Terrorism in the USA:threat & response

[JeffC]

Most FBI agents still don't have computers at their desk. Many don't have e-mail accounts.

http://idolator.typepad.com/intelfus...of-3-fbi-.html

[Schmedlap]

Most FBI agents still don't have computers at their desk. Many don't have e-mail accounts.

This is encouraging. I suspect that this means they don't fritter away their time creating PowerPoint presentations.

[bourbon]

Maybe an FBI special agent should sit down and have coffee with a CIA case officer.

Who knows, something positive and productive might happen for both sides.

Phil Mudd had 20 years at CIA and was the deputy director of CIA's Counterterrorism Center. My understanding is that was the whole point of putting him at FBI's National Security Service, to have someone who knows the difference between the West Bank and the West Side. I hope there is another angle to this story.

[Ponce]

The key word here is "homegrown"...... anything need fuel in order to grow just like a plant needs soil, sun and water.

A homegrown "terrorist" is nothing more than someone who has decided to do something against the dictators that are at this time running the government.

The American people like to make fun of the "bananas" latin countries for having a revolution all the time...... well, if 26% of the people are against the government and the government do nothing about the situation then there will be a revolution. Here in the US 72-79% of the people are against Bush and yet........ he is stil in power......who is more free?

"Is is the right of the people to declare war on its govenment if they are for the people, after all the people are the real government"... Ponce

[Ron Humphrey]

The key word here is "homegrown"...... anything need fuel in order to grow just like a plant needs soil, sun and water.

A homegrown "terrorist" is nothing more than someone who has decided to do something against the dictators that are at this time running the government.

The American people like to make fun of the "bananas" latin countries for having a revolution all the time...... well, if 26% of the people are against the government and the government do nothing about the situation then there will be a revolution. Here in the US 72-79% of the people are against Bush and yet........ he is stil in power......who is more free?

"Is is the right of the people to declare war on its government if they are for the people, after all the people are the real government"... Ponce

We are because:

1- We the People chose the process through which our President is elected

2- We the people have the ability to partake in the process to elect those who represent us

3- We the people have three branches of government which work in an effort to maintain a balance between the three

4- Those we as elect are as We the people (only human) and thus prone to err from time to time
a- In the case that this happens we refer back to number 2 to attempt
to correct any mistakes


It is easy enough to find something to fight against anywhere you look in this world, it's finding something to fight for which comes at a much greater price but with much greater reward

[JeffC]

The link to this document no longer works (not known why). There are numerous Google links that do work, try:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_b...n_the_West.pdf

I note the document caused considerable comment, mainly in the USA and little to date in the UK. Normally we would see a review from London.

Also found an Islamic critique, which I've yet to read in full:

http://conflictblotter.com/files/SalafiManhaj_NYPD.pdf

Back to the NYPD document, which I read at the weekend. It is a useful reference, especially as it is based on open source and interviews. Worth reading.

davidbfpo

Thanks, David. You've just taken care of my reading for the next few days!

[Ponce]

Ron? you should know by now that Bush stole the election..... and like he said "The Contitution is nothing but a piece of paper" that in itself voided him as MY president........ my president is by the people and for the people according to the US constitution.

[Ken White]

NYPD Intelligence Division: The Homegrown Threat.

Let's try to stay on topic. I'll also point out that this in not a political weblog; for anyone who wishes to make political commentary, there are plenty of weblogs out there that welcome such comments. Here, we avoid it and try to stick to the subject of threads.

Thanks, Guys.

[Ron Humphrey]

NYPD Intelligence Division: The Homegrown Threat.

Let's try to stay on topic. I'll also point out that this in not a political weblog; for anyone who wishes to make political commentary, there are plenty of weblogs out there that welcome such comments. Here, we avoid it and try to stick to the subject of threads.

Thanks, Guys.

