I haven't blogged in the last week due to real life stuff that needed to be done and in the course of that week I decided to let the whole Wikileaks mania pass by without comment. I didn't really see the big deal about learning that Silvio Berlusconi is a womanizer and that Nicolas Sarkozy is an arrogant, aspiring Napoleon and that Vladimir (Batman) Putin is the real overlord of mafia-invested Russia and not Dmitry (Robin) Medvedev. Not really worthy of shouty headlines, we knew it all already.
But today, the new Aussie messiah of the internet-age, Julian Assange, from his hideout somewhere in the English home counties, has fired a broadside at the United States that defies silence. By releasing documents detailing facilities "vital to US security" he has crossed from part-time whistleblower to freelance espionage. What good does it do the free world to know that the US and Western Europe rely on a pipeline junction in Siberia for most of their natural gas and that critical Trans-Atlantic communications cables come ashore (Dutch language alert) in Katwijk and Beverwijk? Are we less free for not knowing all this?
By revealing these things, Mr. Assange and the rest of the Wikileaks crew are in fact making us less free by handing knowledge of how to threaten us to people who will gladly use that knowledge for their own nefarious purposes. If terrorists manage to strike at that pipeline junction or at facilities that make desperately-needed vaccines for typhoid or rabies, or - God forbid - get their hands on smallpox samples being used in a lab in Denmark, they can easily hold the free world at ransom or simply destroy things for destructions sake. And this does not just concern Islamic terrorists, but also anarchists in Western Europe and nationalist or communist radicals in Russia. In a dangerous world like ours, ignorance - and I hate to say this as a truth-seeking historian - sometimes truly is bliss. We sometimes need secret keepers to stand silent on the ramparts, aware of things that might terrify us and keep us awake at night.
Mr. Assange can now no longer hide behind the cover of whistleblowing. Releasing these latest cables would, in time of war, have been called aiding and abetting the enemy: a treasonable offence. Mr. Assange is in luck that he is not a US citizen, so he can hardly commit treason against that country, but he might well be charged with espionage, and he would do well to stay in hiding if he wants to remain free. Yet as far as I'm concerned, if he believes in the freedom and the importance of the word, he would give himself up now and, if required, go to the United States to face the consequences of his actions. If a brave man speaks up for what he believes in, he does not cower in the shadows afterwards, but advances "to the muzzles of guns with / perfect nonchalance!"
Showing posts with label War on Terror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War on Terror. Show all posts
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
New Al-Qaeda Terror Tactics
Dutch weekly news magazine Elsevier reports (Dutch language alert) on its website that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is changing its strategy from large-scale terrorist attacks a la 9/11 or 7/7 to smaller strikes like last years failed underwear bomber and last months air-freight bombs. Al-Qaeda has realized - some years after the rest of the world caught on - that 9/11 attacks are rather difficult to pull off succesfully. These small attacks are cheaper and easier to plan so Al-Qaeda can, with equal resources, plot more attacks. And by the fundamental laws of probability a few of these attacks should succeed. It is almost impossible for Western security and intelligence services to stop each and everyone of them. Moreover, a succesfull small-scale attack will have disruptive effects disproportionate to its costs. A single bomb exploding in a western shopping centre, train, or airplane will lead to people adjusting their lives out of fear. After two or three, they will start avoiding crowded places all together. So for a fraction of the cost and effort of planning 9/11, Al-Qaeda will have caused more chaos and sowed more terror than on that September morning.
Like I said this strategy - called 'the strategy of death by a thousand cuts' or 'Operation Internal Haemorrhage - is being implemented by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This subordinate affiliate of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is overtaking its parent organisation as the main perpetrator of terror attacks. With the disruption of Al Qaeda's activities by the military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the junior group is becoming the greatest threat to the Western world. It makes sense for Al-Qaeda - whose organisatory system is cell-based with each cell being independent of the others - for such a subordinate group to take over if the main (Afghan-based) group is compromised. The change of strategy by AQAP should be a signal for the West to rethink its own counter-strategy. While the War in Afghanistan should continue - and as I wrote yesterday even stepped up - Yemen should become a new front in the larger War on Terror. It is imperative that AQAP is not given the opportunity to implement its new strategy.
The first signs that this is a serious new threat are visible in Germany where reports about impending attacks have led security forces there to ramp of surveillance of train stations and airports. But other islamic terror threats remain. Security services are also warning of 'Mumbai-style' attacks, with heavily-armed gunmen storming a building looking to kill as many people in a surprise attack before security forces can react. Warnings about this have been given by German government officials (Dutch language alert) who hinted that the Reichstag may be the likely target. A similar plot is seen as imminent by British authorities, who have drawn up contingency plans in case the Houses of Parliament come under attack.
