The MSM outdid itself in reactionary foolishness this morning, the major papers falling over each, competing to dismiss the recent terror alerts because many of the newly-discovered files instigating these warnings were (alas, alack) three years old. Never mind that one of them had been revised in January 2004. Even if it hadn’t, these faux-progressives of our isolationist press should hang their heads in shame. They barely make an attempt to do their homework, allowing themselves to be uncritical mouthpieces for every disgruntled intelligence agent with a cellphone. Don’t these journalists have children? There’s a war going on. What would they do if charged with the nation’s security and in receipt of this “hoary” three-year old information? Forget about it? Well, Lawrence Wright, in his latest brilliant New Yorker piece sets them straight:
One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11th bombings [in Spain] is that the planning for the attacks may have begun nearly a year before 9/11.
So much for three years.
But let’s go on to the most fascinating and scary material in Wright’s article — the creation of a virtual ummah for disenfranchised Muslims on the Internet. Just as through the blogosphere every man or woman can now be a pundit, through the Internet a thousand Bin Laden’s are blooming, publishing manifestoes and plotting stratagems. Meanwhile, cyberspace has replaced Afghanistan as Al Qaeda’s training ground. For some the goal is recapturing Al Andalus (Spain or most of it), for others all of Europe is in their sights. And they are talking to each other about it, all the time, everywhere, even this second at an IP near you. Yikes!
Don’t missing reading all of Wright. But don’t expect to sleep easily.
UPDATE: Most readers of this blog will not be shocked to learn the NYT is now changing its tune on the terror warning, telling us there was new material. Unfortunately, much of the public still does not read blogs and believes organs like the NYT literally. They have been trained to do so all their lives. And in situations like this the MSM (and blogs too to a lesser scale) become advertent/inadvertent spokespeople for anonymous leakers with highly personal “issues.” As the playwright said, “Attention must be paid…”
This is chilling, but not surprising. The man who attacked the El Al counter at LAX fits into this model.
These kinds of internet-assisted ad-hoc cells, if there are many that actually act, will lead to what many fear: serious discrimination against Muslims.
I have argued on my blog that civil libertarians are shot-sighted for fighting things like the Patriot Act, when the odds are good that much more serious laws will be demanded, probably suddenly, and no civil libertarians will have put any input into them, having discredited themselves.
In other words, those concerned about liberties (I don’t count the ACLU, they are only interested in a subset of liberty) should start writing laws that will help in the case of serious provocation, such as a lot of random but deadly attacks by ad-hoc Islamist groups.
After not many attacks by such groups, people in the US will quickly become suspicious and demand protection, and also start to protect themselves.
One also wonders what level of surveillance is happening to prevent this sort of thing.
These kinds of cells could very well set off the class of civilizations, at least within western countries.
Roger–
Sorry I can’t read it. I canceled my New York subscription about the time Sy Hersch started banging the Abu Ghraib drum. (Couldn’t take Hendrick Hertzberg’s snotty little “intellectual” pensees, either.) I did read a small excerpt on Hewitt’s blog, though.
It would appear one of the biggest problems we face with Al Qaeda is “stateless enemy” status. These terrorists have no legitimate address and, after they blow themselves up, would not be able to receive our GPS-guided care packages anyway.
In the wake of an attack, a range of questions thus present themselves: Do we target any country remotely connected with the terrorists? What happens if they have been living in a madrassah in Europe for five years? Could we plausibly attack, say, SA or Pakistan if their governments did not actually aid the terrorists?
Where this leads, I think, is the Carter Syndrome: handwringing and inaction. Some bastards from Waziristan blow up a couple thousand people in the United States and we have nobody to hit in retaliation. (The Israeli strategy of hitting the leaders won’t work either, since they are hard to identify and have limited control over their fellow jihadis.) The American people will be seething with rage and ready to do something. Yet it’s conceivable we will have no viable targets. The president at the time (whoever that is) will be choosing from a range of very poor options.
Just something else to throw into the wargaming conference at the Pentagon.
The posts by John Moore and FreshAir demonstrate again the shortsightedness of the crazies on the Left. If Bush fails in his attempt to remake the ME, which effort is certainly not being helped by those same Leftists, we are likely to arrive at either or both of the scenarios set forth. The American people will not sit back and take it all in stride. Action will be demanded. At a minimum, we can expect the expulsion of all Muslims from the USA. Matters may escalate to Total War (with mass casualties) against Arab societies. If we fail in Iraq, neither of these scenarios is far-fetched. I only wish all Americans understood.
Ben
I forgot to mention that the DC sniper also was an example of an Islamist ad-hoc operation, carried out quite effectively.
One can imagine all sorts of variants when the terrorists are centrally controlled. You could end up with Islamic black panthers (lots of blacks have converted – especially inn prison). Or Johnny Jihad’s taco stand may start putting arsenic in the tacos.
This is a stunning piece. How can Islamofascist terrorist networks be understood except as a way for the Ummah to proclaim that *no identifiable state* was responsible for it when they finally take out a bunch of our cities? That’s the end game: we’re toast and can’t figure out whodunnit…
We are in a race between technology and sanity — and sanity isn’t winning.
I’m a Christian but by no stretch a fundamentalist (and I took an intermission as an athiest for a few decades along the way).
But I’ve come to call the period looming ahead the “TinFoil Apocalypse”. It isn’t going to be horns blowing and winged horses — just too much technology made available to mentally disturbed, hate-filled people capable of periods of lucidity to actually connect the wires to the red button.
The net being the enabler and glue of their attack is entirely consistent with this. It’s the perfect technology match for their organization.
The double irony is that the technical underpinnings of the net that allows for the flexibility and anonymity that protects them were orginally designed to avoid “single points of failure” in the face of a nuclear attack!
TFA
ìDon’t these journalists have children? There’s a war going on.î
The elite media are snobs and refuse to seriously look at the evidence. Despising George W. Bush blinds these journalists to the reality that Islamic militants want to murder their own family members. Deep in their guts, they have deluded themselves that this threat doesnít really involve them personally. Terrorism is supposedly not the first, last, and foremost issue of our current era—but merely one of many on a long list.
I also toyed with the idea of cancelling my New Yorker subscription (I’ve been a faithful subscriber well nigh these 30 years). I decided not to, because, although Sy Hersch makes me want to puke and Hertzberg makes me want to gag, there is sometimes still some really good stuff in there. This article, which I’ve not read yet but which I intend to read, seems to be an example of the latter.
The New Yorker has been somewhat schizoid for a while now. I remember about ten years ago (don’t have the link) it published an article about the Palestinian textbooks that brainwashed the kids in hatred. It was unbelievably chilling, and subsequent events have borne it out. I also remember a mid-90s article on Bin Laden, or perhaps it was Al Zwaheri, but in any event, it was right on target long before these people were well known, and it was deeply chilling. I remember being so frightened by both articles I felt almost as though I’d read a Stephen King novel–except this one was real.
And therein, I think, lies an interesting psychological point. How did I react? The fear and the feeling of powerlessness was so intense as to be unbearable, if in fact these articles were true–so I just shut them out of my mind. Dismissed them; not the facts in them so much as the implications of those facts. And that’s what I think many people have been doing post-9/11.
When 9/11 occurred, one of my first thoughts was that all non-citizen Moslems would have to be deported. I just assumed no one from those countries would be allowed in anymore unless they were diplomats. I turned out to be wrong–our reaction was very muted in that respect–but I mention it because the sort of facts set out in this current New Yorker article, and the terrible possible consequences of those facts, no longer seem strange to me, and haven’t since the day the towers fell. To fight an enemy like this may require very desperate and terrible measures. It is my deep wish that it never comes to that, and I see the Iraq War as an attempt to prevent it from coming to that. And I can’t understand why more people don’t see this.
I am very glad this article appeared in the New Yorker. It is important that the information reach their particular readership. I’m amazed that the editors let it pass, but I’m happy that they did.
