Tag Archives: Terrorism

Homeland Security hodge podge

Posted on May 7, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Things remain unclear about the attack in Boston but some things of note can already be discerned.  Here’s my list so far…

Network news is terrible at covering unfolding events.  I don’t think it was always so, but maybe it was and I just didn’t it or my information needs were different.  In any case the 24 hour news channels were uniformly useless.  The normally quite good John Dickerson gives a pretty weak defense of the institution (While mistakes may have been made it’s really the fault of the viewers…or twitter…of Blitzer’s beard!)

The news channels weren’t about providing information and context.  They were about spreading rumor, speculation and regurgitating the few facts they did have.  This led to the second problem of the news organizations (not new but exacerbated by this story) which is that even though these channels have 24 hours to fill with programming they suffer from myopia.  Nothing important was going on elsewhere in the world during the entire week?  Really?  I find that hard to believe.

Social media was even worse.  Twitter was a disaster and Reddit users were on their way to forming virtual lynch mobs.  It would seem, not the greatest set of days for the idea of crowd-sourced intelligence.

But not so fast.  I suspect some of that was the messy nature of self organization.  There was very little attempt to give people ways to connect to the story in helpful (or, at least not harmful) ways.  That is what government can do although the agencies upon whom this responsibility would normally fall (law enforcement or homeland security) don’t really seem interested in communicating more than they absolutely have to with the public.

Aside from the occasional photo op, the customary speech laden with rhetoric about “our partners in the private sector, blah, blah, blah,” and of course the obligatory platitudes that we see in news releases and congressional testimony, the level of engagement with people outside the red brick walls of the DHS complex is anemic, if not nearly extinct.

Lesson Learned:  Shut off the news on the second repeat of ‘what we know’.  Tune back in at the end of the day.  Avoid social media (as it’s currently configured) unless you have some specific information needs you think you can fill through those sources.  Anything else is the virtual equivalent of rubber necking and will do nothing except waste your time and risk getting you caught up in the same useless feeding frenzy everyone else is in.

We’ve already heard calls for new changes to account for this incident.  We should charge this American citizen as an ‘enemy combatant’ and deny him his constitutionally protected rights.  This attack ‘proves’ that Putin is a guy we want on our side, after all.  And all those Muzlims!  Muzlims everywhere!

One incident is one datapoint.  That’s all.  Any assertions that this is part of some sort of trend is engaging in baseless speculation.  We have no idea if this event means nothing or is a harbinger of something significant.  I suspect the former but we have to wait and see.

Lesson Learned:  STFU until you know what you’re talking about (and even now, we don’t know much).  If you don’t know what you’re talking about but want to speculate anyway, make sure you don’t make your speculation have to bare more weight than it can carry.

YouTube Preview Image

We’ve been very fortunate in that the U.S. suffers from very little terrorism.  Less in the past ten years than in the 1970s 1 but I suspect people, like me, that grew up in the 1970s didn’t feel like we were living in a terrorist wonderland.  9/11 may, indeed, have changed everything but perhaps not for the better.

So, while perhaps not popular I recommend Rose Brooks’ occasionally condescending yet still good ‘Keep Calm and Shut the Bleep Up‘ as we gird ourselves for countless stories that go something like:  ‘You know…I was thinking about running in a marathon before I died.  That could’ve been it.  I was that close…’  We get it.  If you didn’t have a head cold you totally would have been in Boston and wow…coulda been you.  Just because the odds of you getting killed in a terrorist attack are increased from 1 in 3 million to 1 in 1 million, don’t expect me to come down with a case of the vapors.

Lesson Learned:  Chill out.  You, your family, your friends and everyone else you care about are MUCH more likely to die in many more ways than terrorist attacks.  If you’re going to freak out…pay some attention to those risks.

 

 

  1. By quite a bit, I might add.   There were almost TEN TIMES the number of terrorist attacks in the 1970s compared to the decade starting on September 11, 2001. ↩

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,

A few thoughts in the wake of Boston…

Posted on April 15, 2013 by | Leave a comment

I’m writing this just a few hours after the news about the bombing in Boston.  You won’t see any speculation here about who’s responsible, thoughts on the immediate response or similar things.  Rather, I want to talk a bit about what the larger implications might mean in terms of threat and what how an intelligence shop might best respond in a situation like this.

Ok…first things first.  A couple of rules to keep things in perspective.

  1. We should now know that with events like this, information that comes our way in the first hours is going to be confused, full of inaccuracies and speculation.  Anyone who speaks with authority in the first few hours is likely to be a liar.
  2. The 24 news channels are terrible at covering events like this.  Since there is so little information to report they have to fill their air time with anything they can.  This means your signal to noise ratio will be off the charts.  Once you get the broad outlines of the event and (possibly) see any footage of the event your best bet is to switch off the TV.

Since we’ve not got a few decades of data about terrorism from all around the world, there are some findings that might help us think about what might (might) come next.

