a vast domestic intelligence agency with extraordinary secret powers. A cache of documents offers a rare window into the FBI’s quiet expansion since 9/11.

Using loopholes it has kept secret for years, the FBI can in certain circumstances bypass its own rules in order to send undercover agents or informants into political and religious organizations, as well as schools, clubs, and businesses.

Source: Hidden Loopholes Allow FBI Agents to Infiltrate Political and Religious Groups

I am amused that people find this outrageous.

Has anyone out there ever heard of the COINTELPRO?  And yes this is another history lesson for you.

Between 1956 and 1971, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a campaign of domestic counterintelligence. The agency’s Domestic Intelligence Division did more than simply spy on U.S. citizens and their organizations; its ultimate goal was to disrupt, discredit, and destroy certain political groups. The division’s operations were formally known within the bureau as COINTELPRO (the Counterintelligence Program). The brainchild of former FBI director j. edgar hoover, the first COINTELPRO campaign targeted the U.S. Communist party in the mid-1950s. More organizations came under attack in the 1960s. FBI agents worked to subvertCivil Rightsgroups, radical organizations, and white supremacists. COINTELPRO existed primarily because of Director Hoover’s extreme politics and ended only when he feared its exposure by his critics. A public uproar followed revelations in the news media in the early 1970s, and congressional hearings criticized COINTELPRO campaigns in 1976.

Read more……

Source: Cointelpro legal definition of Cointelpro

This is nothing new….the government has been invading groups for decades and all in the name of ….SECURITY.

How Goes The “War On Terror”?

Now there is a term we do not hear much these days….War on Terror.

I am sure that it will make the headlines again soon….but until then….

For 16 years we have been waging a war on terror….Bush brought us to this point in our history…..with all that time under our belts just how goes this war?

As the new year begins I ready myself for the class I will teach on terrorism….but we must look at this war with an open mind….something NOT many Americans are capable of doing these days….but I have to try…….

Below are perspectives from the Unz Reader which has a decidedly Libertarian lean to them….but good points one and all……

The twenty-first century, at least up until this point, might well be described as the age of the terrorist. Even though most Americans and Europeans rank terrorism as low among their concerns, the repercussions when a terrorist attack does take place are greatly magnified by the sheer horror associated with the mass killing of innocent people going about their daily lives.

There are a couple of annual reports that look at terrorism as a global phenomenon. The best known is the U.S. State Department’s Annual Country Reports on Terrorism that comes out in the Summer and covers the previous year. It is mandated by Congress and is largely based on Embassy and intelligence community sources.

The Country Reports purports to be an objective review of the year’s terrorist incidents as well as an overview of some of the players to include a discussion of “violent extremism” issues region by region and country by country. It is a valuable resource which provides considerable information on the various militant groups and the crimes attributed to them as well as their involvement globally. But it is nevertheless a government document. The Obama Administration definitely has had a point of view on what constitutes terrorism and how to deal with it based on how the White House would like to frame things from a political perspective. The section on Afghanistan, for example, implicitly makes a case for a more robust American role in the conflict engulfing that country.

read more……

Source: Some Perspectives on the War on Terror – The Unz Review

After 15 years or more….could we be doing something wrong….could whole Western world be doing something wrong?

European political leaders are making the same mistake in reacting to the massacre at the Christmas fair in Berlin, in which 12 died, as they did during previous terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels. There is an over-concentration on the failings of the security services in not identifying and neutralising the Tunisian petty criminal, Anis Amri, as the threat he turned out to be. There is too little focus on bringing to an end the wars in Syria and Iraq which make this type of atrocity unstoppable.

In the aftermath of the killings the visibility of Amri, who was shot dead in Milan this morning, as a potential threat looks misleadingly obvious, and the culpability of those who did not see this appears more glaring than it really was. The number of possible suspects – suspected before they have done anything – is too great to police them effectively.

Source: The ‘War on Terrorism’ Just Keeps Making It Worse – The Unz Review

But not to worry a American general has predicted that ISIS has only 2 more years of existence….

In a Christmas Day interview, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the command of US-led coalition forces in Iraq, faulting the Iraqi military for denying that the Mosul offensive was paused, insisting that “people need to rest” and that the offensive would resume soon.

Townsend also provided an estimate on the overall war, saying it’s going as well as could be expected, and that it’d probably be “another two years of hard work” before ISIS is really defeated in Iraq and Syria, saying that he didn’t want to put a specific timeline on the war.

(antiwar.com)

We start a new year with a new president…..maybe it is time for fresh eyes on this subject….but the question is…are we capable of an adjustment in our reasoning?

My thought is….NOT this time around.

One Tough “Lady”

NOTE”  The term “lady” is not intended as a slight to this woman….her exploits are hard to describe….please do NOT take it as a slight to her person.

We hear so much about the barbaric ISIS fighters with their raping, killing and other such inhuman acts…..and on the other side we hear about the heroic acts by the different army units in their fight with the extremists….

