Zaleukos
Bum
- Joined
- November 4, 2006
- Messages
- 2,013
Certainly. Most of the ones I have access to right now are in books but I'll see if I can dig up some more internet-accessible ones. I'm starting a lot of research into these topics in the next few days (for work/papers) and I'll PM you anything interesting I stumble across or post if it here if there's a lot of interest in them.
Much appreciated At worst even book titles could do (as long as they are relatively easy reads) as I could get the local library to order a copy. Are you a civilian researcher or is this part of a military career?
Not successful at all. There have been other plots that have been foiled (some public, some not). No one's arguing that the military/intelligence method can stop everything but by its nature it has a better chance then law enforcement.
I think part of our disagreement might be that you consider intelligence military while I dont. Intelligence is the preemptive tool, the military is as reactive as law enforcement (though it reacts on other things).
Once that's been done and we're dealing with more 'local' groups the idea is to turn it back over to law enforcement. Money, weapons, training, and personnel flows too freely across the world for us to leave everything up to the NYPD right now.
But what global groups are there left to combat? Al Qaeda Maghreb or whatnot dont get their training or weapons from a central source. Even for the 9/11 hijackers the most important training wasnt done there, but at a flying school in the west.
Money is another matter, but I dont think we can say that the monitoring of international fiscal transactions is a military matter.
Law enforcement has been pretty good at capturing the lowest level of people. We might be able to break up a cell or here with it, but the problem is we want to take out the guys at the top. The brains of the operation (and we've been somewhat successful using the military/CIA/whatever).
My point is that often there is no distant brain and to some extent the search for one is a chimera (old Al Qaeda being a notable exception). The central figures are more inspirational figureheads than actual planners. There is AFAIK no sign that the attacks in London and Madrid were masterminded by anyone outside the cells. As for using Navy seals to pick up a prime suspect in a location the police cant reach I have no issue with that.
Regarding the level of the captives I'm curious if you can tell me if the Swedish Gitmo bay detainee is a typical case: He is a fanatic who went to quran school in Pakistan and then went to Afghanistan to fight the infidel. Caught in battle and sent to Guantanamo. Guilty as hell of being an enemy irregular combattant of course (he was released but he refuses to give any explanation to what he actually did in Pakistan and Afghanistan). How common is this kind of foot soldier prisoner, and how much of a terrorist threat do such people actually pose?
I think that kind of Taliban foot soldier might be of some importance for the war effort against the Taliban for peace in Afghanistan, but is fighting and capturing him counter-terrorism per se? I support the Afghanistan mission and welcome the increase in US forces there, but most of the fighting isnt against terrorists except in the indirect sense of denying them a potential base.
It'd be a propaganda victory for both sides. We'd all get to feel good about ourselves for following the rule of law and the opposition would feel great because they have a new martyr executed in the cause of righteousness.
As long as the death is announced he'll be a martyr to his faithful, but not all Arabs belong in that camp. Furthermore the arab street isnt the most important recruitment base for terrorists that actually can reach the west. The arab middle class and alienated muslims already living in the west are the ones that have the potential to get here and do damage.
No matter what we do we're damned in the court of public opinion over there. Al Jazeera would criticize us no matter what we do. Look at Sudan - the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president for war crimes/genocide/crimes against humanity. The Arab League is freaking out and standing behind the Sudanese President.
I'm sure PJ can elaborate more on this with his first hand knowledge of the Arabic version, but what you do really makes a difference to Al Jazeera, and how they spin things make a difference to the Arab middle class that the 9/11 hijackers came from. Al Jazeera is one of the news sources many of those people trust (and trust a great deal more than they trust their own governments' spin).
The case of the Sudanese president is a wholly different matter for a whole slew of reasons (as a murderous head of state he is a colleague in more than one way, while Osama is the head of an NGO that wants to overthrow the house of Saud) and what the arab governments say doesnt necessarily have much weight with public opinion anyway. These guys are hugely unpopular with their constituencies.
- Joined
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