First, a good place to look is the fine folks at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).  I’d recommend reading this piece about the (un)predictability of terrorism and its ‘burstiness’.  I’d particularly like to mention this latter point.

As the people at START put it:

But in addition, terrorism has a bursty quality. When it is effective in a particular time and place, we get a lot of it rapidly.

Now, I think the key word here is the word ‘effective’.  While, on some level, attacks like Oklahoma City, Mardrid, and 9/11 were successful but I’m not sure they would be considered ‘effective’.  After all, in all of those cases the terrorist group (or individual) was captured or killed during or very shortly after the attack.   There was, in short, no one left to follow up on the success and so no follow up occurred.

But, take something like London or (I’m sure) the terrorist activity we see in much of the Middle East and you’ll see a different definition of ‘effective’.  Since a ‘successful’ attack isn’t a requirement for a terrorist to be successful (because, remember, the point of terrorism is to elicit a particular response…not generally to do direct damage) you can ‘fail’ but still be effective.  I’d suggest that much of the Palestinian terrorism over the past few decades falls into this category.

So…if we don’t neutralize (in some way) the perpetrators in some reasonable amount of time, we might reasonably expect additional attacks by the same group or individual.

Conversely, this also means that if we might not need to be too worried about ‘copy cats’ or others being inspired to action.  After all, al-Qaida has been trying to inspire people to take up the cause for years with little success.  White supremacists have been trying for decades with little to show for it.

It also means that the data suggests that the threat is going to be localized in time and space.  Might the perpetrators jet off to Idaho and launch attacks in Boise?  Sure, I guess, but I’m not sure I’d consider it particularly likely.

Also from START is this piece which states that we might see an increase in hate crimes over the coming weeks as a result of this attack.  Based on their data, the people at START have concluded that:

…in the weeks following a terrorist attack, the number of anti-minority hate crimes increased if the attacks were made against symbols of core American values (such as the Pentagon) or perpetrated by groups with a religious motivation.

Does the Boston marathon qualify?  I’d guess definitely in the immediate area.  I’m not sure how much resonance the event has on people further afield.  But, depending on who is identified as suspects, this could be an issue.

Readers of this blog know I often talk about small intelligence shops.  Events like the attack in Boston, because they are so rare, are going to attract the attention of just about every intelligence unit in the country.  Almost every one of them will be expected to publish some sort of ‘product’ about the event.  So, what should a small shop (I’m not talking the big three letter agencies of the federal government but rather the numerous state, local and joint agencies and centers around the country) do in situations like this?

Everything I’m going to write here is for those shops that don’t ‘own’ the territory where the attack took place.  If this attack took place in your area of operations than that’s another story for another time.

First…take a breath.  Look at observation #1 at the top of this post.  You’re highly unlikely to get much of value during the first 24 hours after an event so don’t expect to do more than summarize basic facts.

BUT…everyone is going to want to be seen to be doing something.  This is, after all, the big show.  So, even if there’s nothing to say, there will be incredible pressure to say something anyway.  In some cases this is from a very real desire to ‘help’.  In other cases this is a very real desire to justify ones existence.  It reminds me of a quote from Sir Humphrey:

“Politicians must be allowed to panic. They need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.”

Only politicians aren’t the only ones susceptible to this.  If you don’t have a plan in place you’ll get sucked into the thankless (and useless) task of feeding regurgitated news to various overlords like a mother bird does with her chicks.

Instead of trying to compete with CNN, the New York Times or news agencies (which you’ll never succeed at doing) take advantage of this time to figure out what you need to know for your area of operations.  So, let’s say I was in charge of a shop in…North Carolina (or Montana…whatever) when this attack happened.  What’s going to be important to me initially?  Probably:

  1. Who committed the attack
    1. The specific individual(s)
    2. Any affiliated group
    3. Any linkage to my area of operations
  2. Why did they commit the attack
    1. What was their motivation
    2. Why did they pick that specific target(s)
  3. How did they commit the attack
    1. How did they acquire the explosive device
    2. How did they carry out the attack (emplacement, detonation, escape)

Now, as those questions get answered you’ll have follow ups and more specific ones but even a list like that disseminated to your staff will help them separate the wheat from the chaff during the early hours and days of the story.  Yes, eyewitness accounts may be compelling but if they don’t address those questions your people are really just wasting their time.

Second, if you do not have a compelling reason to call the agency(ies) responsible for handling the emergency do NOT do so before their first press conference at the earliest.  Look, they’ve got a lot on their hands and the last thing they need to do is answer a bunch of questions from a yahoo like you because the leader of your agency 900 miles away wants the latest poop.  Remember, there are now literally hundreds of intelligence shops in the U.S. now…many of them are going to be calling the scene in order to be the first on their block to put out a product with an exclusive tidbit 1 to show how ‘high speed’ they are.  The last thing you would need in that situation is an extra few dozen calls from people essentially saying ‘So…what’s up?’  Let them do their job and you’ll get your information when you need it.

