Clip from the powerful documentary "The Devil Came on Horseback" where Brian Steidle and his sister Gretchen talk to a Sudanese refugee from Darfur now living in Chad. He talks about the fire bombings and about his great hope in the American people to help out his country. http://www.savedarfur.org
Friday, December 05, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Does the Iraq timetable start the clock on Afghanistan? by Thomas Barnett
ARTICLE: "Iraq Approves Deal Charting End of U.S. Role: Lawmakers Cast Vote; Despite Fierce Disputes, Wide Majority Backs Security Accord," by Alissa J. Rubin and Campbell Robertson, New York Times, 28 November 2008.
ARTICLE: "Afghan Leader, Showing Impatience With War, Demands Timetable From NATO," by Kirk Semple, New York Times, 27 November 2008.
ARTICLE: "Vote on U.S. Troop Departure Bares Ethnic Tensions in Iraq," by Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal, 26 November 2008.
So the reality ends up being predictable enough: we leave--quote unquote--Iraq on Iraq's timetable, not ours. In the end, the local politicians decide, not our generals.
Yes, that's a fluid dialogue, but we're no longer in control of it. But "victory" was always going to feel like this: getting the boot. Failure will be the inverse: the begging to stay that can still emerge if ethnic tensions internally get out of control.
Not surprisingly, Afghan's Karzai takes some cues from this dynamic, for now imitating his Baghdad counterparts in starting the dialogue on a timetable for withdraw. It may strike us as fantastic, but there is a logic to the request: now that his country is the "central front" by most definitions, he's looking for Petraeus to "tell me how this ends," to borrow the general's famous question going into Iraq years ago. Plus, the guy's trying to bolster his internal standing in anticipation of a re-election campaign next year, when the violence is likely to be worse than it is today and already he's taking a ton of flack over civilian casualties from airstrikes that strike locals as too indiscriminate.
Karzai admits his powerlessness here, but doesn't conceal his populist anger: "I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb Afghan villages, but that's not in my hands."
Hmmm, the local small-state leader begging the intervening great powers to stop bombing his villages. Where else have I heard that in the last several months? But here's where the NATO cover counts: the UN won't criticize--much.
Of course, we have our fears about what happens to Afghanistan if our troops no longer buffer the weak central government from the Taliban, but "in" for that penny increasingly puts us "in" for the far larger pound that is Pakistan. So no, for all of you who never wanted to shift the fight to Iraq, we begin to see how much harder it may become to make our serious stance here.
In some ways, we can thank our lucky stars that we burned off the unilateralist impulses of the Bush-Cheney team in Iraq, leaving us much more sensibly configured--both politically and strategy-wise--for the inevitable redirect back here. It's scary to think what a full-bore unilateralist push on Afghani-Pakistan by that crew would have looked like, because here the nukes are real.
Still, as the drawdown in Iraq unfolds, we will begin to see whether or not the surge really ended the internal violence or just delayed it inevitable final spasms. There is no regional agreement, much less forum for any such agreement to be pursued, regarding Iraq's future. So little's been decided even as much has effectively been postponed.
In short, the question of Iraq coming apart still remains, with me still thinking the soft partition (already here on the Kurds) is inevitable, the only question being the nature of the weak federalism. The Sunnis may have given up the dream of a unitary Iraq, but I'm not sure the Shia have--much less Iran.
So yeah, Iran still wields the most important veto, and Iraq still presents the region with the opportunity for serious proxy conflict.
And history says that's not a great combination.
ARTICLE: "Afghan Leader, Showing Impatience With War, Demands Timetable From NATO," by Kirk Semple, New York Times, 27 November 2008.
ARTICLE: "Vote on U.S. Troop Departure Bares Ethnic Tensions in Iraq," by Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal, 26 November 2008.
So the reality ends up being predictable enough: we leave--quote unquote--Iraq on Iraq's timetable, not ours. In the end, the local politicians decide, not our generals.
Yes, that's a fluid dialogue, but we're no longer in control of it. But "victory" was always going to feel like this: getting the boot. Failure will be the inverse: the begging to stay that can still emerge if ethnic tensions internally get out of control.
Not surprisingly, Afghan's Karzai takes some cues from this dynamic, for now imitating his Baghdad counterparts in starting the dialogue on a timetable for withdraw. It may strike us as fantastic, but there is a logic to the request: now that his country is the "central front" by most definitions, he's looking for Petraeus to "tell me how this ends," to borrow the general's famous question going into Iraq years ago. Plus, the guy's trying to bolster his internal standing in anticipation of a re-election campaign next year, when the violence is likely to be worse than it is today and already he's taking a ton of flack over civilian casualties from airstrikes that strike locals as too indiscriminate.
