US must deal with domestic radical problem

[fatman17]

US must deal with domestic radical problem

* No federal agency has been charged with identifying radicalisation or working to prevent terrorist recruitment of US citizens
* United States should have learned from Britain’s experience

WASHINGTON: The United States was slow to take seriously the threat posed by homegrown radicals, and the government has failed to put systems in place to deal with the growing phenomenon, according to a report compiled by the former heads of a panel that investigated government activities before and after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The report says US authorities failed to realise that Somali-American youths travelling from Minnesota to Somalia in 2008 to join extremist groups was not an isolated event. Instead, the movement was one among several instances of a broader, more diverse threat that had surfaced across the country.

“Our long-held belief that homegrown terrorism couldn’t happen here has thus created a situation where we are today stumbling blindly through the legal, operational and organisational minefield of countering terrorist radicalisation and recruitment occurring in the United States,” said the report. As a result, there remains no federal agency specifically charged with identifying radicalisation or working to prevent terrorist recruitment of US citizens and residents, said the report, released on Friday by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Centre’s National Security Preparedness Group.

The group, headed by former 9/11 commission leaders Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, laid out a detailed description of domestic terror incidents such as the Fort Hood shooting spree last year in which 13 people died; the attempt to crash an airliner in December as it was landing at Detroit, Michigan; and May’s botched vehicle bombing in New York City’s Times Square.

During the past year, terrorism experts and government officials have warned of the threat posed by homegrown radicals, saying terror recruits who go abroad could return to the United States to carry out attacks. But the United States, the report said, should have learned earlier from Britain’s experience. Before the 2005 suicide bombings in London’s transit system, the British believed that Muslims there were better integrated, educated and wealthier than their counterparts elsewhere.

Similarly, US authorities believed that its melting pot of nationalities and religions would protect it from internal radical strife, the report said. The terrorists, it said, may have discovered America’s “Achilles’ heel in that we currently have no strategy to counter the type of threat posed by homegrown terrorists and other radicalised recruits”.

US officials have acknowledged the need to address the radicalisation problem, and for the first time, the White House added combating homegrown terrorism this year to its national security strategy. The FBI, meanwhile, has worked to reach out to the Somali communities in an effort to counter the radicalisation of the youth.

The report also points to an “Americanisation” of the leadership of al Qaeda and its allied groups, noting that radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who encouraged the US soldier accused in the Fort Hood shooting and others, grew up in the state of New Mexico. And Chicagoan David Headley played a role in scooping the targets for the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba attacks on Mumbai in late 2008 that killed more than 160 tourists and others. Abroad, al Qaeda, its affiliates and other extremist groups have splintered and spread, seeking havens in undergoverned areas of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and places in North and East Africa. That diversified threat has intensified as militants reached out to potential recruits through the Internet.

Assessing future threats, the report lists potential future domestic targets, including passenger jets, Western or American hotel chains, Jewish or Israeli sites and US soldiers, even at their own bases in America.

It also warns that it is no longer wise to believe that American extremists will not resort to suicide bombings. They point to Maj Nidal Hasan’s alleged shooting spree at Fort Hood as an example, saying he had written about suicide operations in e-mails, and that his attack appeared to be one. ap

 

[muse]

Oh, Oh - this don't go down well, Fatman -- If there are radicals in the US, the problem is with Islam itself, not with the US being at war with it's own Muslim citizens -- The problem is what the US is becoming, to the degree there is radicalization in the US, it is driven by US policies - instead of things changing for the better, deeper more inclusive dialogues and representation, in the last nine years things have taken a rather sharply negative turn inside the US - something is wrong inside the US, inside it's society

Zakaria: Why America Overreacted to 9/11 - Newsweek

Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself. Today, Al Qaeda’s best hope is to find a troubled young man who has been radicalized over the Internet, and teach him to stuff his underwear with explosives.

I do not minimize Al Qaeda’s intentions, which are barbaric. I question its capabilities. In every recent conflict, the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries but massively exaggerated their strength. In the 1980s, we thought the Soviet Union was expanding its power and influence when it was on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy. In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap.

The error this time is more damaging. September 11 was a shock to the American psyche and the American system. As a result, we overreacted. In a crucially important Washington Post reporting project, “Top Secret America,” Dana Priest and William Arkin spent two years gathering information on how 9/11 has really changed America.

