Terrorism, Interegation, & Security

~ Matt Armstrong

Looking a little deeper into possibly why McCain has reacted like he has and you’ll find a press briefing a few weeks ago about tortue.

In the 6 October 2005 Pentagon briefing, an interesting exchange took place between Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Lawrence Di Rita, and the press. What Mr. Di Rita adroitly avoids is a) the lack of training our interegators have received, b) disregard for field manuals (suggested processes), c) best practices, and d) UCMJ in ordinary or extra-ordinary circumstances.

It is clear the Administration fails to see cause and effect and fails to understand documented superior methods of interegation. True, there are times at which it is no holds barred, but for most of the time, seconds or minutes do not matter. For Mr. Di Rita, there is no distinguishing on these points.

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Bush’s Priorities: is this really what we should be working on?

~ Matt Armstrong

Further demonstrating the priorities of the Bush Administration’s post-9/11 security mindset, it has abandoned efforts to stop police from using "10-codes" (10-4 etc) to standardize communications. Nevermind that significant communication problems, such as incompatible radios and failure to establish frequencies for the jargon to be even used, has failed miserably, as demonstrated in post-Katrina rescue ops.

The Bush administration has abandoned its plan to require policedepartments around the country to stop using traditional “10-codes” for
communication or risk losing federal antiterrorism funding, Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced yesterday (see GSN, Aug.
26).
Under the new National Incident Management System, a post-9/11 project
designed to establish consistent practices among police departments and
other emergency response agencies, codes such as “10-4” for “message
received” are to be replaced with “plain English.” from Global Security Newswire

Clash of Common Sense

~ Matt Armstrong

Richard Clarke’s recent commentary in The Atlantic is a must read today. It’s opening paragraph:

Imagine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina,thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine
and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal
number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved
into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if
scores of mobile satellite-communications stations had been prepared to
move in instantly, ensuring that rescuers could talk to one another.
Imagine if all this had been managed by a federal-and-state task force
that not only directed the government response but also helped
coordinate the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other outside groups.

One doesn’t have to imagine because, as Clarke points out, this was the scenario before Hurricane Francis just before the last election. Preside Bush even handed out water to the evacuees compared with resting comfortably at his ranch this time not to be disturbed with minor business when Brownie was doing such a great job.

Hurricane Katrina has highlighted the abject failure in protecting the United States from any type of mass destruction of disruption. Proactive measures and plans have failed to materialize. Talk about Department of Defense "quarantines" and replacing FEMA are short-sighted and miss the point of accountability and functionality.

So, why are we still no further along the path than we were before? I offer the following open letter to try to frame the discussion on the "GWOT" (Global War on Terror), which, unless portrayed and understood properly, cannot be "won" or stopped and we cannot be "victorous". Actual terrorism has increased substantially, even when Condi suppresses the yearly report from State.

Mr. President,

Your Administration is apparently relying on over simplified and historically disengaged arguments, brushing aside the realities of an increasingly complex and interconnected world. The new "rollback" theory, modeled on the Us vs Them of the Cold War and Samuel Huntington’s "Clash" thesis fails from the start. Huntington’s irrelevant arguments of "civilizational" cleavages have no place in the contemporary world of instant communication and decreased state autonomy. Providing a convenient launching pad for other “cognitive misers” who also fail to contextualize  inputs into the present, the emotionally congruent images are framed for popular acceptance and not practical problem solving. This is a disingenuous ignorance of reality that simultaneously masks the real threats and viable solutions. Ultimately setting the stage for a self-fulfilling prophecy of failing American foreign policy initiatives. How is Iraq today? Are there four score or 1 Iraqi battalions?

Huntington uses a map analogy to form a convenient, simple, and seemingly appropriate view the world, but it is inherently problematic.

While acknowledging the complexity of the world, he argues for a highly simplified construct resulting in an overly simplified black and white world. This “map”, without tributaries, junctions, and landmarks, is better for travel from one big city to the next since “we do not need and may find confusing a map…in which the major highways are lost in a complex mass of secondary roads”.  By excluding alternative routes and the often not-so-small geographic and political details significant to the location and personality of the “big city”, your Administration has clearly failed to undertake a comprehensive review of all relevant facts and options. Through an ignorance of history, politics, societies, and religions seeks to re-invent the black and white schema of the Cold War into what is not the “first time in history [that] global politics has become multipolar and multicivilizational”, as Huntington states. The "enemy" is not as broad as you argue, nor are the divisions as deep. They are not diametrically opposed to our "way of life" but are opposed to our actions.

While you have made public statements acknowledging the distinction
between "good" and "evil" and "those who want democracy", actions go
further than talking points and audio clips. By allowing any
criminal behavior in our armed forces, including the failure to adhere
to international law (Geneva Conventions Article 4 – protection of
civilians), let alone the prison torture scandals, without swift and
severe punishment is an utter failure and will do more to prevent the
security of "hearts and minds" than most anything else. It was not just
the low level soldiers that participating, nor was it a single National
Guard general. Accountability within your Administration is lacking. The American ideal which you espouse is not in our deeds. We are a better people than your foreign policy makes us out to be.

Prescient of the “West versus East” conflict, the author of the Cold War’s containment theory, George Kennan, warned of the artificiality of the future clash as manufactured by Stalin to sustain and promulgate his absolute rule. Kennan noted Stalin’s assertion that capitalism and socialism could not peacefully coexist did not derive from the population, but strictly from a subset of the population: its leadership. In a political environment dominated by realpolitik with the state center stage in global affairs, it is not surprising that three years later National Security Council Memorandum 68 (NSC-68) firmly cleaved the division between “Us” and “Them” declaring the fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement [calls] for the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the countries of the non-Soviet world and their replacement by an apparatus and structure subservient to and controlled from the Kremlin.

In the present situation, the "scorecard" you want "because [you’re] a baseball fan" is non-sensical. We are not against a monolithic enemy. The enemy may have been more vertically oriented in the past, but we lost our chance to rip the heart out of the beast. The enemy is now a franchise operation with a highly-decentralized control structure. There is no effective leadership to keep track of anymore. The 2005 Bali and London bombings did not need Osama bin Laden. We need to undermine his entire ideological platform to be successful. Our foreign policy is, at present, completely missing this. If this were a Presidential campaign, what would you do? Will you hand out voting forms?

Signed,

A Proud and Concerned American

Blackwater Oath: a pledge to the sovereign or a play to look more American?

~ Matt Armstrong

A long time ago the prevailing military doctrine dictated a strong officer corps to lead men into battle. With the rise of nationalism, improvements in tactics and technology, and increasing institutionalization (or bureaucratization) of the state, new ways ofpositioning the military within civil society appeared. Instrumental to this was an advanced officer corps reinforcing and promulgating the
hierarchy of the civil authority over the military through the
enshrinement of professionalism and ethics. Pledges to the state and/or nation and/or tribe were exceptionally important in the field of honorable men (and now women, of course).

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Evacuee vs Refugee

~ Matt Armstrong

The choice of "evacuee" over "refugee" is interesting in its portrayal of short-term displacement from some emergency situation. Also, as one humorist noted, "refugee" implies a place of refuge.
The ability of this Administration to spin the media is outstanding and further demonstrates how GW truly deserves the title Teflon President.

Stuartcarlson_ripvanpress
Just as "insurgents" are not rebels, "terrorists" are not militia, the
ability to manipulate the nouns distorts the reality to the public, and
apparently to the Administration themselves as they drink their own
punch.

The poor (literally, unfortunately) people of New Orleans are
refugees from a natural disaster, just as the people of Sri Lanka were
after the Tsunami.

It is good the press is finally starting to question the
Administration on their handling, on this the fourth anniversary of
9/11. Are we really any safer? Does the color-coded
fantasy warning system really portend anything? Does the Administration
really allow the most effective people within the intelligence and
military ranks do their job to protect us? Are the priorities of the
Administration properly aligned with the realities of our contemporary
threat environment, which, incidently Mssrs Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and
Chertoff, include natural attacks with WMDs? The answer is clearly no
on all counts (we should not need foreign troops on our soil to help us recover) and hopefully the Fourth Estate stands up and recalls their responsibility.

From David Ignatius in the Washington Post (or Lebanon’s Daily Star to show "outsiders" are reading this too):

The Bush administration, meanwhile, remains in its hunkered-down
defensive crouch, with White House spokesman Scott McClellan treating
any demand for accountability as a partisan "blame game." It’s
outrageous to read that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
has been telling members of Congress that media reports are overstating
the problems for storm survivors — this from a man who was denying on
National Public Radio last Thursday that there was any crisis at the
New Orleans convention center at the very hour reporters were finding
dead bodies and abandoned, starving people there. If the administration
maintains that tone, it will self-destruct.

Tell me again, where does the buck stop? This President is so disconnected from reality ("Brownie, you’re doing one heck of a job") it is beyond frightening. Four years after 9/11 and it is very hard to believe people think were are safer. At the very least, perhaps people are starting to come around, as Newt Gingrich wrote and as a poll by Foreign Affairs indicates.

Now reconsider this in the context of Iraq and counter-insurgency.

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

~ Matt Armstrong

The extreme lack to comprehend the value of public diplomacy, soft power, and the (apparently quaint) concept of action-reaction of the current GW Administration has been emphasized in "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations". As the Washington Post writes in Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan:

A [White House] spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.

Diplomatic finesse, including a real respect for regional beliefs and political freedoms, and strengthening economic foundations of states and regions are completely absent from nearly every bit of communication from this Administration. Practical application of our cultural and economic power to strengthen our country and not the top leadership and their cronies has been replaced by the ignorance the facts ("what has Brownie done wrong?").

Is a bigger stick the real path to making the world safer? Did that work in the school yard? Will it work with people driven to extremes from financial hardships (both domestically and foreign that are apparently invisible to the Administration)? Wake-up and smell the home-brewed explosives symbolizing McVeigh and Osama bin Laden opportunists and undermine their support. The failure to complete the mission in Afghanistan has resulted in handing over a volitile region to the enemy. The failure to properly execute the mission (which was what again?) in Iraq and follow through the appropriate clean-up toward ‘state-building’ is handing over a volitile region to the enemy.

What does this doctrine really solve? Does it help with Latin American super-gangs (also the result of economic desperation and disparity)? Did the legal prosecutions of the first World Trade Center bombers really deter anybody, as the prosecutor claimed when announcing the indictments?

Ah, but who am I really speaking to? The choir or empty cyberspace? Probably the latter…

Powell’s “painful blot”

~ Matt Armstrong

In a Barbara Walter’s interview, written up on the Telegraph (The Daily Telegraph’s online newspaper):

Asked whether the statement about WMD tarnished his reputation, [Powell] responded: "Of course it will. It’s a blot. I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now."

"[CIA Chief Tenet] didn’t sit there for five days with me misleading me. He believed
what he was giving me was accurate…the intelligence system did not work
well," Mr Powell said.

FEMA and President Bush

~ Matt Armstrong

LuckovichbuckstopsBush, the supreme CEO of the United States of America and especially of the agencies within the Executive branch, placed Mike Brown as head of FEMA through the political favors system.

In days passed by, conspiracy theorists loved to talk about FEMA’s black helicopters and their the future when a make-believe disaster occurred. This would be, according to these folk, the time FEMA would take over the US and a secret cabal of gentlemen would be another step closer to ruling the world.

Alas, President Bush has disproven that theory with his appointment of Mike Brown.

Link: Defense Tech: FEMA Chief’s Sorry Past.

From the Boston Herald:

Brown – formerly an estates and family lawyer –
this week has has made several shocking public admissions, including
interviews where he suggested FEMA was unaware of the misery and
desperation of refugees stranded at the New Orleans convention center.

Before
joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the
commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse
Association, a breeders’ and horse-show organization based in Colorado.

"We
do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold
classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep
records,” explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner’s office. "This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,” she added.

Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.

"He was asked to resign,” Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.

For those wanting to whitewash the Administration’s failure to lead, direct, and support, consider this:

  1. Infrastructure has been one of the lowest priorities of this
    Administration. Local officials have been trying for decades to shore
    up the levees.

  2. Local planning for a Katrina-like disaster was in the tabletop
    stages. It was not unforeseen. Chertoff’s attempted excuse that an
    exact response was not laid out is not valid because they cannot come
    with every possible response but must have a toolbox. However, it was
    foreseen and the storm had been building and was not all-of-a-sudden.

  3. FEMA had been feared because of its ability to quickly mobilize and
    supercede all laws, etc. What happened? Where is the leadership from
    the President? No, he is not a God like some flippant post, but he has
    the responsibility to make sure the people in charge are responsible.
    What happened to "The Buck Stops Here"? This President is the real
    TEFLON President with his ability to dodge criticism. It is his agency,
    just like the intelligence services (congressional purse strings or
    not) operate for and at the whim of the President. Congressional
    oversight is *oversight*. FEMA is Bush’s responsibility.

  4. Who did Bush put in charge of FEMA, a critical domestic component of Homeland Security?

This was a WMD attack, only by mother nature, not by man. the
response is woefully inadequate no matter how you slice it. Ultimately,
Homeland Security is not, must not be about manmade attacks.

Going beyond budget debates, consider the actualities and realities.
Stories of red tape and failure to respond properly, effectively, or at all, including
local officials bearing arms to prevent FEMA from interferring. Bush, as CEO, as President, puts together his management team to implement his policies. At what point will the blame rest with him? Where does that buck stop again? 

 

The lack of focus on real threats (terrorist, natural, etc) is a core issue here. Focus people. How many days does it take to
respond? How quickly did the President respond to Terry Schiavo and how quickly did he respond to the hurricane? Not directly comparable, but consider what must have been his assumptions. In the Schiavo case, he had to rely on himself. In the hurricane, he figured he could rely on others. Others that he appointed. This includes Brown and it most definitely includes Chertoff.

The "you’re on your own" argument some have put forward to dismiss the response because people didn’t get out of the way is a whitewash, an attempt to obfuscate the issue. This was a WMD attack WITH WARNING and you’re on your own? I
live in Los Angeles, which is likely terrorist target, was a likely
Soviet target, and I’m on my own, right?

The core of the issue is the
RESPONSE, not the prevention. Stay on focus here and follow who is
supposed to react and respond to help the good citizens. Nobody? Let
them linger until somebody gets around to letting the mobile hospital
have permission (all while they are trying to get on location but
can’t)? Let them feel they’ll be rescued while nothing substantial is
really done and chiefs (Mr Brown and Chertoff, etc) talk about how it
wasn’t foreseen when it was in the process of a table top exercise?
While they talk about how a plan wasn’t ready therefore they couldn’t
be responsible for not reacting?

Consider the next time you need emergency
services (fire, police, hospital) and consider if they slow their
response because they hadn’t planned on YOU having to need their
assistance or that you YOU hadn’t filled out the forms or that YOU
should not have been where you where and got injured by your own fault
or somebody elses or if your house caught on fire or… pick a
scenario.

This is not
about warning civilians and how poor or rich people got away or didn’t or should have or could have. The issue here is
culpability and responsibility for responding to a disaster, man-made
or otherwise, to protect the citizens and infrastructure of our great land. The infrastructure that was damaged is not just the French Quarter, but important oil and natural gas and agricultural terminals the entire country depends on.

It is almost guaranteed that blame could be spread to local and state agencies, but let’s not let the focus be lost. The Feds have the greatest ability to respond and have promised through the magic color board to protect us. Some Some
agencies where hindered and some just moved slowly, or not at all. Others, like the ASPCA  and related pet organizations, were
on the ball building on experience from the last hurricane to setup coordinated
resources.

Finally people are starting to see the colors of this Administration and their failure to really protect. Unfortunately, it took massive destruction and incurring the jibes of the world, but it happened. Now, let’s not lose the momentum. People, you must remember Katrina.

Echolocation Advances

~ Matt Armstrong

Bat-bot boosts sonar research:

A robotic bat head that can emit and detect ultrasound in the band of frequencies used by the world’s bats will give echolocation research a huge boost.

"Whenever a robot team wants to build
an autonomous robot they look at sonar first, but they quickly run into
problems due to the simple nature of commercial sonar systems, and
switch to vision or laser-ranging. We hope that the research we can now
do with the robotic bat will lead to more sophisticated sonar systems
being used for robot navigation and other applications," he says.

One of the problems with remote sensing is identification. If accurate identification of an object is possible through redundant systems — visual and echolocation — robots may be more autonomous.

Quick Note: Linking Piracy and Terrorism

~ Matt Armstrong

Concerns over pirates and terrorists forming partnerships are receiving more attention. The International Herald Tribune reported today

special operations commandos and the marine police recovered a vessel early Tuesday that had disappeared and been reported hijacked nearly three years ago. After initially sailing on in defiance of orders to stop, the crew of 20 Chinese nationals aboard surrendered without a fight

This issue, along with other similar situations, have excerbated fears of insurers of increasingly hijackings. Are the insurers crying wolf or does intelligence indicate a  reasonable liklihood of a future terrorist connection? Probably both.

Quick Note: Chinese Purchase Canadian Oil Co

~ Matt Armstrong

Following their failed bid to acquire UNOCAL, China has successfully secured oil near its borders by purchasing a Canadian-based firm for US$4.18 billion.

The nation’s largest oil and gas producer, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), yesterday reached an initial agreement with PetroKazakhstan Inc to buy the Canadian-registered company for US$4.18 billion, topping the bid from an Indian rival.

Industry analysts attributed the winning of CNPC’s bid for
PetroKazakhstan to China’s solid relationship with Kazakhstan, in
contrast to mounting concerns in the US that China’s growing economy
and energy demand may threaten its national security.

The potential for energy wars is heating up. Do we need more reason to accelerate independence from oil?

Quick Note: Private Robot Guard

~ Matt Armstrong

In the age of remote cameras and U(C)AVs, now aJapanese house-sitter robot:

Roborior can function as interior decor, but also as a virtual guard dog that can sense break-ins using infrared sensors, notify homeowners by calling their cellular phones, and send the owner’s cell phone videos from its digital camera.

Commercial application of remote sensing brings peace of mind somebody/thing is watching the tatami.

Federal or Islamic United States of Iraq?

~ Matt Armstrong

The politics of security in an area that has shattered as predictably as Iraq — yes, predictably if you look at the failure to plan for post-"major hostilities" and failures to hold the reconstruction effort (er, friends of the Administration) accountable — has now induced an artificial deadline to create a state similar to the US. How again did the US get to be the US and not these United States? It wasn’t overnight, and apparently the Administration is starting to realize this.

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If Iraq is flypaper, what does that make us?

~ Matt Armstrong

So, these two flies are cruising around when they find an open window. Naturally, they go on in, because that’s what they do. Smelling something tasty, they land to check it out. They’ve landed on flypaper and can no longer go home, if they wanted to. Their days numbered, they ask why they did it and struggle to free themselves, fighting against the industrial society that is now holding them while they were trying to find a free bite of food, perhaps because the wild food is gone…

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Dual Use Skills

~ Matt Armstrong

There must be concern about teaching (former) Afghan fighters how to get around some of the hightest mountains in the world better than they already can. This dual use technology, personal skill + equipment, is potentially a great recruiting tool. Transforming the Afghan economy from poppy farmers to tourist haven and economic cross roads is in the interest of most people, with the obvious exception of Taliban and other extremists.

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Remote Controlled Cars and Warfare

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

What do you get when you cross ingenuity with need? Cheap and effecitve solutions. The American soldier is well known for his (her) resourcefulness and using RC cars against IEDs is no exception:

A
young private…has one of those radio-controlled toy cars. When they find unidentifiable debris in the
road, E.S. sends out his little RC car and rams it. If it’s light enough to be moved or knocked over, it’s too light to be a bomb…

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The Net and Terrorists

~ Matt Armstrong

The Washington Post published an update on al-Qaeda’s successful venture into the world of knowledge management (KM) and its child, Computer-based training (CBT). While many businesses in America look for obstacles when deploying effective KM solutions (refusing to see the cost benefit of an imperfect deployment over no deployment over the wrong deployment), these ad hoc "franchises" of AQ latch on with vim and vigor, exploring the various opportunities available in cyberspace.

al Qaeda has become the first guerrilla movement in history to migrate from physical space to cyberspace. With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet cafes, young code-writing jihadists have sought to replicate the training, communication, planning and preaching facilities they lost in Afghanistan with countless new locations on the Internet.

Flexible, anonymous, collaborative knowledge sharing environments is what the web does best. Without being bogged down by bureucratic infighting to create the best practices before deployment, AQ and its affiliated nodes learn by trial and error, developing best practices the old fashioned way.

While easily identifiable items in the WP article are the Computer Based Training (CBT) examples, the real underlying concern is the information and knowledge sharing to build a smarter enterprise. These practices must be met with the same in our matching and superceding efforts, as they increasingly are. Decades old infighting between intelligence services that have led to ossified barriers between knowledge stores, including antiquated information systems, must be torn down and replaced.

The FBI’s Virtual Case File system was a disaster, an expensive ($170m) and time-consuming Dilbert-esque failure. The new Sentinel system is not expected to be in-place until 2009. This is not to say we are failing at every effort, but critical knokwledge hubs are not being addressed quick enough. Designing the perfect system takes time, providing an open platform that may be imperfect allows for expansion to meet the needs that are really necessary and develop after design milestones.

Collaborative methodologies take hold when users understand, demand, are heard, and responded to. A flatter organization, like AQ, with its transforming entrepreneurs will continue to evolve into a more formidable enemy because of reduced bureaucratic drag.

CBT for Terrorists

~ Matt Armstrong

Computer games are actively deployed in the training, debriefing, and counseling forces. The US, for example, is using computer-based training (CBT) in the form of a computer game to reduce post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. On the other hand, terrorists and insurgents (or freedom fighter, depending on whose side you sit) are using CBT too.

ABC News ran an item about Iraqi insurgents providing online sniper training. Knowledge sharing is what the internet is based on, as is filesharing. Defense and National Interest translated and posted the  powerpoints of training exercises

 

Other technology is of course used by the modern collaborative terrorist: CD and DVD media. MSNBC reported on this offline technology to share knowledge and lessons learned to improve future efforts. Included on this CD are instructions on

how to make anti-personnel mines, anti-tank grenades
and armor-piercing mines, along with the exact chemical formula to
create RDX — a high-powered explosive which could increase the
lethality of major attacks.