Karzai admits his powerlessness here, but doesn't conceal his populist anger: "I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb Afghan villages, but that's not in my hands."
Hmmm, the local small-state leader begging the intervening great powers to stop bombing his villages. Where else have I heard that in the last several months? But here's where the NATO cover counts: the UN won't criticize--much.
Of course, we have our fears about what happens to Afghanistan if our troops no longer buffer the weak central government from the Taliban, but "in" for that penny increasingly puts us "in" for the far larger pound that is Pakistan. So no, for all of you who never wanted to shift the fight to Iraq, we begin to see how much harder it may become to make our serious stance here.
In some ways, we can thank our lucky stars that we burned off the unilateralist impulses of the Bush-Cheney team in Iraq, leaving us much more sensibly configured--both politically and strategy-wise--for the inevitable redirect back here. It's scary to think what a full-bore unilateralist push on Afghani-Pakistan by that crew would have looked like, because here the nukes are real.
Still, as the drawdown in Iraq unfolds, we will begin to see whether or not the surge really ended the internal violence or just delayed it inevitable final spasms. There is no regional agreement, much less forum for any such agreement to be pursued, regarding Iraq's future. So little's been decided even as much has effectively been postponed.
In short, the question of Iraq coming apart still remains, with me still thinking the soft partition (already here on the Kurds) is inevitable, the only question being the nature of the weak federalism. The Sunnis may have given up the dream of a unitary Iraq, but I'm not sure the Shia have--much less Iran.
So yeah, Iran still wields the most important veto, and Iraq still presents the region with the opportunity for serious proxy conflict.
And history says that's not a great combination.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Material Support: From Mumbai to Hamas by Michael Kraft
Well-planned deadly terrorist attacks such as the one in Mumbai last week against targets scouted out in advance are not conducted on the spur of the moment at a cost of mere pennies. The large amounts of ammunition and the advance planning by the terrorists who attacked 10 targets within a short time period is a reminder that terrorist attacks often need funding and other material support for their deadly activities.
Too often, though, as seen in the recent trial of the Holy Land Foundation for providing support to Hamas, lawyers try to downplay or even attack laws designed to curb the backing provided by those supporters who may not actually pull the trigger but provide the funds, weapons or other essentials for conducting a major attack.
It may seem a long way from Mumbai where terrorists killed at least 173 persons including six Americans and 13 other foreigners, to the Dallas, Texas trial where on Nov. 24, the Holy Land Foundation and five former leaders were found guilty of channeling $12.4 million to Hamas-affiliated committees and groups since 1995. That January, an executive order made it illegal to provide material support to a dozen foreign terrorist organizations including Hamas. But although there is no known link between Mumbia and Hamas, there is a common threat—material support they receive from supporters.
President Clinton’s January, 1995 executive order designed to curb money flows to 12 groups (10 Arab and two Jewish) that threatened the use of violence against the Middle East process was followed up by more detailed legislation that Congress eventually enacted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. (Public Law No. 104-132, 110 Stat.)
A material support provision, 18 U.S.C. 2339B, makes it a criminal offense for American citizens or residents to knowingly provide funds or other forms of material support that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of Treasury, designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The legislation covers such forms of support as funding, weapons, and training as well as the provision of financial services and has been used in dozens of cases.
The 44 designated groups include the Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LeT) (Army of the Righteous). Some Indian and other intelligence specialists believe the group was behind the complex attacks on two major hotels, the railway station and popular café where Indians and foreigners were mowed down, as well as the Jewish center, where a young rabbi and his wife were among those murdered. In all six Jews were killed. "While all the information is not in yet, it does appear at this point that the attackers had connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba," a U.S. counterterrorism official was quoted as saying today by Reuters.
While much of the support from LET appears to come from within Pakistan, it also reportedly raises funds from Pakistanis living in the United Kingdom and Europe even though it is also classified as a terrorist group by the U.K., the European Union and Australia.
Hamas receives funding from Iran and also has raised funds in the United States and other countries through so-called “charities.” It was after a lengthy second trial that the Holy Land Foundation was found guilty of 108 counts, including money laundering as well as providing material support for a designated terrorist group, Hamas. The trial was well covered by my colleagues in previous postings on this blog including one just filed by Matt Levitt.