Fresh:
Actually, I have designed several wargames for the senior leadership that looked at precisely the problem you have identified. We were not looking at radical Islam but we did define a threat that opeated as you suggested. It did create a lot of indecision, as it was supposed to do. However, when the real thing happened it turned out that the world is much more transparent then we thought.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again, What we need in this world is a workable lie detector test. We don’t need idendity cards, fingerprints, or eye scans. Just sit down for a few minutes and calm down. Answer yes or no to the following. No phone call, no miranda, no attorney present. If you’ve got something to hide, you had better be able to hide it or you stay until we are finished with you. If you’re picked our of the line, in time we will know everything there is to know about you.
The only protesters would be those with something to hide. We’ll be looking for people who desire to kill Americans. That will be question # 11.
There is much in this world that baffles me… Can someone explain to me how it can be considered a valid criticism of the Homeland Security Department to have issued this particular Security Alert. It was precisely what MANY people have complained that previous alerts were not – it gave precise targets based upon real information.
Can anyone imagine the shrieking that would occur if no such alert were issued and some time in the near future, say mid-October, an attack or attacks were carried out on any of the listed targets? Would any of us want to be the government representative who stood up and said, “Well, the information in the documents and computers we got our hands on was as much as 3 years old, so we figured it was too dated to respond to” and then have some reported raise his hand and ask, “Wasn’t at least one of the documents updated as recently as January of this year? Isn’t it common practice for AQ to develope their plans over several years?”
This is classic “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” stuff here. When it first came out I was surprised by the specificity. I start wondering how long the plan has been compromised and are they releasing info now to try to flush someone or just to try and get AQ to abandon the plan and so on.
My wife remarked, “Wow, this is the best alert they’ve had so far. They should all be like this” and my daughter was happening by and remarked, “Wow, we actually know what needs to be guarded the most this time.” Two days later the people who issued the alert are being accused of nothing more than playing politics.
BTW, the idea that it was timed to overshadow Kerry’s campaign swing through North and West Osh just doesn’t seem to carry much weight. I’m becoming weary of these “did it for political advantage” charges.
I want a New Rule (this is the civilian version of “there ought to be a law) – anyone who is going to open their mouths and accuse someone of twisting some serious federal action for the petty purpose of “political gain” must first tell us what the purported gain will be. “Knocking John Kerry off the news” doesn’t cut it. Laci Peterson, Kobe Bryant, and Lori Hacking manage that just fine and did not need any help from Tom Ridge.
The link Roger posted is FREE – no registration.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again, What we need in this world is a workable lie detector test.
&c.
WX, ignoring for the moment the little proplems with the Bill of Rights (at first glance, this appears to have difficulties under the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, and you might be pushing things with the Seventh and Eighth — which is 60 percent, no small achievement there) but ignoring that, there is a second issue: a lie detector isn’t going to detect when someone is saying what they believe to be the truth. My opinion is that Michael Moore is so low he could walk under an earthworm without taking off his stupid gimmie cap, but I really think he does believe what he says.
Dumb as it may seem.
I have no idea what to make of recent captures of AQ “bigwigs” – way beyond my paygrade. Nonetheless the article pointed to by Instapundit is interesting and, I think, somewhat on topic:
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002180.php
Maybe we ought to moot it about at some point that Mecca and the other holy places of Islam will be made to disappear three days after the next mad dog attack, or the one after that. This would enable them to be evacuated. It would create a tension within AQ cells that just might lead to useful information. Winston Churchill pointed out that the wars fought by democratic societies are more savage than any other kind. Time to remind the world of that.
Jerry–
I’m relieved to hear somebody is wargaming the stateless terrorist attack. Are you confident we will almost always have an effective military response?
Knucklehead–
The common thread in most the criticism of the administration these days has to do with motives. In the absence of evidence, of course, intuiting someone’s motives is impossible. Moreover, it is a logical fallacy, having nothing to do with whether decisions such as raising the terror alert are right on their face. Septenthians in particular prefer to argue motives rather than outcomes since no proof other than their “feelings” is necessary.
It is perfectly consistent with the Left’s abdication of reason and logic regarding the WoT, as well as their general worldview: “We were well-intentioned therefore we were right” & vice versa. The pavers to hell are working overtime these days.
knucklehead:
If this is the equivalent of the capture of an enigma machine then we have really screwed up here. Now that the AQ knows we have compromised their security they will set about constructing a new cipher and com systems.
The WWII analogy here is the capture of the U-505 by the USS Guadalcanal escort group. The Commander, CAPT Dan Gallery, was called on the carpet by ADM King and threatened with Court Martial if he could not contain the story. The sailors under his command never revealed their secret until long after the war was over. Fat chance of that happening today.
Fresh Air,
Septenthians… you’ve used it before but I hadn’t taken the time to let it sink in to be savored. I’m gonna steal it and give see if it has legs
The fallacy of circumstantial ad hominem arguments is, of course, demostrably true but nonethless remains a favored method. We all practice it to some extent (not defending its use, just examining the phenomenon). We often judge people by the company they keep – lie down with dogs… etc. I recently had a discussion with a friend who found something Al Sharpton said at the DNC to be “on target”. What it was isn’t important to the discussion. Having spent may years in the NYC metro area I have ZERO respect for Al Sharpton. My immediate reaction was to dismiss the comment our of hand due to CAH. Fortunately I paused long enough to realize that my friend had nowhere near the exposure to Al Sharpton that those of us in the NYC metro have. It was a comment easily dismissable without relying on CAH, but CAH sorta piles on anyway.
It seems possible that a CAH attack can be crafted “honestly” in form that is something “better” than fallacy. In a thread yesterday, for example, somebody here at Roger’s Place listed out the “losers” Kerry has pulled into his campaign team. Looking out upon the “leadership” of the Dem party at the DNC we see a good deal of “failure” and “dubious techniques and characters”. At what point does the circumstantial become overwhelming? Prosecutions have, of course, been successfully argued based upon overwhelming circumstantial evidence. That is different that CAH argumentation but at some point the sheer weight of the circumstantial can take on the characteristics of evidence.
Sorry, just rambling.
Knuckle–
I cannot take credit for Septenthian, though I use it enthusiastically. (I think it might be Rick Ballard, not sure.)
In the example you cite, of course, circumstantial evidence in a court of law has a totally different standard from the court of public opinion. The MSM’s failure to apply the “rational man” test to even the stupidest memes is what really discredits them in my eyes. Though I suppose that could be because their aren’t any rational men in newsrooms. ;-o
Jerry,
You make an very interesting point wrt the value of the capture and is it akin to the “enigma” machine. You are in a much better position to judge such things. There is seemingly no way to keep modern equivalents of “Ultra” secret long enough to be useful let alone 25 years later.
And it wasn’t precisely like capturing Enigma. It seems more like capturing the guy who was responsible for creating and maintaining Enigma and known to be carrying it. The Germans never actually knew we had captured Enigma machines (a rather amazing failure of analysis on their part).
If you’ll play along for the sake of educating a knucklehead…
If an “Ultra” sort of discovery is made and it is known that it can’t be kept under wraps for long, how does one go about maximizing the benefits one can get from it?
The actual Ultra case is downright fascinating. We read the communications of the German High Command with amazing speed and regularity. But we were often caught between the proverbial “rock and a hard place”. Make too obvious use of the discovery and it risks making the discovery obvious and, ultimately, useless over time.
So there were cases where lives could easily have been saved but weren’t. Sacrifice some now to save more later (how would anyone like to be the decision maker in that context?).
Since we play by different rules today and it would be nearly certain political suicide to “sacrifice some now to save more later” it seems to me we could not legitimately play “Ultra” the same way we once did.
One other item I’d like to point out wrt to Ultra (although I don’t see how it applies in the current case) was how ineffective Ultra could sometimes be. Take the example of Rommel in North Africa. Despite Ultra he proved a constant sorce of dismay and consternation to the Allies. Why? Well, it doesn’t help all that much to know what your opponents orders from above are if your opponent is fully willing to discard those orders when he feels it necessary to do so. Rommel apparently could repeatedly get away with “disobeying” the High Command and he made some Ultra-enabled Allied commanders look downright foolish by doing so.
