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From User: possibly noteworthy

"I don't think the report is true, but these crises work for those who want to make fights between people." Kulam Dastagir, 28, a bird seller in Afghanistan

A Terror Trial, With or Without Due Process
Topic: Current Events 11:11 am EDT, Sep 10, 2006

In the first World Trade Center bombing case in 1993, prosecutors had to give the defense a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators. The list, he writes, was “delivered to bin Laden” ” and “was later found during the investigation of the African embassy bombings.”

Thats an interesting datapoint. Of course, Bush's response to this threat was to simply not have trials at all. The court has required trials, so they've got to hold them. What confuses me is why they can't preserve proceedural fairness while improving information security. Haven't you limited the suspect's ability to communicate with free conspirators? Don't the defense attorneys have security clearances? (Of course, the latter could be used as a tool by the government to remove any useful defense attorney, but that need not be the case.)

A Terror Trial, With or Without Due Process


Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'
Topic: War on Terrorism 10:29 am EDT, Sep 10, 2006

Dana Priest sums up the situation.

In the last three months, following a request from President Bush to "flood the zone," the CIA has sharply increased the number of intelligence officers and assets devoted to the pursuit of bin Laden.

The problem, former and current counterterrorism officials say, is that no one is certain where the "zone" is.

The Afghan-Pakistan border is about 1,500 miles.

At least 23 senior anti-Taliban tribesmen have been assassinated in South and North Waziristan since May 2005.

Pakistan has now all but stopped looking for bin Laden.

"Once again, we have lost track of Ayman al-Zawahiri," the Pakistani intelligence official said in a recent interview. "He keeps popping on television screens. It's miserable, but we don't know where he or his boss are hiding."

"There's nobody in the United States government whose job it is to find Osama bin Laden!" one frustrated counterterrorism official shouted. "Nobody!"

"We work by consensus," explained Brig. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr. "It's not that effective, or we'd find the guy."

This is an interesting vignette:

In early November 2002, a CIA drone armed with a Hellfire missile killed a top al-Qaeda leader traveling through the Yemeni desert. About a week later, Rumsfeld expressed anger that it was the CIA, not the Defense Department, that had carried out the successful strike.

"How did they get the intel?" he demanded.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then director of the National Security Agency and technically part of the Defense Department, said he had given it to them.

"Why aren't you giving it to us?" Rumsfeld wanted to know.

Hayden, according to this source, told Rumsfeld that the information-sharing mechanism with the CIA was working well. Rumsfeld said it would have to stop.

Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'


Al Qaeda Finds Its Center of Gravity
Topic: War on Terrorism 10:28 am EDT, Sep 10, 2006

Over the last year, as Iran, Iraq and Lebanon have dominated headlines, hopes of gaining firmer control of a largely forgotten corner of the war on terrorism — the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region — have quietly evaporated.

On Tuesday, the Pakistani government signed a "truce" with militants which lets militants remain in the area as long as they promised to halt attacks.

Is this the "separate peace" that Rumsfeld was talking about? He must be furious about this, right?

The Taliban leadership is believed to have established a base of operations in and around the Pakistani city of Quetta. The Pakistani government sees the group as a tool to counter growing Indian influence in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, roadside bomb attacks have doubled this year, and suicide bombings have tripled.

This year, the United States cut its aid to Afghanistan by 30 percent.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban are no doubt betting that time is on their side.

Al Qaeda Finds Its Center of Gravity


We're Not Winning This War
Topic: War on Terrorism 11:35 pm EDT, Sep  5, 2006

As late as June of this year, Mark Mershon of the FBI testified that the bureau will not monitor or surveil any Islamist unless there is a "criminal predicate." Thus the large Islamist support infrastructure that the commission identified here in the United States is free to operate until its members actually commit a crime.

Spun another way, the FBI is sick of tailing pizza delivery boys. Is there really an Al'Queda domestic support infrastructure that we are aware of and aren't paying attention to or is this guy merely suggesting that every arab is a suspect?

Even in the United States, some 80 percent of Islamic mosques and schools are closely aligned with the Wahhabist sect and heavily dependent on Saudi funding.

I would be seriously suprised to hear that American Islamic mosques are producing violent radicals. If this is the case, the response ought to come in the form of dialog. The suggestion that we should target and eliminate funding for a sect of domestic religious schools that are, AFAIK, not producing violent people, simply because they are muslim is, frankly, unconstitutional for a good reason. I don't think the sort of radical churches that exist in England would be tollerated here.

We're Not Winning This War


Is There Still a Terrorist Threat? | Foreign Affairs
Topic: War on Terrorism 3:17 am EDT, Sep  5, 2006

What terrorism?

Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable -- but rarely heard -- explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.

It is worth remembering that the total number of people killed since 9/11 by al Qaeda or al Qaeda­like operatives outside of Afghanistan and Iraq is not much higher than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States in a single year.

Although it remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of the omnipotent terrorist may have been overblown, the threat presented within the United States by al Qaeda greatly exaggerated. The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists.

I think this article is too quick to dismiss in the impact that the invasion of Afghanistan had on Al'Queda, but the general thrust doesn't require this observation to be acceptable.

Is There Still a Terrorist Threat? | Foreign Affairs


Stem Cells Without Embryo Loss
Topic: Science 10:32 am EDT, Aug 26, 2006

A small biotech company says it has found a way to produce human embryonic stem cells without destroying an embryo. That the prospect does not satisfy many religious conservatives who have opposed stem cell research demonstrates once again why the government should avoid making decisions on theological grounds.

Remember what happened in Ireland?

This illustrates the great lengths to which scientists must go these days to shape stem cell research to fit the dictates of religious conservatives who have imposed their own view of morality on the scientific enterprise.

Stem Cells Without Embryo Loss


Does Iran have something in store? | Bernard Lewis
Topic: Society 1:03 pm EDT, Aug 10, 2006

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.

A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead--hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.

How then can one confront such an enemy, with such a view of life and death? Some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary. In the long term, it would seem that the best, perhaps the only hope is to appeal to those Muslims, Iranians, Arabs and others who do not share these apocalyptic perceptions and aspirations, and feel as much threatened, indeed even more threatened, than we are. There must be many such, probably even a majority in the lands of Islam. Now is the time for them to save their countries, their societies and their religion from the madness of MAD.

The August 22nd meme was going around at Defcon.

Does Iran have something in store? | Bernard Lewis


Lisa Rein's Tour Of Alan Kay's Etech 2003 Presentation
Topic: Technology 2:24 pm EDT, Jul 12, 2006

"I once asked Ivan, 'How is it possible for you to have invented computer graphics, done the first object oriented software system and the first real time constraint solver all by yourself in one year?" And he said "I didn't know it was hard."
-- Alan Kay on Ivan Sutherland.

Lisa Rein's Tour Of Alan Kay's Etech 2003 Presentation


Keeping Synthetic Biology Away from Terrorists
Topic: Science 2:19 pm EDT, Jul  7, 2006

Scientists want to adopt a set of declarations to improve the security of research that uses DNA synthesis. A proponent discusses the whys and wherefores of this effort.

Keeping Synthetic Biology Away from Terrorists


Lessons From Canada: Snooping Works
Topic: Surveillance 1:15 pm EDT, Jun 11, 2006

There is "a need to double surveillance and investigative capability" domestically, the report said, so that authorities can "find ways of broadening coverage to pick up currently unknown terrorist activity or plots."

"Surveillance is absolutely crucial,"

"You can't not do it,"

Lessons From Canada: Snooping Works


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