Third, remember that one incident is NOT a trend.  Don’t start reorganizing your whole shop based on one event.  If you’re assessments of the threat were on solid ground before an attack like this, they should remain so.  One event should not nullify your analysis.  BUT…this is a good time (well, earlier was a better time but you slacked off, didn’t you? So we need to do this now) to identify the triggers that would cause you to reevaluate your analysis.

For example…I’ve been saying that al-Qaida is a has-been organization for some time now.  Assuming they were behind this attack (for a moment) would not change my opinion.  But I should be able to explain at what point I would say my analysis was crap.  That’ll keep me straight both when my ego is on the line as well as when tensions are riding high and people start making claims that this or that event ‘changes everything!’

Forth…If you have nothing to say about an event…say nothing.  The intelligence community is suffocating on a philosophy of ‘Send it to everyone…just in case they need it.’  This means it’s not uncommon to receive the same message three, four, five times or more.  It’s not uncommon to receive products that have no relevance to your area of interest.  Adding to the noise does nothing but guarantee that when you really do have something to say, it’ll be ignored.

 

  1. That’ll probably be released to the press before the product is even disseminated making the whole thing moot. ↩

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,

The Worldwide Threat Assessment

Posted on April 3, 2013 by | Leave a comment

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has continued the most excellent tradition of releasing an unclassified threat assessment. I can’t describe what a good initiative this is as it is a big step in providing transparency into the thinking of Intelligence Community. While something like this could certainly be manipulated, it is at least one check against the powers that be cherry picking intelligence. By publicly proclaiming their analysis (broadly) to the world, the Intelligence Community have their colors nailed to the mast and face the consequences (good or bad) of their work.

I’m particularly happy with this edition of the assessment for a couple of reasons.

First, the report starts off with a discussion of the cyber threat. I am by no means a tech geek and I agree that there are many serious vulnerabilities to our electronic data and networks but I’ve been concerned by the increasingly hysterically drum beat of talks about cyber ‘Peal Harbors’, 9/11s or Kratatoas. Coupled with the ominous ‘It’s not a matter of if but when…’ statements by very serious people, these predictions would seem like a slam dunk. 1

So, I was glad to see this:

We judge that there is a remote chance of a major cyber attack against the US critical infrastructure systems during the next two years that would result in long-term, wide-scale disruption of services, such as a regional power outage.

First take away: ‘Chill the fuck out.’

Those that can carry out those big attacks are going to be nation states and countries (even ones like Iran) are going to be reluctant to do so because a cyber attack today can lead to a physical retaliation tomorrow. Just because we now pay our bills online doesn’t mean the idea of retaliation has gone away.

But, what about those crazy terrorists? They’re already under the gun (so to speak) so threats of retaliation aren’t going to mean much to them, right? Well, true, but there are a couple of reasons why we might not have to worry too much about that. First, most ‘traditional’ terrorists are still thinking in terms of traditional fighting. Taking down a multinational corporation or a power station might be a significant win for these players and a step in their ultimate plans but just about all of them have goals of temporal power and for that you need to get our from behind the keyboard and pick up a gun. That’s the first part…the second is that it doesn’t look like any such groups have the capability to conduct such attacks.

Instead of the risk coming from well planned and executed attacks over the next two years, the assessment says that our vulnerability to less sophisticated attacks having an unexpected result because of particular ‘system configurations and mistakes’. In other words, our crappy system designs might go loopy. Just like the HAL9000 in 2001.

YouTube Preview Image

Al-Qaida continues their downward spiral with the various affiliates being either concerned more with local matters (AQIM, AQI, al-Shabaab, etc.) or just suffering from a long string of general ass-kickings (AQ Central). Not much to say there other than to say that my personal opinion is that history is passing them by. They still might be able to launch attacks over the coming years but both as a terrorist organization and a broader movement, they’re starting to look like they’re past their expiration date. The thing to look out for will be those who came to political maturity over the past decade. Just as AQ is really the function of the cohort that came out of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, how will the next generation of…who? Islamic radicals? The global ‘have-nots’? Others communities we aren’t even aware of yet? Anyway, how will these people internalize these events (and then externalize them!)?

My prediction: I suspect we’re in a terrorism ‘lull’ that probably began in 2009 or so 2 and will go on for at least another year or two. Now, a ‘lull’ does NOT mean there won’t be any terrorism activity occurring around the world. I think, instead, that we’ll see a general retreat of international terrorist organizations from targeting the United States. Targeting U.S. interests (like the Benghazi attack which, contrary to Fox News, Sen. McCain, et. al. was NOT a sign of a resurgent al-Qaida) will probably continue but occur in places that lack adequate security (post-revolutionary Libya, Bulgaria, etc.). But attacks like 9/11, or even 7/7 3, are going to continue to recede into the realm of hypotheticals dusted off to protect pet funding projects.

