The Myth of Terrorism, Part Deux
How afraid should we be? If you listen to the Bush Administration, a minority of Supreme Court Justices, and the extreme right wing, the answer is simple. RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! President Bush and Vice President Cheney have said repeatedly that terrorism is an “unprecedented threat”. Because it is unprecedented we must, therefore, be prepared to do anything. Ron Suskind writes in his latest oeuvre, The One Percent Doctrine, that Vice President Dick Cheney said:
if there's a 1 percent chance that al-Qaida could get its hands on weapons of mass destruction, "we need to treat it as a certainty. It's not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence. It's about our response."
The fear of terrorism is understandable, but completely irrational. Let me return for a moment to a much criticized op-ed in the New York Times that I wrote in the summer of 2001. I said:
Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.... None of these beliefs are based in fact.... While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.
I stand by that assessment. At that time most of the terrorist attacks counted by the intelligence community were carried out by non-Islamist groups. Unfortunately, some who read this piece were unaware of my previous work, an op-ed penned with Milt Bearden in November of 2000 and my interviews with Frontline in August of 1998, in which I identified Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as our main terrorist threats.
Since 2001 there has been a sea change in the terrorist threat—in 2004 radical Islamic groups accounted for the vast majority of attacks and were largely responsible for all people killed and wounded in terrorist attacks. In 2002, for example, there were a total of 208 terrorist attacks. By 2004, there were almost 700 terrorist attacks in which people were killed or injured. This was the highest number of attacks ever recorded since the intelligence community started keeping statistics in 1968.
While terrorism from radical Islamic extremism is a threat we must take seriously, we are kidding ourselves to place it on par with the military and nuclear threat we faced during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Let’s start with Al Qaeda. In the summer of 2001, Jane’s Defense said that Al Qaeda’s network, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden was:
resilient, with a membership of 3,000-5,000 men worldwide. A global conglomerate of groups operating as a network, Al-Qaeda ("The Base") has a worldwide reach, with a presence in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, Tajikistan, Syria, and 31 other countries. (August 2001)
Since then, according to the Bush Administration, at least 50% of al Qaeda has been destroyed. Besides al Qaeda, there are other loose groups and gangs of aspiring jihadists. How many? We really don’t know. One way to judge is to look at the number of terrorist attacks, both international and domestic. Last year, according to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), there were almost 11,000 attacks that caused 14,500 deaths. Iraq accounted for almost 30% of those attacks and 55 percent of the fatalities (see page ix, NCTC Report on Incidents of Terrorism 2005).
By merging domestic and international attacks NCTC has made it more difficult to track the number of attacks in which people are being killed and injured. For the sake of discussion, let’s be generous and assume that most of last year’s attacks were caused by radical jihadists. Less than 50 of these attacks killed 50 people or more. That is an objective fact. If there are hundreds of thousands of jihadist terrorists around the world, these statistics beg a critical question—why are they so inactive relative to their numbers?
If there were, say, 50,000 committed jihadist terrorists we should expect to see more than 2000 attacks annually with significantly higher casualties. So far, that is not the case. Should we fear jihadists more than we feared the Soviet threat? I say no.
In 1989 the Soviet armed forces was the world's largest military establishment, with nearly 6 million troops in uniform. The Soviets had:
five armed services rather than the standard army, navy, and air force organizations found in most of the world's armed forces. In their official order of importance, the Soviet armed services were the Strategic Rocket Forces, Ground Forces, Air Forces, Air Defense Forces, and Naval Forces. The Soviet armed forces also included two paramilitary forces, the Internal Troops and the Border Troops.
Al Qaeda, today, is estimated to be around 2000-3000 strong. Their leadership is hiding out in remote areas of Pakistan, they lack strategic training bases, and have limited ability to communicate.
In 1989 the Soviets Strategic Rocket Forces had:
over 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 300 launch control centers, and twenty-eight missile bases. The Soviet Union had six types of operational ICBMs; about 50 percent were heavy SS-18 and SS-19 ICBMs, which carried 80 percent of the country's land-based ICBM warheads. In 1989 the Soviet Union was also producing new mobile, and hence survivable, ICBMS. A reported 100 road-mobile SS25 missiles were operational, and the rail-mobile SS-24 was being deployed. The Strategic Rocket Forces also operated SS-20 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and SS-4 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs).