This post is about a brave and yes brutal woman that is leading the fight against ISIS in Iraq……

06_iraqi housewife Wahida Mohamed_06_03 iraqi housewife Wahida Mohamed_12241713_103721679996057_2906077868473787312_n

“Shut up and stay still,” the woman in black fatigues and a black headscarf snapped over her shoulder at the armed men behind her as she sat down for an interview.

Immediately they went quiet, each adjusting his weapon and standing up straight as if he’d been called to attention.
This is a woman who commands respect, I thought. She keeps a Beretta 9-millimeter pistol in a holster under her left arm. The area around the trigger was silver where the paint had worn off.
Source: Iraqi housewife and ISIS fighter – CNN.com
This should help put to rest the nonsense that women are the weaker sex…….nothing weak about this one…..
I like her

Fighting ISIS With an Algorithm

In the days of my studies of international relations I studied the technique of a Dr. Bueno de Mesquita….he designed an algorithm that can be used to predict international events……he was tested by the CIA and others and his technique was about 90% accurate consistently…human prediction was a 50-50 at best.

I found it fascinating that an algorithm could be employed with such accuracy…..and now it appears that the US is trying this technique to try and predict the possibility of attack from ISIS…….

A new mathematical model aims to track the activity of Islamic State sympathizers online and determine when groups will turn from talk to action.

After Orlando and San Bernardino and Paris, there is new urgency to understand the signs that can precede acts of terrorism. And with the Islamic State’s prolific use of social media, terrorism experts and government agencies continually search for clues in posts and Twitter messages that appear to promote the militants’ cause.

A physicist may not seem like an obvious person to study such activity. But for months, Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami, led a team that created a mathematical model to sift order from the chaotic pro-terrorism online universe.

Source: Fighting ISIS With an Algorithm, Physicists Try to Predict Attacks – The New York Times

Some may find this a bit mundane and dry….but it is a new field that does show some possibilities…..if it can be as helpful as the algorithm of Dr, de Mesquita then there could be a major break through in the fight against ISIS.

Treat ISIS Like an Artichoke

I have been writing a series on terrorism…..a rational look at the phenomenon without all the emotional baggage that most attach to the subject…..that alone is a monumental undertaking because of all the mental midgets attempts to spread their ill placed fears…..I will probably not be successful trying to help people understand…..because some would prefer to live under the table quaking in fear than to understand a situation……

Sorry….I digress.

ISIS has been a thorn in humanity’s side for a couple of years now and we are NO closer to defeating (ending their reign of terror) this group and its barbarous acts…..maybe there is another path we could take to that end.

(If you listen closely you can hear the “cowering Connies” mumbling to themselves)

This is a press of an article that I found interesting and well thought out….

Policy makers should peel off ISIS’s overlapping layers of recruits, weapons, and political and financial support.

Make no mistake: Bombs can and do kill ISIS fighters. But like ripping off a starfish’s leg, the bombs can’t stop ISIS from recouping its loss. ISIS derives its power from overlapping layers of political and financial support. While many of these layers include recruits and other actors far from the ISIS ideological core, the layers are bound together by resistance to both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s mass killing and foreign military intervention.

In short, to get to the heart of the ISIS crisis, we must press our elected officials and other policy makers to treat ISIS like an artichoke. The most promising way to deal with ISIS is to strip off its overlapping layers of recruits, weapons, and political and financial support. Those layers have to be carefully peeled off, rather than beaten by a club into a mushy mess.

Source: Treat ISIS Like an Artichoke: A Non-Military Route to the Heart of the Crisis

Terrorism: What Is To Be Done?

A new attack this time in Belgium and all the cross-eyed idiots have come out of the woodwork to offer some sort of solution to this growing problem…..and that, if implemented, will cause more problems to the problems.

The usual suspects have come out with all the extreme measures to control terrorism, the problem is what they propose will not stop any attacks in the future but it all sounds good when you are talking to mental midgets.

We have candidates promising to defeat terrorism (a promise they cannot guarantee) and others that want to basically wall off “Muslim” neighborhoods and turn them into a reflection of a “ghetto” from WW2…..then there are those that think that bombing someone will create some sort of submission….a delusional art of the thought.

Let’s look at the three suspects that did the dirty deed in Brussels……all three are known for violent attacks in the past and were known by the authorities and yet they could not be stopped from carrying out their attacks of terror.  Should that not question the effectiveness of security measures?

Yes, there needs to be a response to all this violence…..the problem is any emotional outburst or mindless bravado is not the answer needed to stop this thing.  Some solutions would infringe on a persons rights but that is okay….. that is until their rights are infringed upon and then it is the ‘new world order’ taking over.  As usual some people’s rights are more important than others….at least in the US, that is…… Enough about the people (a polite word….I had another in mind but it would have been too insulting to type)…….that would crap on our Constitution because they are afraid and not thinking like an American.

I am sure there are those that have taken offense to what I have typed and will inevitably insert….if you are so damn smart then what is your answer to this problem”?

Fair enough….and until like my detractors that deal in insults, innuendoes and emotional dribble…….I do have an idea on how to combat this growing violence……

To counter the growing threat will take two prongs…..a short term and a long term program.

