Since the UN never deploys observers to an active war zone, logic would suggest these unarmed men should have been pulled out the moment hostilities went beyond minor violations of the ceasefire they were monitoring... For the immediate-ceasefire crowd, the deaths of the UN military observers held the potential to give them a powerful moral argument against Israel's offensive -- beyond the one they were already citing daily: the mounting toll of civilian casualties.

UN post should have been cleared

Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - May 16, 2006

Civil Liberties and National Security

By George Friedman

USA Today published a story last week stating that U.S. telephone
companies (Qwest excepted) had been handing over to the National
Security Agency (NSA) logs of phone calls made by American
citizens. This has, as one might expect, generated a fair bit of
controversy -- with opinions ranging from "It's not only legal but
a great idea" to "This proves that Bush arranged 9/11 so he could
create a police state." A fine time is being had by all. Therefore,
it would seem appropriate to pause and consider the matter.

Let's begin with an obvious question: How in God's name did USA
Today find out about a program that had to have been among the most
closely held secrets in the intelligence community -- not only
because it would be embarrassing if discovered, but also because
the entire program could work only if no one knew it was under way?
No criticism of USA Today, but we would assume that the newspaper
wasn't running covert operations against the NSA. Therefore,
someone gave them the story, and whoever gave them the story had to
be cleared to know about it. That means that someone with a high
security clearance leaked an NSA secret.

Americans have become so numbed to leaks at this point that no one
really has discussed the implications of what we are seeing: The
intelligence community is hemorrhaging classified information. It's
possible that this leak came from one of the few congressmen or
senators or staffers on oversight committees who had been briefed
on this material -- but either way, we are seeing an extraordinary
breakdown among those with access to classified material.

The reason for this latest disclosure is obviously the nomination
of Gen. Michael Hayden to be the head of the CIA. Before his
appointment as deputy director of national intelligence, Hayden had
been the head of the NSA, where he oversaw the collection and
data-mining project involving private phone calls. Hayden's
nomination to the CIA has come under heavy criticism from Democrats
and Republicans, who argue that he is an inappropriate choice for
director. The release of the data-mining story to USA Today
obviously was intended as a means of shooting down his nomination
-- which it might. But what is important here is not the fate of
Hayden, but the fact that the Bush administration clearly has lost
all control of the intelligence community -- extended to include
congressional oversight processes. That is not a trivial point.

At the heart of the argument is not the current breakdown in
Washington, but the more significant question of why the NSA was
running such a collection program and whether the program
represented a serious threat to l... [ Read More (2.0k in body) ]

Civil Liberties and National Security

I do NOT plan to get in the habit of regularly reposting Stratfor's emails, but this one is extremely relevant to conversations we've been having on this site for a long time. (BTW, I'm not really sure if thats the first time that idea appeared here or if I'm really responsible for originating it. Its just the earliest link that I have. I think I was thinking that a long time before I said it. I said it when it became so obvious it seemed like review.)

Once again, let me start with one of the last sentances: Finally, the ability of grassroots cells to network across international boundaries, and even across oceans, presents the possibility that al Qaeda 4.0 cells could, now or in the future, pose a significant threat even without a central leadership structure -- meaning, a structure that can be identified, monitored and attacked

Stratfor: Terrorism Intelligence Report - June 7, 2006

Al Qaeda: The Next Phase of Evolution?

By Fred Burton

Canadian authorities recently arrested 17 men, accusing them of
planning terrorist attacks, after some members of the group bought
what they believed to be some 3 tons of ammonium nitrate
fertilizer, which can be used to make explosives. The men allegedly
were planning attacks against symbolic targets in Toronto and
Ottawa in a plot that reportedly included bombings, armed assaults
and beheadings.

One of the things that make this case interesting is that the group
-- now dubbed by the media as the "Canada 17" -- reportedly had
connections to alleged jihadists in other countries, whose earlier
arrests were widely reported. Those connections included two men
from the United States -- Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris
Ahmed -- who reportedly traveled from Georgia in March 2005 to meet
with Islamist extremists in Toronto. Authorities have said they
conspired to attend a militant training camp in Pakistan and
discussed potential terrorist targets in the United States. There
also is said to be a connection to a prominent computer hacker in
Britain, who was arrested in October and charged with conspiring to
commit murder and cause an explosion.

The June 2 arrests certainly underscore the possibility that
Canada , which has a long history of liberal immigration and asylum
policies, has been used by jihadists as a sanctuary for raising
funds and planning attacks. But the most intriguing aspect of the
Canada case is that it seems to encapsulate a trend that has been
slowly evolving for some time. If the allegations in the Canada 17
case are at least mostly true, it might represent the emergence of
a new operational model for jihadists -- an "al Qaeda 4.0," if you
will.

In other words, the world might be witnessing the emergence of a
grassroots jihadist network that both exists in and h... [ Read More (2.4k in body) ]

Stratfor agrees that Al'Q is a scene. Calls it Al'Q 4.0.

TIME article explores the manner in which Iraqi agents recruited by the CIA assisted the war effort in Iraq.

Secret Collaborations