The issue of material support is important and deserves to be addressed further in view of the context of the Mumbai attack in which terrorists also received a considerable amount of support for the weapons and advanced planning, including infiltration and scouting of the hotels and the Chabad Jewish Center which visitors have said is normally hard to find on narrow side street. According to one report attributed to the surviving terrorist, the site was scouted out a year in advance.
Supporters of the Holy Land Foundation and Hamas often contend that the funding goes for schools and clinics and other charitable activities, even though at least 500 persons have been killed in suicide and other attacks by Hamas which opposes Israeli’s right to exist and has thwarted the Palestinian Authority’s officially stated efforts to reach a peaceful settlement with Israel.
A recent Congressional Quarterly article quoted Hina Shamsi, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, as saying that federal law doesn’t require the purpose of the material support be illegal, thus it criminalizes guilt by association and in some cases the government’s application of the law violates the free-speech and due-process rights of the Shamsi was quoted as saying that the law could be improved by including a requirement that it was the specific intent of the accused to provide support for terrorism.
Congress, however, made its intent clear in the “FINDINGS and PURPOSE” Sec. 301 (7) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Penalty Act of 1996. This section stated that “foreign organizations that engage in terrorist activity are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contributions to such an organization facilitate that conduct.” In effect, Congress was stating that money is fungible and even if the money is intended for legitimate charitable purposes, it frees up funds that could be used to support terrorist activities. Some terrorist organizations such as HAMAS, and Hezbollah and others in Egypt use funds for both weapons schools and medical clinics that attract supporters and potential terrorist operatives.
Actually, when Justice and State Department officials (I was one of them) drafted the original 1996 administration bill they included a licensing provision allowing donors to contribute to specific charitable activities such as medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance provided that the organizations provided documentation that the contribution actually was being used for those purposes.
This attempt to accommodate humanitarian concerns ultimately was dropped however during discussions between State and Justice Department officials and the Senate Judiciary Committee staff. A key staffer who worked for Republican Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan, a state with a large Arab-American population rejected the provision. She said that the recipient “charity” organizations would not stand for opening their books to inspection. Thus the proposed exceptions for humanitarian assistance went by the wayside because of opposition from a Senate staffer who apparently was sympathetic to those who wanted to contribute to Hamas.
In short, those who are inclined to go along with the arguments that it is ok to provide funding or other support for terrorist groups, even if they do not actually throw the grenades or pull the trigger need look no further than Mumbai for a reminder of the deadly consequences.
Too often, though, as seen in the recent trial of the Holy Land Foundation for providing support to Hamas, lawyers try to downplay or even attack laws designed to curb the backing provided by those supporters who may not actually pull the trigger but provide the funds, weapons or other essentials for conducting a major attack.
It may seem a long way from Mumbai where terrorists killed at least 173 persons including six Americans and 13 other foreigners, to the Dallas, Texas trial where on Nov. 24, the Holy Land Foundation and five former leaders were found guilty of channeling $12.4 million to Hamas-affiliated committees and groups since 1995. That January, an executive order made it illegal to provide material support to a dozen foreign terrorist organizations including Hamas. But although there is no known link between Mumbia and Hamas, there is a common threat—material support they receive from supporters.
President Clinton’s January, 1995 executive order designed to curb money flows to 12 groups (10 Arab and two Jewish) that threatened the use of violence against the Middle East process was followed up by more detailed legislation that Congress eventually enacted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. (Public Law No. 104-132, 110 Stat.)
A material support provision, 18 U.S.C. 2339B, makes it a criminal offense for American citizens or residents to knowingly provide funds or other forms of material support that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of Treasury, designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The legislation covers such forms of support as funding, weapons, and training as well as the provision of financial services and has been used in dozens of cases.
The 44 designated groups include the Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LeT) (Army of the Righteous). Some Indian and other intelligence specialists believe the group was behind the complex attacks on two major hotels, the railway station and popular café where Indians and foreigners were mowed down, as well as the Jewish center, where a young rabbi and his wife were among those murdered. In all six Jews were killed. "While all the information is not in yet, it does appear at this point that the attackers had connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba," a U.S. counterterrorism official was quoted as saying today by Reuters.
While much of the support from LET appears to come from within Pakistan, it also reportedly raises funds from Pakistanis living in the United Kingdom and Europe even though it is also classified as a terrorist group by the U.K., the European Union and Australia.
Hamas receives funding from Iran and also has raised funds in the United States and other countries through so-called “charities.” It was after a lengthy second trial that the Holy Land Foundation was found guilty of 108 counts, including money laundering as well as providing material support for a designated terrorist group, Hamas. The trial was well covered by my colleagues in previous postings on this blog including one just filed by Matt Levitt.
The issue of material support is important and deserves to be addressed further in view of the context of the Mumbai attack in which terrorists also received a considerable amount of support for the weapons and advanced planning, including infiltration and scouting of the hotels and the Chabad Jewish Center which visitors have said is normally hard to find on narrow side street. According to one report attributed to the surviving terrorist, the site was scouted out a year in advance.
Supporters of the Holy Land Foundation and Hamas often contend that the funding goes for schools and clinics and other charitable activities, even though at least 500 persons have been killed in suicide and other attacks by Hamas which opposes Israeli’s right to exist and has thwarted the Palestinian Authority’s officially stated efforts to reach a peaceful settlement with Israel.
A recent Congressional Quarterly article quoted Hina Shamsi, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, as saying that federal law doesn’t require the purpose of the material support be illegal, thus it criminalizes guilt by association and in some cases the government’s application of the law violates the free-speech and due-process rights of the Shamsi was quoted as saying that the law could be improved by including a requirement that it was the specific intent of the accused to provide support for terrorism.
Congress, however, made its intent clear in the “FINDINGS and PURPOSE” Sec. 301 (7) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Penalty Act of 1996. This section stated that “foreign organizations that engage in terrorist activity are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contributions to such an organization facilitate that conduct.” In effect, Congress was stating that money is fungible and even if the money is intended for legitimate charitable purposes, it frees up funds that could be used to support terrorist activities. Some terrorist organizations such as HAMAS, and Hezbollah and others in Egypt use funds for both weapons schools and medical clinics that attract supporters and potential terrorist operatives.
Actually, when Justice and State Department officials (I was one of them) drafted the original 1996 administration bill they included a licensing provision allowing donors to contribute to specific charitable activities such as medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance provided that the organizations provided documentation that the contribution actually was being used for those purposes.
This attempt to accommodate humanitarian concerns ultimately was dropped however during discussions between State and Justice Department officials and the Senate Judiciary Committee staff. A key staffer who worked for Republican Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan, a state with a large Arab-American population rejected the provision. She said that the recipient “charity” organizations would not stand for opening their books to inspection. Thus the proposed exceptions for humanitarian assistance went by the wayside because of opposition from a Senate staffer who apparently was sympathetic to those who wanted to contribute to Hamas.
In short, those who are inclined to go along with the arguments that it is ok to provide funding or other support for terrorist groups, even if they do not actually throw the grenades or pull the trigger need look no further than Mumbai for a reminder of the deadly consequences.
Reflections on Al-Qa’ida from the Management Perspective by Frank Hyland
A number of my colleagues here on counter terrorism blog, among others, have commented on the recent address by Al-Qa’ida’s (AQ) number two, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Needless to say, the overall response has not been on the favorable side. It is time, past time, actually, since Zawahiri is a self-proclaimed representative of AQ and the Muslim World, to take the examination and commenting a step further and look more closely at AQ itself, in addition to the individual members who have become media darlings.
In addition to all the other memories that came flooding back to those of us who had lived through and/or worked on 9/11 and the aftermath, the seven years since have provided sufficient time to view 2001 through a wider, almost a macro lens. Commentator after commentator has reflected upon the fact that we have not been attacked again in a similar fashion, so there is no need to add to that stack. What has not been seen, though, is a look at the perpetrators - if only for the purpose of stimulating discussion.
September 11, 2001 is “book-ended” today, of course, because of the series of attacks in Mumbai, India. The attacks in India’s financial capital, however, do absolutely nothing to change the preexisting picture of AQ.
We, collectively, tend to focus on the infamous worst-case scenario. We do this for a variety of reasons: As individual citizens, we are dependent on the information that is given to us to evaluate the threat of terrorist attacks; we are not privy to classified information on a routine basis, excepting only that which has been made releasable to the public; our primary information source, the media, operates in a conflicted environment - oscillating between your right to know and the demands of the ‘bottom line” and ratings rankings. We often alternate, therefore, between a drip-by-drip supply of information from our Intelligence Community and trying to drink from the fire hose of often-suspect information from the media.
The passage of time, however, makes the bigger picture clearer and clearer. With respect to the group that has proclaimed itself to be our primary foe, Al-Qa’ida (AQ), the group’s emphasis until now has been on the numbers of its attacks that it has perpetrated today or this week, how many fatwas it has promulgated, where the latest affiliate-wanna-be has popped up, and, of course, the whereabouts of Usama Bin-Laden, the so-called Lion Sheikh. I should say right up front that I believe AQ continues to be a threat, that AQ continues to plan attacks, and that AQ retains a measure of the ability to conduct some attacks in some locales. The question that has been largely missing from the process by which we have adjudged AQ is the one that inevitably is posed to a military officer, a corporate official, or an intelligence officer or diplomat who is proposing a course of action: “So what?”
The truly successful organizations, regardless of their line of work, distinguish between 1) their objectives and 2) the activities they carry out in order to reach those goals. To do otherwise inevitably means that the organization performs activities ad nauseam but produces nothing but a disaster, which results in the organization going out of business. A look at AQ over the years, starting actually before it became AQ, reveals an organization that must trumpet its short-term successes (a car bomb used against a funeral procession; using a mentally retarded bomber) because its longer-term successes are so few and far between. It is Al-Qa’ida, itself, that has proclaimed itself an organization and that comports itself like one: It has rungs on the corporate ladder; it has a media department; it has a finance department; it has regional leaders; it recruits, trains, and deploys its employees; it buys supplies. Its name itself means “The Base.” It is appropriate, therefore, to judge it as an organization, the way that we assess so many other organizations.
It is true that the Afghans defeated the Soviet Union and literally ran them out of Afghanistan. The fact is, though, that it required massive financial aid from both the United States and Saudi Arabia, constant supervision and coaching by the United States, and, of course, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, not the exploits of AQ. The fact that the Soviet Union was literally on its last legs did not help them either.
Mention of the Soviet Union raises the topic of locales nearly worldwide that have been the target of AQ in the past. In some cases, AQ viewed a country as a foe to be attacked. In other cases, AQ’s intent was to use the country as a fund-raising locale or as a friendly safehaven from which to operate. With that in mind, it then raises, inevitably, the ‘So what?’ question - or it should - as part of an accurate assessment of AQ. We should look at the “battlefields” selected by AQ, places where AQ chose to go in order to fight those to whom they refer as “Crusaders.” They were not places where AQ might have felt backed into a corner and in which they, therefore, had to fight a last-ditch battle. That fact should be emphasized over and over. Unlike the self image AQ attempts frequently to portray, AQ is an organization that is sorely in need of new organizational “glasses” with which to assess and choose the “markets” for its “product.” In no case has it been received warmly by the majority of the population. In a number of cases, those whose initial reception was warm and welcoming - the starkest case is the Awakening Councils in Iraq - subsequently became the most effective sworn enemies of AQ.
One possibility for the launching of activities, of course, is that the AQ leadership circle believed that if it began an effort in a large number of countries, the odds were greater that they would succeed in at least a few. Even that has not been the case. Using the publicly proclaimed persona of confidence that is seen on the videos of Usama Bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Adam Gadahn, Abu Yahya Al-Libi, and others, AQ’s “batting average” is extremely low.
AQ’s search has been focused on failed or failing states - the Former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Somalia are just a few examples. AQ, itself, has proven to be an abject failure in terms of taking, holding, or ruling any territory.
While living through the previous heyday of International Terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s, the groups seemed almost superhuman, seemingly striking at will. Groups such as the Abu Nidhal Organization (ANO), Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, the German Red Army Faction carried out attack after attack. Notwithstanding their revolutionary rhetoric and their vows to continue until their societies were overthrown, they are gone - dead, aged, in hiding, imprisoned. Using AQ’s own official pronouncements as the yardstick - that it would defeat its foes - the fact is that a group of Egyptian, Libyan, Saudi, Uzbek and other ethnic groups, constantly on the run in the Pakistan-Afghan border region - serve as a prime example, not of success, but rather of organizational failure.
In addition to all the other memories that came flooding back to those of us who had lived through and/or worked on 9/11 and the aftermath, the seven years since have provided sufficient time to view 2001 through a wider, almost a macro lens. Commentator after commentator has reflected upon the fact that we have not been attacked again in a similar fashion, so there is no need to add to that stack. What has not been seen, though, is a look at the perpetrators - if only for the purpose of stimulating discussion.
September 11, 2001 is “book-ended” today, of course, because of the series of attacks in Mumbai, India. The attacks in India’s financial capital, however, do absolutely nothing to change the preexisting picture of AQ.
We, collectively, tend to focus on the infamous worst-case scenario. We do this for a variety of reasons: As individual citizens, we are dependent on the information that is given to us to evaluate the threat of terrorist attacks; we are not privy to classified information on a routine basis, excepting only that which has been made releasable to the public; our primary information source, the media, operates in a conflicted environment - oscillating between your right to know and the demands of the ‘bottom line” and ratings rankings. We often alternate, therefore, between a drip-by-drip supply of information from our Intelligence Community and trying to drink from the fire hose of often-suspect information from the media.