Hi y’all!
I’m glad the accusations are loud and in the MSM. They’ve stepped over a line here and the bias and Bush bashing is now blatantly obvious to every security-seeking American. Especially as more and more information is coming out.
That New Yorker article was excellent. Besides the overall drift there were a couple of things that screamed at me. One was what the French counter-terrorism judge told the author…
“The Spanish police had made him wait a year before allowing him to interview Zougam. After BruguiËre went back to Paris, the Spanish police put Zougam under surveillance and searched his apartment, finding jihadi tapes and videos. The authorities briefly renewed their interest in him after the 2003 Casablanca bombings, but once again there was insufficient evidence to arrest him.”
Emphasis mine. I wonder what it will take before various European countries get their own ‘Patriot Act’? I wonder if that would even help, though, as I doubt we could arrest someone only because they’re in possession of jihadi videos. But dropping interest in someone like that makes you wonder.
Of course it didn’t take the Spanish long to find the perpetrators of Madrid….after the fact…and that just isn’t good enough.
Speaking of the Patriot Act, I wish Glen Reynolds would actually, you know, tell us which specific parts of it bother him and why. I wouldn’t mind his or anyone’s thoughts on the difference between absolute civil liberties and those that may be compromised temporarily during times such as these…or if some people feel that absolutely NO civil liberty EVER should be denied to citizens or non-citizens. Not now though…another thread, another time.
The other thing that caught my eye was
“in Chechnya many recruits are being trained to exploit the technical advantages of developed countries. ìSome of these groups have the capacity for hijacking satellites,î he told me. Capturing signals beamed from space, terrorists could devastate the communications industry, shut down power grids, and paralyze the ability of developed countries to defend themselves.”
You know, it doesn’t matter if the internet stays up if you don’t have the juice to use computers.
And (thanks for the link, Knucklehead) I’m really glad that Khan is turning out to be such a big fish! Yes, AQ will have to make some changes but any organization on its toes knows immediately to change codes and such when someone is captured.
Oh, just heard on the news that the Brits had told us (because of information from someone captured there) that a specific time frame for the attacks was given as two months before the election here…the early part of September.
I don’t have a good feeling about this…except that our getting the word out may inhibit the planned attack(s) and I’m sure they’re working furiously to find whoever the wouldbe perpetrators are.
Poll watching and daily talking points seem so frivolous now. Like waiting to catch the sports news for the results of your favorite team while your house is burning down.
Roger,
I realize this is only tangentially related to the original post, but I thought your commentariat might like to chew on a question that I’ve been pondering since Monday. That is, why is NO one questioning the choice of the IMF/World Bank complex in DC as a prime AQ target? Yes, the buildings are IN Washington, but they are NOT American targets per se, just as the French or Israeli embassies in DC are not technically “American” soil. Having lived in the DC area until very recently and having known a number of people who work/worked in these buildings I can assure you, US citizens make up a minority of employees there.
So, the question that remains unasked (thus unanswered) by the geniuses in our major media outlets is WHY AQ is interested in blowing up THESE buildings/people? I’m not holding my breath, so I thought you all might like to join me in some rank, amateurish guesswork.
Regretably the terrorist warnings are a damned if you do/if you dont situation. The things that would make them credible and urgent to the public would of course be the sources and methods upon which the warnings are based; but, divulging those also tells the bad guys that their security is compromised.
I happen to believe the American public would buy that argument (there is NO hope for the MSM) but this underscores the point ambi and others made on a different thread: the President needs to use the bully pulpit more than he does. His use of that pulpit will, of course, not have an effect on the punditry, but it could go a long way to informing the American public.
Clio–I believe AQ thinks the best way to attack the infidel are through financial markets thereby disrupting our economy.
Syl,
Part of the “fun” or “fear” depending on how one feels at a given moment, is pondering things like the capture of this Kahn character and wondering what the circumstances are.
Did we really capture their Dr. Kodesofdeath or did they send this guy out to be captured? What happened in the 2+ weeks we had him before acknowleding that we had him (gee, I sure hope nobody was putting panties on his head or making the doggies bark at him!).
I have these same sorts of questions about that woman that was captured down TX way or wherever. Was it a legitimate capture or did she conveniently stumble out from behind some tumbleweeds at an opportune moment?
What I look forward to reading about, should I live so long, is how cells respond to these sorts of events. When I stopped being a Septenthian (for me that was prior to 10AM EDT on 9/11) I developed a working assumption that whenever we rolled up some piece of the terror network it would sort of force smaller bits and pieces (the cells) to go operational. I expected more, but small attacks. It just seemed to me that if I were a part of a cell and I had some knowledge that something “larger” or higher up had been compromised, I’d probably react by canning whatever was planned and cooking up something else ad-hoc. Apparently that’s why nobody would want me in their cell. They seem to be more disciplined than I would have given them credit for a few short years ago.
I was just going to post that the NYT significantly changed their tune on the terror warning data today when Roger updated his topic with this info. The above the fold front page headline is “New Qaeda Activity Is Said to Be Major Factor in Alert”. I found the article’s backtracking rather significant considering previous “revisions” by NYT have usually been buried (ref. Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke). I have found yesterday’s and today’s reports quite interesting in that much of the reporting is with unnamed sources – leaks perhaps. I wonder whether yesterday’s sources were out to damage the adminstration while today’s attempted to clean up the mess.
Also there is this:
“That shifting tone [refering to high level of AQ activity] may prove frustrating to the public, providing little guidance for assessing the gravity of threat information whose details remain shrouded in intelligence reports not available to anyone outside the highest ranks of the government.
A senior White House official who mentioned the new stream of intelligence in an interview refused to say anything more about its source or content. The official said it had not been publicly disclosed out of concern that such a step could compromise intelligence and law enforcement operations in the United States and around the world. Officials would not describe those operations but said they were meant to disrupt a possible plot.”
It is possible to interpret these grafs as merely pointing out the obvious – got to keep intelligence sources secret for national security. But if it so obvious why bring it up in the first place? An experienced MSM skeptic might infer that the writer is attempting to keep alive the meme that the reluctance to be “open” is really about politics.
Charlie, Obviously, you have the Bill of Rights on the wall in front of you, I don’t so please be specific. Also, I’m not going to ask Michael Moore if he intends to harm America, I’m going to ask him if he intends to kill anyone. And does he plan to set off any explosives. Maybe the question should be do you intend to change America ? Then, working off the answer, find out how.
WE used to play a game called 20 questions. A sharp group could discover the secret within 20 every time. The only way to avoid this is to lie. I say we take away the liars protection. Of course the lawyers would jump ugly, ’cause without lies, would we need lawyers ? The 2 exist for each other.
FA,
Septenthian isn’t mine. I like it but it takes a bit too long to figure out – mainly because sept doesn’t relate to 9. 910′er might work better or Septenthian might work out, dunno.
Knucklehead,
I believe that the primary use of Ultra in the North African campaign was to allow the sinking of Rommel’s resupply convoys. I don’t think that ground commanders were given much in the way of actionable intelligence. I would disagree that certain assets (including American lives) would not be sacrificed today in order to protect a source. The Enigma/Ultra facts were held until after Churchill’s death. I would imagine that there are certain elements of Enigma/Ultra that are still under wraps.
Has anyone seen the date on which Khan was taken into custody? The reports I’ve read say “a month ago” but lack a specific date. Telling the enemy that you’ve got their code has some practical benefits as well as pitfalls.
Rick, Knuckle–
There is probably another good reason to characterize the information as a “treasure trove,” whether it was or not: to make terrorists jumpy. As we all know from watching Dog Day Afternoon and Taking Pelham 1-2-3, nervous people are prone to making mistakes.