I suspect 9/11 will eventually be seen as al-Qaida’s battle of Cannae. A brilliant tactical success but with no real strategic benefits for them. Yes, 9/11 did cause the U.S. to make a number of really, really (really) bad decisions that didn’t do them any favors but they didn’t really translate into any sort of net gain for al-Qaida. Maybe bin Laden’s strategy of using a 50 or 100 year time scale will prove him right but I suspect not. Trying to game the global system decades in advance is virtually impossible (at least now). If we weren’t able to do it when we were the global hegemon how can al-Qaida expect to? Indeed, they had better have a deity on their side as that’s what I think it will take.

I was also pleased to see an acknowledgment of the negative influence of environmental crime around the world:

[Environmental crime] constitutes a multi-billion dollar industry annually, endangers the environment, and threatens to disrupt the rule of law in important countries around the world. These criminal activities are often part of larger illicit trade networks linking disparate actors-from government and military personnel to members of insurgent groups and translational organized crime organizations.

One reason such crimes are so lucrative is that the enforcement and penalty mechanisms are so lax.

The really frightening part of the assessment is the section titled ‘Natural Resources: Insecurity and Competition’. It presents a bleak picture of the state of food, water and natural resources now in which many stocks are at or near capacity with little margin for unexpected (or, in some cases, expected) shocks to the system. So, who cares if a bunch of peasants in central Africa can’t get wheat? Well, what would you do if all the supermarkets ran out of food? And what if the next town over had full supermarkets but either charged all outsiders a huge markup or just didn’t let outsiders in at all, deciding to save food for their citizens? Things could get ugly really fast. I believe it was Isaac Asimov who said something like ‘No civilization is more than three missed meals from anarchy.’

The other big problem with this issue is that it’s just not a national (or international) priority. In a country where we’re still debating whether global warming is an insidious crypto-Socialist-academic plot to deprive honest, hard-working citizens of the ‘American Dream’, who in the hell is going to get support to try to address the question of food security? You can almost hear the tin foil hat brigade talking about how the market will solve everyone’s problems. Make not mistake, these are big problems that are going to create all sorts of new, more traditional problems before everyone realizes just how bad things are. The fact that us humans just aren’t that good at dealing with threats like this doesn’t fill me with a great deal of optimism.

But in the short term (perhaps the next year or three) things don’t look too bad, relatively speaking. As the assessment runs down the various regions of the world we continue to see instability (Africa), slides towards authoritarianism (Central Asia), rampant crime (Central/South America) and emerging rivals (China) but none of these things seem ready to drive the international system into crisis. The more I read these things the more I find myself thinking of the later Roman Empire. Not as a direct correlation but rather the sense of the system gradually falling apart while those at the center seem unable to focus on anything except trivial matters. Shocks to the system are dealt with in a temporary and ad hoc manner. Hopefully that impression is just my age and cynicism catching up to me. I suppose we’ll see…

  1. Of course, we should remember we’ve heard this about waves of suicide bombings, Iraqi WMD threats, ‘dirty bombs’, etc., etc., etc. So, take it for what it’s been worth thus far… ↩
  2. But, I think it’d be safe to mark the death of Osama bin Laden as the ‘official’ beginning of the lull, even though that was in 2011 ↩
  3. Again, I’m talking about in the U.S. ↩

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , ,

How the mighty have fallen….

Posted on April 2, 2013 by | 1 Comment

Wow…who would have thought it could happen.  I think I’m actually feeling sorry for al-Qaida.  The terrorist masterminds who brought us 9/11 are now reduced to…these:

1)  Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was flying pretty high a year ago.  They were kicking ass in Mali, portrayed as the next ‘big thing’ in terrorism circles.  They were, as the young people say, ‘the shit’.  And then the French invaded and ruined everything.  So, what’s an ambitious terrorist group to do after suffering several military defeats?

Make a video game, of course.  An incredibly lame video game.  In the game, you play the pilot of a jihadi fighter plane (?!) that fights the French air force.  Does anyone other than me find it ironic that the Jihadi air force is comprised of the Su-47?  I mean…the defenders of the faith flying an aircraft made by godless successors to the Soviet Union?

And at some point does it ever irk these fighters that virtually all the weapons they use are created by people they consider the enemy?  I mean, it’s not like there’s even an authentic jihadi assault rifle that hasn’t been created and sold by infidels.  Don’t games that pretend there’s an Islamic air force just make the true believers feel more inadequate?

2)  Inspire #10:  For awhile, the idea that al-Qaida was producing a slick, English language magazine with instructions for attacks was pretty frightening.  Then, after a few issues, the shine began to wear off.  After al-Awaki and Samir Khan (who were the driving force behind the magazine) were killed by drone in 2011, the quality did a quick nosedive from which is hasn’t recovered.  Now, just pumping something out is seen as a sort of a victory by the al-Qaida types (and the counter terrorism folks who prophet off them) but it’s getting harder and harder to take this stuff seriously.   The latest big al-Qaida tactic that’s going to bring the West to their knees?  Setting cars on fire and causing automobile accidents.  Yeah, knocking down the twin towers didn’t do it but giving me a fender bender in the Whole Foods parking lot is totally going to get us to surrender.

