Posted on 01/26/2007 7:11:36 PM PST by FairOpinion
Washington - Today, the international community faces a test of its willingness to stop nuclear terrorism, says Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
You cant put that genie back in the bottle once a weapon of mass destruction or a nuclear bomb gets into the hands of a terrorist, Chertoff said in a January 26 panel discussion at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Terrorism is high on the forums agenda this year. It constitutes one of the top threats to global security, according to a survey of international business and political leaders attending the event.
What we face in the 21st century is the ability of even a single individual, and certainly a group, to leverage technology in a way to cause a type of destruction and a magnitude of destruction that would have been unthinkable a century ago, Chertoff said.
As the destructive potential of the next large-scale terrorist attack grows with every technological advance, Chertoff said, so too does the risk of failing to detect terrorists before they strike.
Governments thus are faced with the challenge of striking the right balance among providing security, facilitating free flow of goods and services, and protecting citizens civil liberties.
It is for this reason, Chertoff said, the United States approaches counterterrorism from the perspective of risk management. Because working to prevent every conceivable threat would be virtually impossible, the United States focuses its efforts on identifying and preventing the greatest threats.
Countries must be willing to stand together and take decisive action against hostile regimes and nonstate entities seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction for future attacks, he said.
At the end of the day, if those who are trafficking in this activity dont take seriously our will to enforce the rules, all the paperwork in the world is not going to make a difference, Chertoff said.
PANELISTS CONSIDER ROOT CAUSES OF TERRORISM
Chertoff joined Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukut Aziz, leader of the British Conservative Party David Cameron and the European Unions counterterrorism coordinator, Gijs de Vries, who also discussed the root causes of terrorism and how best to confront them.
Tackling terrorism requires more than security operations and sophisticated technologies. Deprivation, in the form of poverty and the lack of basic political freedoms and economic opportunities, turns people into terrorists, Aziz said.
The international community must do more to help alleviate poverty and must redouble diplomatic efforts to promote a working Israeli-Palestinian peace, a settlement in Lebanon and progress in Iraq -- all causes exploited by terrorists to rationalize their attacks, he said.
The world must reject terrorists attempts to justify their murderous acts in the name of religion, the panelists said.
"Terrorism is not a friend of anybody. Terrorism is not linked to any faith," Aziz told the panel. It is a mindset we are dealing with.
I accept that Islam is a peaceful religion and does not endorse this use of violence, Chertoff said.
The panelists also agreed that a careful balance between security and civil liberties is essential.
Weve got to be very strong in combating terrorism but equally strong in defending liberty, democracy and the things we are actually fighting for, Cameron said.
That means that not everything is permitted in the War on Terror, de Vries said. To use detention without trial, or detention without charge, to use secret prisons, should not be acceptable.
Chertoff, a former prosecutor and federal judge, agreed, but added that governments must weigh the potentially catastrophic consequences of a successful terrorist attack as they pursue terrorists. Because of the complexity of global terrorism, thwarting terrorism might require measures beyond those commonly utilized in prosecuting criminals, such as increased intelligence collection.
We are going to have to come to a sustainable approach to this that safeguards fundamental liberties, but does not regard every security measure as inherently a civil liberties problem, Chertoff said.
A video link to the panel discussion and more information on the 2007 annual meeting are on the World Economic Forum's Web site.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
"Small? 10 million Muslims is a "small" population?"
There's only - at most - about 3 million Muslims in the United States.
"If we can only prevent more from flooding in, that would be good. "
Ah, but our government not only has no plans to do this, but is going out of its way to bring in more.
Ditto!
As a percentage it is less than 1% of the population. While new immigrants in ghettos may have the isolation required to engage in terrorism, I hold out some hope that at that small a portion of the populace Muslims will be rapidly assimilated and inculcated in American values. If not, at least they will presumably have American neighbors who will rat them out for suspicious activities.
Is this a new warning or last weeks warning?
--O Allah, Lord of the Devils--
So that makes Martin Brodeur a servant of Allah <:P
Ishaq:510 When the Apostle looked down on Khaybar he told his Companions, O Allah, Lord of the heavens and what they overshadow, and Lord of the Devils and what into error they throw, and Lord of the winds and what they winnow, we ask Thee for the booty of this town and its people. Forward in the name of Allah.
There went any credibility he might have had going in.
You said: I'm recovering from illness today.
Me thinks your illness is in your head!
I don't care what alternative we use to kill Muslims. They are the enemy and they are out to destroy us. They are willing to die to kill us. And we must kill them first.
Of course, war requires sacrifice. We will have losses. We are capable of winning wars without man-to-man conflict.
Let's use our technology and show our force. What has happened that we don't have the same determination to win as we did during WWII?
You may not agree, but I think you are more seriously ill than you realize.
And the National Guard and Army tanker trucks sent to fill folks up, had the wrong sorts of nozzles, never having changed from the older fatter "leaded" gas nozzles. Or so I heard anyway.
IMO, Aziz is partly correct.......
I had not heard that, but I wouldn't doubt it.
Chaos.
Laying the groundwork for, "See? We warned you!"
I'm saying killing all Muslims is impractical. Why didn't we genocide the Japanese in WWII? There are some parallels between how we felt about them and their code of Bushido after Pearl Harbor to how we feel about radical Muslims today.
If not for the atomic bomb, we might have been forced to pretty much do that. The Emperor, Hirohito, decided to surrender rather than lose his people wholesale. He's probably the only one who could have ordered them to surrender, and not been immediately killed. Being thought a god has it's advantages.
In the event, the final battle(s) against the Germans were much more vicious than those against the Japanese. Especially in the East, between the Russians and the Germans. The Germans were still fighting when the writ of the Third Reich covered only about a 2 X 7 mile area surrounding the Hitler Bunker.
By final battles, I mean those leading directly to surrender. In effect in Japan, there no final battles, they decided they'd had enough *before* we had to invade their homeland. (Laying aside that Okinawa and Iwo Jima are technically part of Japan).
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