RogerA,
Financial disruptions are, of course, at the heart of the jihadis’ strategy. This explains Citicorp, the other Manhattan/NJ targets. But the IMF/World Bank are altogether different. They are development-oriented, global institutions with a hybrid capitalist/charitable ideological bent and mission. They are also, as I point out in the original post, largely staffed by foreigners. An attack on them, therefore, is an attack on western-driven development every bit as much as it is on some vague capitalist system. In which case, Europeans and other critics of the American led WOT need to ask themselves which side are we on? As far as AQ is concerned, obviously, the wrong side.
Syl, the timing that you mention only confirms my fear that AQ will move heaven and earth in order to pull something big during the convention in NY. AQ needs to have a big success on our soil soon if they are to retain any reasonable level of recruitment; if they donít do it soon they are on their way to become Osamaís weak horse. And what better than this: NYC, with all the delegates and leadership of Republican party and the prize no 1: the Prez.
Should something, God forbid, happen, how long do you think will it take for some MSM/academic empty head to publicly express approval at the terrorist choice of a target?
Roger A: “Regretably the terrorist warnings are a damned if you do/if you dont situation. The things that would make them credible and urgent to the public would of course be the sources and methods upon which the warnings are based; but, divulging those also tells the bad guys that their security is compromised.”
This was exactly what the NYT was whining about in their article this morning, in which they were trying to explain away yesterday’s knee-jerk, “It was all just politics!” story. Their excuse today is basically: Okay, so some of the intel was new, after all, but how can you blame us, dear reader, for thinking it was just politics, when they didn’t tell us all the etails of the intelligence reports.
Good grief, are we Americans really as stupid as the Times seems to think we are? Surely Joe and Jane Blow out in Topeka understand about the need to protect intelligence sources?
jerry,
I would be interested in seeing you expand some on the comment you made about wargamming. In particular, the results the game produced vs the impression you get from the real world situation.
This is a shadow war. Many of the moves made are not easily understood. Much of the battle is to find out what we know and what they know. All of the following are possible:
The alert was political. It was based on old data and meant to boost GWB against some minor event in the current campaign.
The alert was issued based on a combination of releasable and non-releasable intelligence. It was real.
The alert was issued to spoil that attack by showing that we knew and, in the minds of the attackers, increase the risk of being caught. It let them know that the data gathering they had done was worthless. We knew the target and had changed the defenses.
The alert was issued to prompt enemy communication so we can improve our understanding of their plans. They are probably using codewords for the targets. If we are monitoring cells, we can futher pinpoint their plans by stimulating communication. (A tactic used at Midway to pinpoint where the Japanese planned to attack.)
The alert is a diversion to make them think we are on the wrong track. They knew the guy was captured so blowing his data and making it look like we we concentrating there is a diversion. It may even be used to divert them into another communications channel for which we have better and undetected access.
It’s sad. the government can’t tell us the full background on the alert because they might blow the sources. But everyone wants to know the details. So everyone goes to their prejudices to find something to hang the alert on. From my not-cleared-for-the-data point of view any one of the explanations is feasible.
The fact that the democrats immediately picks one, to the exclusion of all others, tells me more about them than anything about the alert. I personally feel it was preventative, like when I tell the kids, “I know what your doing in there.” Only a few know the truth and, thankfully, they are rushing to the press to tell.
“Should something, God forbid, happen, how long do you think will it take for some MSM/academic empty head to publicly express approval at the terrorist choice of a target?”
I think Ted Rall and Aaron McGruder already have their cartoons inked up and ready for printing
Clio,
Very interesting question. I’ve pondered similar one’s myself. It is very easy to get caught up in our Modern American Penchant for Symbolism and assume that attacks like those of 9/11/01 were attacks on the “symbols of the Great Satan’s power” or somesuch.
But I doubt it is the least bit useful to think of these things “symbolically”. We may be dumb enough to use bombs to “send messages”, but I seriously doubt they are that dumb. They pick their targets for the effect they expect the destruction of the target to have. Burning down a “symbol” might be a nice side-effect (in their thinking) but I don’t believe it was the primary effect they were seeking.
I suspect that they’ve imbibed a bit too much of their own kool-aid and honeslty believed that knocking down the WTC would wreck the US economy and/or that blasting the Pentagon would wreck our DoD. There seems to be a certain element among the Jihadis that is oddly similar to the Cocktail Party Echo Chamber of our own LLL elites. They get caught up in their own jargon and “brilliance” and don’t bother looking for the “larger truths” since, after all, they are long since convinced they have a monopoly on “larger truth”.
It may also be that they had/have planned a series of such attacks designed to put enough pressure on the Great Satan’s Financial System to make it collapse. Keep in mind that as much as they hate the US their ultimate target is`”every infidel everywhere”. They cannot win by competing with us on our terms – they can’t fight the 21st Century so they want to collapse our system to bring us more in line with a power they can compete against – something much more economically and technologically “primitive”. This is, of course, a battle they cannot win because they do not understand it deeply enough. Some would say that’s all the reason we need to not bother fighting the battle but I don’t see how that argument holds. They can hurt us very badly and come close enough to “destroying” our civilization to bring us to a level of discomfort we do not even want to contemplate let alone live through.
Syl:
Others here at Roger’s place know more about such things than I do, but I believe the notion of Jihadis with laptops capturing satelites and dwoning our power grids and the like are the stuff of Hollywood plots and not the least bit likely. Makes for great movies, but the people who put up satelites know far more about keeping control of them than Jihadis will ever know about kidnapping them. And a tree falling in Canada or Ohio or wherever is more likely to provoke the “comedy of errors” required to bring down a power grid than some planned attack is.
I’ve had the fascinating good fortune of seeing Those Who Respond to Attacks Upon Major Networks spring into action and I’m very confident that they are more clever and knowledgable than their foes.
Now I’ll sit back and get hammered by those who know more
ìSurely Joe and Jane Blow out in Topeka understand about the need to protect intelligence sources?î
In Topeka, yes but not in NYC, LA and SF.
Clio–re the IMF: exactly. I dont belive for a second that AQ separates Europe from America–they are both kafirs in their eyes. One would hope the Europeans could see that, but apparently not. They remain as John Moore and Lenin remind us, useful fools in AQs plans.
knuclehead:
We do have system for keeping the vital secrets. We use compartments. Access to special programs runs from tens up to you and your 5000 closest friends. I have had access only to the in the later type. If the Khan bust was in the Enigma class then it is in U-505 category of event. I recommend a book by John Keegan, Intelligence and War. It demystifies the value of military intelligence. He shows that while good intelligence may be a necessary ingrediant in the mix it is hardly sufficient. The Brits knew the entire plan for the Crete invasion and still lost. He makes the point that Midway is only a great intelligence victory because we won. It would be view differently if we didn’t.
Rick Ballard:
Enigma/Ultra/Magic were only declassifed when the last Enigma type cipher machine left service in South America. That and the 25 year rule let to the the release of the information, not th death of Churchill.
On the NYT reversal:
This is an important event not because of the Time changed it mind. It is important because of why they reveresed course. This is the first time in the media dominated political age that the NYT failed to set the agenda for the news. It was clear yesterday that the Times wanted to turn this alert into an attack on Bush. They failed because few followed. Today they were playing catch up. This is one more step down the road to the end of the Times as an important newspaper.
Ambi:
You are kidding right? I don’t think the results are classifed at the releasble to Roger Simon level.
It will be interesting to hear how the criticism of Bush morphs when the next attack occurs. I can hear it now, “why weren’t we warned? what is Bush hiding? Bush is incompetent! Bush deliberately withheld the information because allowing the attack helps him politically!” and on and on AND ON.
What is the common theme of these criticisms? I postulate that it is egocentrism: what the hard Leftist is really concerned about is how all of this affects him. Attacks matter only insofar as they personally affect the individual. 9/11 doesn’t matter because nobody I know was killed. The focus on 9/11 is bad because it diverts money and attention from healthcare, because Bush used it to get a law allowing him to spy on my e-mail, etc. In other words, these people may be adults, but their attitudes have an adolescent character.