Here are some of the highlights. Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has created or reconfigured at least 263 organizations to tackle some aspect of the war on terror. The amount of money spent on intelligence has risen by 250 percent, to $75 billion (and that’s the public number, which is a gross underestimate). That’s more than the rest of the world spends put together. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet—the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons. Five miles southeast of the White House, the largest government site in 50 years is being built—at a cost of $3.4 billion—to house the largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs: the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.

This new system produces 50,000 reports a year—136 a day!—which of course means few ever get read. Those senior officials who have read them describe most as banal; one tells me, “Many could be produced in an hour using Google.” Fifty-one separate bureaucracies operating in 15 states track the flow of money to and from terrorist organizations, with little information-sharing.

Some 30,000 people are now employed exclusively to listen in on phone conversations and other communications in the United States. And yet no one in Army intelligence noticed that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been making a series of strange threats at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he trained. The father of the Nigerian “Christmas bomber” reported his son’s radicalism to the U.S. Embassy. But that message never made its way to the right people in this vast security apparatus. The plot was foiled only by the bomber’s own incompetence and some alert passengers.

Such mistakes might be excusable. But the rise of this national-security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government’s powers that now touches every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism. The most chilling aspect of Dave Eggers’s heartbreaking book, Zeitoun, is that the federal government’s fastest and most efficient response to Hurricane Katrina was the creation of a Guantánamo-like prison facility (in days!) in which 1,200 American citizens were summarily detained and denied any of their constitutional rights for months, a suspension of habeas corpus that reads like something out of a Kafka novel.

In the past, the U.S. government has built up for wars, assumed emergency authority, and sometimes abused that power, yet always demobilized after the war. But this is a war without end. When do we declare victory? When do the emergency powers cease?

Conservatives are worried about the growing power of the state. Surely this usurpation is more worrisome than a few federal stimulus programs. When James Madison pondered this issue, he came to a simple conclusion: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germs of every other … In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended?.?.?.?and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual war,” Madison concluded.

 

[Luftwaffe]

Well It is plain simple anything that takes place on their soil by their own people is labeled as local crime whether that includes gangs with high-tech gadgets and sophisticated weapons or one step further like black water.

 

[somebozo]

Well US is also facing home grown radicalism and there is almost a daily terrorist / shooting / hostage incident featured on MSNBC homepage. Yet they are not declared as a terrorist or failed nation??

 

[RobbieS]

Oh, Oh - this don't go down well, Fatman -- If there are radicals in the US, the problem is with Islam itself, not with the US being at war with it's own Muslim citizens -- The problem is what the US is becoming, to the degree there is radicalization in the US, it is driven by US policies - instead of things changing for the better, deeper more inclusive dialogues and representation, in the last nine years things have taken a rather sharply negative turn inside the US - something is wrong inside the US, inside it's society

Zakaria: Why America Overreacted to 9/11 - Newsweek

Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself. Today, Al Qaeda’s best hope is to find a troubled young man who has been radicalized over the Internet, and teach him to stuff his underwear with explosives.

I do not minimize Al Qaeda’s intentions, which are barbaric. I question its capabilities. In every recent conflict, the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries but massively exaggerated their strength. In the 1980s, we thought the Soviet Union was expanding its power and influence when it was on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy. In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap.

The error this time is more damaging. September 11 was a shock to the American psyche and the American system. As a result, we overreacted. In a crucially important Washington Post reporting project, “Top Secret America,” Dana Priest and William Arkin spent two years gathering information on how 9/11 has really changed America.

Here are some of the highlights. Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has created or reconfigured at least 263 organizations to tackle some aspect of the war on terror. The amount of money spent on intelligence has risen by 250 percent, to $75 billion (and that’s the public number, which is a gross underestimate). That’s more than the rest of the world spends put together. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet—the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons. Five miles southeast of the White House, the largest government site in 50 years is being built—at a cost of $3.4 billion—to house the largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs: the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.

This new system produces 50,000 reports a year—136 a day!—which of course means few ever get read. Those senior officials who have read them describe most as banal; one tells me, “Many could be produced in an hour using Google.” Fifty-one separate bureaucracies operating in 15 states track the flow of money to and from terrorist organizations, with little information-sharing.

Some 30,000 people are now employed exclusively to listen in on phone conversations and other communications in the United States. And yet no one in Army intelligence noticed that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been making a series of strange threats at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he trained. The father of the Nigerian “Christmas bomber” reported his son’s radicalism to the U.S. Embassy. But that message never made its way to the right people in this vast security apparatus. The plot was foiled only by the bomber’s own incompetence and some alert passengers.

