Posted on 12/31/2002 3:09:11 AM PST by kattracks
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - One homeland security advisor to the Bush administration charged Monday that the U.S. could not rely on defensive measures to gain victory in the war against terrorism. Other experts warned that terrorists will attempt another mass casualty attack against the U.S. in 2003.
Dr. David Kay is a counter-terrorism expert with the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies (PIPS), which sponsored a seminar Monday on the success of U.S. efforts to respond to terrorism and to deal with future threats. The chief U.N. nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq following the Gulf War, Kay believes the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks provoked an important change in the attitudes of government officials.
"I think 2002 ... was the tipping point when the metaphor for dealing with terrorism changed from 'terrorism is a crime' and the appropriate institutions for dealing with it are the police, law enforcement, and the judiciary," Kay said, "to 'terrorism is war,' and the appropriate tools for dealing with terrorism as war are completely different."
Such a shift in mindset is absolutely essential, Kay warned, for dealing with a threat he believes is eminent.
"Although we have often talked in the past ... about weapons of mass destruction or mass disruption, chemical, biological," Kay recalled, "I think 2003 will see terrorists finally making offensive use of technology to do us great harm."
Because of the potential for that threat to become a reality, Paul Bremer, chairman and CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, said the U.S. must fundamentally change its primary response to terrorist threats.
"This war cannot be won on the defensive," Bremer said. "No matter how good we make our homeland security, there is virtually no way we can defend all of the targets that terrorists can come after."
A member of the Bush administration's Homeland Security Advisory Council, Bremer served as ambassador-at-large for counter terrorism under President Reagan after spending 23 years with the U.S. Diplomatic Service. In 1999, House Speaker Dennis Hastert appointed him chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism.
Bremer believes terrorists' motivations have changed over the past 20 years from attracting attention for their causes to exacting retribution and revenge for perceived wrongs. That, combined with the potential for access to weapons of mass destruction, means the U.S. must abandon any ideas of responding to terrorism as a law enforcement problem.
"Wait and respond is no longer acceptable," Bremer explained. "We have to move from 'wait and respond' to 'detect and destroy.'"
Because potential targets are unlimited, terrorists would only need to seek out a "weak link" in U.S. security to launch a successful attack. That, Bremer said, leaves the administration with only one option.
"We have to go on the offensive," he said. "To be blunt, we have to kill the terrorists before they come here and kill us."
Michael Swetnam, CEO and chairman of the board of PIPS, offered his assessments of U.S. efforts to accomplish that and other counter-terrorism goals in 2002.
"I think that we can give ourselves a full bevy of mixed grades in our war against terrorism," he said.
Swetnam - co-author of Usama bin Laden's al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network , and a member of the technical advisory group to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - gave the U.S. the following "grades" for its counter-terrorism efforts:
- A to A-minus: Assembling world coalitions in the fight against terror. Swetnam noted aid provided by Syria, Yemen and Pakistan, nations that have traditionally harbored terrorists;
- B to B-minus: Efforts to fight al Qaeda. While the U.S. has disrupted the organization, seized some of its money, and captured or killed many of its leaders, more then three-fourths of the group's leadership is alive and attempting to regroup;
- C-minus: Reconstructing domestic civil defense. While the federal government has created a Department of Homeland Security, state and local governments have, Swetnam believes, been given little direction and no money;
- D: Addressing the root causes of terrorism. Swetnam believes the U.S. is losing the propaganda war to bin Laden and other Muslim extremists who promote hatred of Americans;
- F: Addressing shortcomings of the intelligence community: Swetnam believes the problems in U.S. intelligence agencies, which allowed the 9/11 attacks to be planned and executed without detection, still exist;
"We have a mixed grade this first year of our war on terrorism," Swetnam concluded. "Unfortunately, we will probably have many years yet to improve upon these grades before this war on terror is fought to the point where we can feel comfortable again."
E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.
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Do not POST any MILITARY INRORMATION you might have.. pass it on...
FWIW, I think that Part II is imminent.
He's got my vote.
how can you win a battle when you face an envy based hatred? Remember that sexy commercial "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful?" It was some hair or makeup product.
Some gorgeous babe-ette comes on looking all slinky and yummy and asks other women NOT to hate her...
IMPOSSIBLE. Women hate other women who they see as their betters, which makes them feel inferior, often angry and jealous. They see another woman in a sexy skirt, and whisper to their friend "look at that slut. Disgusting."
Men do the same thing in their own way. It's not just a gender thing. Muslims have some real hangups that precipitate this hatred of us, and they really cannot be cured anymore than a leopard can be cured by its' spots... well that is unless skinning is an option.
It makes no difference what you do they will still hate you because these muslims KNOW we are their betters culturally (of course). Their culture is a failure, for a very long time, stuck in the dark ages. And what's more their culture/religion guarantees that this can never change. Allah doesn't handle change very well, it seems.
It's not like we can become stupid or ugly enough culturally to make these folks like us. They LOVE the hatred like addicts love the needle. Without us to hate they would need to find new targets for their bloodlust, anger and angst of humiliation.
These muslims hate us because we are in a way, more beautiful. We have the beauty of freedom, choices they cannot make, and forms of worship they could never grasp in their culture. We have a very tolerant world view (as evidenced by their existence) and the wealths that only free thinking people can enjoy.
They hate us because our women are often beautiful, intelligent and NOT ashamed about it. They hate that we can drink two glasses of wine with a great meal, and leave it at that. They hate us for our demonstrable acts of self-control and restraint. Even though we don't always act that way, the ideal of it and often the actual doing of it, pervades our culture.
They hate us because we make them feel inferior. They themselves constantly whine about our "humiliation" of them as a culture... whilst they practice banging two sticks together, not loudly however, for loud noises and fancy music offend allah...
Basically, they hate america because every beautiful thing about her, is what they can never be, never have or even dare to want... it is against their religion to BE like us, and it drives them insane.
They cannot be changed. They cannot see reasonableness, because by and large that is a moral weakness in their faith. When a religion has as its cheif tenets, inflexible moral hatred of those who do not obey YOUR GOD... it's kinda hard to NOT hate those who are different, and more beautiful than you.
We cannot make them love us by being ugly like them. They will kill us if we don't kill them first. What else can we do? Sacrifice ourselves and our progeny on the altar of their hatred? I don't think so.
We are going to have to follow good advice by people who know and kill the bad guys before they do it to us. And that may be a very large number of folks. More than our religion finds tolerable. Maybe the arabs are right, perhaps our tolerance will be our downfall.
I know you mean well, but that typo makes you sound like Scooby Doo ;-)
I wouldn't post what I know here just because it would be a real pain in the @ss to have to hunt you all down and kill you afterwards...
It IS time for the idea of civil defense/citizen militias to take root and be in action. Long overdue.
Copy desk error. "Imminent."
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