Terrorism In Greece

The U.S. Embassy in Greece came under fire today from a rocket-propelled grenade launched from a neighboring building. (Can't say that neighboring building was particularly neighborly.) The damage was minor, and no one appears to have been injured, thank God, but officials are calling this an act of terrorism. I don't have any information of my own, or even much to say about it at this point, so I'll just send you to some folks who have the latest. Mary Katharine Ham, reporting for Michelle Malkin (who is currently in Iraq), had an early heads up about this. Later in the morning See-Dubya, also at Malkin's site, posted an update which explained why this particular embassy is vulnerable to rocket fire. Both these posts also link to Allahpundit, at Hot Air, who was on it early and has been keeping the story updated. I'll let you know later if I come up with anything important to add, but I think these folks have the story pretty much covered at this point.

Obsession: Radical Islam

There is an outstanding 8-part documentary (a little less than an hour and a half), available on YouTube, called Obsession: Radical Islam. If you have a hard time believing that there really is a threat to the West from radical elements of Islam, or a culture of jihad spreading throughout the world, you need to watch this video. If you think that the number if Islamists who hate the West is small and insignificant, watch the video. If you doubt that there is any connection between Radical Islam and Nazi Germany, or any lessons learned from WWII that must be applied to the War on Terrorism, you really need to watch this documentary. If you don't believe that many Muslim children are being abused--indoctrinated with lies and hate from the earliest ages, you need to watch this video. If you don't believe that it is the radical elements of Islam that truly harbor aspirations of global domination, despite all their accusations of U.S. imperialism, please, watch this video. I read a comment on someone else's blog earlier today saying that it is totally inaccurate to link Islamofascism and Hitler's Naziism, and that what we learned in WWII has no application to current events . I challenge anyone (sane) to draw that conclusion after watching Obsession.

Please know, I truly believe there are many Muslims around the world--most in fact--who really do love peace, and will stand with civilization when given the chance. However, if we do not see the danger for what it is of the 10% of Muslims (over 100,000,000 people) who ascribe to Islamist extremism, if we allow ourselves to hide from the truth, and hide from the need to confront the threat, they will never have that chance. Many of them cannot stand up from within Islamic countries, like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, etc., until they are sure that we will not abandon them to reap the whirlwind for speaking against the radical Islamic ideology. We absolutely cannot abandon Iraq to her fate, nor cede ground on any other front. Watch the documentary. This is not going away.

Hat tip: Sioux Lady

Wow Again

But for a completely different reason.

Terrorist Correspondence

Austin Bay, writing at Strategy Page, has a fascinating look at intelligence gained after the death of Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in June of this year:

On Sept. 18, Iraqi National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rabi released a letter from al-Qaida commander "Atiyah" (a pseudonym) to Zarqawi. West Point's Counter Terrorism Center (ctc.usma.edu) has the letter archived online.

The letter features al-Qaida's usual religious panegyrics, but also contains strong evidence of fear, doubt and impending defeat. It seems five years of continual defeat (and that is what the record is) have shaken the 9-11 certitude of al-Qaida's senior fanatics.

Bay analyses what we can learn from this correspondence, and the importance of such releases of information to the American public (and the world) in this age where media is part of the battlefield in war. The winning of "hearts and minds" occurs largely on this field, as does the waxing and waning of our backbone as a civilization to face the task at hand. Bay points out that dictators and terrorists for the most part can "control their message," something that is not the prerogative of Western governments. We don't see anything but bravado and supreme confidence emanating from those messages which Al Qaeda sends to the world at large. The letter is a "talking amongst themselves" moment, and really reveals a lot about where Al Qaeda actually thinks it stands these days, and should be encouraging to anyone who hopes that Coalition efforts are bearing fruit. Have a look.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Driving Over A Precipice

I woke up early this morning with a disturbing dream. I was driving in a convertible through the neighborhood I grew up in as a child. I'm fuzzy on some of the details, but after an attempted car-jacking (who doesn't enjoy a good car-jacking dream?), when I was trying to get out of a tight spot by turning the car around, I lost control and ended up backing the car over a precipice. Then I woke up. I always do wake up. I am not one of those people who sees a bad dream through to the bitter end; I bail pretty soon after the scary bits start. So, afterward, knowing further sleep would elude me, I took refuge in an old friend, turned on my laptop, and started reading. I've been flitting about from topic to topic, and finally settled on one to pass on to you that shares a few elements with my dream.

At TCS Daily, Austin Bay is looking at the "ambush technique" used by Islamofascist terrorists, which combines violence and media. He discusses the terrorists' use of a "grievance trigger", aimed at attracting media coverage, and according to Bay, intimidating both non-Muslims, and Muslims of a non-violent persuasion. He assigns this deliberate combination an acronym with a bit of irony:

The ambush technique coordinates blood-spilling violence with sensational imagery and rhetoric using a dispersed network of media operatives, guerrillas and terrorists. Networked, Coordinated Blood-spilling plus Sensationalism -- hence the technique's acronym: the CBS ambush.

He discusses three specific incidents: the fake Guantanamo Bay Koran flushing story, which set off Muslim riots, the Danish cartoon debacle, which set off Muslim riots, and the recent remarks by Pope Benedict that quoted a Byzantine Emperor's criticism of Islamic conversion by the sword, that served as the trigger for "firebombing Christian churches (in several Muslim countries) and the execution-style slaying of a Catholic nun who worked in a hospital in Somalia." How ironic that protests against the Pope "slurring" Islam, by pointing out its violence, should take the form of violence. Can you say, "proving his point?"

Each of these stories has been magnified by a media that loves to report turmoil and upheaval, but the problem is that the media, by fanning these stories to life, creates much of that turmoil. Once there is a whiff of Muslim objection, the reporters of the news are all over it, and thus they spread it. I'm not blaming the media for the stories, but I am saying that the way they report them does add impact to the "grievance trigger." I am also not saying that no Muslim grievance is ever legitimate. I am simply saying that they get magnified to violence by the symbiosis of Islamofascist agitation and the media. This, I think, is Bay's main point--all of the incidents he cited required media cooperation to spread the grievance:

Executing a CBS ambush requires the implicit cooperation of sensationalist media -- media that delight in emotional slights and rarely probe beyond the superficial. Until that implicit cooperation ends, the Islamo-fascists will continue to exploit this productive stratagem, achieving propaganda victories designed to ignite a "clash of civilizations" and brutally intimidate their Muslim and non-Muslim opposition.