I probably should have just left that one alone

Although in my own defense, since my crack team of defense lawyers are on vacation; I did try to make the answer as apolitical as possible

[bourbon]

Ponce,

I may just happen to share some of your sentiment, I've even mistakenly crossed the apolitical line here in some posts. We both may even agree that the term 'terrorist' is malleable and oft bastardized. That said, I think we can delineate between Guy Fawkes and say; a Mohamed Atta, Mohammad Sidique Khan, or Adam Gadhan. The NYPD article - which is excellent btw - illustrates the 'homegrown threat' as far more than "someone who has decided to do something against the dictators that are at this time running the government."


Thread Related:
The Fort Dix Conspiracy, By Amanda Ripley. Time, Dec. 06, 2007.

A TIME investigation of the Fort Dix case shows that it is indeed an important prototype. Six years after 9/11, the U.S. government has begun to settle on a strategy for finding and stopping potential homegrown terrorists before they strike. Fort Dix offers a case study of this new and sometimes precarious method. The model is called pre-emptive prosecution, and like other pre-emptive strikes of late, it is risky. It means relying on often unreliable informants to infiltrate insular communities, and it means making arrests before anything close to a terrorist attack actually happens. The process sometimes ends with a trial but not necessarily a conviction, and that may be beside the point. It is, in all, a messy and unsatisfying ordeal, and possibly the best available option.

Decent article on the NYPD's intel division:
The Terrorism Beat: How is the N.Y.P.D. defending the city?, by William Finnegan. The New Yorker, July 25, 2005.

[marden]

The key word here is "homegrown"...... anything need fuel in order to grow just like a plant needs soil, sun and water.

A homegrown "terrorist" is nothing more than someone who has decided to do something against the dictators that are at this time running the government.

The American people like to make fun of the "bananas" latin countries for having a revolution all the time...... well, if 26% of the people are against the government and the government do nothing about the situation then there will be a revolution. Here in the US 72-79% of the people are against Bush and yet........ he is stil in power......who is more free?

"Is is the right of the people to declare war on its govenment if they are for the people, after all the people are the real government"... Ponce

Can you cite the sources for your %'s?

[bourbon]

Can you cite the sources for your %'s?

Marden, Ponce had a brief tenure on the forum and is no longer a member. It would appear that he was basing his “72-79% of the people are against Bush” on job rating polling. Approval ratings for 2007 have been in the high 20’s to mid 30’s. He incorrectly assigned the remained to disapproval. Job approval polling offers three choices: approve, disapprove, and unsure. ‘Unsure’ has ranged between 5-10% for 2007, ‘disapprove’ has fell between 55-65% for most of the year.

pollingreport.com is an excellent website for this stuff btw.

[Jedburgh]

Robert S. Mueller, FBI Director, 7 Apr 08:

From 9/11 to 7/7: Global Terrorism Today and the Challenges of Tomorrow

.....We in the FBI are panning for gold. First, we have to determine in which streams we are likely to find gold. Which suspected networks? Which human sources? Which websites? Then, agents and analysts must take their pans and wade through the waters of intelligence, carefully searching for nuggets of gold amid streams of repetitive or irrelevant information.

The gold might be a phone number, or a name, or a receipt from a bank transaction. It will likely be hidden among thousands of other scraps of information. With deft, methodical sifting, we can separate the gold from the dross, as Dame Eliza would say. But as she also points out, gathering the intelligence is just the start. It then must be verified and connected to other intelligence. And even then we are only seeing part of the picture.

Our goal is to get as close as possible to having the complete picture. For the FBI, this means we often continue to collect information long after we have gathered enough evidence for prosecution. Once we have the threat under control, we use these cases as intelligence collection platforms. Our mission is not just to disrupt an isolated plot, but to thoroughly dismantle the entire network that supports it.....

[jcustis]

I have a very close friend who just graduated the academy, career pathed to CT. I'll have to remember to refer his butt to this thread.

[jkm_101_fso]

All of them may get life in prison. Glad to see some closure to this.

