Journal: Afghanistan

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Civil Society, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Pentagon preparing to send 34,000 troops to Afghanistan, official says

CNN   November 24, 2009

Pentagon planners expect orders to send about 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a defense official told CNN, a day after the president's final meeting to decide the next moves in Afghanistan.  The military has planning under way to send three U.S. Army brigades, totaling about 15,000 troops; a Marine brigade, about 8,000 troops; a headquarters element, about 7,000 troops; and between 4,000 and 5,000 support troops — a total of approximately 34,000 troops, according to a defense official with direct knowledge of Pentagon operations. CNN reported last month that this was the preferred option within the Pentagon.

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Cynthia McKinney Letter to the President

Please bring our troops home now.

A peace demonstration is being organized for December 12, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally, also known as the End US Wars Rally, is scheduled for 11am at Lafayette Park at the White House. I wholly endorse this rally and encourage all who can to participate in Washington, DC or to help a local peace organization committed to ending U.S. wars on that date.

Worth a Look: Berto Jongman Recommends….

05 Civil War, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Worth A Look

Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Researcher Berto Jongman recommends 6 monographs, 5 articles, 3 books.

EDIT of 24 Nov 09: 6 monograph recommendations added.

Russia: A Promising Market for Islamic Finance
21/11/2009By Lahem al Nasser

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat- There are around 47 million Muslims in Russia, which means that Muslims make up around one third of Russia's overall population. This figure is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2050 due to the high birth rate among the Muslim community, the decrease in the non-Muslim Russian population which is decreasing at a rate of 1 million people per year, as well as the immigrations of Muslims from central Asia into the Russian Federation. The Islamic presence in Russia is centered in the Caucasus, Siberia, and Moscow.

Survey of Pakistan’s Young Predicts ‘Disaster’ if Their Needs Aren’t Addressed
By SABRINA TAVERNISE,   November 21, 2009

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan will face a “demographic disaster” if it does not address the needs of its young generation, the largest in the country’s history, whose views reflect a deep disillusionment with government and democracy, according to a report released here on Saturday.

Crime and Terrorism Small Wars Journal
4 November 2009 by Colonel Robert Killebrew

According to a panel of experts at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for a New American Security, terrorism and crime have now merged, to such an extent that all terrorist movements – all of them — have become partly criminal organizations to fund their operations, expand their reach – and incidentally make the people on top extremely rich, while lower-level zealots continue to be recruited for suicide missions.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Berto Jongman Recommends….”

Worth a Look: Berto Jongman on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA Torture, and Maj Nidal Hasan’s Slide Show

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Researcher Berto Jongman recommends….

Poverty and unemployment fuel the conflict according to 70% of Afghans, new Oxfam research shows

Seventy per cent of Afghans surveyed see poverty and unemployment as the major cause of the conflict in their country, according to new research by international aid agency Oxfam and a group of Afghan organisations. Ordinary Afghans blame government weakness and corruption as the second most important factor behind the fighting, with the Taliban coming third, followed by interference by neighboring countries.

200 Web Sites Spread Al Qaeda's Message In English

Reassessing the Evolving al Qaeda Threat to the Homeland: Testimony of Peter Bergen Before the House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment

Al Qaeda today no longer poses a direct national security threat to the United States itself, but rather poses a second-order threat in which the worst case scenario would be an al Qaeda-trained or -inspired terrorist managing to pull off an attack on the scale of something in between the 1993 Trade Center attack, which killed six, and the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, which killed 168.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Berto Jongman on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA Torture, and Maj Nidal Hasan’s Slide Show”

Reference: Berto Jongman Recommends

05 Civil War, 09 Terrorism, Media Reports, Monographs
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Today's recommendaitons:

Who's who in the Somali insurgency: A Reference Guide

Interview with Maajid Nawaz:Becoming a Muslim Radical

New Quilliam report: British prisons are incubating Islamist extremism

Selected Translation of the LIFG Recantation Document

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field. Antonio Giustozzi gathers a renowned cast of journalists, experts, and academics to answer the most pressing questions regarding the Taliban today. Each contributor possesses extensive knowledge of the insurgency's latest developments, decoding its structure and organization as it operates within specific regions and provinces. They analyze the new Taliban as it expands, from the mature south, where they hold sway, to the southeast, where they struggle to penetrate, from the west and northeast, now in the initial stages of infiltration, to the provinces surrounding Kabul, which have been unexpectedly and quickly occupied.

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Empires of Mud: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-2007. Warlords are charismatic leaders who exploit weak authorities to gain control of subnational areas. Nevertheless, warlords do in fact participate in state formation, and this book considers the dynamics of warlordism within the context of such debates. Antonio Giustozzi begins with aspects of the Afghan environment that are conducive to the fragmentation of central authority and the emergence of warlords. He then accounts for the phenomenon from the 1980s to today, considering Afghanistan's two foremost warlords, Ismail Khan and Abdul Rashid Dostum, along with their political, economic, and military systems of rule.

Reference: United Nations Terrorism Desirata

09 Terrorism, Communities of Practice, Peace Intelligence, United Nations & NGOs

Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Recommended by Researcher Berto Jongman.

2009-11-15 UN Overview of Terrorism Research Desirata Gestation

2009-11-15 UN List of Terrorism Research Priorities

Phi Beta Iota: Researcher Berto Jongman is a disciple and most respectful student of the work of Alex Schmid and more recently, the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) practices of Researcher Arno Reuser, who leads one of a handful of military OSINT teams that are truly on the bleeding edge of accomplishment and global access (analog & unpublished as well as the obvious).

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Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up

04 Education, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Analysis, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military

Major Hasan Analysis by Webster Tarpley (16 Pages)
Major Hasan Analysis by Webster Tarpley (16 Pages)

NIDAL MALIK HASAN OF VIRGINIA TECH, BETHESDA, AND FORT HOOD: A MAJOR PATSY IN A DRILL GONE LIVE? By Webster G. Tarpley 14 November 2009

What Hollywood Can Teach Us About the Fort Hood Massacre Christina News Service, Friday, November 13, 2009 By Chuck Muth

Most Americans have this whole Fort Hood massacre all wrong. Maj. Nidal M. Hassan was not a terrorist.  And he wasn’t a mass murderer.  And he may not even have been a coward.  Maj. Hassan was an enemy combatant.

A Man in a Hundred By ALEXANDER COCKBURN CounterPunch Weekend Edition November 13-15, 2009

The general obviously doesn’t have Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on his bedside table. Gibbon wrote flatly that the introduction of foreigners “into Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary and more fatal.”

Is Fort Hood Really a “Tragedy?” Pajamas Media by Victor Davis Hanson November 14, 2009

Something has gone terribly wrong in the entire reaction to the Ft. Hood massacres, as evidenced by the media, the administration, the military authorities, and perhaps the public at large.

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Worth a Look: Selections on Terrorism

09 Terrorism, Worth A Look
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Berto Jongman recommends….

New jihad code threatens al Qaeda

Radicalisation Processes Leading to Acts of Terrorism

CSCP Papers:The evolution of Al-Qaedaism: Ideology, terrorists, and appeal

CSCP Papers: Jihadi terrorists in Europe, their characteristics and the circumstances in which they joined the jihad: an exploratory study

Other CSCP publications:  Jihadi terrorists in Europe and Global Salafi Jihadis