This is also where what Bay writes reminds me of my dream. We in the West find ourselves in a tight spot, facing ongoing "car-jacking" attempts by terrorists and Islamists. The Western media's reaction is to drive backwards, without looking, over a precipice. Ultimately, every time the media buys into the promotion of the "grievance trigger," they take us over another cliff, and we have to deal with the consequences. Unfortunately, unlike a sleeping Kat, the civilized world can't simply wake up. We have to run the full course of where the precipice leads, from riots to murdered nuns. I'm not saying the media should stop reporting things that might inconveniently incite Islamic ire, but I am saying that they ought to be more responsible. Could they have checked a little more closely into how it would even be possible to flush a book down a toilet, before filling magazines and newspapers with the story? Yes. Did the Danish cartoon kerfuffle really need to be pushed, even when (especially when) it was inciting riots? No. Does an obscure reference by the Pope, out of context, which was a very minor part of his lecture, warrant all the headlines? No. I know that I said we, as a civilization, can't really just "wake up," but I wish the media would.

False Alarms?

I just read a really interesting article from The Weekly Standard, by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, about terrorist practice runs on commercial airlines. He says that some of the false alarms we've been hearing about lately may not actually be false alarms, but rather exercises, probing for weaknesses, and figuring out what behavior triggers suspicion with passengers and crew. We do frequently read about incidents that don't result in immediate terrorism as mistakes, or over-reactions by a hyper-vigilant population. Gartenstein-Ross doesn't think that the suspicions are over-reactions, though. Rather, it's people response to legitimately disturbing events, designed by would-be terrorists to test the boundaries.

He cites several specific examples of questionable behavior, where the most reasonable explanation is the dry run theory, and says that since the foiling of the London bomb plot in early August, "at least 20 public incidents involving airline security have been reported in the United States and Europe." All of the examples cited by Gartenstein-Ross involved young Muslim men. Let's at least acknowledge the possibility that these incidents were precursors to future Islamic terrorist acts. According to him, terrorists have a couple clear things to gain from such dry runs:

If the terrorists have reasonable stories and don't possess weapons or the means to blow up a flight, their dry run or casing will likely be remembered as nothing more than a false alarm. Actions of this kind are fairly low-risk ventures for terrorists from which they derive two distinct advantages. One is that they can test the limits of our tolerance, determining what behavior will raise red flags and what will not. The second advantage is that, as an increasing number of law enforcement sources suspect, terrorists or their sympathizers may be trying to catch the Federal Air Marshals' attention in order to determine who the marshals are.

Even when certain travellers set off alarm bells with other passengers and crew, most suspicious behavior is dismissed by investigators after it becomes clear that there was no immediate threat. Garenstein-Ross, however, makes a good case for the argument that the young Muslim men involved in these incidents, don't have to bring down the plane they're on to be accomplishing their objectives. One of their main objectives might be to get us to start ignoring our own warning bells:

Beside the information that terrorists can gain, suspicious behavior that catches the attention of crews and air marshals may produce alert fatigue. When a number of "false alarms" occur on airplanes, it runs the risk that both airline personnel and the public will become desensitized to future threats. In Preventing Surprise Attacks, Richard Posner refers to this as the "boy crying wolf" cost of announcing terror threats, and warns that false alerts "increase the likelihood that true alarms will be ignored."

I think Gartenstein-Ross' theory is probably pretty darned accurate. It's a small example, but do you remember when car alarms first became the big new thing? Every alarm brought everybody to a window, or out to the street, to see what was going on and whether someone's car really was in peril. Pretty soon, however, we all started realizing that some of those alarms had a hair trigger, and would go off if a bird flew overhead, or someone's skirt brushed the fender. Two things resulted from this. One was that all the alarms started getting reset not to be so sensitive, and the other was that we all began ignoring the alarms when they did go off. Now if we hear an alarm, unless it's coming from the spot we parked our own car, we barely even notice it.

These airline incident "dry runs", unless every one of them really is a false alarm, are happening for a reason, probably several. Gartenstein-Ross raises some good points that bring us around to the question, "Can we afford to reset our alarms, and ignore them when they do go off?" My answer is no. I remember being at an airport not too long ago and seeing some unattended bags. I called over the security guard, and both he and the lady who ultimately came to claim the luggage looked at me like I was a little loopy. I don't care; I'm not resetting my alarm. You can decide for yourself where yours is set, but if you want my vote, I say keep it turned up. It may irritate a few people, but not nearly as much as it would if we ignore one of those false alarms long enough to make it a true one.

(By the way, it's worth reading the article just to see the dry run examples he gives.)

Some 9/11 Encouragement

Kenneth Silber, at TCS Daily, has a common sense, and optimistic piece on why we (we being the good guys, the non-terrorists) are likely to win the War on Terror, or more precisely, why the terrorists are likely to lose. Today, of all days, it's a good thing to be reminded that, no matter how right it is to remember the lost on the 5th anniversary of 9/11, the story doesn't end there, nor does the future hold our imminent demise. Silber looks at the Cold War, and how many of communism's opponents feared they were losing the battle, even as they were fighting on the side of freedom. Obviously, they were wrong. Communism did not ultimately prevail. Silber, learning from this example, applies it to the trend he observes today, that of pessimism regarding the struggle against our terrorist foes. He sums up some reasons why the enemy is far from invincible, and points out some of their weaknesses, which, though often overlooked, make them unlikely to be victorious in their quest for world domination.