Al Qaeda and its jihadist allies do not have access or control of any intercontinental or medium range ballistic missiles. I do not doubt their willingness to use such weapons if they could get their hands on them, but desire is not the same as capability.
In 1989 the Soviets had a massive Air Force capable of delivering nuclear weapons inside the United States:
More than seventy [Soviet] bombers [had] been modified to carry air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). A new intercontinental-range bomber, the Tu-160, which also bore the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) designation Blackjack, became operational in 1989. In the late 1980s, long-range bombers carried a small, but increasing, percentage of all Soviet strategic nuclear weapons.
Al Qaeda does not have an air force or any vehicle capable of delivering an air borne nuclear device.
In 1989 the Soviets had an extensive submarine capability for delivering nuclear devices:
Since 1973 the Soviet Union has deployed ten different attack submarine classes, including five new types since 1980. In 1989 the Soviet Union also had sixty-six guided missile submarines for striking the enemy's land targets, surface combatant groups, and supply convoys.
In retrospect, Bush and his allies are right about one thing—the threat of terrorism from Islamic extremists is unprecedented. However, it is unprecedented in the sense that we have allowed our fear of the unknown to justify torture, illegal detention, a clamp down on civil liberties, and ignoring international accords, like the Geneva Convention.
Should we ignore terrorism? No. We do face a serious threat from radical Islamists. They are a fervent and uncompromising lot. Fortunately, they are not ubiquitous nor do they represent a majority opinion among Muslims around the world. While jihadist radicals have flocked to Iraq (and been killed and captured with regularity) they have had limited success gaining traction and sustaining operations around the world.
There are trouble spots—Somalia, southern Thailand, parts of Indonesia—where radicals are trying to get a foothold. But, these radicals have not been able to project force consistently outside of the local communities that protect them. When they do attack they provoke a counterstrike by government officials that usually results in the death or capture of terrorist operatives. This weakens their ability to sustain operations.
We make a mistake, a potentially fatal mistake, if we delude ourselves into accepting that the threat of terrorism is so unique and so severe that we must suspend civil liberties, break international accords, and ignore allies in order to fight this enemy. If we continue to choose this road we risk alienating the moderate Islamic nations and the Islamic authoritarian regimes (e.g., Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) who we need as allies in order to battle this threat.
Justice Stevens, the only member of the Supreme Court to have served in a combat unit during war, wrote in the Hamdan decision that a nation at war must still be governed by law. His colleague, David Souter, wrote:
“For reasons of inescapable human nature, the branch of government asked to counter a serious threat is not the branch on which to rest the Nation’s reliance in striking the balance between the will to win and the cost in liberty on the way to victory.”
If we go to war and in the process lose our humanity and savage those principles that made America a City on a Hill, a light of freedom to the world, then the victory on the battlefield is hollow and of no value. Bush and his political allies may be ignorant of history and incapable of understanding the threats we have faced and survived in the past, but as we commemorate the Fourth of July we must remember. We must not forget that we have confronted and survived more devastating threats and fearsome terrors. We have faced enemies far more lethal and far more capable and triumphed. We must not surrender to fear.
Good summary Larry! I would add to it that, unlike the military threats from the former USSR, terrorism is a criminal justice matter, not a military defense matter. We need to beef up the international police forces and the coordination among them, not our military forces. We need to use good police tactics to arrest and bring to trial as many terrorists as is possible, not try to wage a military war against them.
Bush's successful conflation of anti-terrorism with an offensive against Iraq is possibly the biggest flim flam con game ever perpetrated. His attempts and successes in restricting civil rights and consolidating all governmental power in his office, using this flim flam con game are a reflection of our citzens lack of education and interest, and the willing conspiracy of the news media.
Hoppy in Sacramento
July 3, 2006 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney is a certifiable paranoid so naturally a 1% threat scares him to death. He really belongs in a lock-down institution. He even makes Nixon look relatively rational. That said, any half-way thinking person knows that the Republican agenda, everything from illegal spying to a unitary executive can only be realized if Americans think they're under a state of siege. Your well-reasoned post and others like it unfortunately seem to fall on deaf ears. With an amazing number of Americans terrorism has become a phobia, a condition not treatable by political discourse - only treatable by a psychotherapist.
July 3, 2006 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I completely agree Hoppy. Not a few have suggested that today's terrorism can be compared to yesterday's piracy on the high seas in that combatting either requires similar tactics. I continue to believe that without 9/11 even our uneducated and disinterested citizenry would not have fallen for the big flim flam.
July 3, 2006 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney needs to increase the dosage of his meds. The guy's a certifiable lunatic.
Tom
July 3, 2006 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Lar ...
As per usual, you just make too much damn sense. Reason is harder to come by than a gallon of gas @ $2.25...
Now I breathlessly await the circling elucidations from the Norwegian nut-knocker of what you were really trying to say and why what you've said isn't really what you meant ...
"Blue is Yellow like Black is White, it's as clear as Day in the middle of Night..."
~OGD~
ps: Larry -- I'm sure you caught the Waas piece... Surprised... Eh?
July 3, 2006 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Authorization of Farce
What Mr. Johnson did not do in this thoughful layout of statistics, is mention what a rational person could easily conclude from them:
That not only is the GWOT a war upon an imagined boogeyman giant, it has been to this point, a dismal failure, and has instead increased exponentially Radical Islamic attacks.
The War Upon Iraq was not waged to fight global terrorism, and has in fact become a new metastasizing darwinish nightmare, a septic pit proving grounds where terrorists of the future are deified through fitness surviviability testing, receive a militarised blackarts education in the process, and then depart to farflung destinations.
With his prosecution of the GWOT, Mr. Bush counterproductively:
All of these acts have only served to create new militant radicals, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of the world, the merciless terrorists, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
A president, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.
July 4, 2006 2:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most "terrorists" are concerned with local issues in their home countries. This can be seen in the strife which extends from Indonesia to Columbia and all points in between.
9/11 was unusual in that Bin Laden had a beef with Saudi Arabia and attacked the US, since he had decided that only an action of this magnitude would get the world notice that he felt his cause required.
It was also unusual in that, in general, it is hard for foreign nationals to get into a country unobserved and then to secure the necessary materiel to conduct an action. Notice, for example, that the London underground bombers were UK residents.
As others have hinted at above, the "war on terror" is a metaphorical war, like the "war on drugs" or the "war on poverty" and should be handled by use of police, not military, powers. Conflating the two allows for the abuse of civil liberties by the military.
The question is, is the overreach by the Cheney administration caused by paranoia, panic, or a real desire for undemocratic power? Many people in positions of power become deluded and construct an alternate reality for themselves. Examples have included Stalin, Hitler and even Saddam. By misjudging their own strength and the strength of their enemies they lead their countries into disasterous confrontations. Our most recent examples included in LBJ and McNamara.
Since we know that Bush is only minimally aware of operational details the blame for misjudging conditions falls to Cheney, Rumsfeld and their inner circle.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
July 4, 2006 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney is a certifiable paranoid so naturally a 1% threat scares him to death.
Whether or not Cheney is a certifiable paranoid, the fact is that he is pandering to a certifiable paranoid constituency.
July 4, 2006 7:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Russians didn't destroy the world trade center, damage the pentagon, and threaten the white house. Something to think about when accusing people of irrational paranoia, don't you think?
Al Queda is no longer much of a threat because it has been marginalized to remote places and many of its people killed, you say. Who did that? Something to think about, no?
Remember the alien and sedition laws of Jefferson's time, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, the red scares following wwi and ii, the interment of the japanese, the turmoil of vietnam? there's nothing unprecedented about the escalating tensions between security and personal freedom in times of trial...
...and you're full of shit.
July 4, 2006 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Alien and Sedition Acts were enacted during the Presidency of John Adams.
Tom
July 4, 2006 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Suskind's book shows Bush as an engaged president -- in a discernably adolescent way. He likes action, likes attacks, news from the front, limbs flying, bombs dropping, "terrorists" cowering -- all that neat stuff. Bush's official disengagement is a deliberate Cheney construct in aid of plausible deniability . If Waas's account of Bush's connection to the Plame leak is true (and I tend to think it is), then it's a perfect example of Cheney's construct in action.
Interestingly, Bush 1 refused to stay away from the details. Presumably this is why his son so hastily extended the period in which Poppy's papers are unavailable. Poppy's got no plausible deniability and has Iran/Contra hanging like a noose over his head.
I don't think it's an either/or when it comes to the reason why Cheney has been such an autocrat. I think he's a presidential powers ideologue; I think he's a greedy, amoral bastard who wants more for us and less for them; I think he's guilty of having known about 9/11 and doing nothing about it -- I'd say on purpose but who knows... -- and that has made him a security zealot. But then security makes him a rich man. All of these things play into what he's done and probably many more. The "one percent doctrine" is a useful guarantee of arbitrary power.
July 4, 2006 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whether or not Cheney is a certifiable paranoid, the fact is that he is pandering to a certifiable paranoid constituency.
You've got that right.
By the way, it's all a godless, liberal, commie Democrat attack on the very soul of this country, an attack on the conservative revolution, morals and values and yeah, god himself.
(ala Tom DeLay) :)
July 4, 2006 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Russians didn't destroy the world trade center, damage the pentagon, and threaten the white house. Something to think about when accusing people of irrational paranoia, don't you think? Al Queda is no longer much of a threat because it has been marginalized to remote places and many of its people killed, you say. Who did that? Something to think about, no?
Al Queda is making a come back. But the better question would be who took down the towers on 9/11?
Iraqis?
Oh right, they were Saudis. Pakistanis. But no Iraqis. My bad.
Remember the alien and sedition laws of Jefferson's time, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, the red scares following wwi and ii, the interment of the japanese, the turmoil of vietnam? there's nothing unprecedented about the escalating tensions between security and personal freedom in times of trial...
Are you really Michelle Malkin?
And how long is this Looooong War going to take? How long will the executive have these special war time powers? Bush himself said it would take decades. Seems rightwingers just want to suspend all law, constitutionally protected rights, anything it takes, just to cover their monumental failure. (as well as their crimes).
July 4, 2006 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Al Queda is making a come back.
Whoopy! Aren't you glad?
But the better question would be who took down the towers on 9/11? Iraqis? Oh right, they were Saudis. Pakistanis. But no Iraqis. My bad.
You would have preferred that we attack the Saudis and Pakistanis directly and simultaneously?
Not a chance.
My bet is that you would have wanted Israel sacrificied as a response to 911.
Are you really Michelle Malkin?
What if I was? She's a smart woman...unlike most of the posters to this site.
And how long is this Looooong War going to take?
Is it interfering with your shopping? Poor baby.
July 4, 2006 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Alien and Sedition Acts were enacted during the Presidency of John Adams.
That is "Jefferson's time" (surely you don't think I used that phrase accidentally?) and it doesn't affect the argument - which is that these things have been ongoing since the founding of the Republic. I hope you're capable of something better than nit-picking, irrelevant pedantry.
July 4, 2006 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would add to it that, unlike the military threats from the former USSR, terrorism is a criminal justice matter, not a military defense matter.
!Warning! Moron alert. !Warning!
July 4, 2006 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not a few have suggested that today's terrorism can be compared to yesterday's piracy on the high seas in that combatting either requires similar tactics.
You mean like the Barbary wars of Jefferson's Presidency?
Idiot.
July 4, 2006 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
So you rate me while at the same time posting to the thread. Boy, there's an honest and useful system. Not that it matters much. You rate me zero, I think you're an idiot.
July 4, 2006 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Still at it I see.
For a rating system to be believeable it has to have some independence and some standards. Yours has neither.
The first condition is very difficult, I admit...but not impossible.
The second? Well, there are two aspects to discourse - manners and substance. If you insist on both, if you insist that everyone be like Daniel Patrick Moynihan - always the gentlemen while at the same time refusing to tolerate fools - no one will be able to post. If you go the other way - no standards such as at DU - you have no manners and no substance but anyone can post (as long as his views are orthodox). You've chosen some sort of middle-ground.
But what is it exactly? I know you don't like my manners. I don't intend you to. But where are the substantive responses? If you don't like the substance but can't refute it, or if you don't like it but find it challanging, how can you rate it zero?
July 4, 2006 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, there are some distinct similarities between the two cases of non-national actors: piracy and non-state terrorism. In what I hope is the moderate term, there will be efforts to update international conventions (presumably Geneva) that simply don't work well for non-state actors, it may be worth examining earlier attempts to have international agreements on piracy and the related issue of privateering.
Something of an oddity in treaties, the Declaration of Paris of 1856 (sometimes given with dates between 1854 and 1857) was not ratified by many seafaring nations, such as the US. Even though it was not ratified, it was de facto followed by many nations, including the US, which stated it would abide by its provisions in the Civil War and Spanish-American War.
In the general literature of international law, piracy on the high seas is categorized as hostis humani generis, or crime against mankind. Does anyone know if this was used in the development of the charges in the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg? The subsequent UN Convention on the Law of the Sea also defines piracy, but also has not been ratified by the US due to reasons unrelated to piracy. These reasons have to do with exploitation of ocean resources, especially on the seabed.
Would there be interest in a thread at TPMC discussing the potential of evolving legalisms aimed at piracy to provide a more sound basis of international law toward non-national terrorists?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
What makes you think the law is such a great way of resolving disputes? We have the law and the left still advocates revolution. You can't have it both ways you know.
Law is as flawed as any other human system, and lawyers have all the usual human failings (maybe more some would argue).
People have not abandoned war and force because only a fool equates law with justice. Nor does a legal system, if it is honest, claim that equality. It's just a system for resolving disputes and depends upon the application of force to make it work.
July 4, 2006 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know who you're addressing in particular, but I can be quite specific about why I gave you a zero. You stop the flow of interchange and say "look at me! look at me"" and get ruder and ruder to attract attention. It's sometimes tempting to give someone with whom one disagrees a low rating but one tries not to. Disagreement is part of the yeast here. But pure naked truculence isn't.
What's that all about!
July 4, 2006 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
All public posts have a "look at me" aspect to them...and all ratings the same. On this site the latter are little more than old boys patting each other on the rump.
Truculance? Flow? Rudeness? Step back a bit and read some of the posts which receive high ratings. How many characterize our leaders and their supporters as raving madmen, deluded war criminals - even Nazis, and lazy, insensitive louts? If I don't agree, if I think the opinions and their advocates are entirely without merit, why should I be polite?
Meanwhile, where are the substantive responses? Did not Jefferson respond to piracy with the Barbary wars - the same Jefferson celebrated as the father of liberal democracy? Has this country not experienced repeated conflicts between security and personal freedom in times of conflict? Does the Left not advocate revolution even though we have one of the best legal systems in the world? Does it not blame us for most of the world's ills even though we have one of the best legal systems in the world? Don't these questions have merit and deserve an honest response? And if they do how can you rate my posts zero?
July 4, 2006 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse me, but when have I either advocated revolution or self-identified as a member of the Left? Radical centrist, yes. Are you accusing me of wanting something both ways? If so, what and how?
I have not suggested abandoning war and force. Conventional war, at least on the side of the US and allies, tends to follow the Laws of Land Warfare and the UCMJ. While these laws clearly do not cover every case, they are a starting point to creating a solution that might involve justice.
The recent Supreme Court opinion on tribunals appears to conflict with some customary laws of war, and it would be well to remove these conflicts. The conflicts principally come from the Geneva Conventions really assuming all conflict is between nation-states.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Frankly, you puzzle me. You generalize about the "Left" when not all TPMC subscribers consider themselves leftists.
Bluntly, you should be polite unless you wish to be ostracized. There is a huge difference between one who argues vehemently, and one that has to be impolite in doing so. I'm afraid your defense of rudeness reminds me of Lady Astor saying to Churchill, "If you were my husband, I'd put poison in your tea!"
"Madam, if I was married to you, I'd drink it!"
A system of law does not preclude the use of military operations to enforce it. With all due regard to the historical background of the Posse Comitatus Act, I rather respect the British approach, when faced with a situation such as the Iranian Embassy occupation, to call in SAS assistance when the Metropolitan Police was no longer able to deal with the situation. The proliferation of poorly trained (in comparison to military) special operations units in the United States is a matter of concern. At Waco, for example, there was first a problem in unity of command among ATF, DEA and FBI, to say nothing of local units. The assault on the compound was not just a nuanced variation of classified Delta Force techniques, but violated virtually every doctrine in the Army field manuals on civil disturbances and military operations in urban terrain.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Incidentally, which of your questions are substantive rather than rhetorical? I would be happy to respond to substantive questions, which require a degree of specificity in the issue they raise.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
On a public site especially, but even in private, we are all proxies to some extent for larger entities. It's not fair or accurate but it can't be helped.
I'm saying that treating modern terrorism as a criminal offense is mindlessly stupid and self-defeating...and implying that those who support such a policy want to see us defeated.
The law is incredibly slow, and even slower across international boundaries, and how would we enforce our law in foreign countries with inept, corrupt, and antagonistic judiciaries and constabularies...among people who hate us?
I also noted that Jefferson used military force to deal with piracy, right at the beginning of our history when we were small and poor and fought in wooden sail boats.
July 4, 2006 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to deflect my specific responses by dismissing me as a proxy, fine; that would tell me a lot. If you are actually interested in substantive exchange, that's a good thing.
Improving legal frameworks to deal with non-national terrorists does not mean treating the terrorists as criminals or acting against them with law enforcement alone. Instead, it is a matter of updating the laws of war, with a history going back to Augustine of Hippo on just war, to deal with newly significant ways of war.
To say any updating of laws relating to war makes this a matter for civil law enforcement makes no more sense than suggesting that the passage of the Chemical Warfare and Biological Warfare Conventions makes chemical and biological warfare simple police problems. Military forces operate by laws of war, not civil law.
The above has nothing to do with military actions. International law has long recognized the right of a military unit to engage in hot pursuit of an attacker, even if that attacker crosses the boundary of a neutral country. The neutral country may be asked, as in the case of Cambodia and the Ho Chi Minh trail, to expel the foreign fighters, but if the neutral does not or can not, then the aggrieved nation can take action. To the best of my knowledge, B-52 bombers have never been made available even to Federal law enforcement, but were certainly used against enemy forces taking sanctuary in Cambodia and Laos.
Jefferson used the military force he had available. Recently, a US Navy Ticonderoga-class cruiser and Burke-class destroyers acted against pirates off Somalia. Customary actions against pirates in the 19th century would have probably resulted in them being hung at the yardarm. Given that AEGIS-system ships don't have traditional yardarms, is there not a reason to update the appropriate international conventions, which do not always call for formal trial?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Incidentally, which of your questions are substantive rather than rhetorical?
Why don't you start with my first post, addressed to Larry Johnson, before I got really rude?
He says our response to terrorism is paranoid and irrational, that the Russians were a much bigger threat. I respond that the Russians didn't attack us on our own soil, kill 3000 citizens, and seriously threaten our economy.
He says Al Queda is no longer much of a threat. I point out that it was the Bush administration which was responsible.
He says the Administration is unprecedently threatening our liberties under the pretext of preserving our security. I respond that there's nothing unprecedented about the administration's action in the historical context, that they're quite normal.
You find my post rhetorical? How? How can I take you seriously if that's your reading?
July 4, 2006 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You generalize about the "Left" when not all TPMC subscribers consider themselves leftists
Without trying to be too precise about inherently imprecise categories this site and its posters are most certainly of the Left.
Bluntly, you should be polite unless you wish to be ostracized.
I'm not here to make friends. I'm a serious student of our political situation. To be so I have to post on sites both left and right...and I do.
There is a huge difference between one who argues vehemently, and one that has to be impolite in doing so
In theory, but not in reality. Some people deserve to be treated politely, others not. It's earned, not a birthright.
A system of law does not preclude the use of military operations to enforce it...
What does all this have to do with treating terrorism as a criminal offense? Terrorism is an international problem.
As for poor training of our home units, they'll get better if they have to. But you can count on the Left to oppose any increase in efficiency as another infringement on personal liberty.
July 4, 2006 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you can't take me seriously because I raised some points about rhetoric, I might suggest that no one is forcing you to be here, and I might conclude you are trolling.
Let's deal with the issue of the Cold War. You are correct that there were fewer casualties in the continental United States. On several occasions, there was a potential for nuclear exchange that would have resulted in orders of magnitude more casualties, but we'll put that aside.
Instead, let's look at Soviet sources such as Soviet Military Strategy by Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, Defense Minister (RAND Corporation translation), or the declassified IRONBARK papers giving doctrinal material from the classified Soviet journal Military Thought, available at the CIA FOIA Reading Room. All clearly identify proxy war being a Soviet doctrine.
I will not fall into the trap of the brothers Dulles, as they proceeded to pervert the containment doctrine expounded by George Kennan, that Communism was monolithic or the US always conducted optimal diplomacy. Nevertheless, the Viet Nam and Korean conflicts certainly involved active Soviet participation, and caused just a few more than 3000 deaths.
Ignore, for the moment, the issue of whether precedents truly make Presidential decisions on surveillance legal. Ignore the passage of specific legislation since the precedents. Instead, deal with the pure lack of oversight for billion-dollar programs. Treating the NSA traffic analysis program as something that can be briefed only to 8 members of Congress, none of whom have a technical background in communications intelligence or network engineering, and are not allowed to consult cleared staff or retain notes, is a craven abandonment of responsibility.
The most recent major encryption system approved by the US, AES, uses an algorithm developed by Dutch researchers and validated by extensive public analysis from the large worldwide cryptology community. NSA is no longer the only fount of such information.
Further, al-Qaeda at its greatest point did not have the intelligence resources of the fUSSR, and to assume that equal secrecy is needed against it is dubious -- when the historical record shows many examples of when excessive secrecy caused military opeational disasters, such as Pearl Harbor.
I do find a simple response of activities being described as "quite normal", without citing the precedents and the subsequent legislative and judicial histories, to be a bit rhetorical. Should you wish to get specific, fine.
Indeed, should you wish to be specific, you might comment on the ultimate value of past, supersecret operations with no oversight, such as SHAMROCK and MINARET.
As to the potential of terrorists getting WMD, the problem is poorly stated. I much prefer the British term, "Weapons of Mass Effect." To take a specific example of casualties, examine the industrial accident at Bhopal, India, which caused on the order of 3000 deaths and 100,000 lasting casualties, far more lasting injury than 9/11. Why should terrorists bother to take the risk of importing WME when systematic attacks on industrial chemicals in manufacturing, transit, and storage would exceed, by far, the largest chemical attacks of World War I? I'd rather see a bit more priority on strengthening national infrastructure in areas including chemical manufacturing and the electrical grid, which would simultaneously help protect against major accidents.
The Ohio Valley electrical blackout of 2003 was a quasi-accident, starting with an accident but escalating due to poor computer security (against a worm) and a grid not designed for the interconnect loads being put on it. An unintended consequence of electrical deregulation was a disincentive to utilities' capital improvements, especially in the interconnect grid. It is notable, among qualified engineers, that the Texas grid, the major one built to modern standards, has suffered barely a hiccup.
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Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
What, exactly, would you do differently?
The Administration is using the military to fight terrorism abroad. I'm not talking about different military tactics or strategy. Presumably, you use the military less and legal systems (which ones?) more. Which and how?
I mentioned Jefferson to show that he preferred military action at a time when it was much more difficult for the United States than it is today, and because Jefferson - perhaps more than anyone today - understood the virtues of the law.
July 4, 2006 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink