Stopping Homegrown Terrorism - Pipe Dream or Pipe Bomb?

If the car bomb hadn't been a dud, there would have been many dead tourists and a crater in Times Square. But Faisal Shahzad was not good at the art of bomb making. If he had taken just a few more lessons on the Internet, things might have been different. The American citizen, originally from Pakistan, left his crude homemade bomb smoking in an SUV in Times Square in May. While counterterrorism authorities tried to claim some sort of victory for the failed bombing, even though quick response by New York city police would not have stopped a more skilled terrorist, the case highlighted how difficult it is to find terror suspects in the U.S. Authorities repeatedly pointed out that Shahzad had not come to the attention of any counterterrorism investigators prior to the Times Square attempt.

Since 2009, over thirty American citizens have been arrested on federal charges related to Islamist extremism. Fourteen people, including seven U.S. citizens, were charged this week with trying to join a Somali terrorist group allied with al-Qaeda, and were tied to two deadly bombings in Uganda. The Justice Department said in a statement that they were charged with trying to join or provide support to the group, known as al-Shabab. They were indicted in Minnesota, Alabama and California.

“Somebody's going to get through,” a counterterrorism expert told Newsweek in June. He chose to remain anonymous, but he is not alone in his fears. In New York City and throughout the country, there is an inevitable sense of impending danger among law enforcement officials. But, although Republicans accuse the Obama administration of being soft on terrorism, there has not been a major successful attack on American soil since 9/11.

Many top officials and politicians are saying that the U.S. will be attacked again, and it will be soon. “We must be honest with ourselves,” said John Brennan, the President's top counterterrorism advisor, on May 26. “No nation, no matter how powerful, can prevent every threat from coming to fruition.” He pointed out that the U.S. is more susceptible to attack because the terrorists can take advantage of our free and open society and rely on the so-called “lone wolves” and self-radicalized terrorists.

Attorney General Eric Holder is quick to dismiss this kind of speculation. After the indictments this week in Minnesota, Alabama and California, he said: “These arrests and charges should serve as an unmistakable warning to others who are considering joining or supporting terrorist groups like al-Shabab. If you choose this group, you can expect to find yourself in a United States jail cell or to be a casualty on a Somali battlefield.”

It will take more than tough words from the Attorney General to stop what many think is an inevitable attack on American soil. Although most American Muslims have no interest in extremist ideology and don't want to be stereotyped, the very act of treating them as potential enemies could make matters worse. Some impressionable Muslims decide to join terrorist organizations after reading or listening to English-speaking al-Qaeda propaganda on the Internet. And although conservatives continue to portray Obama as soft on terrorism, his administration continues to kill al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Since Obama took office in 2009, the military and the CIA have launched over 100 drone attacks against al-Quaeda and the Taliban, more than twice as many as President Bush had ordered during his entire second term.

There is some evidence that these remote-control drone attacks risk what the intelligence community calls “blowback.” Terror suspects have repeatedly told investigators that they were at least partly motivated by the desire to seek revenge for drone strikes. Any military action in a foreign country has consequences. Because the Internet has made it possible for terrorists around the world to be recruited, Western Muslims seeking to bring jihad to America are more common than ever.

Attorney General Holder continued to speak of this week's indictment of the fourteen al-Shabab recruits. “We are seeing an increasing number of individuals – including U.S. citizens – who have become captivated by extremist ideology,” Holder said. “It's a disturbing trend that we have been investigating in recent years and will continue to investigate and root out. But we must also work to prevent this type of radicalization from ever taking hold.”

But is it possible to prevent this type of radicalization from ever taking hold? Most Americans think this is just a pipe dream. President Obama clearly has no inclination to stop killing terrorists with unmanned drones, even if it means killing a few civilians. We may have to deal with the “blowback” sooner rather than later.

CIA Assassination Squads? It Sounds Like The Movies

"It sounds great in movies, but when you try to do it, it's not that easy." That's what a former intelligence official told the New York Times on Tuesday about the CIA's canceled secret program that involved plans to send paramilitary teams around the world to assassinate top al-Qaeda leaders.

"The idea of CIA assassination teams evokes movie-style images of black-clad specialists climbing through windows to silently garrote their targets," Corey Flintoff wrote in Tuesday's NPR.org.

In reality, the question is: Can the CIA go after terrorists with impunity?

Although the program appears to have never been carried out, it remained secret, since its inception in 2001, even from Congress. That was until last month when CIA director Leon Panetta announced he was canceling it. The secret plan was in effect for so long because officials wanted a more precise way to kill terrorists than by drone aircraft missile strikes on suspected al-Qaeda sites, which frequently resulted in civilian casualties.