One of those weaknesses is one that a reader and I have discussed briefly in the comments of a previous post. I think it is a crucial part of winning this war over time:

Oil revenue is the terrorists' lifeline. The wealth that subsidizes Islamic terrorism and totalitarianism is overwhelmingly derived from the Persian Gulf region's petroleum exports; such exports are the mainstay of Iran's economy and of private "charities" that have funneled money to terrorist groups throughout the region. Efforts to diversify world energy supplies, driven by an array of economic, environmental and geopolitical factors, can be expected to erode the dominance of the region's oil over the next several decades. The development of alternative fuels and technologies, and of new petroleum sources such as the multibillion-barrel field recently discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, pose an enormous strategic threat to our enemies in the War on Terror.

This is such a critical observation. All of the environmental and political pressures caused by our use of fossil fuels as our main energy source are leading to dramatic developments, and ultimately will lead to the end of our dependence on oil. So much effort and money is going toward the search for viable alternatives, and this search is producing such promising results, that real changes are on the horizon, and the horizon grows ever closer. When those alternatives are readily available, and oil wanes as a necessary component to the national economies of secular democracies the world over, the Middle East will lose much of its revenue, as well as much of its influence on the democratic world and its policies. Take Iran as an example. What civilized nation, or group of nations, would let that demented and tyrannical government dictate terms, expand its influence, or develop nuclear weapons, if Iran has nothing the other nations need? If Iran didn't sit on one sixth of the world's known oil reserves, what power would that nation have now, and how much tolerance would there be for its funding of Hezbollah, from other governments that weren't equally demented? I think the answer to that question is pretty close to zilch. Mutiply that effect by the whole region, and the dynamics of Middle East policy change significantly.

Silber is absolutely right that the ongoing development of alternative sources of energy is one of the primary reasons that Islamic fascism will ultimately go the way of the Soviet Empire. There are other reasons, as well, so read his article for a bit of 9/11 encouragement.

The Birthplace Of Islamic Terrorism

At National Review Online--A former Soviet general discusses, from personal experience, how terrorism overtook the Middle East:

Today’s international terrorism was conceived at the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, in the aftermath of the1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East. I witnessed its birth in my other life, as a Communist general. Israel humiliated Egypt and Syria, whose bellicose governments were being run by Soviet razvedka (Russian for “foreign intelligence”) advisers, whereupon the Kremlin decided to arm Israel’s enemy neighbors, the Palestinians, and draw them into a terrorist war against Israel.

According to NRO, "Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc." Check out the rest. It's quite a read.

Hat tip: Smash

Nuclear Woes

Here's a sobering examination of the potential fallout from nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, starting when Iran gets the bomb it is so earnestly pursuing. What happens if multiple terrorist harboring states all have nukes? Stanley Kurtz, at National Review Online, discusses the possibilities brought out in an article by Stephen Peter Rosen:

A key to deterrence during the Cold War was our ability to know who had hit whom. With a small number of geographically separated nuclear states, and with the big opponents training satellites and specialized advance-guard radar emplacements on each other, it was relatively easy to know where a missile had come from. But what if a nuclear missile is launched at the United States from somewhere in a fully nuclearized Middle East, in the middle of a war in which, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran are already lobbing conventional missiles at one another? Would we know who had attacked us? Could we actually drop a retaliatory nuclear bomb on someone without being absolutely certain? And as Rosen asks, What if the nuclear blow was delivered against us by an airplane or a cruise missile? It might be almost impossible to trace the attack back to its source with certainty, especially in the midst of an ongoing conventional conflict.

We’re familiar with the horror scenario of a Muslim state passing a nuclear bomb to terrorists for use against an American city. But imagine the same scenario in a multi-polar Muslim nuclear world. With several Muslim countries in possession of the bomb, it would be extremely difficult to trace the state source of a nuclear terror strike. In fact, this very difficulty would encourage states (or ill-controlled elements within nuclear states — like Pakistan’s intelligence services or Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) to pass nukes to terrorists. The tougher it is to trace the source of a weapon, the easier it is to give the weapon away. In short, nuclear proliferation to multiple Muslim states greatly increases the chances of a nuclear terror strike.

He continues:

Deep mutual suspicion between an expansionist, apocalyptic, Shiite Iran, secular Turkey, and the Sunni Saudis and Egyptians (not to mention Israel) is likely to fuel a dangerous multi-pronged nuclear arms race. Larger arsenals mean more chance of a weapon being slipped to terrorists. The collapse of the world’s non-proliferation regime also raises the chances that nuclearization will spread to Asian powers like Taiwan and Japan.

Kurtz speculates at what the future holds, including imperative star wars missile defense systems, fallout shelters, and the demise of the dovish element in American politics (which Kurtz claims cannot survive Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.) We'd better not take our eyes off Iran. They're the ones earnestly seeking nuclear technology, which they claim is for energy purposes only, but who in their right mind actually is actually buying that bill of goods? As the inimitable Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit would say, read the whole thing.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Update: David Weigel, posting at Andrew Sullivan, is rebutting Kurtz's argument, but not very convincingly. It's more of a dismissal really, than a rebuttal, but here it is, for what it's worth.

Truly Repugnant

Wow, I'm in a bit of shock. In the last week, or so, I've sent you to two different sites that I've thought were worth your time (well, more than two, but I'm thinking of these specifically.) One was a non-partisan, positive examination of what the two main political parties stand for, an excellent example of how someone can be objective and fair politically. The other was a painful thought exercise in how to combat terrorists' use of children as targets and shields in their jihad, concluding that it is our love for children that makes them valuable tools to terrorists. It was a discussion of what the most moral approach to this conflict is, to let the terrorists win because we cannot harm the children around them, or to save many more children by eliminating their value as shields and thus, hopefully, leading the terrorists to abandon that strategy. The later wasn't pleasant, and I was uncomfortable with recommending it, but I did because I saw value in what the author was trying to do--find answers to the problem of how we protect ourselves from the people who have declared war on us, while counting the cost of that defense. The post I'm going to send you to today is another thought exercise, but is actually the antithesis of what I found valuable in both of the pieces I already mentioned. It is neither objective, nor fair, and while in a way it purports to suggest answers to some of our problems as a nation, it is willing to consider such offensive means, and is so unrealistic in its conclusions, that its premise seems completely callous, and any morality to this "thought exercise" becomes lost to me.