#3 And finally, poor, poor Oman Hammami.  If you don’t feel sorry for this guy, your heart is two sizes too small.  The would be jihadis left sunny California for the badlands of Somalia…Then he got involved in some tribal politics, a death threat from one side, a couple of twitter fights, a $5 million dollar bounty from the U.S. government for his capture and credit for some shitty rap songs.  And this was the guy we were afraid would serve as a beacon for hordes of young American kids to take up the mantel of jihad and run riot.  Meh…not so much.

 

 

 

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , ,

Lindsey Graham doesn’t know jack about terrorism

Posted on November 19, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Lindsey Graham made the unfortunate decision to go on Meet the Press yesterday to talk about the Benghazi attack.  The appearance reminded me of a quote attributed to Mark Twain.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Here’s the clip.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Just a couple of points:

Graham says that the Benghazi attack ‘destroys the narrative that al-Qaida‘s been destroyed and bin Laden’s dead.’

Ok, are we not going to have to listen to tin foil hat theories that bin Laden isn’t actually dead?  Given the rejection of reality from the right recently I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but let’s give Lindsey a pass on this point and chalk it up to him being nervous given this must be his first time on the TV.

Second, it completely escapes me how the Benghazi attack ‘proves’ that al-Qaida is resurgent. An attack occurs in a country that is emerging from a violent civil war, with little to no real control from the central government and with a plethora of weapons and that is the evidence that al-Qaida is roaring back to life?  Really?

The fact that al-Qaida has only been able to operate in such places is an indicator that they are, in fact, ‘decimated’.  Remember the last time al-Qaida was able to carry off an attack in the West?  Think hard…

Yeah, almost eight years ago.  And while time isn’t the only (or necessarily a very good) indicator of future terrorist activity, it is very hard to imagine that al-Qaida has been biding their time over the past eight years and waiting for this totally awesome moment to bring the West to their knees.  If they could have launched an attack by now they would have.  Al Qaida isn’t like Monty Pythons Spanish Inquisition…

YouTube Preview Image

But, Graham, along with his neo-con pals ‘Get off my lawn!’ McCain and Droopy Dog have resisted any move that takes the country away from where it was in the afternoon of 9/11.  These guys simply are in love with the idea of perpetual war and will fight anyone who even suggests that the threat might be a smidgen lower.

And, of course, McCain & Co. remain pissed that he lost in 2008 even though he ran such a brilliant campaign and made such good decisions.

Al-Qaida is a Gimp

Al-Qaida is a Gimp (Photo credit: silverfox09)

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

Resiliance, Gordon Lightfoot, 9/11 and he who shall not be named….

Posted on October 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

A few weeks ago there was this editorial questioning how resilient America is in this post 9/11 world. The article is less then it could have been and I suspect the question really deserves two answers. Generally, I’d say that the American people (and government) are a pretty resilient lot when you consider the reaction to a wide range of man-made or natural hazards.

There are some instances, particularly the attacks of 9/11,that must be considered an exception to the rule. Not only did the government collectively shit itself and engage in a buffet of flailing policies that will haunt us for many, many years to come but I’m not sure the American people did particularly well either. They stood by and cheered when wars were declared 1, torture was conducted in their names and freedoms were handed over.

And we were left with this schizophrenic relationship to this day. Vacillating between the ‘Huh? What? Oh, let’s just go shopping’ advice in the weeks after the attacks and a sort of death fetish that has grown up over the event. The site of the attack in New York now needs to be considered a sacred place for all eternity. We’re doomed to have to listen to the endless parade of family members and friends who lost people on that day along with the inane ‘It could’ve been me…’ stories.

I’m not denying or belittling people’s grief but I’m just not sure why we have to go through this annual scab ripping ritual and if we’ll ever be allowed to move on.  Perhaps it’s the way we seem to be remembering the event.  It’s been slightly more than a decade but given the explosion of the insatiable 24 news monster, 9/11 provides endless opportunities to relive the events, gape at the parade of still grieving family members and whisper to our children ‘bin Laden ad portas!’

I suppose at some point this will fade into our cultural heritage a lot like Pearl Harbor (or perhaps fade to obscurity like Oklahoma City seems destined to).

So all this was running through my mind when the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald came up in my playlist.  Check it out…great song.

YouTube Preview Image

Here’s an event that probably wouldn’t have resonated much at all over space or time, yet because it merged with popular culture its lifespan and reach was increased.  Will 9/11 achieve something similar?  Will there be a depiction or inspiration in some form of art that delivers some deeper meaning or shared experience?

I can’t imagine the memorial will be that thing.  Located in the middle of one of the most vibrant cities in the world, there are already disputes over how it should be used by the public.

…police, private security guards and volunteer guides are enforcing strict rules on decorum.

The measures are aimed at curbing what some relatives of victims see as rising disrespect, ranging from picnics under the newly planted oak trees to an incident in June when visiting high school students threw trash into one of the black pools marking the footprints of the fallen towers.