In 1976, after the disclosure that the CIA had plans to assassinate Fidel Castro, Gerald Ford's executive order on foreign intelligence activities explicitly prohibits "political assassination." That ban was aimed specifically at attempts on the lives of foreign leaders. Supporters of the 2001 plan argue that al-Qaeda leaders are no different than soldiers on a battlefield, making them legitimate targets.

According to the Geneva Conventions, it would be lawful for one uniformed soldier to kill another uniformed soldier. It would also be lawful, for a soldier, on the battlefield or operating a drone aircraft from afar, to target someone out of uniform who was participating in terrorist activities.

Is the United States technically at war with al-Qaeda? The way international law might apply to the secret 2001 program depends on this question. Would it be lawful for non soldiers such as CIA agents to engage in killing of any kind? The fact that they are not in uniforms could be interpreted as "feigning noncombatant status," which is a violation of the laws of war.

There is the long-held argument that the global war on terrorism is not a war in the legal sense, which would mean sending CIA operatives to kill terrorist suspects would be a military action against a private group. Juliet Lapidos, in an article in Tuesday's Slate.com, says this is "no different from sending the CIA to Italy to murder suspected members of the mafia, and a violation of the basic notions of state sovereignty."

Lapidos goes on to say that the argument can be made that if the CIA kills a terrorist in a foreign country, "it's kosher because it's a form of self-defense, where the 'self' in question is the United States of America. It doesn't matter whether the terrorist is currently engaged in fighting - only that he's a terrorist."

Targeted assassinations, according to the defenders of the secret CIA initiative, would be no different from what the United States is trying to accomplish with unmanned Predator drone missile attacks in Pakistan. President Obama has continued this Bush administration tactic.

The question remains: Should Congress have been briefed about the plan? Supporters of the plan say no, that the plan was simply not advanced enough to warrant notifying Congress. They point to the controversy that arose after Panetta briefed Congress on the program. The media attention and public discussion illustrates the danger of exposing a highly sensitive and secret program to the risk of congressional leaks.

The secret program never got off the ground, but since word leaked out about it, the discussion has continued. The question remains: What's the difference between assassinating someone with a missile and assassinating them with a handgun? That one's up for debate.

The whole idea of secret CIA assassination squads lurking in the shadows with terrorist leaders in their cross-hairs, wearing dark suits and smoking Marlboros, sure sounds like something out of a movie. Or maybe a comic book. The Geneva Conventions are taken about as seriously as Comic-Con.

Waterboarding Vs. Cookies

Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, Abu Jandal, was a prime candidate for waterboarding, according to Dick Cheney's manual of interrogation techniques. But, according to a Time magazine report, former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan gave him cookies instead. It seems that Abu Jandal is a diabetic, and he gave up valuable information about al Qaeda, including the identities of seven of the 9/11 terrorists, after being given sugar-free cookies. But what about the "ticking time-bomb scenario?" We only have minutes to stop the hypothetical ticking time-bomb, as seen in movies and TV shows like "24". In this case, let's say we don't have access to baked goods. Recent reports indicate that interrogators used bottled water to torture terrorist suspects. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. In other words, the first 182 times were unsuccessful, and the 183rd gave us this information: A water bottle was brought in without the label removed, he told the Red Cross, and it was a brand made in Poland, where he was being held at the time. In other words, interrogators used what was available and easily accessible. Interrogators, if they are in a critical worst-case scenario where every second counts, have to use whatever methods are available, the theory goes, and waterboarding is quick and easy. All they have to do is reach in the refrigerator and grab a cold one. And 2-liter bottles of 7-Up reportedly work just as effectively. An executive order signed by President Obama, however, requires interrogators to follow what's known as the "Army Field Manual," which prohibits waterboarding and other forms of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" favored by Cheney. The "Army Field Manual" outlines 19 interrogation techniques permitted by law. Those techniques which are allowed include lying, misleading, and manipulating - common police procedure. So Abu Jandal could have been given cookies containing sugar. The interrogator merely had to lie that they contained no sugar. Of course, Abu Jandal would have gone into a diabetic coma, which puts it into a gray area as to whether it would be considered torture. So, just to be safe, the "Army Field Manual" should be amended to include baked goods, including those without sugar. Oh, and how about some ice cream too.

Biden Plays Poker In Cheney's Bunker

Today is Sunday, May 17, 2009. News reports have surfaced that Vice President Joe Biden has revealed the secret location of Dick Cheney's bunker-like room where Cheney hid after 9/11. The bunker is capable of withstanding a nuclear attack, and is located in the basement of the Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years. The Vice Presidential home is where Biden now resides, and an unidentified source said yesterday that Biden is using the bunker, a reinforced steel room with millions of dollars in communications equipment, for poker games with friends and staff members. Party on, Joe.