Let me explain. The author, Russell Shaw, at Huffington Post, claims to pray that America doesn't get hit with another terrorist attack. He says even one life lost to terrorism is too many, but then he goes on to calculate all the political good that would come from such an attack. He trots out all the things that the current administration is doing wrong in his estimation, and figures the mathematical chances that, if we get hit again, enough voters would switch their ballots away from Republicans, making sure the next president isn't from that party. After that, he goes on to list all lives that will be saved, and the things that will get fixed just because no Republican is in the White House. They are as follows: no death by back-alley abortion, hundreds of thousands of lives saved by virtue of universal health care, cleaner air standards so people don't die of heart and lung disease (I'm assuming this is also after they start making us eat healthier), more mass transit to lower deaths from car accidents, gun control that would prevent thousands of deaths caused by crime, stem cell research that would save millions (just by virtue of government dollars--remember, embryonic stem cell research is legal, just not federally funded), raising the minimum wage (essentially to stop deaths by violent crime), less warmongering which costs soldiers lives and causes terrorism.

There are so many things wrong with his reasoning, on so many levels, that I'm having trouble containing my thoughts. He's basically drawing the conclusion that another terrorist attack on American soil would solve all our problems, all of which exist, apparently, because Republicans are in political power. Never mind the fact that every "good" he posits is in itself a debatable issue, with many complicating factors, and moral conundrums. Never mind the fact that Democrats have had their opportunities to enact many of his "goods" and they failed to do so, or, when they did succeed is passing them, the action failed to do what was expected. (For example, raising the minimum wage has never stopped violent crime before. What makes him think it would succeed this time?) Never mind that he uses some cheap tricks like lumping "stem cell research" into one giant category, ignoring that adult stem cell research is funded with federal dollars, just not the kind that uses embryos. What blows me away is how he has this whole list of lives that would be saved, by virtue of eliminating Republican power, if we had another terrorist attack, and doesn't even deal at all with the question of terrorism itself, the fact that, until we defeat them, terrorists will keep attacking, or at least keep trying to. Some of these lives that he's planning on saving once the Reps are out of power may very well be lost to more terrorist attacks, after the one that Shaw's praying against, but can kinda, sorta see the good in.

We are at war with an enemy who wants us ALL dead, not just the Republicans. There is no room for hoping we lose a bit, just so another guy can get elected. That goes beyond petty, in my estimation. It is morally repugnant. We can debate our political differences all we want, and let the voters decide with whom they agree. We can talk about whether universal health care is feasible, and argue over abortion and embryonic stem cell research till we are blue in the face, but we should never, ever, even consider the terrorists being successful in their quest for murder as being a potential political boon. To do so is to show standards so low that he loses all credibility, no matter how worthy any of his other ideas might be. The ends do not justify these means. What he's saying is the equivalent of "If I can't get the voters to agree with me, and do what I think is best, then blow a few of 'em up. Maybe a terrorist attack will bring them around." Truly repugnant.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Everybody Needs A Mentor

We were discussing in the comments of an earlier post the role of technology in the Islamist world. One commenter wrote about terrorists' use of the Internet, how many terrorist websites have sprung up over the last decade or so, and another commented on what a shame it is that regimes such as Iran don't use technology to benefit their citizens, but rather fear its potential to give information to the masses, so they end up arresting bloggers and destroying satellite dishes. It's an odd combination, don't you think? One arm of Islamofascism fears the effects of technology, and the other is anxious to use it for their own twisted purposes. One can only hope that what Jesus said in Matthew 12:25, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand," applies to terrorists, fascist regimes, and the Internet.

Anyway, the comment about mushrooming terrorist websites made me take note of this Weekly Standard article, by Emily Hunt, who writes about the effectiveness of terrorists who forgo the usual camp training and go in for do-it-yourself bomb making and the like. What she has to say is on some levels encouraging. She makes the case that Internet-trained terrorists generally turn out not to be very good at it. Bomb-making is apparently a tricky business, frought with peril:

Even the savviest of terrorists have a low attack success rate, and Murphy's law--that everything that can go wrong, will--applies to terrorists and law enforcement alike. Inexperienced individuals are especially prone to error during the planning stage, and bomb construction remains one of the most daunting obstacles. Minor miscalculations in constructing an explosive device can result in significant setbacks, injury, or even death. Since September 11, hundreds of aspiring terrorists all over the world have been killed by the premature detonation of their own bombs.

Hunt says that it's not just the practicalities of bomb-making and the like that cyber-trained terrorists lack. She explains the benefits of learning from seasoned instructors:

But the psychological benefits of training and mentorship may be as important as the tactical ones. Learning from an expert can provide a novice with the necessary confidence to keep his cool and evade law enforcement. Time at a training camp also creates an opportunity for ideological indoctrination and interaction with a community of dedicated militants, which can galvanize the will of a young operative.

Okay, so the ones who go it on their own are going to be more likely to crack under scrutiny, and bail on the whole "martyrdom" thing when the chips are down. Good. That's what I like to hear. I vote for the do-it-yourself movement. Maybe more of these poor deluded souls will lose their nerve before they reach the actual exploding stage of their self-imposed missions, or at least be dumb enough about it that they get caught before the big bang.

If only that were the end of it. While Hunt's assertion that isolated individuals picking up the terrorist trade from online instructions lack the skills and will required to make their plotting truly effective is something of a comfort, her article doesn't stop with a big sigh of relief. On the contrary, she looks at where the proper training is to be had. It turns out, many terrorist roads lead to Pakistan. The recent arrests of the would-be plane bombers have led straight to Pakistan, and highlighted Pakistan's, and President Pervez Musharraf's, bi-polar approach to terrorism:

Pakistan has a history of supporting militant groups in the region that long pre-dates Musharraf--a policy originally conceived to help counter-balance India's regional power. However, in the post-September 11 environment, Pakistan now has an interest in reining in those same militants, both to avoid provoking the United States and to assure the stability of Musharraf's regime. Simultaneously, the Pakistanis wish to maintain the militants as leverage against neighboring countries.

