Terrorism in the USA:threat & response

[Bill Moore]

Mike, appreciate the link on the Wall St attack (I wasn't aware of that one).

As you know not all lone wolf attacks are terrorist attacks and it is important to point out the difference. If the attack doesn't have a political agenda then it isn't terrorism, even if it terrorifies those exposed to it. While the numerous school shootings in our country and workers going postal are equally tragic regardless of motivation they are not generally terrorism. I think the attack on the Bath School was a guy that was pushed over the edge and went postal on his family and the school (local gov).

Timmy McVeigh wasn't a lone wolf, but supposedly he was part of a very small cell and his attack on Okalahoma City was clearly terrorism (politically motivated). Some lone wolf terrorists in the U.S. were the unibomber and MAJ Hason at Ft Hood. I agree that lone wolfs are probably harder to detect, and therefore their attacks may be more likely to succeed, but not necessarily be overly effective.

[jmm99]

contained in just two paragraphs:

from Bill

As you know not all lone wolf attacks are terrorist attacks and it is important to point out the difference. If the attack doesn't have a political agenda then it isn't terrorism, even if it terrorifies those exposed to it. While the numerous school shootings in our country and workers going postal are equally tragic regardless of motivation they are not generally terrorism. I think the attack on the Bath School was a guy that was pushed over the edge and went postal on his family and the school (local gov).

Timmy McVeigh wasn't a lone wolf, but supposedly he was part of a very small cell and his attack on Okalahoma City was clearly terrorism (politically motivated). Some lone wolf terrorists in the U.S. were the unibomber and MAJ Hason at Ft Hood. I agree that lone wolfs are probably harder to detect, and therefore their attacks may be more likely to succeed, but not necessarily be overly effective.

A valid answer to all of these (but certainly not one providing bright lines) is "it depends" - and that answer then expands multi-fold when you get into the remedies. I've been staring at this post for a half hour thinking about ways to address strategic, tactical and legal differences. Nothing bubbled up.

Obviously, all of this has everything to do with how and why we kill - and the lines we draw to justify or condemn killing. The morals, ethics, legalities, strategy and tactics are much easier to analyze where we have a defined person declared hostile - e.g., as in a targeted killing situation or in a conventional war.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

my comments in this post, Adding some balance ..., which presents a raw start to a methodology which addresses some of the issues presented in your two paragraphs.

That approach gives very little truck to the primacy of formal legal definitions, etc. - for example, whether a "terrorist" or "non-terrorist". It would look to the degree of violence and the motive for the violence since choice of strategy and tactics would hinge on those and other factors.

Regards

Mike

[AdamG]

Federal officials on Thursday announced the arrest of a Saudi citizen who was attending a community college in Texas while allegedly plotting to conduct a bombing campaign within the United States.

No. 1 priority for US security: domestic terrorism, threat report says
Terrorist plots uncovered in the US since 9/11
Homegrown terrorism a growing concern for US intelligence
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, of Lubbock, Texas, was arrested by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation after an intense 'round-the-clock investigation uncovered ongoing efforts to obtain and mix explosive chemicals and to identify potential targets, officials say.

Agents found an e-mail file entitled “Tyrant’s House” containing the Dallas address of former President George W. Bush. Other files included information about hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, and the names and addresses of three individuals previously stationed with the US military at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/02...nuclear-plants

[AdamG]

White House defends Muslims ahead of hearing on 'homegrown terrorism'
By BARBARA FERGUSON | ARAB NEWS
Published: Mar 7, 2011 22:03 Updated: Mar 7, 2011 22:04

WASHINGTON: Rep. Peter King, R-New York, defended this Thursday's scheduled hearings on homegrown radical Islam against protests that his Homeland Security Committee is unfairly targeting a single religious group.

"The main goal is to show the extent of radicalization within the Muslim-American community, how dangerous that is, how serious that is," he said Monday on Fox News's Fox and Friends. "I will have witnesses there to show it's a real threat. It's a growing threat, and it's not just me saying this."