The passage of time, however, makes the bigger picture clearer and clearer. With respect to the group that has proclaimed itself to be our primary foe, Al-Qa’ida (AQ), the group’s emphasis until now has been on the numbers of its attacks that it has perpetrated today or this week, how many fatwas it has promulgated, where the latest affiliate-wanna-be has popped up, and, of course, the whereabouts of Usama Bin-Laden, the so-called Lion Sheikh. I should say right up front that I believe AQ continues to be a threat, that AQ continues to plan attacks, and that AQ retains a measure of the ability to conduct some attacks in some locales. The question that has been largely missing from the process by which we have adjudged AQ is the one that inevitably is posed to a military officer, a corporate official, or an intelligence officer or diplomat who is proposing a course of action: “So what?”
The truly successful organizations, regardless of their line of work, distinguish between 1) their objectives and 2) the activities they carry out in order to reach those goals. To do otherwise inevitably means that the organization performs activities ad nauseam but produces nothing but a disaster, which results in the organization going out of business. A look at AQ over the years, starting actually before it became AQ, reveals an organization that must trumpet its short-term successes (a car bomb used against a funeral procession; using a mentally retarded bomber) because its longer-term successes are so few and far between. It is Al-Qa’ida, itself, that has proclaimed itself an organization and that comports itself like one: It has rungs on the corporate ladder; it has a media department; it has a finance department; it has regional leaders; it recruits, trains, and deploys its employees; it buys supplies. Its name itself means “The Base.” It is appropriate, therefore, to judge it as an organization, the way that we assess so many other organizations.
It is true that the Afghans defeated the Soviet Union and literally ran them out of Afghanistan. The fact is, though, that it required massive financial aid from both the United States and Saudi Arabia, constant supervision and coaching by the United States, and, of course, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, not the exploits of AQ. The fact that the Soviet Union was literally on its last legs did not help them either.
Mention of the Soviet Union raises the topic of locales nearly worldwide that have been the target of AQ in the past. In some cases, AQ viewed a country as a foe to be attacked. In other cases, AQ’s intent was to use the country as a fund-raising locale or as a friendly safehaven from which to operate. With that in mind, it then raises, inevitably, the ‘So what?’ question - or it should - as part of an accurate assessment of AQ. We should look at the “battlefields” selected by AQ, places where AQ chose to go in order to fight those to whom they refer as “Crusaders.” They were not places where AQ might have felt backed into a corner and in which they, therefore, had to fight a last-ditch battle. That fact should be emphasized over and over. Unlike the self image AQ attempts frequently to portray, AQ is an organization that is sorely in need of new organizational “glasses” with which to assess and choose the “markets” for its “product.” In no case has it been received warmly by the majority of the population. In a number of cases, those whose initial reception was warm and welcoming - the starkest case is the Awakening Councils in Iraq - subsequently became the most effective sworn enemies of AQ.
One possibility for the launching of activities, of course, is that the AQ leadership circle believed that if it began an effort in a large number of countries, the odds were greater that they would succeed in at least a few. Even that has not been the case. Using the publicly proclaimed persona of confidence that is seen on the videos of Usama Bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Adam Gadahn, Abu Yahya Al-Libi, and others, AQ’s “batting average” is extremely low.
AQ’s search has been focused on failed or failing states - the Former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Somalia are just a few examples. AQ, itself, has proven to be an abject failure in terms of taking, holding, or ruling any territory.
While living through the previous heyday of International Terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s, the groups seemed almost superhuman, seemingly striking at will. Groups such as the Abu Nidhal Organization (ANO), Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, the German Red Army Faction carried out attack after attack. Notwithstanding their revolutionary rhetoric and their vows to continue until their societies were overthrown, they are gone - dead, aged, in hiding, imprisoned. Using AQ’s own official pronouncements as the yardstick - that it would defeat its foes - the fact is that a group of Egyptian, Libyan, Saudi, Uzbek and other ethnic groups, constantly on the run in the Pakistan-Afghan border region - serve as a prime example, not of success, but rather of organizational failure.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Phone Apps the New Battleground by Simon Canning
Apple will have sold more than 1 million iPhones in Australia by the end of next year, sparking a battle by media companies and application developers to lure users with content and on-sell the eyeballs to advertisers. But while the iPhone's entry may have attracted the headlines, behind the scenes media players are fighting to make their content and applications work on an increasing array of devices while ensuring a consistent experience.