Knuck –
The Islamofascists view jihad as a process — struggle is an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. The Twin Towers were probably chosen as a target as much for the effect on them as on us. In other words, the Islamofascists may not be choosing their targets primarily to inflict a maximum amount of harm on us; rather, they strike symbolic targets because it makes them feel good to do so.
TROLL IN (I’m a rescuer by nature not a masochist)
Truce – White Flag!
Knucklehead – Thx for your words. It’s like I can see the train coming down the tracks and I’m yelling for the deer frozen on the tracks to jump.
****
War on Terror – correct term -War on Islamofascisim.
Need to first correctly identify the enemy before you can intelligently fight.
Looking for something to do – see link on LGF
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=11989#c0058
Mr. Simon you are right on the mark with Iran. If the light of the world is focused by the Internet and Blogosphere on the ruling repressive Islamofascist theocracy, it will implode. The world media has abrogated this responsibility.
As Mr. Simon and NY art say, this war has gone to the Net and cyberspace. This is the chink we need to exploit.
This is a war that can be won in cyberspace:
http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1131
Troll Out
Ron Wright, Moderator
HSPIG Forums Site
http://www.hspig.org
Rick Ballard:
Ultra was used to choke Rommel by sinking his supplies. As far as I have come to understand the North African theater and, later, the use of Ultra, however, the fact that Ultra information was used to sink supply ships was because that was the best way it could be employed without creating too much suspicion and giving it away.
Part of Rommel’s reputation for greatness, however, was that he kept slipping the noose against all odds. His retreat across North Africa is a legendary feat. I don’t mean this in any way to detract from Rommel’s incredible skills as a fighting commander (he was an astonishingly skilled battlefield commander, IMHO), but part of the reason he kept slipping the noose is because the Brits kept assuming he would follow his orders from High Command and NOT retreat. They kept expecting him to stay where he was because they knew, from Ultra, that he’d been ordered to and he kept devising ways to ignore High Command and informing them after the fact.
Conversely, part of the reason he had such incredible success in his attacks across North Africa was that he kept ignoring his orders to stay the heck put. High Command wanted no part of trying to supply his offensives. They wanted him to hold on to what he’d achieved and keep the Brits occupied but he kept seeing the enormous opportunities in front of him (rather than the overall war plan in front of Hitler and the High Command) and could not bring himself to allow “Grand Strategery” to override Local Opportunity.
Rommel is, IMO, a fascinating study in leadership. He was brilliant and a fundamentally good man and he was beloved by his troops through both victory and defeat. Yet he was fatally flawed in the context of the German war machinery. And not only that, but his fatal flaw was at least partly the result of his incomplete (by German standards) military education. The situation between the wars, and his personal situation (he wasn’t one of the Groomed for Greatness Prussians) meant that he never got very deep into the German version of “The War College”. He never completed that “finishing school” that would have, perhaps, given him a better understanding of Grand Strategy, Logistics, and “Charm”. In many ways he was very much like Alexander (forget, for a moment, that Alexander was also King and Rommel could not be that) in that his understanding of the battlefields he was on and the technology and techniques of his army and his enemies was several long leaps ahead of his opponents. Few modern Generals ever did more with less and none of his peers got “Field Marshal” status while being so unprepared for the roll of Field Marshal.
Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack the thread into a Rommelfest, but he’s the most fascinating military leader I’ve ever given a good look.
Ron Wright:
… It’s like I can see the train coming down the tracks and I’m yelling for the deer frozen on the tracks to jump.
If you look around here at Roger’s Place I believe you’ll find an ample supply of people who share your concern and are not “deer in the headlights”. You don’t need to scream here. Many of us have stepped off the tracks.
War on Terror – correct term -War on Islamofascisim.
Need to first correctly identify the enemy before you can intelligently fight.
This ping-pong ball keeps bouncing around among the rocks and space between my ears.
I am not yet convinced of two things required to make your assertion correct. The first is that we are not engaged in a war against terrorism and the second is that the Islamofascists are the full total of “the enemy”. Bear with me here if you’d be so kind.
Terrorism as a tool has been with us for a long time. In the 20th century it gained a level of acceptance that seems to me, well, unacceptable. We’ve had the IRA, the Basques, the Sikhs (sorry if I misdirected that, I’m too lazy to fact check it), marxists, fascists, narcotics warlords and so on. And we’ve had a growing “elite” (call them LLLs or Moonbats or whatever) who “legitimizes” this terror tool with blather such as “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”.
The Islamofascists seem to be “only” the most ambitious and deadly (at least to Americans and Israelis) in a long line of terrorists. And while it matters not one hoot what I am or am not convinced of, I remain less that fully convinced that the “leadership” behind Islamofascism is not simply a bunch of latter day criminal psychopaths trying to establish their bonafides on the back of a billion people long saddled with a religion which won’t allow them to escape the middle ages.
So, all that said, it leaves me wondering if the tag “Global War on Terror” is not more accurate than “Global War on Islamofascism” would be. What we need to defeat is “terrorism as a means to an end” and along the way we’re going to have to defeat its most ambitious practitioners. But it still seems to me it is, ultimately, terrorism we’re after.
Those who have been silly enough to have listened to my screeding and pondering here are aware that I waffle like freakin’ Kerry on this. On any given day I may be completely depressed that we may have to nuke every major Islamic population center in the world before this is over and put the First Ammendment to the torch as well. My sanity (such as it is) has a vested interest in believing we are engaged in a larger conflict – namely a War on Terror.
All that said #2, if we are facing an enemy with not reliable way to spot and recognize (I don’t think the Islamofascists carry the mark of Zorro or a cresent tatooed on their foreheads), then why is it particularly important that we give them some “accurate name”? I’m only being half-facetious when I ask – does it really matter if we name them Bill or George or anything but Sue?
Well this is slightly off topic but interesting reading for those interested in the “Clash of Cultures” aspect of the WOT:
http://www.secularislam.org/books/luxenberg.htm
http://syrcom.cua.edu/hugoye/vol6no1/hv6n1prphenixhorn.html
These are reviews of a book published by a German Islamic scholar that reportedly publishes under a nom-de-plume due to fear of Islamicist retribution. He has written an exegical (I think that’s the correct term) analysis of the Quran, that calls into question the scriptural basis of jihad. It appears to be quite well-respected.
Makes you wonder if the current Islamicist theology is testosterone run amok!!
PS I am a relatively new poster; please forgive me if my links are screwed up.
Roger:
The reason Dean and the rest of the left jumped on the “the terrorist warning by Ridge was strictly political” meme is that it fits into their parnoid worldview. They won’t always be specific but they truly believe that the war is being fought for the benifit of Haliburton and the evil corporate military industrial complex.This belief forms the core of their thinking so the accusation that Bush is trying to scare us and that terrorism is a “tactic” makes perfect sense.Do I think that Bush is incapable of taking events and using them for political advantage? No, of course not, he is a politician. But if you think that the terrorist network didn’t see what happened in the Spanish election and wouldn’t try to duplicate that effort before Nov. 2nd then you have no buisiness running a rural police force let alone the United States. Ridge took the knowledge that he had about the latest info of the terrorist targets and came to the logical conclusion that they will try to implement them before the election. You don’t have to be a CIA spook to figure this out. It’s common sense.
The New York Times and their accolytes refuse to except the fact that this is a war, not a crime spree.They want to go back to Sept. 10 and they think with international negotiations and with the help of our smarter European fathers we can sort it all out, sorta of like a trade agreement. It will take two or three more attacks like 9-11 to wake them up to the fact that we are at war.President Bush has made many mistakes in this war but he does realize that it is one. The left likes to play the conspiracy game that says this is a plot by Haliburton and the Carlyle group,see the Manchurian Candiddate if you want a fun but informative insight into what the left is thinking.
