Category: 09 Terrorism

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Journal: Underpants Bomber Saved Worthless NCTC

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

3 Ways the Underwear Bomber Changed Counterterrorism

December 25, 2009 was a pivotal day for U.S. counterterrorism. Although the airline bombing failed, the reverberations from the attempt are still being felt. Here’s how this incident changed U.S. counterterrorism policy, as told by Mike Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Popular Mechanics By Joe Pappalardo   September 16, 2010 2:30 PM

Deaf Leading the Blind

1) The incident saved the  Counterterrorism Center's budget.

2) New teams were formed to  chase leads, not write reports.

3) The failed  attack focused the Obama administration on  counterterrorism.

Phi Beta Iota: Click on the photo for the full story at Popular Mechanics.  Above we just list the three “ways,” each of them a perfect outcome for a fraudulent staged “threat” that was almost certainly concocted with Israeli help.  Until the guy video-taping the whole thing from in front is produced, our professional judgment is that the Underpants Bomber was an agent of the US Government doing precisely what this worthless activity wanted: give it a reason, however absurd, to keep on being worthless.   [Covert Operations against a US audience are illegal, but who cares about the Constitution or laws, these days?] NCTC's leader, a decent well-intentioned politically-appointed lawyer who knows nothing relevant, is the poster child for what is wrong with the entire US national security domain.

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Journal: National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Goes from Dumb to Dumber

Journal: The Plot Thickens–Who Benefits?

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Journal: Director of National Intelligence Alleges….

Journal: CIA Leads the “Walking Dead” in USA

Journal: CIA’s Poor Tradecraft AND Poor Management

Review: Willful Neglect–The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security

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Journal: Bin Laden, Dead or Alive, Makes Sense

01 Poverty, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Huffington Post Story

Bin Laden Tape: Terror Leader Criticizes Muslim Governments For Military Spending

CAIRO — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called for the creation of a new relief body to help Muslims in an audiotape released Friday, seeking to exploit discontent following this summer's devastating floods in Pakistan by depicting the region's governments as uncaring.

It was the third message in recent weeks from al-Qaida figures concerning the massive floods that affected around 20 million people in Pakistan, signaling a concentrated campaign by the terror group to tap into anger over the flooding to rally support.

But while the earlier messages by subordinates were angry, urging followers to rise up, bin Laden took a softer, even humanitarian tone – apparently trying to broaden al-Qaida's appeal by presenting his group as a problem-solving protector of the poor.

“What governments spend on relief work is secondary to what they spend on armies,” bin Laden says on the 11-minute tape titled “Reflections on the Method of Relief Work.”

“If governments spent (on relief) only one percent of what is spent on armies, they would change the face of the world for poor people,” he said

Read rest of story online…

Phi Beta Iota: We believe Bin Laden to be dead or comatose, but it merits comment that some people do take on a life of their own after death, as with many prophets whose messages are refined or corrupted, but carried on.  What should shock and awe here is that this message makes a great deal more sense than the current US strategy of spending trillions on elective occupations and Wall Street bail-outs, and nothing at all on eight of the ten high-level threats to humanity, with stark poverty in the USA and elsewhere being #1.

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Graphic: Medard Gabel’s Cost of Peace versus War

Review: Collapse–How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

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Journal: NYPD CTD Under Dave Cohen Lauded for Brains

09 Terrorism, Analysis, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Full Story Online

The Terror Translators

By ALAN FEUER

The New York Times, Published: September 17, 2010

EXTRACT:

Mr. Rascoff said the working relationship between the civilian and sworn counterterrorism officials in New York was better than the parallel relationships in the Federal Bureau of Investigation because federal agents, unlike the local detectives, were often as highly educated as the analysts they work with.

“F.B.I. agents sometimes look at their analysts and say, ‘So, basically, we do the same job, but I carry a gun and kick down doors while you sit at your desk all day,’ ” said Mr. Rascoff, who has been working in intelligence since 2003, when he was a consultant to L. Paul Bremer, the special envoy to Iraq.

In the C.I.A., Mr. Rascoff added, the relationship between operatives and analysts is often the chilly one between “an author of cables and a reader of cables.”

In the Police Department, he said, there is an “educational, experiential but not intellectual” gulf that can, paradoxically, bring the sides together.

“While it’s sometimes hard to harness those conflicting energies,” Mr. Rascoff said, “when it succeeds, it succeeds wildly.”

READ EVERY WORD!

Tip of the Hat to Niels Groeneveld at LinkedIn.

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Journal: Threats Difuse, Government Dispersed

09 Terrorism

Berto Jongman Recommends...

Terror Threat More Diverse, Study Says

By Siobhan Gorman

Wall Street Journal

Sep. 10, 2010

The terrorist threat faced by the U.S. nine years after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington is far more difficult to detect but less likely to produce mass-casualty attacks, according to the former leaders of the 9/11 Commission.

. . . . . .

The U.S. government is ill-equipped to counter the newest version of the terrorist threat, the report concludes, adding that “American overreactions,” particularly on Capitol Hill and in the media, even to unsuccessful attacks, have arguably played into terrorists' hands and fuel anti-American sentiment.

“It's a much more complex and a much more diverse threat than it was” in 2001, said former 9/11 Commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton in an interview. “We lag behind still in developing responses to this threat.”

No agency in the U.S. government, for example, is charged with monitoring and stopping the radicalization and recruitment of Americans to terrorist ranks, he said.

Read rest of this really excellent summary.

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Blog del Narco: Uncensored Web Journalism versus Violence of the Mexican Narcosphere

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship

Blog del Narco

With Journalists Silenced, Mysterious Blogger Reports on Mexico’s Drug Violence

By Nate Freeman, August 16, 2010

President Felipe Calderone’s crackdown on drug cartels in Mexico has claimed 28,000 lives since 2006, but the best coverage of the non-stop mob hits and government stings isn't coming from the nation’s major media outlets.

Instead, it comes from a student with a six-month-old blog. Blog del Narco began as a hobby for the highly secretive blogger, but in time he found that his facelessness allowed him get away with stories that would endanger known journalists — many of whom have been kidnapped or killed for divulging such information. Now, his site has become indispensable for its no-holds-barred coverage of the endless carnage caused by the drug trade. The AP reports that for the first time, a blog on the conflict can count its most dangerous participants among its most obsessive readers, as the kingpins and cops rely on the information just as much as the public does.

Continue reading “Blog del Narco: Uncensored Web Journalism versus Violence of the Mexican Narcosphere”

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Reference: Strategic Survey 2010 includes Afghanistan

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Analysis, Monographs, Strategy, United Nations & NGOs
Berto Jongman Recommends...
Overview & Ordering Online

This year's survey places strong emphasis on the global nature of economic and financial vulernability, and on Afghanistan.  Below is a quote in two sections  from the official press statement releasing the survey to the public.

Strategic Survey 2010 does not seek to lay out a new comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan. It does however argue that for Western states to be pinned down militarily and psychologically in Afghanistan will not be in the service of their wider political and security interests. The challenge of Afghanistan must be viewed and addressed in proportion to the other threats to international security and the other requirements for foreign-policy investment. With economic, financial and diplomatic activity moving at such a pace and with such varied outcomes internationally, military operations in general have to be all the more carefully considered. Precision and adaptability will be essential watchwords. For heavy, large, military deployment, the longue durée will be seen as an attitude for other times, other centuries.

The Afghan campaign has involved not just mission creep but mission multiplication; narrowing the political-military engagement to core goals as described will allow for proper attention to be paid to other areas posing international terrorist risks, and indeed to other matters affecting international security.

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Search: Strategic Analytic Model

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CrisisWatch N°85, 1 September 2010

09 Terrorism, CrisisWatch reports

Five actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and none improved in August 2010, according to the new issue of the International Crisis Group’s monthly bulletin CrisisWatch, released today.

The situation in Somalia continued to deteriorate as al-Shabaab stepped up its attacks and fighting intensified in Mogadishu. Late in the month the militant Islamist group stormed a hotel in the capital killing at least 35 people, including six MPs; days later four AMISOM peacekeepers were killed when insurgents shelled the presidential palace. There were also worrying developments in the previously stable semi-autonomous region of Puntland when Islamist militants under Mohamed Said Atom clashed with government troops.

Kyrgyzstan’s provisional government was further weakened in August. The month began with an attempted coup and culminated with the mayor of the southern city of Osh – the epicenter of June’s pogroms – defying the President’s orders to resign.

Continue reading “CrisisWatch N°85, 1 September 2010”