5 Men Are Convicted in Plot on Fort Dix

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
NY Times
Published: December 22, 2008

A federal jury on Monday convicted five men of conspiracy to kill American soldiers at the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey last year, but acquitted them of attempted murder, according to the Associated Press.

The jury deliberated for six days before returning its verdict against three brothers -- Shain, Eljvir and Dritan Duka -- and two other defendants, Mohamad Shnewer and Serdar Tatar.

The men, all Muslim immigrants who lived in Philadelphia’s southern New Jersey suburbs, face a maximum of life in prison.

Federal prosecutors said that the five men were planning to attack Fort Dix and the military personnel within it, and had taken concrete steps to train and arm themselves. During the men’s trial, prosecutors argued that evidence, including hundreds of secretly taped conversations between the defendants and F.B.I. informants, jihadist propaganda videos recovered from one suspect’s computer, and videotapes of an illegal purchase of several machine guns, showed they intended to carry out an armed assault on the base.

Defense lawyers argued that the men were never serious about attacking Fort Dix, and that the government informants repeatedly coaxed the men into making incendiary comments on government wiretaps.

[jmm99]

(no surprise there) if the judge gives them life; however, basic conspiracy to commit murder is Base Offense Level: 33 (under US Sentencing guidelines, whcih are here).

However, I expect the base level of 33 (2nd degree murder is base level 38, here) could be enhanced. Life is a base level 43, as in 1st degree murder, which you see here.

[sgmgrumpy]

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Police spent the day searching the house of a decorated, two-tour Iraq war veteran on Tuesday, one day after he was arrested and charged with making explosive devices and attempting to sell them.

For as little as $100, Jordal was making the same kinds of weapons he saw used against his fellow soldiers in Iraqi and selling them on the streets of Okalahoma City to gang members and known criminals, according to the document.

STORYhttp://www.military.com/news/article...-to-gangs.html

[Bob's World]

It certainly bears watching but if this slate of buffoons in UK is any indication, we're dealing with the terrorism "D" team at this point.

What leaves me eternally perplexed is exactly what those guys are thinking. I'd love to talk to them and say, "Please connect the dots between murdering people on the streets and the conversion of the English to Islam and the adoption of sharia law." Do they really think millions of English are going to say, "Yowzee--a religion whose adherents murder women and children. Sign me up for that!"?

Excelent point; however I think it is more instructive to view the use of islamic based ideologies to motivate Muslim populaces today in a similar light as communist ideologies used to motivate populaces in SEA in the sixties that were striving to throw off colonial governments. Or perhaps more accurately, the protestant christian ideologies that were used to throw off the Catholic governance of the Holy Roman Empire over Europe a few years back.

While religion is at the root of the ideology in two of the cases, in all of the cases the role of ideology is to motivate the populace to support the insurgency, while at the same time taking a position that the counterinsurgent is either unable or unwilling to co-opt or concede.

We get too focused on the message, and lose sight of the purpose and effect. It does not matter if it is an accurate portrayal if Islam, what matters is that it is effective in getting people to join the cause. What we must do is break down the message, and where we can, agree or co-opt the platform as our own. We must then, not attack the message, but instead compete a more effective message in that same marketplace of ideas.

You don't buy Toyotas over Chevys because Toyota runs a major ad campaign attacking Chevy. You buy Toyotas because they build a better product and sell the benefits of buying that product.

So, are we building a better product and if so, are we selling it?

I believe the populace-based ideology crafted by our founding fathers is a piece of timeless genius. I recommend we step back from some current concepts of what America is and go back to our roots, and start selling that.

[120mm]

In the book, "What Muslims Really Want" by the Gallup organization, they show that the great majority of adherants to Islam really, really like the fundamental precepts of America's political system.

So, I think Bob's World has an incredibly salient point, right there.

[Bob's World]

For those interested, I went into greater depth on this in an article posted back in April.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/2008...cal-battle.php