Knucklehead
“It just seemed to me that if I were a part of a cell and I had some knowledge that something “larger” or higher up had been compromised, I’d probably react by canning whatever was planned and cooking up something else ad-hoc. ”
Closer to 9/11 I think AQ wanted the next attack to be even bigger. Like they had reached a plateau and it wouldn’t be worthy of their cause for smaller hits. They don’t just want to urk and inflict pain…they want to destroy us. I think they were severely harmed and incapable of doing anything for a while (beyond planning and surveillance) and I think Iraq caught them off guard and deflected their attention too.
But I think they’re ready again now. Even though the entire structure of AQ seems to have changed, allowing more autonomy at the ‘cellular’ level, there still seems to be (as if I really know..heh) a need for some approval or direction from ‘above’.
And, what you’re not considering is the fact you are an American and we have a think-on-your-feet attitude that AQ doesn’t have. As individuals we’re comfortable with the idea of taking initiative and acting on it. Sure, there’ll always be the lone jihadi who acts out, but I think the cells, no matter how much leeway they’re given, still feel a need to be part of the group. If bin laden wants big stuff to happen rather than small stuff, then that’s what they’ll attempt. If an attack is compromised and called off, they’ll go to a contigency plan or hole up for instructions.
I heard one little report yesterday that another courier had been caught leaving Iraq with a missive to bin laden from Zarqawi. Haven’t heard any more about it. But though Zarqawi is on his own as far as planning and executing specific acts in Iraq, he still needs to (or feels the need to) discuss with bin laden.
Many Americans, on the other hand, would just say screw it and do what we could. (Unless we were in the military, of course.)
Hepzi,
Very interesting. Thanks for the links. Even if Luxenberg’s work turns out to have enough enormous impact it is the kind of thing that will take decades to change some number of minds.
I take it this is the source of the “white raisins” rather than “doe eyed virgins” stuff. Cool drinks, huh…
OK everybody, anah one… anah two… anah three… I’d like to buy the world a coke…
Playing catchup here….
Clio
“An attack on [IMF/Worldbank], therefore, is an attack on western-driven development every bit as much as it is on some vague capitalist system.”
I don’t understand your confusion. You think al Qaeda just hates capitalism? If we were all socialists bin laden would say ‘nevermind’? I’m sorry. Maybe I misunderstood.
Katherine
“Should something, God forbid, happen, how long do you think will it take for some MSM/academic empty head to publicly express approval at the terrorist choice of a target?”
And they’ll blame the victim.
Knucklehead
“I’ve had the fascinating good fortune of seeing Those Who Respond to Attacks Upon Major Networks spring into action and I’m very confident that they are more clever and knowledgable than their foes.”
Glad to hear that. Really. When we think about these things it’s best to do it out loud in a crowd because there are always those who know more than you do and you can get reassurance or scared out of your wits depending. It’s amazing how little (well, I speak for myself) I know about everything, yet how much I’ve learned just by hanging out.
The spread of knowledge is really fascinating and humans seem to have a deep desire to spread and absorb information…even if some of it is wrong or some deal only in rumors and spin. Folks like Jeff Jarvis shout out the importance of the blogosphere for this. But it was happening long before blogs. There are pockets of online communities concerned with thousands of different subjects. For many years I’ve been unconsciously observing how people learn to use a few specific programs (Bryce, Poser, Photoshop, etc.). Just a little example. When I (or someone else) discover a new technique, the first thing I do is go to an online forum and share what I learned. Then someone else tries it and simplifies a step or makes a variation. Then it spreads through the mailing lists and people post examples. And voila you have hundreds of people who know how to do something they didn’t know before.
Ooops. I rambled.
Knucklehead (again)
“if we are facing an enemy with not reliable way to spot and recognize (I don’t think the Islamofascists carry the mark of Zorro or a cresent tatooed on their foreheads), then why is it particularly important that we give them some “accurate name”? ”
Well, one important reason is that if we don’t name them accurately people just assume there’s a finite group of people out there who want to kill us. Kill the cells off and we’re home free.
Unfortunately that ain’t the way it is.
For every cell we knock off, another takes its place. There’s over a billion muslims, the vast majority of whom have no desire for this violent form of jihad. However there’s a lot, just how many has been estimated but I don’t remember the figure…millions anyway…who can be easily convinced because the arguments for violent jihad are right there in Islam and you can be convinced that to be a true believer you must believe in this jihad and not cherrypick just the ‘peaceful’ passages of the Quran. Now, some of the leaders may be cynical, I don’t know, but the followers, the jihadis, the suicide bombers, are true believers in their religion. It’s a heckuva lot more complex than that, but it seems to boil down to the simple fact that if you don’t have anything to lose by becoming a jihadi, a sharp recruiter can get you.
Iraqis now have something to lose…their freedom, their democracy, their free markets and chance for economic prosperity. Not that Iraqi’s would have become jihadists but Iraq was the dead-on perfect place to start democratizing the Middle East.
Syl:
It’s amazing how little (well, I speak for myself) I know about everything, yet how much I’ve learned just by hanging out.
I hereby annoint you an Honorary Knucklehead and a worthy acolyte of The Immortal Yogi who said, among other things equally profound, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”
I agree Knuck: let’s hope it doesn’t take 200 years for the Islamic Reformation to take off!
But I thought it was interesting from a “Let’s do the Time Warp Again” standpoint…ie more evidence that we are really dealing with a culture vapor-locked a 1000 years behind the West.
Knucklehead
Nah. I just came to the fork in the road and took it!
Gawd, I think it’s time for sleep again. I just said that AQ doesn’t want to urk us.
Irk. IRK.
Or urp.
Whatever.
TROLL IN
Rick B.
We do think alike, we are just bouncing off each other’s egos.
This is a war, call it what you will, but the key point is the need to identify the enemy that poses the greatest threat.
Yes, terror is a weapon which is used by many extremist groups of many ideologies. The problem is Islamofascists are using terror driven by their misguided religious fervor to wipe everyone of us of the face of the earth. This is the explanation for the second train bombing attempt even after they succeded in their immediate political objective. The free world is the very antithesis to their ideology.
There is no moderation or appeasement in this ideology. I agree it is a failed ideology in the modern world. We will eventually win this war once we as a people understand this and unite to crush them. The sooner this happens, the less lives will be lost on all sides. Sorry if this has been debated before.
CAVEAT: The Iranians are playing a game of “talk talk tan tan” while at the same time building their nuke. Go Mr. Simon and his support of a free Iran. The next danger is the Islamic movement in Pakistan that could gain control of that country’s nukes.
I think there is a general consenses here that the strategic consequences would be unimaginable. All bets would be off. It’s 4th qtr, 3rd down and forty to go and the game clock is ticking to zero, . . . tick, tick, tick, . . . I hope there is a “Hail Mary” pass in the offing. We need to keep our minds in the game, eyes focused on the ball, go for the ball when possible, and ignore those in the bleachers.
I guess why I might be a little strident here is if you are familiar with the Kersey temperment model I’m an ENTJ or field marshal of sorts.
Rather than sit idly by, I’m trying to assemble our resources on line to engage the enemy. This war is now being waged in cyberspace. This war will ultimately be won in cyberspace.
The importance of identifying and understanding our enemy is in allocating our scarce resources to counter the real threat. A classic example is the money we are spending each day to “jack up” all the elderly White, Black (American), and Hispanic ladies who have the misfortune of wearing bras with underwire. The relative risk of them being radical Islamic extremists is nil, knowingly anyway. This money is being wasted on “feel good” stuff.
The feds in their PC mode have not been able to call a “spade a spade,” and the enemy is exploiting our tolerance. I’m not suggesting we abrogate our Constitutional guarantees, but we can fight this war much intelligently. That is why I posted the first message about the little things the American People can watch for.
Our media has failed to educate and inform us. These are the messages the American People need to hear so not only can make they informed decisions in the presidential election but also hold our government accountable. Domestically we have done a poor job. On the ground our boots have fought brillantly but have made mistakes and we have changed. As Victor Davis Hanson has written this is to be expected. What is needed is to keep the pressure on, learn by our mistakes and to adapt.