*

In Washington, the White House extended its hand to Muslims by sending Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough. He told an audience on Sunday at a Virginia mosque — known for its cooperation with the FBI — that the White House is committed to a positive and productive relationship with Muslims, and that "we will not stigmatize or demonize entire communities because of the actions of a few."

"We must resolve that, in our determination to protect our nation, we will not stigmatize or demonize entire communities because of the actions of a few. In the US, we don't practice guilt by association," McDonough told the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, or ADAMS mosque.

http://arabnews.com/world/article306235.ece

STERLING, Va. — As a Republican congressman prepares to open hearings on the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser visited a mosque here on Sunday to reassure Muslims that “we will not stigmatize or demonize entire communities because of the actions of a few.”

The White House billed the speech by the adviser, Denis McDonough, as a chance for the administration to lay out its strategy for preventing violent extremism. But the timing was no accident; Mr. McDonough was in effect an emissary from the White House to pre-empt Representative Peter King of New York, the Homeland Security Committee chairman, who has promised a series of hearings beginning Thursday on the radicalization of American Muslims.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/us...im.html?src=me

[davidbfpo]

Post 48 referred to a mystery device in Spokane and thanks to CLS mailing:

A man with past ties to a white supremacist group was arrested early Wednesday by federal agents in connection with the bomb found on January 17 along a MLK parade route in Spokane, Washington. The suspect was identified in multiple reports as Kevin William Harpham, 36, of Colville, Wash. He was charged Wednesday with one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of knowingly possessing an improvised explosive device. The AP reports that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the United States, says Harpham, who has served in the U.S Army, has been a member of the National Alliance, a white supremacist group.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10bomb.html?_r=1

Not much detail and yes the SPLC is not admired by all.

[davidbfpo]

Thanks to a CLS pointer to a Wired story:

In a forthcoming report, Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert and senior advisor at the Rand Corporation, updates a previous study on the subject and counts the number of Muslims in America who’ve participated in jihadist-related crimes from 9/11 through 2010. He shared the results with Danger Room ahead of publication.

181 Muslims have either been indicted, arrested or self-identified (such as through suicide bombings in Somalia) as participating in jihadist-related crimes since 9/11, according to Jenkins’ study. Estimates on the number of Muslims in America population are numerous and inconsistent; the Pew forum fixes the number at 2.6 million, Jenkins uses a figure of 3 million. In either case, the figure lies between 0.007 to 0.006 percent of American Muslims — an extreme minority in the fullest sense of the words.

“This is half-hearted jihad,” says Jenkins. Even if hundreds or thousands of American-based Muslims support or tolerate the radicals on the sly, it’s still a tiny, tiny percentage of the whole.

Link:http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...lims-you-suck/

[davidbfpo]

The issue of community assistance in CT re-appeared in the USA, during the furore over the Rep. King hearings and this struck me as good quotation:

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, says he wants the upcoming hearings in Washington to focus on “Muslim radicalization”, but Baca says the burden of proof rests on the congressman, not the Muslim community at large.(My emphasis)If he has evidence of non-cooperation, he should bring it forward ... We have as much cooperation as we are capable of acquiring through public trust relationships. King has said that retired law enforcement officials are more likely to voice their concerns — albeit privately — about the reluctance of many Muslim community leaders to cooperate with law enforcement, but also notes that active duty officers are much more hesitant to go on record about the issue.

Link:http://topics.npr.org/quote/01X9fKvbPic25?q=CBS

[davidbfpo]

For those who are following this plot, some details on the device / IED and after a long day not perused:http://www.spokesman.com/stories/201...-bombs-makeup/

[Bob's World]

For the U.S. the real key will be coming to grips with the difference between those who threaten us and those who are a threat to us.

AQ, for example, threatens us. As does a handful minor knuckleheads such as Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jong il.

