StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

It should come as no real surprise that appointments to “plum” positions are controlled by the political party in power, and that politics do indeed, influence selection. So a new report by the DoJ Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility concludes that political persuasion entered into the hiring practices for the DoJ Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program.

While DoJ’s position is that the statistics reflect a coincidence, reflect on this:

…the approval rate for applicants who belonged to the liberal American Constitution Society was 0%. The approval rate for applicants who belonged to the conservative Federalist Society: 93%.

- AND -

“Many qualified candidates were deselected by the screening committee because of their perceived political or ideological affiliations” in 2006, says the report…

As I said…not surprising…but still, one would hope…Nah! Politics pervades every decision, and probably has for many years. Its the guile that has diminished.

Dept. of Justice Honors Program, summer law intern program

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As I have before, I find myself in a sort of political “nowhere land” largely because despite what I believe in my heart, I also have a deep-seated distain for the type of personal attack politics that now pervades our society. On many issues, including the War in Iraq, I am strongly Republican (even though I feel that policy, strategy and tactical mistakes have been made). Yet when I voice my pro-choice belief, I am immediately challenged and branded a “librul.” It is clear that one is not afforded the opportunity (or privilege) of walking that thin-line in the American Middle.

There is nothing in either Democratic Party candidate that could prompt me to vote for them. Frankly, I am glad that John McCain, regardless of his flaws (aren’t we all flawed afterall?), is the candidate for the Republican Party (I am equally thrilled that a social, or “values” conservative is not the party’s nominee).

At the same time, it is impossible to maintain my views in World and National Affairs, focused on security both home and abroad, and not be appalled by this video compilation in which the Democratic Party leaders ask for what amounts to be a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq.

The road to democracy, our continuing quest to perfect an already perfect Union, remains a challenge each day. If not motivated solely by partisan politics, but in fact, driven by strongly held beliefs, these Democratics leaders are entitled to their opinions.

The reality is as former Secretary of State Powell noted…”we broke it, we need to fix it” (or something close to that). Leaving Iraq and abandoning the Middle East…in fact, abandoning the “fix the Middle East” strategy of the Bush Administration can only lead to the emboldening of those people who our State Department and Department of Homeland Security refuse to call what they are, Isalamic Fundamentalist Jihadists, exactly the opportunity they plan…a World power without the resolve to see through to the end an effort, regardless how flawed, poorly planned and implemented, or even falsely justified…and with that, the Long War of the Global War on Terrorism will be both longer, and more difficult to win.

Prevail we must…for the sake of our democracy, we must. And we will. Despite the character assassination, the inuendo, the gossip, the lies and falsehoods, the “swift boating” and all of the rest of the dirty, Internet inspired politics…we will emerge the day after this coming election day with a President who will have won the most Electoral votes, and as envisioned by our Founding Fathers, power will transfer, and the Nation shall prevail. In what state the World will be on that day, is a completely different question.

democracy, librul, McCain

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Last week, under the title Pre-emptive Assassinations, I posed once again the merits of targeted assassinations of certain individuals. At the time, I was writing about people like Ahmadinejad and Chavez, but it could also hold for our jihadist “friends.” I have long favored sending a “black” team into the mountains of Pakistan to hunt down and kill bin Laden (and wondered why we haven’t sent them). There are many reasons why this hasn’t occurred. The least likely is Presidential Executive Order 12333 prohibiting the killing of World leaders. Afterall, bin Laden isn’t the head of any nation. It also cannot be that we don’t have the reason or the will to do it. My own conclusion is that we actually don’t know where he is, despite all of our Intelligence. It is possible.

Just the other day, my blog buddy at Right Truth posted, Target — Osama? In one of the comments to that post, another new “blog friend” posed a few suggestions that, frankly, I do not understand (not that I don’t see what he’s getting at, but more, that I’m not aware of the technology to which the individual refers). This is what he wrote (referring to the Waziristan Accords between Pakistan and the Taliban/tribes):

However, once the accord was established, it meant that we could walk into that region and take out OBL, but it never happened. We passed up a unique window of opportunity.

Given today’s GPS technologies and the ability to place a “beeper” inside a living body cavity, I am certain that they know the exact whereabouts of bin Laden. Maybe they’re just too concerned they might botch things up as usual. Why they never released an al-Qaida prisoner from GTMO, but infused a sensor inside his body is beyond me.