So in short, we don’t need to debate the finer points here, you are the elite cyber warriors in this battle who can engage and defeat this enemy in cyberspace.
We need to collectively bring this message via the Internet and the Blogosphere to the American People so we can unite as one and crush this enemy. Until we do our enemy will continue to exploit our tolerant an peaceful ways.
Troll out.
Ron
PS: Here’s a little secret for those wishing a little more information that will scare your socks off.
First, the anthrax letters more than likely were not the product of a “mad scientist” the FBI has come to focus on. This was probably the second prong of aQ’s 9/11 attack.
Now for a moment picture the time following the fall of the former Soviet Union. The nuclear scientists suddenly found themselves in the bread lines. But joining them and less known were the bioweapons scientists and techs. Connect the dots. ME Islamofascists flush with hard cash and people in bread lines trying to feed their families.
Do you suppose deals were struck?
Now I’m just your average gumshoe Columbo, but my wife is a Dr. PH whose interest is bioterrorism She brought this article to my attention.
“The Looming Threat,” by Mark Williams in Acumen a journal no longer in publication, quotes extensively from Ken Alibek the former deputy director of the Soviet bioweapons program.
There was a move to classify this article but much of what is said is on the Net anyway. Don’t read it alone or in the dark:
http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=442
Syl,
Allow me to clarify my thoughts. The World Bank and IMF are not in any way pillars of the global economy–if AQ blew them sky high tomorrow (which I sincerely hope doesn’t happen–as if that needs to be said, right?) I’m not sure that any stock markets would jump a point. What they ARE the foundation of (for better and for worse) is a western-financed, largely well-intentioned system of aid and development. Now even the most pointy-headed of intellectuals who pretends to be dead in the street outside the World Bank once a year at their big meeting does not REALLY think the people inside the building are evil or deserve to be blown up. There is simply a difference of opinion about the means, pace and direction of development.
Now, the “critique” that AQ seems to be offering of this development model is a good deal harsher and, one would hope, might induce the protester types (protesters of war, of “unfair” trade, of whatever ya got) to question who is hated and why here.
Yesterday I was listening to Fresh Air and so called funny man Bill Maher makes the comment that no Iraqi wanted Saddam in power but that given the choice between having him there and having his sister walk down the street in a miniskirt, he’d rather have Saddam back. I think this speaks volumes about the spineless cultural relativism of the Left today–note, the Iraqi we have to keep in consideration is the brother, not the sister.
The cowardice and moral stupidity of the Left today is one in which we turn on our own leaders rather than admit that we are ALL the target of a common enemy. Get him first, not me. I’m just minding my own business here.
I’m just amazed that no one seems even to noticed the targetting of two institutions of international cooperation, not international greed.
I disagree that this is just dumb Arabs who can’t tell the difference between one big building in a large American city and another. They know what they’re targetting. We need to try to understand and talk about why they chose them.
Ron Wright:
I have a small background in cyberspace warfare. There is no there there. Physical force dominated cyberforce any day. I used to make this point in briefings by constructing a conceptual world made up of two virtual countries, Billworld and Steveworld. (Microsoft versus Apple for the uninitiated). I posited the existance of a steveworld citizen living in a billworld physical space. As you can see, steveworld guy can’t survive an attack by bill’s thugs by cyber means alone. The reason is simple. We exist in physical space not the virtual world of cyberspace. I can always show up at you door with an ax and order you join billworld at penalty of death. There is nothing steveworld can do to save you.
TROLL IN
Sorry one more short (really) comment before I go.
Do the reading. Bio-Shield as currently proposed is a flawed concept and this money will be wasted.
We can’t vaccinate our way out of bioterrorism. You’ll never know exactly what agents you are developing a vaccine for let alone get pharms industry to create it (See my link above).
Bioterror agents can be created faster than you can develop vaccines to counter.
Besides as Alibek says, there is a limit to the number of vaccinations you can give any one person. He has firsthand knowledge as he has lost much of his hearing and suffered other serious effects from the number of vaccinations he has received.
The answer is, “go for the ball!” Don’t wait for the attack. Need to get the agent before it can be released. Shades of FOX’s 24 HRS 2nd season. Maybe the feds should hire the screenwriters for this show because they are more informed then the feds appear to be. Mr. Simon could you check on that?
TROLL OUT
Jerry,
Sorry I was speaking metaphorically re cyberspace. It’s not offense v. defense re network security.
What I was refering to is the ability of the Net and the Blogosphere to communicate the truth and objective information freely, trancending interference of political boundaries and constraints of editorial and media conglomerate boardrooms. After all this is a war of information and ideas.
Yes there may be the moonbots on the left and the wingnuts on the right but if you triangulate this info it seems to have a self-correcting ability. See my link on the Power and Politics of Blogs (Two poli sci profs are circulating a draft paper on this).
The Net and the Blogosphere are collectively an emerging medium which make the media as we know it no longer relevant.
If you want to get real deep on this, check this piece out. Sorry I couldn’t link to it easily.
TROLL OUT
The cultures of the world that have undergone religious reformation and/or cultural enlightenment will prevail though there may be many losses. Those who have experienced freedom will overpower any repressive culture that seeks to constrain the free will of man. The radical Islamic extremists believe there is a need for Devine government to control man, as he will only do evil if given free will. This is a failed ideology. This region of the world was the cradle of modern mathematics, science, medicine, and the arts. Where are they now? What was the cause of this stagnation? I suggest, it is the recognition and acceptance of the free will of man to CHOOSE to do good or evil. The power of this universal TRUTH is unending.
In terms of today, Dr. Phil always asks, ?How?s that workin for ya?? The answer is not very well. This struggle has continued for many centuries and yet the radical Islamic extremists have remained as they were in the 12th and 13th Centuries of the old Islamic Empire. Once man has taken the bit of freedom in his mouth, there is no turning back. The Internet and blogging is interconnecting the world. The free flow of information is becoming transparent to international borders.
The collective consciousness of the world is growing together at an ever-increasing exponential rate. This is the beginning of collective cognitive thought. This is much like the cellular development of the human brain as synaptic connections and pathways form which give rise to consciousness, and ultimately sentient thought and existence.
Ronn Wright
The problem with your AQ Anthrax attack is simple: the Anthrax was not antibiotic resistant. Hence it caused few casualties, even though its dispersal had been weaponized. In other words, the agent was half weaponized. Since weaponization of spores is trickier than adding antibiotic resistance, and because of where the letters were sent, I think someone did this to “innoculate” the US against biowar by activating our “immune system” ($5 billion diverted to biowar defense). Run it by your wife.
You are right that there are some ferocious biological agents possible. Adding the ILK4 gene to smallpox, for example.
As far as Bio-Shield. Having lots of vaccines immediately available makes good sense. While bad guys can develop new agents, it’s harder for them to develop agents that aren’t antigenic triggers for an existing vaccine ( except for the ILK4 trick, which appears to defeat vaccines by killing before the immune system has a chance to fire up).
Syl
I agree that Al Qaeda wants to do a bigger attack than 9-11. One wonders at the definition of “bigger.” There is also the issue of timing relative to the election and who would win as a result. It would be very hard to launch an attack more spectacular than 9-11, but less hard to kill a lot of people. For example, using Sarin from those “we found no WMDs” artillery shells and attacking a large building not on alert would be tragic and very easy. A bunch could be attacked.
Truck bombs are likewise very deadly, although unless the target were picked right, the damage wouldn’t come close to 9-11. I saw the damage in Oklahoma City and it was awesome (buildings a blog away destroyed, big apartment buildly structurly damaged). A semi-trailer would make an even bigger bang, and the ammonium nitrate/urea and fuel oil is a relatively low explosive appropriate for damaging buildings. But unless it destroyed the structural integrity of the building, as in OK City, it’s not going to kill a huge number of people.
jerry
For the most part, I agree with you on cyberspace warfare. There are significant attacks that can be mounted, but almost all major control systems and military systems are physically isolated from the internet. The attacks could temporarily disrupt the internet, but that’s about it. Most worries about cyberspace warfare are as valid as the millenium worries.