None of these, however, are truly a threat to us. Not in a significant way.

Yet we go chasing after these minor annoyances in a very reactive and predictable way. People will say crazy things. Small attacks, and likely even some fairly large attacks will happen. These are symptoms of discontent and there will always be discontent. By chasing symptoms of discontent and making that our focus we end up engaging in overblown antics that make the underlying reasons for discontent worse in many ways

Better to learn to ignore minor irritants, ignore the minor threats; and focus more on the big picture and how we best achieve big picture goals in a manner that deters those things that truly threaten US in significant ways while consciously seeking to not inflame discontent unnecessarily.

Its really a simple matter of discipline and perspective. Americans as a culture tend to be undisciplined and fairly short and narrowly focused in terms of perspective.

Oh, and for my money, Islamist ideology driven terrorism has little to nothing to do with evangelizing Islam any more that the wars of reformation were about spreading Protestantism. Both are tools to mobilize bold and broad action among the people to challenge powerful political constructs. Sure, some of the individual actors I am sure truly believe they are doing God's work, but at the end of the day they are victims also, manipulated to conduct a violent political act that is actually in violation of the very religion they are so committed to. The men they have placed their greatest faith in betray them for their own selfish desires for personal power and also to take down the current political structure they find so offensive.

[davidbfpo]

A long article on an American Muslim who now prefers the label orthodox; it is a good illustration of the difficulties such individuals and wider society face when talk turns to the 'J word'. Not surprisingly it reflects the dilemma for the state in can we talk to such people, who are often now labelled non-violent extremists?

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/ma...&_r=1&emc=eta1

A short UK comment on this dilemma in the UK:http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourking...utm_campaign=0

[AdamG]

More importantly, based on the Defendant’s recorded statements and admissions made to law enforcement agents, the Defendant was a former member, or at the very least, associated with [Al-Ittihad al-Islami] AIAI, an SDGT, and that he believed that there was no separation of personnel between AIAI, the Council of Islamic Courts, and Al-Shabbab, a designated [Foreign Terrorist Organization] FTO.

He admits that he knowingly believed he was smuggling violent jihadists into the United States with the full knowledge that if the decision was made by the SDGT, for which he was associated with in the past, to commit terrorist acts in the United States, these jihadists would commit violent acts in and against the United States. Because the law enforcement authorities are constantly trying to investigate, detect, and prevent the infiltration of potentially violent jihadists, the Defendant’s lies hid critical information from the United States authorities regarding his successful smuggling activities. Thus, the preponderance of the evidence proves that the other obvious motivation for him to lie on his asylum application was to cover up and obstruct the fact from United States authorities that he facilitated the smuggling of violent jihadists who are now present into the United States. (pp. 10-11)

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/doj-mem...inglepage=true

And for sheer comedic face-palming,

In what appears to be a major security breach, components for a live bomb were allowed to remain in the federal building in Detroit for three weeks before the bomb squad was called in to remove it.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/activ...ry?id=13202135

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When an admitted al-Qaida operative planned his itinerary for a Christmas 2009 airline bombing, he considered launching the strike in the skies above Houston or Chicago, The Associated Press has learned. But tickets were too expensive, so he refocused the mission on a cheaper destination: Detroit.

The decision is among new details emerging about one of the most sensational terrorism plots to unfold since President Barack Obama took office. It shows that al-Qaida's Yemen branch does not share Osama bin Laden's desire to attack symbolic targets, preferring instead to strike at targets of opportunity. Like the plot that nearly blew up U.S.-bound cargo planes last year, the cities themselves didn't matter. It's a strategy that has helped the relatively new group quickly become the No. 1 threat to the United States.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...TAM&SECTION=US

[davidbfpo]

From the consistently good daily email news round-up from the NY-based Center for Law & Security, available via:

A comment on this US practice:

Reuters cites data from the Center on Law and Security to illustrate that entrapment defenses in terrorism prosecutions have not been successful over the past decade. The Reuters report states that “[s]ince 2009, the FBI has arrested 41 people on terrorism charges through sting operations — where law enforcement posed as extremist militants — the Center said. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, 10 suspects in six trials have formally used entrapment as a defense and none were successful.