All this shows that, although it has been relatively quiet on the terror front in Europe and the United States recently, we can not rest easy, content that no attacks will take place and that islamic terrorism is being contained outside our borders. Like they say in second-rate thrillers and horror films just before someone gets killed: "it's a little too quiet". We may be in the calm before the storm and when it finally comes, that storm may rage more violent than before.
Like I said this strategy - called 'the strategy of death by a thousand cuts' or 'Operation Internal Haemorrhage - is being implemented by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This subordinate affiliate of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is overtaking its parent organisation as the main perpetrator of terror attacks. With the disruption of Al Qaeda's activities by the military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the junior group is becoming the greatest threat to the Western world. It makes sense for Al-Qaeda - whose organisatory system is cell-based with each cell being independent of the others - for such a subordinate group to take over if the main (Afghan-based) group is compromised. The change of strategy by AQAP should be a signal for the West to rethink its own counter-strategy. While the War in Afghanistan should continue - and as I wrote yesterday even stepped up - Yemen should become a new front in the larger War on Terror. It is imperative that AQAP is not given the opportunity to implement its new strategy.
The first signs that this is a serious new threat are visible in Germany where reports about impending attacks have led security forces there to ramp of surveillance of train stations and airports. But other islamic terror threats remain. Security services are also warning of 'Mumbai-style' attacks, with heavily-armed gunmen storming a building looking to kill as many people in a surprise attack before security forces can react. Warnings about this have been given by German government officials (Dutch language alert) who hinted that the Reichstag may be the likely target. A similar plot is seen as imminent by British authorities, who have drawn up contingency plans in case the Houses of Parliament come under attack.
All this shows that, although it has been relatively quiet on the terror front in Europe and the United States recently, we can not rest easy, content that no attacks will take place and that islamic terrorism is being contained outside our borders. Like they say in second-rate thrillers and horror films just before someone gets killed: "it's a little too quiet". We may be in the calm before the storm and when it finally comes, that storm may rage more violent than before.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
To Struggle in Afghanistan or Submit to Certain Defeat
As the leaders of the 28 NATO member states meet in Lisbon this weekend to discuss the future of the mission in Afghanistan, the real issue at stake is the credibility of NATO's - and the West's - commitment to the War on Terror, so grandly declared almost a decade ago. I know this might sound like a exaggeration, but by setting a fixed date for the withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014, NATO is sending the signal to the terrorists that all they need to do to return to power in that country is to be patient. And that same signal will be heard the world over. The virtue of patience will be richly rewarded wherever terrorists hide. Just wait and the West will go away.
Fixed withdrawal dates are never a good idea, unless they are backed up by overwhelming forces in the time till then. If the objective of the invasion of Afghanistan was the removal from power of the Taliban, thereby denying Al Qaeda the support their main state-sponsor and the capture of Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking Al Qaeda members, then withdrawing in four years time only to have the Taliban return to Kabul will mean that the United States and NATO have suffered defeat at the hands of a rag-tag insurgency. No matter the way Washington spins it, no victory will have been achieved if this happens. The only way to achieve victory is by a troop surge reminiscent of the one in Iraq. But I doubt this will happen. Instead of sending more troops, countries are withdrawing already. They are tired of the seemingly unwinnable conflict. Naming 2014 as the deadline for troops to leave Afghanistan simply fits into this picture.
The BBC quotes a spokesman for President Karzai:
Fixed withdrawal dates are never a good idea, unless they are backed up by overwhelming forces in the time till then. If the objective of the invasion of Afghanistan was the removal from power of the Taliban, thereby denying Al Qaeda the support their main state-sponsor and the capture of Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking Al Qaeda members, then withdrawing in four years time only to have the Taliban return to Kabul will mean that the United States and NATO have suffered defeat at the hands of a rag-tag insurgency. No matter the way Washington spins it, no victory will have been achieved if this happens. The only way to achieve victory is by a troop surge reminiscent of the one in Iraq. But I doubt this will happen. Instead of sending more troops, countries are withdrawing already. They are tired of the seemingly unwinnable conflict. Naming 2014 as the deadline for troops to leave Afghanistan simply fits into this picture.
The BBC quotes a spokesman for President Karzai:
"A journey that has a clear sense of destination is a much easier journey than a journey into the unknown."A fair sentiment indeed. Yet what is forgotten here is that the destination was known from the outset of the war, only the road to be taken was uncertain. The road now turns out to be harder than imagined and so the journey is being cut short before the true goal is reached. Per ardua ad astra (through hardship to the stars) used to be a noble sentiment but now it seems we will have aimed for the stars but fail to reach them. The hardship is apparently too much and the struggle is not worth it. So there won't be an increase in troop numbers and NATO submits to defeat in 2014 by setting a deadline now and this raises the question: why remain in Afghanistan at all if in four years time the West will leave whatever the state of the country? If victory matters not, David Cameron should follow the example of the Netherlands and withdraw tomorrow.
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