Al Qaeda Communications
Today, it appears to be easy to create codes not breakable by the NSA. The academic world has developed a number that are also easy to implement. Public key encryption even handles the difficult key management problem. Hence, unless the bad guys screw up or we can plant something on their computer, or we take advantage of unTempested systems, we are not going to be reading their digital traffic. It’s going to be just random bits. From that we can do traffic analysis, which is quite valuable, but not as good as reading the plaintext.
The NSA keeps quiet about this and may, because of its world class flock of cryptographers, be able to break one or more of these codes. Venona used a theoretically unbreakable system (one time pads) and was broken due to the occasional use of the same pad again, a violation of the coding rules. Even so it took years to do the decrypts. NSA also has its share of scientists, and also contracts out (often through an alias), to stay at the forefront. But again, don’t expect an ULTRA class of crack. In this world, that would probably require an agent at the communications node (a la John Walker).
Regarding the history of ULTRA. It was given to high level field commanders, but the source was not provided. At the Anzio Beach landing, for example, the general had ULTRA intelligence that there were no Germans between him and roam. He chose to ignore it and the result was a near disaster when the Germans came down and attacked his overly-dense army in its small perimeter. Chuchill reportedly got intelligence that Coventry would be destroyed in a vengeance attack, and chose not to warn Coventry to protect the secret. Amazingly, after a whole night of bombing, there were almost no casualties.
The US also had broken the Japanese Diplomatic Code (PURPLE) before the start of the war, and hence had the contents of the Japanese ultimatum hours before the Pearl Harbor attack. Secy of State Cordell Hull had it in his briefcase when the Japanese, accidently late, presented it. It was that late presentation that led to the charges of “day of infamy” as the Japanese supposedly attacked without warning. But Hull actually had the warninig, a secret that had to be kept for a long time.
John thx for comment
Going a little off topic. Yes, building vaccines for known agents is reasonable. I was just suggesting don’t blow all your money in one spot.
I believe folks like Ken Alibek(George Mason Univ, DC) and his associates are breaking new ground on news ways to combat bioweapon agents which may be more practicle in the long run. Unfortunately pharms industry may be left out in cold.
My greatest fear as a mentioned once before here is for aQ to use disposable infected terrorists agents to visit border towns in Mexico and infect those transient works who are about to cross over.
Talk about a doomsday weapon of Armegedon(sp)
Ron
Ron
My second biggest surprise on 9/11 (the first was the date) was that the attack did no use biological agents.
Genetic engineery, like my daughter does, is getting relatively easy and quite inexpensive. Someone has now built a polio virus from just chemical. The whole area is going gangbusters, and the possibilities are terrifying.
The immigrants are already carrying deadly biological agents: multi-drug resistant TB. For all I know, they may have some MRSA also. After all, if you go to Mexico (a couple of hours driving from here), you can buy all the antibiotics you want with no prescription, so you can unintentionally breed resistant bugs. This is true in much of the world. In Africa, frequently someone will get a single dose of antibiotic because it is all they can afford.
I don’t know what Alibek is working on. I’m always a bit suspicious of guys like him – it may be a con of some sort.
One reason Al Qaeda might not use an infectious agent is that they would be blamed all over the world for hundreds of millions to billions of deaths. That might cause some problems in their ability to operate, much less not having their throats gut.
On the other hand, while Anthrax is an infections disease, it doesn’t create epidemics among humans. Furthermore, the spores contaminate places and its very expensive to get rid of them. Hence a properly weaponized Anthrax attack would be very lethal and deny use of property for a while. The Anthrax used in 1971 was apparently very well weaponized except for anti-biotic resistance which doesn’t even require genetic engineering to add, as far as I know. An envelope of antibiotic resistant version of that stuff dropped into a big building HVAC could kill thousands. Same with pneumonic plague, except I don’t think it forms spores so there’s not much decontamination. Ebola as a mist would be nasty, although I have no idea how much it would take. It also tends to not have much in the way of epidemics.
John Moore
“Ebola as a mist would be nasty, although I have no idea how much it would take. It also tends to not have much in the way of epidemics.”
Isn’t that true of anything that kills quickly? You’re dead before you have much of a chance to spread it. So that ILK4, killing you before your immune system can even fire up, would be the same.
Deadly for those exposed, and horrifying to everyone else, but not likely to spread far because of quarantine.
HIV, on the other hand, is slow death and is one of the reasons that epidemic has spread so far and wide. It’s easy to infect someone else before you even know you’re infected yourself.
Clio
Thanks for the clarification. IMF and World Bank are western institutions. Doesn’t matter what they do really. Or perhaps there’s some thought of getting sympathy from the far left..as Islamists have gotten in some circles in Europe.
John
All good points. We’re probably boring the others to death here. You can just give me an email.
I don’t think Alibek is a flake but who’s to know nowadays. Check his bio out at the GMU site.
http://www.gmu.edu/centers/biodefense/faculty_alibek.html
Yes I understand your points on anthrax. Yes it will cause some deaths if not caught but it’s very expensive to clean up afterwards and can put critical infrastructure off line for long periods of time. It just causes panic and fear and that’s what they’re after anyway.
I handn’t really thought about a watered down variety to build natural immunity. Plausible but I think there is too much circumstancial evidence suggesting this was an aQ strike.
Check out this site which seems to be the going authority which is kept by an attorney. I don’t know if he keeping all of this stuff for a brief for a potential suit against the government for a big screw up or not:
http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=507
http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=508
Several key things, the aQ terrorists in Florida from all indications had contracted subcuteanous (sp) anthrax before 9/11. A local doctor treated them however like most stateside doctors had not seen a clinical presentation of anthrax. Gee I hope smallpox photos are getting around. Anyway the doctor was shown photos later and believes this is the type of skin infection he was treating them for.
The key factor is while the anthrax was reasonably small and pure which is indicative of weaponized strains, the anti-static charge on these particles was not removed. By removing the static charge the powder does not clump into larger particles. According to Alibek and others small amounts of reasonably pure anthrax can be made in small labs. The kicker is removing the charge which requires a lot more processing and substantial equipment.
What do you think Mr. Simon you’re the detective here, could the FBI be off on a red herring?
Not that I’m paranoid or anything, I should say to my federal peers in the three and two letter agencies, we’re friendlies here carrying on a polite and civil discussion. We are only trying to assist in the WOT. If your bots drop out this discussion thread, come and see me I will be happy to show you where this is already available in many places on the Net. That’s if you get to analyze this in the next five years. :–)
TROLL OUT
Ron,
You miss my point on the attacks being a vaccination. I meant that in a metaphorical sense, where the attacks would result in the US powering up an anti-biological warfare capability (it’s “immune system”). It was not a weak strain – it was pretty deadly, it just lacked AB resistance.
My understanding is that in fact a very effective and novel anti-clumping agent was used, such that swirling some spores in a test tube would leave a hazs in the air of the tube for a long time. In other words, the declumping part of weaponization was done.
To do that is difficult, because you have to separate the spores and coat them with a declumping agent. I have no idea how that is done.
One of the AQ guys in Florida had what appeared to be a cutaneous Anthrax infection, although it was never closely examined or diagnosed. I am not aware of treatment by a doctor.
I have no information that Alibek is a flake. I just take extraordinary claims with a grain of salt.
Finally, weaponized Anthrax (declumped and modified for antibiotic resistance) is exceedingly deadly. Introduced in the HVAC air handler of a large building it could kill almost everyone in there, which could be many thousands.
As to the source of the Anthrax, the mystery remains. It was partially weaponized, which is consistent with the idea of it being a warning. It was sent to media and politicians, which is consistent with the idea of it being a public warning. It was sent in envelopes which minimized the dispersion, which is consistent with a warning in the sense of causing minimal casualties.
If AQ had it in Florida, how did they weaponize it?