Link:http://centerlineblog.org/2011/03/25...rism-news-204/

[jmm99]

From 2005 Michigan Law Review, Psychology, factfinding, and entrapment:

Although accurate statistical evidence of the frequency with which the entrapment defense succeeds is difficult to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that it is seldom successful. One survey of practicing criminal defense attorneys described it as "judicially unpopular," (17) best used only "in desperate circumstances," (18) or "in a few cases with ideal facts," where "plea bargaining has proved unsuccessful," (19) and "no other defense is possible." (20) Another survey of State's Attorneys in Chicago reveals a perception that in narcotics sales cases where the defendant pleads entrapment, "the jury will convict almost every time." (21) The author of one police manual on the execution of sting operations states that he has "never, in hundreds of cases, ever lost one to entrapment," and that in all the sting operations he has studied, he has "not heard of a single case being lost to a defense of entrapment." (22)

Still, this "defense" is a favorite of the pro-defendant chattering class.

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

A BBC Radio 4 report:

In the years after 9/11 the threat to America from Islamist militants seemed to come exclusively from abroad, but recent events have disproved that assumption - and posed the question how to prevent the radicalisation of Muslim immigrants.

Link to report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13068133

Link to podcast, which is far better IMHO:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010dp1k

In that Peter Neumann, from ICSR @ Kings College London, commented that the USA will now be asking itself the questions the UK has asked for the past ten years. Please do not repeat what the UK state did.

This is a RUSI commentary:http://www.rusi.org/analysis/comment...4D90A51D14AB0/

[davidbfpo]

Spotted on the CLS e-alert an article in The Economist, which opens with this:

AMERICA has increased homeland security spending by more than $1 trillion in the decade since the 9/11 attacks. A new academic paper from John Mueller (of The Ohio State University) and Mark Stewart (of the University of Newcastle in Australia) attempts to determine whether the return on investment justified those huge expenditures. They also ask whether policymakers ever considered anything remotely resembling a cost-benefit analysis before they spent all that money. The answer in both cases, it seems, is no.

Link:http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulli...orism?fsrc=rss

Note the academic paper is on a Scribd link within and is approx. 28 pgs. Not read through today; not really a day to read such thoughts!

[Steve Blair]

I would hazard that we are just based on the number of TSA types I see loitering around my local airport (BFE Montana with a population just over 90k in the entire county).

[davidbfpo]

A rather long article, the correct title is: 'Pass Em’ Right: Assessing the Threat of WMD Terrorism from America’s Christian Patriots'; which maybe of interest and is from the abstract:

Within the field of terrorism studies, great effort has been devoted to the topic of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their potential usage in the hands of terrorist organisations. This article deepens the discussion of WMD terrorism by focusing upon an oft-overlooked movement that resides within American borders. The Christian Patriot Movement – which rightfully claims the likes of Timothy McVeigh – is a phenomenon that has gone largely unnoticed as American counterterrorism efforts focus largely upon Islamist terrorist organizations. Here we aim to bring the Patriots back into discussions of terrorist threats by assessing their potential to use WMD. We conclude that, although the Patriots have demonstrated intent to employ such weapons, they lack the overall capability to design, acquire, or employ a WMD of significant lethality. We end by looking at the pathways which the Patriots are currently exploring to narrow the divide between intent and capability.

Link:http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/...-em-right/html

[jmm99]

Here's the Khan indictment and the 27 overt acts.

Yes, admittedly, “sensitivity training” (if that’s what one should call it), still has a way to go so far as enhancing the "sensitivity" of some US citizens to their obligations as citizens (not to provide aid and comfort to the enemy) is concerned.

Regards

Mike