Counterinsurgents Should Consider a 'Fabrication Cell'
Topic: War on Terrorism
12:28 pm EDT, Jul 6, 2007
Consider the implications of the fact that a suite full of inexpensive machines -- say between $5,000 and $25,000 in cost -- can be used to fabricate just about anything, given a little training on the machines and a good bit of ingenuity.
The author focuses on the power of his team getting a fablab. I would ask, consider the implications of a fablab-powered insurgency. Whereas Negroponte seeks one laptop per child in Africa, a wealthy extremist might establish a One FabLab Per Jihadist program throughout the Middle East. Maybe it would even be a BioFabLab.
Four years after the US invaded Iraq, a group of the war's veterans invaded the streets of New York. In a Memorial Day exercise, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) donned their gear and reenacted military scenarios commonplace in the streets of Iraq. Using their hands as rifles, they shouted commands and crept around corners. Some scoured the streets for "Iraqi citizens," forcing them to the ground, cuffing, and hooding them.
The performance, captured in a video posted on the Nation, was meant to penetrate the detached and filtered haze that defines how most Americans view the war.
“Someone powerful obviously controls this area,” Wankel told Trammell. “The local authorities’ leaving has sent out the message that we’re unsafe and can be attacked. We should go.”
We climbed back up the bluff. Qassem was standing there with several of his men. Doug Wankel didn’t approach him. Marouf went to talk to Qassem, and then came back and told Wankel, “The police say you can eradicate there”—he pointed up to the other side of the road.
“Fuck the police,” [*, *] Wankel snarled, and he turned and walked away. He told his men that it was over.
I walked past one of the jeeps where some of Qassem’s policemen, dressed in robes and sparkly skullcaps, were laughing and talking with the opium growers. I caught a whiff of something burning as I passed. They were smoking hashish.
Back at camp, everyone was in a bad mood. Hook, the former prison guard, remarked, “We ought to take all those guys and hang them in public, beginning with the governor.” He laughed, and added, “Good thing I’m not an idealist—I’m just here for the money.”
50 Cent: Man, who ever said progress was a slow process wasn't talkin' 'bout me!
...
Young Buc: When your neck and wrist glow, she already should know / That money make the world go round, so let's get mo'
Hrm. Maybe jihad isn't punk after all. Maybe it's HIP-HOP.
And now I'm reminded of Lilly Allen's video for "LDN":
Hi. Um, I'm just wondering, have you got any kind of like, sort of punky, electronica, kind of grime, kind of like, new wave grime, kind of maybe like more broken beats, like kinda dubby broken beats, but a little bit kind of soulful ...? but kinda drum and bassy, but kinda more broken drum and bass, like sort of broken beats, like break-beat broken kind of drum and bass ... do you know what I mean? No?
As is often the way with young men who join cults, absorption into the world of the Islamists answered some of the author’s personal problems—his need for friends, for example, and for a sense of transcendent purpose. Alienation from his parents only confirmed his view that he was taking a courageous path.
Computer files maintained by a "cyber-terrorist" gang in the United Kingdom included a threat by 45 Muslim doctors said to be planning an attack on the Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Fla., and other US sites using car bombs and rocket grenades.
Jacksonville is a target!?
Of 3 plotters arrested, two are biochemistry students and one is a law student.
Fareed Zakaria called this article "deeply illuminating."
What turned Mohammad Sidique Khan, a softly spoken youth worker, into the mastermind of 7/7? I spent months in a Leeds suburb getting to know Khan's brother. A complex and disturbing story of the bomber's radicalisation emerged.
True or False: We Are Losing The War Against Radical Islam
Topic: War on Terrorism
10:22 pm EDT, Jun 26, 2007
Amid the clamor, it is difficult to figure out what is actually going on.
Fareed Zakaria's weekly column.
People in the Muslim world travel to see the glitz in Dubai, not the madrassas in Tehran.
By and large, radical Islam is not winning the argument, which is why it is trying to win by force.
...
How to open up and modernize the Muslim world is a long, hard and complex challenge. But surely one key is to be seen by these societies and peoples as partners and friends, not as bullies and enemies. That is one battle we are not yet winning.
The General’s Report | Annals of National Security
Topic: War on Terrorism
6:24 am EDT, Jun 18, 2007
“Here I am,” Taguba recalled Rumsfeld saying, “just a Secretary of Defense, and we have not seen a copy of your report. I have not seen the photographs, and I have to testify to Congress tomorrow and talk about this.” As Rumsfeld spoke, Taguba said, “He’s looking at me. It was a statement.”
At best, Taguba said, “Rumsfeld was in denial.” Taguba had submitted more than a dozen copies of his report through several channels at the Pentagon and to the Central Command headquarters, in Tampa, Florida, which ran the war in Iraq. By the time he walked into Rumsfeld’s conference room, he had spent weeks briefing senior military leaders on the report, but he received no indication that any of them, with the exception of General Schoomaker, had actually read it. (Schoomaker later sent Taguba a note praising his honesty and leadership.) When Taguba urged one lieutenant general to look at the photographs, he rebuffed him, saying, “I don’t want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?”
The independent Senator reports on his latest trip to Iraq.
I conclude from my visit that victory is still possible in Iraq--thanks to the Iraqi majority that desperately wants a better life, and because of the courage, compassion and competence of the extraordinary soldiers and statesmen who are carrying the fight there, starting with Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.
The question now is, will we politicians in Washington rise to match their leadership, sacrifices and understanding of what is on the line for us in Iraq--or will we betray them, and along with them, America's future security?