Nothing like serious vandalism has occurred, but even the most seemingly benign activities, such as thousands of tourists snapping photos of each other in front of the monument, are too much for relatives who refer to the site as “sacred ground.”

“People laughed and took pictures smiling, and so many people leaned on the tablets with all my friends’ names engraved in them, holding Starbucks cups, like it was a kitchen table,” complained Marianne Pizzitola, head of a fire department retirees group, in a widely published letter to the memorial’s president Joe Daniels.

Perhaps I’m a cold, heartless bastard but geez, I can think of few things that would make those who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks happier than the site of the attacks frozen in perpetual grimness and mourning.

So, how to respond to such things?  The Mel Brooks method is one:

YouTube Preview Image

Another way is to blot out the memory entirely, depriving the perpetrators of the satisfaction of immortality.  Stephen Cave talks about this strategy in relation to Anders Breivik and a 4th cen. BCE proto-Joker who burned down a magnificent temple in order to be famous.

YouTube Preview Image

To discourage copycats, Herostratus was not only tortured and executed. He was also subjected to a damnatio memoriae — the damnation of a man’s memory through banning (on pain of death) all mention of his name.

The Greeks understood that the importance of the hero-cult in their society risked fostering anti-heroes such as Herostratus. And they understood that those who would choose this route did not fear death, but rather obscurity and ridicule. Hence the damnatio memoriae was not only the most fitting punishment, but the best deterrent to would-be copycats.

Now, the fact that we’re reading an article about Herostratus some 2500 years later may indicate that this policy wasn’t particularly effective but he’s hardly a household name and the idea is certainly interesting.  Almost all terrorists today crave attention.  They need it because without it they simply have no power.  Is there a way to deprive them of the notoriety they so desperately seek without becoming one of those regimes that forbids the publication of any bad news?

Can we remember without handing over the power of remembrance to the perpetrators?  I suspect we can but that doing so has to take different forms based on individual circumstance.  Remembering the Holocaust appropriately, for example, should look different than a memorial for the London Blitz.  Innocents died in both but the former is a place of the dead that is visited by the living while the latter is a place of the living. Trying to turn the one into the other will result in something ranging from the absurd to the obscene (like trying to build a casino in the Wolf’s Lair) and in either case, not likely to be what we want.

  1. well, not declared, we don’t do that sort of thing anymore…we have military operations ↩

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged ,

The Muslim threat

Posted on August 29, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Four radical Muslims were recently charged for planning on launching a series of attacks in America and installing a government run by Sharia law.  Unlike other less than competent terrorists these evildoers spent almost $90,000 on weapons and killed two people in furtherance of their goals.

 

Haven’t heard about this story?  What’s going on?  Is this the result of the crypto-Socialist/Muslim agenda and liberal media apologizing for terrorists and endangering patriotic Americans?  Where is the Fox/CNN specials and congressional inquiries

 

Oh…sorry about that.  I got a few points of the story wrong.

 

It wasn’t Muslims after all.  It was a group of U.S. soldiers.

 

Is it just me or does anyone find it odd that this group who took real, concrete actions in furtherance of a plot to launch attacks in the U.S. get charged by a county prosecutor while the FBI trips over itself to charge every groups of bumblers and incompetents it can entice into jihad (wait, there are even more)?

 

Imagine, if you will, what the response from the media and the government would be had these guys had names like ‘Muhammad’, ‘Sayed’, ‘Nidal’, etc. Does anyone not think that the current circle jerk in Florida wouldn’t pivot its focus to talk about how the president is failing the country and how this event proves we need more troops, more surveillance, more erosion of freedoms?

 

But…these are 4 white guys.  And everyone learned the lesson about what happens when you try to link those guys to terrorism.  But…a few dozen people engaging in peaceful protest?  Lock ‘em up!  After all, they might be terrorists!

 

But the media at least is covering all its bases.  They are picking up on the current terrorist flavor of the week…ANARCHISTS!

 

YouTube Preview Image

 

It appears these people are being declared anarchists based on the fact they have anarchist tattoos (you know, the A with a circle around it).

 

Anarchist s

Anarchist s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t want to comment too much on this aspect of the case since I’ve only got some really sketchy open source reporting to go on but we should consider that the use of a symbol does not necessarily mean one agrees with the ideology commonly associated with that symbol.

In any case, as al-Qaeda is finding it increasingly difficult to mount operations in the U.S., the homeland security machine and fear industry needs another target to justify its existence.  What better group than anarchists…they’re here.  Nobody really understands what they are. Take it away Blitz!

YouTube Preview Image

It’s groundhog day all over again.

This is all about selective targeting of ‘undesirable populations’ and has nothing to do about threat.  After all, if the homeland security community was concerned about people who threaten to violently overthrow the government they’d check out this guy or this guy.  Can anyone honestly say that if a Muslim or an anarchist publicly said something like this they wouldn’t (at a minimum) get a good examination by the FBI and quite probably be the subject of an undercover investigation?

But we can’t do that.  These terrorists vote.

