Terrorism

New Series on Islamist Terrorism

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A new series on Islamist terrorism at Zenpundit.

Charles Cameron, former Senior Analyst with The Arlington Institute and Principal Researcher with the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. He specializes in forensic theology, with a deep interest in millennial, eschatological and apocalyptic religious sects of all stripes.

Charles will be doing a series of guest posts at Zenpundit that will drill down into the important but often elusive religious-cultural connections that impact American national security and foreign policy issues.

First post:

Guest Post: Speak the Languages, Know the Modes of Thought

…..A couple of other recent items in the news about languages and translation at home and abroad should concern us.A report from the US Department of Justice on the FBI’s Translation Project was less than enthusiastic, not only finding that significant quantities of material collected in the Bureau’s highest-priority counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence collection categories were never evaluated, but that the number of translators inn the FBI pool had diminished since a 2005 audit, that in 2008 the FBI met its hiring goals for linguists in only 2 of its 14 critical languages, that security clearance and language proficiency training for a new linguist took 19 months before hiring could take place, and that 70 percent of the FBI’s own linguists in the field offices tested did not attend the FBIs required training course.
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The “Wacky Sitcom Mixup” School of Foreign Policy

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The very first episode of the “I Love Lucy” show established a template for all of the sitcoms to follow. The episode, titled, “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her” has the archetypal sitcom plot:

Lucy is absorbed in her mystery/suspense novel…Later on, Lucy over hears a conversation Ricky is having with his agent and misunderstands the phone call, as she is only able to hear Ricky’s end of the line. She then comes to the mistaken conclusion that Ricky is going to kill her, based on the novel’s plot and Ethel’s card reading. [emp added]

Much wackiness ensues. The device is as old as comedy itself. See Shakespeare and the Greek comedies. Character A misunderstands something Character B did or said and then takes action based on that misunderstanding, with comedic consequences. Most importantly, the resolution of the plot occurs when the misunderstanding is cleared up by explicit and honest communication. Everyone hugs and all is forgiven.

Bryon York asks:

A lot of observers are having trouble figuring out the philosophical underpinnings of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. How does the president see America’s place in the world? How will he use American power? How much does he care about such things?

I think Obama et al believe that all of life’s problems are ultimately just the result of miscommunications and misunderstandings like those that drive a sitcom plot. Obama views himself in the role of the wise character in the sitcom who puzzles out the misunderstanding and brings all of the characters together for hugs at the end.

Let’s call this the “Wacky Sitcom Mixup” school of foreign policy.

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Global Networking

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Glenn brings us this sordid tale. Two men were recently arrested for plotting to perform terrorist attacks in Denmark.

It seems that they are still upset about that whole Muhammad cartoon flap that happened way back in 2005. Makes sense, as Muslim terrorists have a very long memory. They still cite the Crusades as a major reason for hating the West. If something done and gone for close to ten centuries still motivates them to attack people who had nothing whatsoever to do with those long ago events, then I suppose it seems logical that half a decade will seem like a mere tick of the clock. Maybe there will still be terrorists who have a yen to blow up cartoonists in the year 2300 CE or so, simply because of what those long dead scribblers dashed off in the opening years of the 21st Century.

But that is merely tangential to what I really want to discuss.

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Quote of the Day

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One factor complicating a nuclear terrorist attack is the need for the aggressor to maintain command and control over their weapon at all times. Letting a nuke out of sight of a terrorist leadership cell is the supreme act of faith in the attacking cell. The nuke can be turned against them in a leadership struggle; diverted for sale or used to extort vast amounts of money. Fanatics can seize them to use against another faction. Much terrorist violence in the world is faction-on-faction. They can even be intercepted and made to blow up in their own faces. Unless used immediately nukes must be secured in a heavily guarded, hard to conceal place. If used immediately they cannot be stockpiled into a decisive amount. Missile delivery systems were ideal solutions to all the problems of command and control problem. That is why North Korea and Iran sought a missile capability immediately. Anti missiles defenses were therefore an immense discouragement against nuclear terrorism in their own right.
 
The most likely reason for Russia’s objections to US missile defense is not that it degrades their vast and unstoppable arsenal, which remains effective in any case, but it reduces the effectiveness of sock puppet proxies who threaten the US. Russia is not about to threaten the US directly. But wouldn’t it be convenient if others would? And wouldn’t it be even more convenient if the US could not defend against them.

–Richard Fernandez

Terrorism’s Heart of Darkness

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This post, entitled Assessing Counter-Terror Since 9/11 is worth reading. But one line jumped out at me.

Successful terror attacks require real skills at surveillance, security, and usually explosives manufacture. None of these skills are easy to acquire. Most successful attacks have involved someone with real training, usually acquired in Pakistan. By monitoring movements to and from Pakistan (and other areas that could be training centers) and extensive sharing between national intelligence agencies suspect activity can be identified and monitored.

(emphasis added) It is axiomatic that terrorism usually requires state sponsorship to be effective, and this post makes a strong case that this axiom has ongoing validity — and that the worst state sponsor is Pakistan. (This is consistent with other things I have read.) In fact, according to this post, it is so bad that you can monitor terrorists generally by monitoring who comes and goes from Pakistan. That, if true, is intolerable.

I had a good visit this weekend with our colleague Zenpundit. One of the things we talked about was the seeming lack of strategy underlying American policy. It has been spasmodic and reactive. We contrasted the current “three wars” — The Global War on Terror, the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, none of which have a goal or an articulated means to reach that goal (i.e. a strategy) which is worthy of the name.

Contrast this with two very successful strategies. In World War II our strategy was “Germany First”. Two words, and all else flowed from it. In the Cold War our strategy was “Containment” or “Containing Communism”. This over-arching aim held through thick and thin and we eventually succeeded in our aim of containment.

In the current conflict we seem to be floundering around. The goal in both Iraq and Afghanistan is to arrange things so we can leave. In other words, we are admitting that we should not have invaded either place and that we cannot accomplish much of anything of value by being there. We just don’t want to make things worse by the way we leave. This reminds me of the sort of prestige-based decision-making that kept us in Vietnam. The current vision of population-centric COIN appears to be way too expensive and time consuming to be worth doing on a big scale in Afghanistan. Gen. Krulak’s recent letter to George Will is one example of a proposed different course. As Afghanistan becomes “Obama’s War” I hope we will see some creative thinking.

In the meantime, I am thinking more and more that the focus should be on state sponsors of terrorism. The main sponsor of terrorism is Pakistan. Of course, there is no “Pakistan” but rather factions within Pakistan. Nonetheless, if we are going to focus our military and political energy anywhere, it should be on ending Pakistan as a source of terrorism.

I am not yet committed to the idea, but I suggest “Pakistan First” as our strategy. I do not mean conquer and occupy Pakistan. I mean compel the government there, but whatever combination of carrots and sticks, to stop supporting terrorism and to actively work to stop terrorism originating within its borders.