That might have allowed for easy detection, as the ex-prisoner would lead us directly to bin Laden, thus us being able to capture him alive, perhaps.

Now, without disclosure, and for alot of reasons, these suggestions “do not compute” for me (see “Lost in Space“). So I posed a couple of questions to the original commenter. Unfortunately, Right Truth is a busy place, and the individual did not see my queries. So, in case he “happens by” here at some point, I now reproduce those questions (because I really do want to know and be informed):

I am hoping that he will return at some point and provide some insight into the idea of our “ability to place a beeper inside a living body” (that would have to be done covertly)…or how we can “infuse a sensor” into bin Laden’s body. I only ask because I’m interested in such things

I’m not as certain as he is that we know the exact location of Osama. As for “infusing a sensor,” I’d be fascinated to know what technology we’re discussing here.

So, hopefully, with this blogs slower traffic, perhaps I will be illuminated.

bin Laden, targeted assassinations

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A day later (than others), and short (because of time). It appears that the talks between Israel and Syria being brokered by Turkey at the behest of the Bush Administration could well require a shift in U.S. policy toward Syria. This may be delayed until after GWB leaves office in January 2009 (who will be left holding that bag?). There should be no mistake that this is an Earth moving development, and one that clearly illustrates what I have written before (and which is ignored by many others), that Foreign Policy and National Security decisions are not discretely isolated to one Administration. It must be remembered that there is a fluidity of events that occur across the transition of power in this country. And a successor government will, often by necessity, inherit “issues.”

The U.S. government had asked Turkey to increase efforts to advance negotiations between Israel and Syria, according to a report published by the London Arabic daily Al-Hayat on Saturday.

According to the report, the U.S. request comes in light of the recent political crisis in Lebanon, and U.S. assessments that peace between Israel and Syria will help distance the country from Hezbollah.

This, of course, also comes at a time when Hezbollah has taken control over the Lebanese parliament.

In what is seen as a major victory for Syria and Iran, Hezbollah and its allies are being guaranteed a two-thirds majority in Lebanon’s parliament, just as Israel and Syria are announcing talks concerning the fate of the Golan Heights.

Not surprisingly, anti-Olmert Israeli factions are alluding to the Syrian talks as a “wag the dog” to divert attention from the potential fundraising scandal. But it is hard to believe that the Golan will remain in Israeli hands if these talks progress. On the other hand, there is historic reason to believe that if the “talks” breakdown for any reason that armed conflict could flare up. There is certainly enough room for a breakdown in the talks to occur.

Ankara would like both sides to commit to a signed declaration as a starting point for talks. According to the report, Turkey decided to postpone the proposed sit-down after the Syrians revealed Jerusalem’s stated willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for peace.

No one is going to be happy with this. Two-thirds of the Israeli people are against yielding the Golan Heights. This is not the first time that talks between Israel and Syria have occured. It could well be the last. Further, the “no negotiation” and “anti-appeasement” crowds are going to be rip roaring pissed off-f-f-f about this.

Of course, I don’t have any real inside information, and I’m only projecting a guess or two.

Olmert, peace talks, Syria, Turkey

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Aside from having been wrong (for a number of reasons revealed below), I was unwilling to believe that the U.S. would cave to the likes of CAIR and Muslim Public Affairs Committee and ban the use of “Islamic Fundamentalist Jihad” (and other variants) from the GWOT Thesauraus. In reality, however, the DHS, the State Dept. and others have mandated the elimination of words describing the callous and cowardly barbarous al Qaeda mujahadeen who appropriated Islam for their inhumanity, to quell the concern of moderate Muslims that using such language confused the true meaning of those terms as used in secular Islam.

Thanks to Steve Emerson’s IPT, the government documents detailing this change are offered here and here. Maybe even more to the point, the Muslim proponents of this change, also reject the use of the word “moderate” to describe themselves, and instead wish to be referred to as “mainstream” or “traditional.”