The mobile market is looming as the epicentre of the battle to keep consumers connected with media, but the question is: is media keeping up? The iPhone, Apple's heavily hyped multimedia player that also makes phone calls, has already been credited with triggering the next step in mobile media, despite the fact that it represents only a small percentage of phones in the total marketplace.
Within days of the phone's launch in Australia its new converts were not raving about the capabilities of the device as such, but trilling about the "apps" -- the third-party applications that connected them to iPhone-optimised websites, news feeds, video links and pretty much anything else you could think of.
Travis Johnson, national digital director of media agency Universal McCann and a keen observer of the mobile media space, says that for many of the concepts out there, the technology -- and crucially the bandwidth -- has not yet arrived, despite the claims of device manufacturers and the telcos.
"We are running into a lot of issues," Johnson told Media.
Chief among those is the reticence of marketers to spend the vast majority of a marketing budget on creating an application, rather than just buying a banner ad.
Johnson cites Bloomberg and The New York Times as two media companies that have successfully embraced mobiles as a distribution tool, having created applications that seamlessly deliver content designed for specific devices.
"I have to say that the best use of news being delivered to my phone has been Bloomberg and The New York Times because they are so well optimised," he says.
The range of media companies that have begun to optimise their sites for different mobile devices is growing. The Australian recently created an iPhone-friendly business application, while Fairfax Media has also optimised parts of its websites to be iPhone and mobile friendly.
Ninemsn is another that has designed its website to recognise a range of different phones and to scale the experience to the size and shape of the screen.
Johnson says the "shitty" screen size on many phones limits the potential of many applications, but well designed apps are an immediate hit.
"The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority's webcam app and Shazam (an app that recognises music from just a few bars and then takes you to iTunes to purchase the song) are two that really work," Johnson says. "But it is hard to find the right application. There are hundreds of applications uploaded for iPhones, BlackBerrys and other devices every day and only one in every 10,000 applications is successful.
"It is also getting harder and harder for consumers to find applications."
The proliferation of smart phones in recent months -- led by the iPhone but also including the Blackberry Bold, LG Secret, Nokia N95, HTL and a host of others -- has forced application producers into a difficult position.
While iPhone numbers are predicted to hurdle 1 million next year, currently there are fewer than 200,000.
So the uptake of mobile media is left to existing 3G devices, which boast a wide variety of screen sizes and are also affected by the abilities of the network supporting the phone.
That is limiting the ability and willingness of marketers to invest in such applications or support media mobile sites with advertising.
"To communicate to a mass audience in mobile it needs to be a clever idea that adds value to consumers," Johnson says.
Dean Capobianco, head of mobile at Ninemsn, says the development of mobile media and applications that support it is still in its embryonic days.
"We are working to close the loop in people's media experience so they can move from the TV to the computer to the mobile seamlessly," he says.
Ninemsn optimises its sites for a range of different mobile devices, but has chosen the browser route to deliver the experience rather than creating stand-alone applications that live permanently on a phone. The company is working to balance the use of text and pictures on sites that range from National Nine News to Wide World of Sports and an about to be launched location-based restaurant finder.
On an iPhone the on-screen buttons of Ninemsn's site have been designed to replicate the phone's own home screen buttons to try to create a seamless experience.
Capobianco cites MSN's Messenger tool as one that looks and works exactly the same whether it is being used on a computer or a mobile phone.
Tim Krause, the global chief marketing officer for telecommunications equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent, says companies have to effectively run ahead of their customers.
The company runs Bell Labs in the US, the famed think tank that churns out experimental devices that often find their way into the mainstream.
One such device being developed is a projector-equipped mobile phone that could transform the way people use phones as personal entertainment devices. But Krause says that for many of the telcos, which are effectively the carriers of the new services, control of their networks has been ceded to consumers and the media company content and application creators.
"Consumers are the ones that are thinking up the really cool stuff anyway," Krause told Media on a visit to Australia. "The problem for providers is they are not going to control what the service looks like any more."
As a network equipment supplier, Alcatel's goal is to drive bandwidth, and the advent of smart phones and intensive media applications is in its interests.
The company recently launched Tikitags. These are tags that can be read by a reader device attached to a computer which can take the owner to an information-rich web page -- a move that could quickly be adopted for the mobile market.
Next is real-time image recognition, which would allow mobile phones to snap an image that would be immediately recognised and link to a rich media site through the mobile -- for example, taking a photo of an ad for the Spiderman movie -- and would allow the phone to link directly to the movie's website.
It seems that for apps media on mobile, the brave new world has barely begun.