This should really erode your confidence in homeland security efforts.  It reflects a huge blind spot.  The focus remains on ‘da Muzlims’ (they’re safe since they don’t vote and are dirty foreigners) and the powerless.  The focus remains on past threats rather than looking objectively at likely, potential future threats.

It ensures we will be surprised again and again and continue asking ‘Why didn’t we see this coming?  Why didn’t we connect the dots?’

Oh, and the soldier plot?  Looks like maybe the leader was involved with the right crowd a few years ago.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , ,

Wither al-Qaida revisited

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Original ‘Wither al-Qaida’ here.

William Macle has a great long read up in Reuters about the direction al-Qaida may be heading in. I say ‘great’ because it conforms to my preconceived notions and allows me to say ‘Ah, ha! That’s what I’ve been saying for months now.’ Never underestimate my capability for self-congratulation.

In short, the article asserts that the success in decimating al-Qaida’s core leadership over the past year or so, coupled with ‘franchising’ the AQ brand to groups more focused on local conflicts has turned the organization into one that is less capable on the international field and less influential on the world’s stage. Involvement in local conflicts across the Middle East and Africa lead al-Qaida affiliates down the same dangerous path that al-Qaida in Iraq faced. Namely, involvement in conflict is most likely going to be brutal and endemic leading to a disaffected  local population and retaliation. You may be able to assert control for awhile (like the Taliban did, AQAP is doing in parts of Yemen or al-Shabaab in parts of Somalia) but it’s unlikely we’re going to go back to the ‘glory days’ of pre-9/11. Neighbors aren’t going to want a destabilizing force so close and locals are going to be wary of the chances of living in a ‘live and let live regime’. These local affiliates are often their own worst PR enemy.

For what it’s worth, Peter Bergen seems to agree with me*:

– Al Qaeda hasn’t conducted a successful attack in the West since the bombings on London’s transportation system seven years ago that killed 52 commuters. And the terrorist group, of course, hasn’t carried out an attack in the States since 9/11.

– Even terrorists influenced by al Qaeda-like ideas have only killed 17 people in the United States since 9/11.  About the same number of Americans are killed every year by dogs. In other words, in the United States during the past decade, dogs have been around ten times more deadly than jihadist terrorists.

– Polling data from across the Muslim world in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Turkey indicate that support for al Qaeda has plummeted.

– Al Qaeda played no role in the Arab Spring and hasn’t been able to exploit in any meaningful way the most significant development in the Middle East since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

On top of that, based on open source reporting of the latest underwear bomb plot indicates that not only are countermeasures getting better but that we may have finally gotten to the point that we’re actually inside the OODA loop of AQ and at least some of their affiliates.

I have to agree with his central thesis.  If we’re not yet at the point where we can regulate AQ and some of its affiliates to ‘minor irritant’ we’re damn close.

The next question is what will the homeland security/counterterroism industrial complex going to turn its sights on in order to continue being fed?

Abu Muqawama riffs off that article hedging his bets a bit more:

 It is undoubtable that at the very least, tactically and operationally (and many would argue strategically) that the U.S. has inflicted grievous blows on al Qaeda. But the persistent capability and possibility of al Qaeda’s thus-far unbroken will translating itself into coercive power make a political declaration a liability. Indeed, were an attack to occur after such a declaration, the response would likely severely undermine the wartime credibility of civilian leadership and inaugurate an even more costly and ambitious conception of retaliation and counterterrorism, which is particularly problematic since Bergen’s goal is to redirect resources away from the war on terror.

Despite the fact that al Qaeda’s operational capability to conduct attacks on the continental United States is undoubtedly weaker than during 9/11, it retains strategic options to imperil US interests. Al Qaeda retains the ability to expand the battlefield against the U.S. and threaten Western assets outside of American soil. Bergen argues that our extensive defense establishment is part of the logic behind declaring victory, but if the goal of declaring victory is to refocus assets from that establishment, and deploying overwhelmingly superior resources is our defense, the benefits of declaring victory remain slim and potentially counterproductive. Because the U.S. hasn’t decisively stemmed the growth of local affiliates – which can still kill U.S. citizens and personnel or target critical assets abroad – the potential remains for the al Qaeda threat, however operationally reduced, to exact politically significant costs.

I just don’t know how you break free from that trap.  When do you get to the point when AQ (or anyone for that matter) can’t “kill U.S. citizens and personnel or target critical assets abroad”?  I mean, that seems a pretty low bar to continue exerting a whole lot of effort.  I’m not arguing that we ignore AQ completely but we’re fast approaching (or past) time to seriously consider a post-AQ world.

*That shouldn’t be interpreted in any way to imply that Peter Bergen even knows I exist.**

**That note shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that I’m particularly interested in Peter Bergen’s approval or dig his mojo.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged ,

The silent terrorist?

Posted on July 23, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Failure magazine (really, talk about niche programming) has an article about a series of strange attacks against eucalyptus trees in California. The trees (a non-native species) has been attacked by a series of non-native insects since 1985. At least one researcher has asserted that the introduction of the invasive eucalyptus killers appears to be by design rather than the result of accidental introductions.