Hunt points out that the U.S. is generally pleased with the Pakistani government's cooperation on terrorism. The latest airplane plot was foiled with their assistance. However, and here's where it gets weird, the Pakistani government fears the terrorist element because of that cooperation, and yet wants on some level to keep them around as a way to keep India in check. Once again we are faced with a house divided. Pakistan is going to have to make up its mind on this one, hopefully coming down on the side of denying the terrorists a place to lay their heads. Hunt suggests that the recent arrests in London, which, as I said, lead back to Pakistan, should urge the U.S. to apply pressure in that direction:

This thwarted attack suggests that the United States must exert more pressure on reluctant states to crack down on terrorist sanctuaries and sympathizers. At the same time, the Bush administration must do more to assist those states that have the will but not the capability to fight terrorism. From Pakistan to Lebanon to the Sahara desert, this week's close call demonstrates that denying terrorist's sanctuary has never been more important.

Clearly, Hunt is right. If terrorists truly are less capable of carrying out their wretched plans without the benefit of mentoring, and the camps which provide the environment for that mentoring, then President Bush's original premise that we must confront any nation that gives them haven is even more crucial. I also think she is right in calling for the administration to assist those nations that have the will but not the capability to fight terrorism. What's been happening in Lebanon springs quickly to mind. Not every nation that has terrorists wreaking havoc in their land are inherently agreeable to the situation, and we don't need to threaten to bomb them to kingdom come to elicit their cooperation. As we've already determined, learning, oddly enough, from the example of terrorists, everybody needs a mentor. Some of these countries we really just need to stand firmly beside, without wavering, and assure them of our determination to assist them in their struggle--and then back it up with the actual "standing beside them" part. (Much like the U.N. is not doing in Lebanon.) Herein, of course, lies the rub. Determination and not wavering in our aid of them, as we take our mutual stand, can only happen if we ourselves are not a house divided. Judging from U.S. politics of late, that's a pipe dream. We're not only a house divided; the parts of the house are on floating islands growing farther apart by the minute. What I'm hoping is that there are enough of us on the "determined" island to make us able to stand, that our combined wills can bring us to anchor, and that the place we come to anchor is the right one.

Of War And Children

I hesitated to direct you to this, because it deals with an extremely difficult and emotional topic, but I believe it is a subject which needs to be explored and discussed, thoroughly and calmly. About a week ago, Grim, at Blackfive, posted a disconcerting exercise in logic, basically concluding that it is our love for all children that makes terrorists target ours, and use their own as shields. Thus, he says, ultimately it is we who endanger them, by making them valuable to the enemy, a tool to be wielded, and we must change the way we fight war, refusing to let the presence of children hinder our necessary decisions.

Here is another link, to a blog that rebuts this argument, basically by means of an emotional accusation. The real reason I include it is the comments. There are a few more thoughtful voices, but most react with the same emotionalism as that in the initial accusation, with name calling, and accusations of racism and desire for genocide. I must admit, when I read Grim's post I didn't see any indication of racism, or enjoyment of the conclusion he had drawn. I saw a sorrow about what the enemy has forced him to conclude--that our own love of children was putting them in danger, and that we need to pursue the war we must fight "without thought of the children," so that they "lose their value as hostages, and as targets." He is not saying we should target children the way the enemy does, but he is saying that we have to stop letting their presence deter necessary action.

That is really hard stuff. So, I'm looking to find out if there is a response to this piece other than complete agreement with Grim, or total emotional vitriol. I'd love to have you read the Blackfive post, and then answer a few questions. What I want to know is this, is the emotional content of the general topic--children in war--too potent to rationally address Grim's initial post and counter his argument with a logical rebuttal? Is there a logical rebuttal possible? If so, what is the logical refutation of Grim's position?-- not the emotional one we all want to have that just doesn't want him to be right, and thus refuses to believe it, but the rational one, that can calmly say, "Here's where you are wrong, and this is why the hard way you see as inevitable is unnecessary."

I have to admit, I see the logic in Grim's argument, and I have not personally been able to refute it. At the same time, anyone giving way completely to an undisciplined application of Grim's conclusions risks becoming the thing he is fighting. It is our value for life, our children's and theirs, that makes us different from the enemy. I don't believe a turning from all value of life is the thing he is espousing. In fact, I think it's quite the opposite, that his goal is ultimately to save as many as possible through an approach that takes fear as a weapon out of the hands of people who would use the death of children to make us capitulate to their dark world. What do you think? Is he right?

Hat tip: IMAO (for both links)

Liquid Bomb Plot Foiled

The U.S. Homeland Security terror alert system has gone to the red level for the first time since the system was put in place, indicating that the risk of a terror attack is severe. Canada's National Post reports British counter-terrorism efforts have foiled a huge terrorist plot, once again aimed at using airplanes to spread death and destruction. As before, the targets were U.S. cities--New York, Washington, and some Californian Metropoli, although this time the origin was Heathrow airport in London. The plan was to smuggle chemicals on board disguised as common liquids--i.e. the shampoo that we all stow in our carry-on luggage so that it won't swell and dump all over our clothes when the baggage compartment decompresses with altitude. Once airborne, these chemicals were to be combined to explode the planes, no doubt at strategic points chosen to maximize the damage the planes would cause upon impact. The triggers would be hidden as common electronic equipment.

The plan, apparently, came very close to succeeding, and now there are a whole list of new restrictions aimed at preventing the possibility of any similar plot making it past the layers of security that stopped this one. No more carrying spillables into the cabin with you. No more bringing along extra water bottles so that you don't have to pay four dollars for something to drink on long layovers. Cell phones, laptops, and other portable electronic devices we all carry, rather than check, are also on the not-any-more list. It looks like the bans are going to be sticking around for a while, too. One more strike against flying over driving. Of course, these new standards are completely reasonable given the risk. Inconvenient as all get out, but completely reasonable. Makes me want to invest in that flying car I wrote about a while ago.

I have friends who are flying from Portland to New York tomorrow, with two layovers, and thirteen hours from start to finish travel time. Yuck. Now add to that the fact that they can't take water for the trip, or an iPod or laptop to pass the time, and their vacation is not going to start off particularly comfortably. One of my friends also has strep throat, which just basically sucks, especially without lots of water to stay hydrated. On the other hand, the trip can only get better from there, so maybe the travel part will just enhance the being there part by comparison. I hope so, for their sake.