Various Muslim groups including the MPAC praised these changes.  But MPAC accepts, not isolates terrorists.  In fact, MPAC differentiates between such groups as Hezbollah and Hamas, and the more dastardly al Qaeda by saying that “Hezbollah and Hamas are distinct in methods, motivations and goals from Al Qaeda.” Hamas and Hezbollah work to the elimination of Israel. And their use of suicide attacks and other indiscriminant killing tools of terrorism are not unlike those used by al Qaeda.

Arab states question Washington’s list of designated pro-Palestinian groups and humanitarian organizations. It is clear that the current terrorist threat to the US emanates from Al-Qaeda and not Palestinian groups. There is no evidence that Palestinian groups designated as terrorist organizations have any connections to Al-Qaeda. Yet the preoccupation with these groups raises the question as to whether targeting Palestinian groups serves true national security interests or is based on political considerations.

Certainly expressed better than I by IPT, the issue is clear…in an effort to satisfy the still fearful and quiet “mainstream” or moderate Muslim community in the U.S., where Islam remains a minority, the U.S. agrees to blur the distinction between the politically correct, and the literally obvious. In quoting M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, IPT raises the spectre that the suggested changes could diminish American understanding of the ideological motivations behind those who threaten our security…and also ignores that in Muslim majority nations the radicals call themselves Muslims, Islamists, and Jihadists in Arabic and every other language with little time spent admonishing society not to call them what they call themselves.

Of course, it is interesting that in Europe, we have such articles as Today’s Islamist radicalization in Spain. Just the subhead says it all: “The protecting the safety of Spanish citizens should override the fear of sacrificing human rights, writes Carlos Echeverría Jesús for Strategic Studies Group.”

The Spanish jail population with ties to Salafist jihadism continues to grow. Because of this, it is even more urgent to prevent radicalization among the relatives and friends of terrorists. With their friends and family imprisoned, it is likely they will feel victimized and attempt to carry on the terrorist work. It is necessary to assume that the Muslim population as a whole, especially its youth, will feel besieged or marginalized as a community by Christians. It is imperative that the public powers try to change this.

The establishment of the Salafist jihadist ideology or any other variety of radical Islamism must be prevented. The way to do so is to filter the access to these messages by both young and old.

It is also interesting that in this article from Bloomberg, Al-Qaeda’s Recruitment Efforts Intensify in Europe, the word “Islamist” is used to refer to the U.S. and coalition efforts in Afghanistan.

A further, direct quote from IPT’s dialog with Jasser:

Certainly pious loyal American Muslims will be frustrated with the inappropriate use of the name of Islam and ‘jihad’ in the militant causes by these radicals around the world. But that frustration should be directed toward frontal Muslim anti-Islamist and anti-militant causes and movements. Denying that considerable movements of radical Muslims exist around the world which exploit our religion and truly believe that their barbarism is ‘jihad’ will only empower them more and delay the inevitable conflict within our faith community over “whose Islam, which Islam”. For the USG to paternally dismiss the self-described nomenclature of ‘jihadists’ and “Islamists” is to in fact embark into a realm which really is an internal struggle within the consciousness of the Muslim community. We should call the terrorists what they call themselves. Once any Muslim, let alone non-Muslims, begins to determine who is and who is not qualified to define ‘jihad’, ‘Muslim’, or ‘Islam’ they are creating a clergy and a ‘church’ with a communication and excommunication process. That is exactly what the likes of Bin Laden and other radical Islamists want.

To parrot the phrase, yes, “words matter.” But in its fear to offend the “mainstream American Muslim” by using such words as “mujahadeen,” “jihadist,” “Islamic fundamentalist,” or simply, “Islamist,” the government removed a tool, words to describe, the very blight that bin Laden and al Qaeda has perpetrated on World society.

On Why I Denied
1- my unwillingness to believe such political correctness could win out
2- the rush to scoop inherent in the Internet and the quoting of an undisclosed “reliable source.”
3- the spreading like wildfire of Internet scoops that take on their own lives, even if/when proven false.
4- no excuse, but I’m very busy (busier than I could have ever imagined) and my tolerance for unsupported claims is thin.

I am not the USG, nor do I work for it. Thus, those who follow bin Laden and his offshoots are forever Islamic Fundamentalist Jihadis. How about towel-headed animals.

al Qaeda, CAIR, Islamist, jihadist, mujahadeen, Muslim Public Affairs Committee, words matter

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