First, contrary to the popular belief by some so-called Americans….not all Muslims are terrorists…..I know it may be hard to believe but most are not connected to any terrorist thought no more so than say all Christians are terrorist because some whacked out d/bag blew up an abortion clinic.  Accusations are not a plan that will work!

First, do not send in the storm troopers into the communities….this will force them to close ranks and any valuable assistance will be lost.  This has been the reaction for the last couple of months and what has it accomplished?

Next reach out to community leaders….they will want to see to the safety and the security of their people.  Then use these people to reach out to the others within the community for they will be easier for others to communicate with and possibly find out what the strong arm tactics could not.

If a country truly wants to stop these types of attacks then the best way to do so is by using the very people that the terrorists hide among.  Without their cooperation then the police and security forces will have to apply more harsh tactics that will force the people to withdraw even further and in the same time frame help create more extremists from within the ranks of the community.

This would be a beginning that will be appreciated and in so will be rewarding.

Long term…….this is a more difficult program to design……because of the web of multiple agencies that must be involved…..The fundamental dilemmas and contradictions relate to treating domestic terrorism as a law enforcement or a national security issue and the tensions among public safety, privacy, security and civil liberties. Additionally, in a federalist system, with fifty separate states and widely differing laws and regulations, ensuring coordination and integration is a Sisyphean labor. On one hand, obviously intelligence and information are crucial to checking domestic terrorism.

But, on the other hand, with seventeen federal intelligence agencies and many-fold more state and local capabilities from cops on the beat to fusion centers, and liaison capabilities with foreign governments along with huge challenges that relate to security, clearances and information exchanges, integration and coordination present formidable obstacles in improving efficiencies and effectiveness. Clearly, no simple or single formula to balance these often competing and conflicting forces exists or is likely to be invented soon. But without removing or bypassing these obstacles, domestic terror will always remain “a clear and present danger.”…..or is it?

So few Americans have traveled to the Middle East to fight for ISIS that the threat from the even fewer who returned to the U.S. is “low” and “will likely be manageable,” says a new report from the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that maintains a sprawling database on terrorists.

Source: New Study Says U.S. Threat from Returning Jihadis Is Low | TIME

Of course this study will be ignored by those that live in a perpetual state of uncontrollable fear like Alex Jones and about 1000 blogs that have little else to write about daily.

Intel sharing seems to be the most obvious problem.  The intel is shared but is it shared in a timely manner?  For if it does not fit the paradigm then it is wrong.

In case you have not noticed….terrorism is not on the forefront of some people’s minds right now…..they are more concerned with who pees where……I do love the minds of some people……seems they can only cope with a minute amount of info at a time.

Europe on the Brink

Europe seems to be falling apart before the eyes of the world…..in the last year there have been attacks, riots and general unrest.

Europe is dealing with the situation in a way that will lead to further incidents……I have been reading an article (pressed below) in the World Affairs publication and thought that I would press it for my readers to see and possibly comment…..

Europe is at much greater risk of attack than the United States. The lack of civic identity precludes the assimilation necessary to forestall violence, both among Islamic radicals and the far right.

Source: Europe on the Brink | World Affairs Journal

The one thing that has been overlooked by many is that the European attacks were done by CITIZENS of the various countries…..not from some stealthy 5th column that has been infiltrated into the countries.

Side Note:  I the coming weeks, possibly months, I will be writing a series on terrorism…..it will be a rational look at the phenom without all the emotional trappings we are seeing and reading these days.

Please watch for those in the near future…..

 Known unknowns and the fight against violent extremism

A professor friend on mine in Jordan ask me if I had seen this study…..he sent it to me in Arabic……He wanted my opinion of the conclusions that it was drawing on the fight against violent extremism….

المجاهيل المعروفة ومكافحة التطرف العنيف

Since I left the Middle East my Arabic has seen better days…..so I had to cheat and translate it so that I could get a good read and then give him my honest opinion……

Rumsfeldian logic has its uses in the field of counter-terrorism, where one of the key known unknowns remains whether violent extremism can, in fact, be prevented.

Source: ISS Africa | Known unknowns and the fight against violent extremism

The piece began with what I could only call a WTF moment……

The question took one into the realm of Rumsfeldian logic, Armitage said. He was referring, of course, to former United States secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld’s famous reply in February 2002, when asked about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

There were ‘known knowns … things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns, things we know we do not know,’ he said. ‘But there are also unknown unknowns; the ones we don’t know we don’t know,’ he added. These last were the difficult questions. Armitage suggested the ISS seminar topic ‘Can violent extremism be prevented?’ belonged to Rumsfeld’s second category, of ‘known unknowns.’ Nevertheless, Armitage then went on to suggest that there would always be some minority support for some form of violent extremism.

The article went on cover many of the events and situations that lead to extremism….I was thankful that it was more clearly articulated than what Rumsfeld had to say back in 2002…..

I sent my friend my analysis and I await his reply….

Read the article for yourself and let me know what you think…..this is not a study that one reads and then go off on some rant about people coming to get you…..it will require some thought and some analysis on the readers part……

Time awaits……..