Such mistakes might be excusable. But the rise of this national-security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government’s powers that now touches every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism. The most chilling aspect of Dave Eggers’s heartbreaking book, Zeitoun, is that the federal government’s fastest and most efficient response to Hurricane Katrina was the creation of a Guantánamo-like prison facility (in days!) in which 1,200 American citizens were summarily detained and denied any of their constitutional rights for months, a suspension of habeas corpus that reads like something out of a Kafka novel.

In the past, the U.S. government has built up for wars, assumed emergency authority, and sometimes abused that power, yet always demobilized after the war. But this is a war without end. When do we declare victory? When do the emergency powers cease?

Conservatives are worried about the growing power of the state. Surely this usurpation is more worrisome than a few federal stimulus programs. When James Madison pondered this issue, he came to a simple conclusion: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germs of every other … In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended?.?.?.?and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual war,” Madison concluded.

Damn, that two-faced neo con Zakaria can switch sides! Isnt he an instrument of the western propaganda machine?

 

[Ratus Ratus]

US must deal with domestic radical problem

* No federal agency has been charged with identifying radicalisation or working to prevent terrorist recruitment of US citizens
* United States should have learned from Britain’s experience

WASHINGTON: The United States was slow to take seriously the threat posed by homegrown radicals, and the government has failed to put systems in place to deal with the growing phenomenon, according to a report compiled by the former heads of a panel that investigated government activities before and after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The report says US authorities failed to realise that Somali-American youths travelling from Minnesota to Somalia in 2008 to join extremist groups was not an isolated event. Instead, the movement was one among several instances of a broader, more diverse threat that had surfaced across the country.

“Our long-held belief that homegrown terrorism couldn’t happen here has thus created a situation where we are today stumbling blindly through the legal, operational and organisational minefield of countering terrorist radicalisation and recruitment occurring in the United States,” said the report. As a result, there remains no federal agency specifically charged with identifying radicalisation or working to prevent terrorist recruitment of US citizens and residents, said the report, released on Friday by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Centre’s National Security Preparedness Group.

The group, headed by former 9/11 commission leaders Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, laid out a detailed description of domestic terror incidents such as the Fort Hood shooting spree last year in which 13 people died; the attempt to crash an airliner in December as it was landing at Detroit, Michigan; and May’s botched vehicle bombing in New York City’s Times Square.

During the past year, terrorism experts and government officials have warned of the threat posed by homegrown radicals, saying terror recruits who go abroad could return to the United States to carry out attacks. But the United States, the report said, should have learned earlier from Britain’s experience. Before the 2005 suicide bombings in London’s transit system, the British believed that Muslims there were better integrated, educated and wealthier than their counterparts elsewhere.

Similarly, US authorities believed that its melting pot of nationalities and religions would protect it from internal radical strife, the report said. The terrorists, it said, may have discovered America’s “Achilles’ heel in that we currently have no strategy to counter the type of threat posed by homegrown terrorists and other radicalised recruits”.

US officials have acknowledged the need to address the radicalisation problem, and for the first time, the White House added combating homegrown terrorism this year to its national security strategy. The FBI, meanwhile, has worked to reach out to the Somali communities in an effort to counter the radicalisation of the youth.

The report also points to an “Americanisation” of the leadership of al Qaeda and its allied groups, noting that radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who encouraged the US soldier accused in the Fort Hood shooting and others, grew up in the state of New Mexico. And Chicagoan David Headley played a role in scooping the targets for the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba attacks on Mumbai in late 2008 that killed more than 160 tourists and others. Abroad, al Qaeda, its affiliates and other extremist groups have splintered and spread, seeking havens in undergoverned areas of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and places in North and East Africa. That diversified threat has intensified as militants reached out to potential recruits through the Internet.

Assessing future threats, the report lists potential future domestic targets, including passenger jets, Western or American hotel chains, Jewish or Israeli sites and US soldiers, even at their own bases in America.

It also warns that it is no longer wise to believe that American extremists will not resort to suicide bombings. They point to Maj Nidal Hasan’s alleged shooting spree at Fort Hood as an example, saying he had written about suicide operations in e-mails, and that his attack appeared to be one. ap

The actual report can be found here:
Assessing the Terrorist Threat | Bipartisan Policy Center
It is called: "Assessing the Terrorist Threat", Sep. 10, 2010, By Peter Bergen and Dr. Bruce Hoffman.

It makes more sense than the media articles/extracts based on this report that have been posted about this forum.

Have fun enjoy doing some reading..