I, like all of you I'm sure, am simply infuriated by this. STOP TRYING TO KILL US, YOU STUPID JERKS!! Even when they fail, the loonies manage to make our lives more hassle-ridden, which obviously suits them just fine. The stupid terrorists had already ruined air travel for just about everybody. Remember the days when loved ones could actually see you off at the gate, and meet you with balloons and smiles when you came home? Now it's "call on the cell phone when you get there and I'll pick you up outside." Oh, wait, we can't take cell phones on the plane anymore. Now we get to wait till we retrieve our bags and all dig around in our luggage in order to make that call. That, or stand in line for the pay phone. Yippee.

Okay, vent over. I do have to say one really positive thing in the midst of all this. It's absolutely astounding to me that British authorities managed to discover, and halt, this whole scheme. Homeland Security, and it's foreign equivalents around the globe have been absolutely amazing for the last five years. I know the plot was on the verge of being carried out, but it didn't happen, thanks to the efforts of the people who are always working to protect us. Color me completely impressed.

Hat tip: Instapundit for the link, the entire blogosphere for the topic. Once again, you can go to Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Pajamas Media for the latest links and info.

Update: Lara Jakes Jordan of The Associated Press is reporting that the terrorists were planning a dry run of their scheme within a couple of days, and the attack to follow hard on its heels--with as many as ten planes targeted. Scary.

Update II: Again from Instapundit--ABC News has more details of the plot, and info on those terrorists who thus far have evaded capture. As of yesterday, British authorities had captured 21 suspects, but they believe at least five are still at large, some of whom might be the leaders.

Update III: There's a useful comment (from the comments section shockingly enough) that links a Detroit Free Press article saying that laptops and cell phones will be allowed as part of your carry-on luggage. That will be a relief to all those business commuters looking to get something done in flight.

An Enemy Like We've Never Known

I know I'm posting a lot these days on the Islamist war with the West, especially in Lebanon, since that is the current hot spot in the ongoing ideological conflict that has engulfed our times. I don't mean to be single topic focused. Regulars to the Meow know that I love to explore the latest frontiers in science and technology, politics and current events of the less global, more mundane variety, and even sports and religion (of the not-desiring-to-take-over-the-world type) find their way into the Meow archives. Right now, though, the war is really on the front burner, and by that I mean the larger war, of which Lebanon and Israel are on the front lines in the greater conflict. So much valuable analysis is coming from so many sources these days, that I find myself simply swimming in things I want to pass on to you all. So, the war keeps emerging as topic number one.

I read another TCS Daily piece, by Gordon Cucullu, this afternoon that really defines the nature of the war we are in, and also how it differs from previous "world wars" we've known. Cucullu explains that we never faced the same kind of enemy before this, one whose motives are so different that their actions cannot be calculated in the same way as the enemies of the past:

"...we are in a global conflict, one that without exaggeration exceeds its predecessors in vitriol, intensity, and potential for destruction. While we ducked under our school desks waiting for the Soviets to attack with devastating nuclear weapons, political leaders on both sides accepted the doomsday strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) as a reasonable deterrent."

With the current global conflict, however, we cannot rely on any of the past restraints for our opponents. The goals and motivations are completely different. With the Soviets we could believe on some level that, though they wanted to spread their rule and ideology, they also weren't really interested in total devastation. I remember a Sting song from the Eighties with the lyric, "I hope the Russians love their children too." On some level, we all believed they did, as history ultimately bore out; they didn't send a nuke our way, because it would have been suicide. Islamists, though, clearly have no problem with suicide. In fact, they believe they will be rewarded for it. The West and the Islamists simply want different things:

"The U.S.-led camp looks to free market democracy and open societies as a solution to the world's issues. The other sees itself under the flag of a resurgent, conquering Islam, sweeping the globe in a new order that aims to impose a new Caliphate upon heretics. Not only is the MAD strategy not applicable, but in the instance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad such global destruction would be welcome, even desirable, as a door-opener for the 12th Imam to reawaken and lead the hosts of Islam against the infidel foe."

The rest of the article I will leave you to read for yourself, or not, as you see fit. It's not cheerful, by any means, but it is a good call to arms--something we can't seem to get enough of in the war we're fighting. I got an email recently, from a new friend, with a question I will paraphrase: if 3,000 Americans dead on our own soil isn't enough to keep us roused, what will it take? She said it much better than I summarized, but it's still a good question.

Iraqi Security

I don't have much time for reading right now. We have an excavator coming this week to start prepping the ground for our new play room (you know, the shop we're building.) I did catch this news tidbit this morning, though. It seems that there's a bit of momentum being gained in Iraq, coinciding with the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and a surprise visit to Baghdad by President Bush. The visit by the President was expected to last about five hours, and included a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to discuss future steps in achieving security for the country. Associated Press writer Kim Gamel writes today that Iraq's new prime minister is promising to show "no mercy" to terrorists:

Security officials said tens of thousands of Iraqi and multinational forces would deploy Wednesday throughout Baghdad, securing roads, launching raids against insurgent hideouts and calling in airstrikes if necessary.

It looks like the new Iraqi government is starting to get serious about securing the more dangerous areas in Baghdad, which is at the heart of ongoing terrorist activity. Gamel went on to say:

Iraqi security forces planned to deploy 75,000 Iraqi and multinational forces in Baghdad as part of al-Maliki's ambitious plan to crack down on security in the capital, a top Iraqi police official said.

Bush's visit came on the final day of a two-day work session aimed at keeping up the momentum generated by last week's swearing-in of key Iraqi national security officials, and the U.S. airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Mahdi al-Gharrawi, the commander of public order forces under the Interior Ministry, said al-Maliki's plan includes securing roads in and out of Baghdad, banning personal weapons and implementing a 9 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew.

Al-Gharrawi told The Associated Press that the plan to be launched at 6 a.m. Wednesday would be the biggest operation of its kind in Baghdad since the U.S. handed over sovereignty to Iraq in 2004.

