5 posts tagged “terrorism”
From Bruce Schneier:
There's so much of interest here, it's hard to even summarize. It's a history of Islamic extremism and the political, social, and philosophical forces that gave it life, beginning with the godfather, Sayyid Qutb, in the early 50's. We get a glimpse into the brutal and corrupt regimes which have provided fertile soil for radicals. We learn about the Salifists and the Takfiri, who use their twisted version of Islam to justify all kinds of thuggery, from bank robbery to rape and murder. We watch a respected doctor and the son of one of Saudi Arabia's richest, most respected families - Ayman Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden - become more and more radicalized as they fall under the influence of these philosophies, and we learn of their early, often antagonistic relationship. We meet their wives and children and experience some of their day to day lives. (Bin Laden has 4 wives and innumberable children, one with Down's Syndrome. He loves horses and is not averse to allowing his daughters to listen to music.)
We follow Bin Laden and his 'Arab Afghans' into Afghanistan where they make jihad against the Soviets. Bin Laden, fully engulfed in his fantasy world, believes that he and his warriors deserve credit for driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan when, if fact, they were bumbling incompetents and were looked upon as clowns by the real Afghani fighters.
Along the way we meet common jihadis and Saudi princes, American FBI and CIA agents, government officials like Richard Clarke, and a host of political leaders, from Sadat to Mubarak, to Mullah Omar, to Bill Clinton.
The Islamists aim to cause as much damage to Western, and especially American, interests as possible and they are willing to die doing so. They are capable of great brutality, but they are also extremely lucky, ignorant, naive and, to a great extent, deluded. Bin Laden (who comes across much of the time as rather pathetic) begs the Saudi government not to allow American troops into the country during the first Gulf War. He says he will raise troops to fight Sadaam's million man army himself. When told he is out of his mind, he says 'We will win on faith!'. During the Afghan war, stories came back from the front of angels bringing down Soviet helicopters and of 'martyrs' whose blood still flowed and whose bodies still smelled sweet, even after a year in the grave.
I think this book makes a very strong case, as did The One Percent Doctrine, for the proposition that we must use good intelligence and police work to capture and defeat this enemy, rather than throwing our military forces and fortune at them. The GWOT (Global War on Terror) has it backwards. We very likely could have had bin Bin Laden, Zawahiri and others years ago. The intelligence was there, and there were a few lonely souls crying out in the wilderness of the FBI and CIA bureaucracies. But no one paid attention until it was too late. As for military operations, Wright describes the attack on the al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan during the Clinton administration. We dropped $750 Million worth of cruise missles on the two camps in one night, and we managed to take out a kitchen and a mosque, and we killed 5 or 6 very low level recruits. Not a great return on investment. Not to mention the $300 Billion and counting we've poured down the hole in Iraq, only to make the world a more dangerous place.
I could go on. Every chapter of this book is full of amazing facts and fascinating history. This book is required reading for everyone who wants to understand how 9/11 happened, and who wants to get beyond the stereotypes to understand the people who have declared war on the United States. Know you enemy.
This interesting article says he just may be. Arrrrrrh matey! (courtesy of Schneier's blog)
Just finished this. The title refers to Dick Cheney's doctrine of how we have to proceed in the post-9/11 world. To wit, if we perceive a threat, and there is even a one percent possibility that it is real, we must act on it as though it is a certainty. Of course this approach means there is no longer any need for facts, deliberation, verification, or even rational thought. We must act as if it is a certainty.
It goes like this:
Intelligence guy: Some nutcase just told me that Castro has nuclear weapons.
Cheney: Can you say with 99% certainty that it's not true?
Intelligence guy: Uhm, no.
One thing that this book makes clear is that the whatever successes we have had in the 'war on terror' - captures of high ranking Al Qaeda figures, seizure of evidence, cutting off of financial sources - have all come about through good intelligence gathering and police work, not through military action. Call it 'the British approach.'
Another interesting tidbit: Three days before the 2004 presidential election, Bin Laden release a long statement on video. Everyone in the White House and in both parties agreed that he did George Bush a huge favor. Given that everything these people do is part of a long term strategic plan, the question is: why did Al Qaeda want George Bush re-elected?
Interesting paper on fear of terrorism. (seen on Bruce Schneier's Blog)