 

[fatman17]

the other day i saw a wonderful movie called 'good nite and good luck'. its abt edward r murrow's encounters with the junior senator from wisconsin - mccarthy during the 50's when american 'liberties' were being threatened by mr.mccarthy and his anti-commie or 'pinko' agenda.

now-a-days, with a wave of 'hate' against islam in the west and particularly in the US, i somehow feel the US is reverting to that era!

 

[Ratus Ratus]

the other day i saw a wonderful movie called 'good nite and good luck'. its abt edward r murrow's encounters with the junior senator from wisconsin - mccarthy during the 50's when american 'liberties' were being threatened by mr.mccarthy and his anti-commie or 'pinko' agenda.

now-a-days, with a wave of 'hate' against islam in the west and particularly in the US, i somehow feel the US is reverting to that era!

In some ways I agree here. But the report does not go along the anti Islam route. Its more about keeping check on where people go for their little learning holidays.

Unfortunately the hate against Islam has been warmed up by many idiots preaching hate and this comes from both sides.

 

[SekrutYakhni]

The excessive force used abroad plays a vital role in domestic radical extremism. Iraq war--Freedom for Iraqi people--Civilize them in a way--King Leopold--Civilize the people of Congo--Instead destruction and humiliation with the help of local cronies--Rubber industry--

Anyways, the best way to tackle extremism is to eliminate the ground roots. Complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, stop using excessive force, stop thinking that you are the holy cow and the saviour, concentrate on your local economy, stop printing huge deficit every year and stop interfering in other regions.

The U.S. will take strict actions against terrorism--Cap on the pot--What will happen afterwards? The ideology will be there and will explode someday. Stop printing useless BS biased articles against Muslims. Try to change their stance, ideology with a good will!

 

[fatman17]

A widening chasm

by Kalsoom Lakhani on 9/11

In 2001, I was a sophomore at the University of Virginia, an international student from Pakistan studying foreign affairs with the lofty earnestness only a college kid could have. On the morning of September 11, I was jarred awake by the sound of my phone ringing. My friend ordered me to get out of bed and turn on the news. Confused and half-awake, I flipped on my television just as the second plane flew into the World Trade Center in New York City. I watched, shell-shocked, as news agencies replayed the footage of buildings collapsing, of people crying and running, of billowing smoke and scattered debris.

I remember that morning vividly because it was the day the world changed, when the narrative shifted. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 ultimately cast the world in a harsh and polarizing light, as countries and their citizens were placed on either side of an arbitrarily imposed line, the not-so-cleverly dubbed “Axis of Evil.” As a Pakistani Muslim student in the United States, the nuances of my identity were suddenly a topic of conversation, a far cry from the generic “Asian/Pacific Islander” box I checked on my college application just two years earlier.

Nine years after the September 11 attacks, those same issues – of Islam’s place in America, of the perceived clash between the West and the “Muslim World” – are not only still part of the conversation, they have become intensified. On the recent cover of TIME magazine, the media outlet asked the question, “Is America Islamophobic?” A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in August 2010 found that 38 per cent of Americans polled said they had an unfavorable view of Islam, with most saying they know “very little” about the religion. According to Pew, favorable opinions of Islam have declined since 2005.

Given these numbers and the increasing perception of Islamophobia in America, how much of these attitudes can be traced back to the 9/11 attacks in 2001? According to Peter Mandaville, professor of Government and Islamic Studies at George Mason University and author of Global Political Islam, what we are seeing now is not an unprecedented moment and many of these issues “have been lurking beneath the surface for some time, arguably even before the 9/11 attacks.” However, he noted, “there have been a number of events and notable moments that have brought this under-the-surface phenomenon into the open, with high degrees of intensity.”

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, professor and Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C., echoed, “After 9/11, we saw a gap open wide between Muslims and non-Muslims, and even though many of us worked hard to close that gap through interfaith dialogue and understanding, all that was needed was a catalyst to reignite these tensions.” Some of these catalytic events include the debate over Park 51, the dubbed “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York City and, most recently, the proposed “Burn a Quran Day” by a pastor in Florida, two issues widely covered by the American news media.

While some have called these events isolated incidents not representative of a wider phenomenon, Ahmed says this is a misconception, noting that the suspicion and distrust of Muslims have been occurring for the last several years. In his recently released book, Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam, the most comprehensive anthropological study ever done of Muslims in America, Ahmed and his team visited over 100 mosques throughout the United States, analyzing the American Muslim experience, as well as attitudes towards this community. On the journey, they reported a number of incidents of mosques that had been attacked or vandalized, and noted an atmosphere of constant tension that has existed since 2001.