Although the country is not there yet, Iraq continues to make strides toward a fully functioning society. With the new government in place, there are escalating efforts to establish safety for its citizens. The Iraqi government is also taking steps to clarify to citizens which of the forces operating in the city are actually government employees, rather than "sectarian death squads" believed to have infiltrated the legitimate police. Special uniforms and badges will distinguish the real deal from the impostors. It may seem like standard operating procedure to anyone growing up Averageville, Anystate, USA, but this country is just starting to operate in anything like an organized fashion. Checkpoints and raids of terrorist strongholds are also in the offing, something we don't generally see much of in Averageville. These are some important steps for the government to be taking, especially as they take more and more responsibility for their own security concerns.

Some of the intended raids will be carried out based on intelligence gathered from the "safe" house where Zarqawi met his end. Officials expect terrorist action in Iraq to increase substantially in the weeks to come, in revenge for the death of Zarqawi, and, in fact, it has increased already. The government, however, is taking action of its own, according to Gamel:

More than 200 raids have been carried out since al-Zarqawi's death June 7, some directly connected to what the U.S. military has described as a "treasure trove" of intelligence gleaned from his safehouse. U.S. troops killed seven insurgents in a raid Monday that also killed two children not far from the U.S. bombing raid that killed al-Zarqawi.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, also said a "high-value individual" with a $50,000 price on his head was detained. He did not name the suspect, but said he was picked up based on a tip.

That's good news. The more terrorists they capture, the more information they obtain, leading to the capture of more terrorists, which leads to more information. It's a bit like a perpetual motion machine, except that the intended goal is to stop all terrorist motion completely. Hopefully the momentum will continue to swing in the direction of increased security. It certainly looks like both the Iraqi and U.S. governments are making a concerted effort toward that end.

Zarqawi Is Dead

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the operational commander of terrorist forces in Iraq, and the man called Osama Bin Laden's "Prince", is dead at the hands of the US military. This is a good thing in so many ways, especially for the new Iraqi government and the state of mind of the Iraqi people, who have suffered a lot at his hand. I don't have time to digest and synthesize a lot of information right now, so I'll just send you to some of the pundits who are all over this development. National Review Online has President Bush's statement from the Rose Garden this morning. Michelle Malkin has a rather celebratory roundup of info and links, including some not-so-pretty pictures. The Mudville Gazette has a link to Centcom video. Instapundit, of course, can get you anywhere else you need to go, including links to various Iraqi bloggers, starting with Iraq the Model. Finally, There are traffic problems at Michael Yon's site, so I haven't read it yet, but I get an email alert when he's posted something new, so I know that he's got a piece on Zarqawi's death. He's always worth reading for perspective.

Update: Michael Totten has a roundup of reactions to the news. It's an interesting mix. (Warning--some of the language is rather colorful.)

Who Are The Good Guys?

What a tangle the Middle East is, with countries composed of tribal and ethnic rivalries in which many of the factions tolerate each other at best, and openly form battle lines, or resort to terrorist strategies when the best cannot be achieved; and the best frequently cannot be achieved. Here in the U.S. there are ethnic tensions as well, with some places seeing more discord than others, but generally, the concept of a complete breakdown of law and order is totally foreign. Most of us can't even imagine living in a place where one terrorist group controls one area of a country or city, another may hold a different section, and the official government, which may or may not be legitimate, has its lines drawn to stake out yet another. To most Americans, gang activity in some of our more dangerous city neighborhoods may be an approximation of the uncertainty and danger of living in some Middle Eastern regions, but it's on a much diminished scale. We know there is conflict here, spawned from longstanding grievances, but we do not base our entire world view on the notion of us and them, nor expect us and them to roam the streets armed with automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades.

I've been doing a smattering of reading on various ME countries for a long time. Writers like Michael Totten and Michael Yon have taken me into such strongholds of ethnic and religious strife as Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, and one of the things that always amazes me is how blurred the lines are between good guys and bad guys, or at least how much each side in these age-old conflicts thinks that they are in the right, and thinks that being in the right justifies any action they may take. Maybe it's because these conflicts are so very old, and the origins of the hatred are so buried in tradition, but the hatred itself seems to become a virtue to the poor souls indoctrinated with the poison of self-righteousness from the cradle.

What I read today was an essay by Peter Church, in The Weekly Standard, on the Kurdish people, and the way things stand for them in the countries where they currently live, especially Turkey, where approximately half of them reside. I learned from Church that the Kurds are a people mostly spread through one region, but divided among four countries. They live where Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria meet, and have faced rejection and persecution from all of the governments that have claimed dominion over them. In 1920 they were briefly offered autonomy, via the Treaty of Sevres, but in 1923 it was snatched away by the Treaty of Lausanne before that self-governance ever came to fruition. So, they are a people who are separated by borders--the borders of countries with which they feel little affinity. They have occasionally rebelled in search of independence, but have suffered the consequences. Here's an example:

Under both Attaturk and the Turkish nationalists (following the 1980 military coup), Kurds had their language and ethnicity denied in Turkey. Rather than "Kurds," they were called "Mountain Turks" and speaking Kurdish became a crime. In the 1970s there was a revival of the Kurdish nationalist movement under Abdullah Ocalan, who eventually formed the PKK. The group took up arms in earnest in 1984 and continued their fight until Ocalan's arrest in 1998.

They are a people with which one can truly sympathize. Any people denied the right to their identity has the claim to compassion. The rub comes when that claim manifests itself in ways that deny compassion to others, when it leaps the boundaries of rebellion and crosses into the darkly selfish terrain of terrorism, when it puts its own claim above all others' rights to the same compassion they long for themselves. The PKK, referred to in the quote above is the Kurdish Workers Party, and is acknowledged by the U.S. as a terrorist organization:

The Turkish response to the Kurdish rebels was harsh, crippling the southeast, where today unemployment tops 50 percent. But the PKK were no angels. They targeted teachers throughout the southeast (who they considered "agents of the state") and are known to have slaughtered entire Kurdish villages for not cooperating. Yet, despite its classification as a terrorist organization, the PKK continues to enjoy broad Kurdish support in Turkey. In Van a man told me that without the PKK, Kurds would be unable to speak their own language today--which conveniently ignores the fact that Turkey's pro-Kurd reforms were enacted only after violence ceased following Ocalan's arrest.