The mobile market is looming as the epicentre of the battle to keep consumers connected with media, but the question is: is media keeping up? The iPhone, Apple's heavily hyped multimedia player that also makes phone calls, has already been credited with triggering the next step in mobile media, despite the fact that it represents only a small percentage of phones in the total marketplace.
Within days of the phone's launch in Australia its new converts were not raving about the capabilities of the device as such, but trilling about the "apps" -- the third-party applications that connected them to iPhone-optimised websites, news feeds, video links and pretty much anything else you could think of.
Travis Johnson, national digital director of media agency Universal McCann and a keen observer of the mobile media space, says that for many of the concepts out there, the technology -- and crucially the bandwidth -- has not yet arrived, despite the claims of device manufacturers and the telcos.
"We are running into a lot of issues," Johnson told Media.
Chief among those is the reticence of marketers to spend the vast majority of a marketing budget on creating an application, rather than just buying a banner ad.
Johnson cites Bloomberg and The New York Times as two media companies that have successfully embraced mobiles as a distribution tool, having created applications that seamlessly deliver content designed for specific devices.
"I have to say that the best use of news being delivered to my phone has been Bloomberg and The New York Times because they are so well optimised," he says.
The range of media companies that have begun to optimise their sites for different mobile devices is growing. The Australian recently created an iPhone-friendly business application, while Fairfax Media has also optimised parts of its websites to be iPhone and mobile friendly.
Ninemsn is another that has designed its website to recognise a range of different phones and to scale the experience to the size and shape of the screen.
Johnson says the "shitty" screen size on many phones limits the potential of many applications, but well designed apps are an immediate hit.
"The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority's webcam app and Shazam (an app that recognises music from just a few bars and then takes you to iTunes to purchase the song) are two that really work," Johnson says. "But it is hard to find the right application. There are hundreds of applications uploaded for iPhones, BlackBerrys and other devices every day and only one in every 10,000 applications is successful.
"It is also getting harder and harder for consumers to find applications."
The proliferation of smart phones in recent months -- led by the iPhone but also including the Blackberry Bold, LG Secret, Nokia N95, HTL and a host of others -- has forced application producers into a difficult position.
While iPhone numbers are predicted to hurdle 1 million next year, currently there are fewer than 200,000.
So the uptake of mobile media is left to existing 3G devices, which boast a wide variety of screen sizes and are also affected by the abilities of the network supporting the phone.
That is limiting the ability and willingness of marketers to invest in such applications or support media mobile sites with advertising.
"To communicate to a mass audience in mobile it needs to be a clever idea that adds value to consumers," Johnson says.
Dean Capobianco, head of mobile at Ninemsn, says the development of mobile media and applications that support it is still in its embryonic days.
"We are working to close the loop in people's media experience so they can move from the TV to the computer to the mobile seamlessly," he says.
Ninemsn optimises its sites for a range of different mobile devices, but has chosen the browser route to deliver the experience rather than creating stand-alone applications that live permanently on a phone. The company is working to balance the use of text and pictures on sites that range from National Nine News to Wide World of Sports and an about to be launched location-based restaurant finder.
On an iPhone the on-screen buttons of Ninemsn's site have been designed to replicate the phone's own home screen buttons to try to create a seamless experience.
Capobianco cites MSN's Messenger tool as one that looks and works exactly the same whether it is being used on a computer or a mobile phone.
Tim Krause, the global chief marketing officer for telecommunications equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent, says companies have to effectively run ahead of their customers.
The company runs Bell Labs in the US, the famed think tank that churns out experimental devices that often find their way into the mainstream.
One such device being developed is a projector-equipped mobile phone that could transform the way people use phones as personal entertainment devices. But Krause says that for many of the telcos, which are effectively the carriers of the new services, control of their networks has been ceded to consumers and the media company content and application creators.
"Consumers are the ones that are thinking up the really cool stuff anyway," Krause told Media on a visit to Australia. "The problem for providers is they are not going to control what the service looks like any more."
As a network equipment supplier, Alcatel's goal is to drive bandwidth, and the advent of smart phones and intensive media applications is in its interests.
The company recently launched Tikitags. These are tags that can be read by a reader device attached to a computer which can take the owner to an information-rich web page -- a move that could quickly be adopted for the mobile market.
Next is real-time image recognition, which would allow mobile phones to snap an image that would be immediately recognised and link to a rich media site through the mobile -- for example, taking a photo of an ad for the Spiderman movie -- and would allow the phone to link directly to the movie's website.
It seems that for apps media on mobile, the brave new world has barely begun.
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