Who cares? Well, this actually can lead to fairly substantial costs as eucalyptus trees are frequently used as landscaping features. Their removal (and I assume replacement) was big bucks.

The story begins in 1985 when Paine’s department began receiving calls from county officials relaying concerns that large numbers of eucalyptus trees were dying and costing upwards of ten-thousand dollars each to remove. First the calls came from residents in southern California but they soon began coming from the San Francisco Bay Area too. “At its peak, the University of California (San Diego) were saying they could spend their entire landscape budget for the whole campus just taking out eucalyptus trees,”…

The article calls this ‘bioterrorism’ but I think that’s a misuse of the terms. After all, one of the key components of terrorism is that someone (the victims, government or some social, religious or political subgroup) has to be coerced to some sort of change. I’d suggest that in order for that to happen, that target group needs to know it’s being terrorized purposefully and is not just subject to the whims of nature and chance. If, in fact, this introduction of invasive species is purposeful, then it might be better to call this ‘biovandalism’.

The idea that this is done by design rather that by accident isn’t universally accepted but they do highlight a cognitive bias among scientists in the field. According to a researcher at Oklahoma State University, many in her community suffer from ‘suspicion inertia’:

We tend to think of everything as just being natural-even an unfamiliar set of symptoms-and it is rare for someone to take the perspective that it might not be.

This lack of consideration of a sufficiently broad range of hypotheses is common in the intelligence field as well and has been remarked on for years. The advantage the academic field has in areas like this is that they (at least) have a peer review process in place. While imperfect it allows for alternative hypotheses to be presented and subjected to scrutiny by the larger community. While that may occur within the federal IC, there’s nothing like that occurring at the state and local level. Criticism and questioning of assertions is still often interpreted as a personal or institutional attack and frowned upon as being in bad taste. That allows really bad (and I mean really, really bad) analysis, perhaps with unsubstantiated conclusions, flawed data or gross errors in fact, to continue to float around the community without a word being said about it. The only hopes of preventing such analysis from lodging in the community psyche are:

  1. informal word of mouth communication to avoid that product – hardly satisfying in terms of reaching enough people or being able to maintain awareness in the collective consciousness (which, if it exists, probably isn’t up to the task) long enough to pass along concerns to the next generation of practitioners. And given the high rates of analyst turnover, ‘new’ generations may come on the scene every couple of years.
  2. that few people will read such a document anyway. That’s kind of a double edged sword. Many people don’t read intelligence documents but of those that do, I suspect there’s a serious deficit in being able to read such products critically. In other words, to identify flaws, inconsistencies or unanswered questions that a particular product has.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged

Threat or no-threat?

Posted on July 11, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I seem to be on a bit of a roll talking about threat in intelligence analysis.  Please bear with me.

Radiolab had yet another great example to demonstrate this point in their piece called ‘Grumpy Old Terrorists‘.  It discusses the arrest last year of four senior citizens from Georgia who were talking about blowing up a federal building and killing a number of government employees.

The story takes you down through the discussion of the question of what is a threat by looking at both capabilities and intent (although they never use those terms).  Is it enough that some people say they want to kill a bunch of people?  Does it matter than one guy can’t function without being attached to an oxygen tank?

More importantly, does it matter that they aren’t able to get explosives or weapons without the assistance of an FBI informant.  Does intent change when, all of a sudden, you’re handed capability?  Does it mean anything if the chances of getting that capability without the assistance of the very people who are investigating you are virtually nil?

Well, to some people yes and to some people no.  It all depends on your initial disposition.  Some people will take the position that any threat, no matter how small or unlikely to manifest into real damage, must be considered very serious.  This is a version of the ‘one percent doctrine‘ which essentially says that if there’s a possibility of an attack, no matter how small, it must be treated as a certainty.

Now that was used when discussing the possibility of Pakistan assisting al-Qaida in getting nuclear weapons.  Unfortunately, that thinking has percolated down to include virtually any threat.  Might Occupy Wall St. protesters go on a psychopathic rampage killing stockbrokers and eating their wallets?  Well…I suppose it’s possible…but I wouldn’t want to create a law enforcement/counter terrorism/intelligence response based on that possibility.*

Who’s right in that dispute?  Well, there’s no way to really ‘know’ since it’s all wrapped up in how much you might want to trade off security, safety, government power and risk tolerance with each other.

The podcast does a nice job of presenting these myriad views all as rationale and intelligent…and confusing.  Like a Kirkegaardian choice:  Either/Or.  No criteria.  No real way to evaluate the choice.  But, you still must choose.**

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations – one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it – you will regret both.

And when you make that choice, how to you articulate it or try to convince others of its soundness without presupposing the outcome?

Good luck with that.

*Which is probably why I’ll never be asked to.

**And not choosing is, of course, a choice so you aren’t wiggling out of it that easy.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged ,