March 2011 »

As the nation's new suspicious activity reporting fusion centers come online this year, observers are beginning to notice a major problem: there is a significant gap between the demand for and supply of experts able to train local police officers who will be charged with the difficult task of sniffing out terror suspects in their communities.

Unmet demand means lucrative teaching and training appointments for those who are able to fashion themselves as CT experts. But it also seems to mean that local police forces are taking what they can get in terms of tutelage, even if the curricula on offer are inaccurate or unhelpful.

According to an NPR story, Army Lt. Col. Reid Sawyer, a career intelligence officer who heads the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, "has been watching with alarm the phenomenon of officials with limited experience selling themselves as terrorism instructors."

"You've got a lot of individuals who are not academically qualified to be instructing in these venues, and more importantly they are speaking with authority, which empowers the audience with knowledge that is not necessarily accurate," said Sawyer, adding that these short courses tend to stereotype Muslims in a way that just isn't helpful as officials redouble their efforts to fight homegrown terrorism and radical Islam."

A more detailed interview study by Meg Stalcup and Joshua Craze, published in the Washington Monthly, highlights the mentality of some of the (mostly) men making the rounds training local law enforcement. For instance, "the trainer Joe Bierly, based in Riverside County, California … doesn’t think American law enforcement is ready for the next terrorist attack. At the end of the day, he said, the question is this: 'Can you run fifteen yards on a blood-slicked floor, take aim, and still hit the target?'”

"Richard Hughbank, another counterterrorism trainer, is a fourth-generation combat veteran on his father’s side. 'Honestly, I kinda fell into it,' Hughbank told [Stalcup and Craze] when [they] interviewed him in November 2009.'“I think most of us did.'”

Another self-made CT trainer, John Giduck writes, “'I think the first thing we need to do is pass federal legislation exempting law enforcement from any civil or criminal prosecution, any liability at all, for what they do if there is a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.' … 'In attempting to prepare the American psyche for the worst possible terrorist act—the taking and killing of children—we must all shed the veil of civility and luxury in which we conduct our lives.'”

"Despite their different backgrounds, the counterterrorism trainers [Stalcup and Craze] interviewed have a remarkably similar worldview. It is one of

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The White House announced today that it will be trying terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo using the Military Commissions created by Obama's predecessor and ratified by Congress in 2005.

The President was not pleased with the move, saying that "he remains committed to closing Guantanamo some day and to charging some terrorist suspects in civilian criminal courts," which have a proven track record compared to the rarely used and institutionally weak military commissions. But his hand was forced by a Congress that refuses to allow any Guantanamo detainee to be tried on U.S. soil.

Mr. Obama has already pointed out the irrationality of any concern that a terrorist might escape one of the U.S.'s maximum security prisons (which have never been breached), but Congress has not budged. He might also have cited the ample evidence suggesting that military trials reinforce terrorists' attempts to paint themselves as heroic global warriors who sit on par with the American military officers comprising the "jury of their peers" in those courts.

He could even have offered examples illustrating how military courts have produced shorter sentences than traditional criminal courts. A driver and weapons transporter for Osama bin Laden (tried in a military commission) is walking free today while the driver of a low-level Pakistanti extremist who transported paintball equipment is still serving a 15 year sentence handed down by a civilian jury. Similarly, David Hicks (sentenced in a Military Commission) walks free today, while John Walker Lindh continues to serve out a 20 year sentence (meted out by a civilian jury) for essentially the same crime.

Obama could debate all day with Congress about these issues, and show all the ways in which our constitutional system of due process rights produces surer and more exacting justice outcomes than military courts. But that would only be worthwhile if the U.S. Congress was interested in evidence. On this issue, for now, the politics of keeping "the bogeymen" off of American soil continues to hold the day.

"Recommendation: The burden of proof for retaining a particular governmental power should be on the executive, to explain (a) that the power actually materially enhances security and (b) that there is adequate supervision of the executive's use of the powers to ensure protection of civil liberties. If the power is granted, there must be adequate guidelines and oversight to properly confine its use."

-- The Final Report of the 9/11 Commission

While several Inspectors General and Government Accountability Office analysts have evaluated whether CT tactics implemented after 9/11 were being overused or abused, (and found that they too often were), few in or out of the government have seriously endeavored to measure whether those tactics were even effective in the first place.

Instead, most authors have assumed (a) that the government powers expanded after 9/11 have "materially enhance[d] security" and gone on to argue about (b) the prudent implementation of those measures. Heymann and Kayyem's much lauded Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror is an excellent case in point.

In "CT Since 9/11" we begin and end with evaluations of some of the most debated and litigated tactics used since 9/11. Reviewing hundreds of government documents, media reports, and works of social science, we get to the bottom of what works and what does not to counter terrorism. You can download the report here.

Lisa Stampnitzky has been studying what she calls the "unruly field" of terrorism studies for the past few years. In an article published in Qualitative Sociology she identifies two poles toward which those in the field gravitate and, perhaps, the birth pangs of a new scientific discipline.

One camp of scholars in terrorism studies, mostly academics from the social sciences, believes that what counts for security knowledge is too often based on unsubstantiated folk knowledge and impressionistic anecdote. The other camp, populated by security experts with close ties to the state, is largely unconcerned with such critiques, probably because they have secure positions influencing state officials and their policies.

Stampnitzky does not attempt to adjudicate between those who see "'terrorism' as a problem to be made coherent by or for academic analysis" and those who "see it as a practical problem to be combated and eradicated." So, perhaps the most interesting question raised by her paper is left unanswered: where is the field going?

As in many areas of human activity, conflict often correlates with productive dynamism and change. Right now, it appears that many rigorous scientists are trying to bring the field out of the secretive chambers of government where it is treated as a craft and into the open light of scientific inquiry. More power to them.

Writing for Foreign Affairs, Leah Farrall describes Al Qaeda's operational and organizational evolution over the last two decades, concluding that the terrorist group "is stronger today than when it carried out the 9/11 attacks."

But was her article finalized just a few days too early?

Farrall described how Al Qaeda's flexible, far-reaching and somewhat weak organizational ties have been heavily fortified by a manhaj (narrative of a strategic pathway) able to attract many extremists and revolutionaries. But recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, and Oman may significantly undermine Al Qaeda's raison d'etre.

Well-organized, peaceful, televised protests have repudiated the (frequently disproved but perennially reanimated) notion that violence best achieves transformative political outcomes. In only a few short weeks the perception of Al Qaeda among people seeking change in the middle east has probably fallen dramatically. In mid January, they were seen as a potential (if complicated) answer for the Middle East. Now, their approach seems so unnecessary and so opposite of what has worked, that the group is being used as a scapegoat by none other than Muammar Qaddafi. The apparent absurdity of Al Qaeda's violent strategy for transformation of the Middle East is emphasized all the more by Qaddafi's outlandish claims that AQ members have been distributing mind-twisting hallucinogenic drugs to motivate his otherwise adoring subjects.

The bottom line: Al Qaeda has played virtually no part in the democratic uprisings reshaping the region. Furthermore, it appears, at this point, that any attempt by Al Qaeda to hi-jack the movements underway will only antagonize populations...

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