Islam, particularly after the 9/11 attacks, is often vilified as the “other,” and this lack of understanding has been exacerbated in recent years, not only by events in the United States, but also by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by perceptions of Pakistan as “the most dangerous nation in the world,” by militant and terrorist threats, and the burqa ban debate in Europe, to name a few. Moreover, as anti-American sentiment increases abroad as the result of US policies, so does this corresponding fear and mistrust of this perceived monolithic “Muslim World,” resulting in a heightened cycle of intolerance and fear.


According to both Mandaville and Ahmed, the failure of the Muslim leadership to explain the religion in the face of Islamist extremism is partly to blame. Mandaville noted, “Although there have been attempts by Muslim-Americans to rebrand the narrative, much of this messaging hasn’t hit the mainstream media. The public relations strategy therefore has to be reworked and become more comprehensive and strategic.” Muslim leaders must also ramp up their efforts at the interfaith level, working with Christian and Jewish leaders to emphasize that “Islam is not an other, it’s a firm component of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.” Mandaville added, “Muslims have to also stop being apologetic. The fact that they have to legitimize their voice by renouncing terrorism before they’re even allowed to speak is a symptom of the overarching problem.”

It is September 11, 2010, and it seems we are exactly where we were nine years ago, a world divided by fear, misunderstanding, intolerance, and hatred. However, as we continue to debate the Islamophobia phenomenon in the West and the anti-American sentiment elsewhere, it is important to understand the root causes behind these issues and the role both sides play in exacerbating this vicious cycle. In an increasingly interconnected world, global issues can have local ramifications and vice versa. Understanding perceptions of Islam, as well as Pakistan, through the 9/11 lens is important in developing solutions and comprehensive strategies, so that we all can – finally – move forward.

Kalsoom Lakhani is director for Social Vision, the strategic philanthropy arm of ML Resources, LLC. She blogs at CHUP: Changing Up Pakistan and tweets at twitter.com/kalsoom82.

 

[gambit]

Well US is also facing home grown radicalism and there is almost a daily terrorist / shooting / hostage incident featured on MSNBC homepage. Yet they are not declared as a terrorist or failed nation??

Of course you can. No one can prevent any government from making such declaration. Pakistan can declare the US to be 'failed state' and petition the UN, General Assembly and Security Council, to make the same declaration. Then see how many laugh...

 

[Urbanized Greyhound]

More crimes , drug dealing and murders happen on the streets of the major cities in the U.S than anywhere else .....its not difficult to find a bunch of frustrated kids in the U.S turning to radicalism to find some meaning in life.......its a cultural problem ......

 

[Ratus Ratus]

When people do not understand something, religion as an example, that distrust it. That works on both sides of the fence.

From what I see many in the US do not understand islam and so do not trust it as a religion nor the followers of Islam.
But the attempts to explain Islam is always drowned out by idiots and some are various Imams who make radical comments that actually hurt Islam as well as any attempt to provide avenues to understand it.

The same applies from the christian side and noticeably the mindless media. The media is possibly the worst criminal in this as it only portrays the "best sell story" even if it is totally offensive and non constructive to understandings.
The burning of the Koran is a good example. As a media piece it should have lasted at best 1/2 hour and then forgotten. I had to put up with that idiot on the TV news for days.

 

[muse]

The problem is beyond that Ratus - when people want to, they can absorb anything, when they want to, that is.

From my perspective, the larger problem is what the US is becoming and it is what it is becoming that is the source of the problem inside her society - A society, enemy making and enemy seeking inside, is a society enemy making and enemy seeking outside -- Fatman's point about McCarthyism is pretty much the same - Enemy making and Enemy seeking, keeps it's society polarized -- Why is this necessary? Again, from my perspective, it's about what the US is becoming and for that to happen, there must be a state of constant tension and fear, keeps questions at bay.

 

[InPhilTraitor]

Just like in Pakistani media and "daneshwars" blame America for almost everything, there is an under-current in US that has "destroyed" reputation of Islam, with a narrative. Just like Quaran burnings do not go unnoticed, the off-the-shelf burn the american flags (mostly in muslim countries)does not too.
I personally think, Islam has lost america. In spite of that USA is BAZILLION times more tolerant than Pakistan or for that fact INDIA.

You need to be a tolerant country, when you have immigrants from around the world, was US perfect no. But they did damn good job compared to any other.