Church's article goes on to discuss the PKK and its "political face", the Democratic Society Party (DTP). They are not letting go of the concept of terrorism as a way of achieving their ends, which are laudable on their face, but tempered by their method. Singer interviewed the DTP's Van provincial party minister, Ibrahim Sunkur:

Publicly, the relationship between the DTP and PKK has been somewhat akin to that between Sinn Fein and the IRA: They are known to be linked, but while the DTP does not publicly endorse the PKK, it doesn't disavow it either.

So I asked, "Is the government correct to call the PKK a terrorist group?" Sunkur's response was evasive: "DTP works for all Turkish people," he said. "PKK works only for Kurds."

I asked what the DTP is trying to achieve for the broader Turkish people. Sunkur replied, "Kurdish language rights and the right to practice Kurdish culture, human rights for Kurds, and an economic plan that includes Kurds."

"Is that everything?" I asked.

"And amnesty for PKK," Sunkur added. "The Turkish government must stop attacking PKK and let them enter politics at the negotiating table."

The exchange was instructive. Rather than being a program "for all Turkish people," Sunkur's list of political goals was Kurd-specific. And including amnesty for the PKK in the party platform seems, on the face of it, unrealistic, if not outright antagonistic to the Turkish government. On the other hand, the DTP's reluctance to distance itself from the PKK likely does have broad support amongst its constituents.

"If PKK is fighting after Kurds are given rights to practice their culture, then we will say they are terrorists," said another man I spoke to in Van. "But for now PKK is trying to do something Kurds support."

So what I am reading here is that as long as the people support it, it's not terrorism, that as long as they are being denied their rights, they have the right to kill innocents. Where does that kind of standard come from? From everything I have read in Michael Totten's accounts of his travels, the Kurds are a lovely people, generous and kind, at least the ones in Iraq, and have suffered greatly under intolerant regimes. So what makes a lovely, generous, kind people, who know what it is like to be treated unfairly, willing to support people who target teachers for assassination and slaughter entire villages of their own people who don't cooperate? Perhaps the latter has a fair bit to do with it, fear, but I can't believe that's the sum of it.

This whole situation between the Kurds and the Turkish government puts the U.S. in a very awkward spot. Turkey is an ally, with a terrorist group working within their borders . Kurdish Northern Iraq is an ally, with sympathy for their fellow Kurds who have suffered under harsh oppression. They are on different sides of the argument, but both share what appears to me to be a common Middle Eastern state of mind: "If I do it, it is justified, and comes at the end of my long-suffering patience. If you do it, you are a villain, and in my retribution you are only getting what you deserve." All the major players seem to see themselves in the role of martyr or victim, and the conflicts go back so far that everyone can latch onto a list of grievances, while conveniently ignoring their own culpability. Why do the Turks continue to deny the Kurds the right to their own cultural expression? Do they only see themselves as victims of terrorism, and not as perpetrators of injustice? Why do the Kurds see terrorism as a justifiable means to end their subjugation? Do they not see how they become the thing they hate when they hurt others in the name of their own freedom? I don't know enough to answer these questions, but I do know that what the whole region needs is a lot more grace and mercy. Who are the good guys here?

The NSA Has Problems; Maybe Google Is The Solution

Here's another gander at the National Security Agency surveillance kerfuffle. Max Boot says, "Forget privacy, we need to spy more." He makes the case that, "When it comes to the war on terror, the biggest advantage we have comes from our electronic wizardry." There's this huge outcry about the alleged program to run myriad phone records through a computer (names deleted) to look for potential terrorist patterns, but it does seem silly for the government not to use this information when the average person could find so much more online.

With a few keystrokes, Google will display anything posted by or about you. A few more keystrokes can in all probability uncover the date of your birth, your address and telephone number and every place you have lived, along with satellite photos of the houses and how much you paid for them, any court actions you have been involved in and much, much more.

It is only a little more work to obtain your full credit history and Social Security number. Or details of your shopping, traveling and Web-browsing habits. Such information is routinely gathered and sold by myriad marketing outfits. So it's OK to violate your privacy to sell you something — but not to protect you from being blown up.

Maybe the NSA should just use Google to hunt for terrorist info. It could be Google's new ad campaign: "Need To Find Osama? We Know Where He's Shopping." At the very least they could find out which e-tailers are popular with the terrorist crowd, and where they find the best deals on incendiary devices. Why should the agencies charged with protecting us have less information than telemarketers?

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

Interesting Update: Looks like Bellsouth is demanding a retraction from USA Today, the paper that started the whole NSA phone database story. The company claims not only did they not give phone records to the NSA, but that they were never even asked. They're facing lawsuits accusing them of violating privacy rights, and now it looks like USA Today could face a lawsuit of their own if they don't either prove it, or retract it.

Moroccan Encouragement

If you are one of the people who don't believe there is any such thing as moderate Islam, have a look at this Weekly Standard piece about Morocco by Joseph Loconte. Like many Muslim countries, Morocco has seen its days of mass protests. However, they haven't been like the ones we've witnessed of late, with people dying over cartoons and rumors about Koran flushing. Three years ago Casablanca experienced an al Qaeda linked terrorist attack that killed 41 people, and injured a hundred more.

"We should recall that Morocco has also been a victim of terrorism," Ahmed Abaddi, Morocco's director of Islamic affairs, told journalists at a recent Washington-area dinner. "We were attacked by al Qaeda, and a million people went out to protest."

Those protests included Jews as well as Muslims, marching together. Moroccan imams have denounced Osama Bin Laden and Muslim extremists in their mosques. Clerics there are receiving training very unlike that coming out of those madrasahs which indoctrinate Muslim youth in religiously inspired hatred of the West.

Earlier this year, a class of 210 imams graduated from a year-long seminar on moderate Islam and the religious roots of Western democracy. They're all being sent back to their local mosques to carry the message. Says Abaddi: "To be mute when all of this is happening would be a sin."

Read the rest. It really is encouraging.