Doclotus
Aug 15 2007, 08:31 PM
From
MSNBC.com:
QUOTE
NEW YORK - Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.
The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men — often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country — adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence.
The report was intended to explain how people become radicalized rather than to lay out specific strategies for thwarting terror plots. It calls for more intelligence gathering, and argues that local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to monitor potential terrorists.
“Hopefully, the better we’re informed about this process, the more likely we’ll be to detect and disrupt it,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a briefing with private security executives at police headquarters.
The full report can be found
here (pdf). The first few paragraphs of the executive summary is particularly chilling.
QUOTE
The NYPD’s understanding of the threat from Islamic-based terrorism to New York City
has evolved since September 11, 2001. While the threat from overseas remains,
terrorist attacks or thwarted plots against cities in Europe, Australia and Canada since
2001 fit a different paradigm. Rather than being directed from al-Qaeda abroad, these
plots have been conceptualized and planned by “unremarkable” local residents/citizens
who sought to attack their country of residence, utilizing al-Qaeda as their inspiration
and ideological reference point.
Some of these cases include:
• Madrid’s March 2004 attack
• Amsterdam’s Hofstad Group
• London’s July 2005 attack
• Australia’s Operation Pendennis (which thwarted an attack(s) in November 2005)
• The Toronto 18 Case (which thwarted an attack in June 2006)
Where once we would have defined the initial indicator of the threat at the point where a
terrorist or group of terrorists would actually plan an attack, we have now shifted our
focus to a much earlier point—a point where we believe the potential terrorist or group of
terrorists begin and progress through a process of radicalization. The culmination of this
process is a terrorist attack.
Questions for Debate:
1) Do you find the report credible? Why or why not?
2) Do you believe we are doing enough (domestically) to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil? What can other cities in addition to NYC do in response to this information? What should national/Federal intelligence agencies do in response to this report?
3) In a post-9/11 U.S., does radicalization of a particular group in this country become sufficient cause (probable cause) for monitoring and surveillance, even in religious houses?
Julian
Aug 16 2007, 03:53 PM
1) Do you find the report credible? Why or why not?
Speaking as someone in one of the countries where this is already happening, I find it hard not to imagine that some Americans (or legally-resident aliens) will be plotting terrorist outrages from time to time. I also find it hard to see why this suggestion should surprise anyone - after all, 9-11 aside, the biggest terror attack on US soil wasn't carried out by Islamists at all, but by an all-American white boy.
The roots of terrorism seem to lie in a particular philosophical and psychological outlook and, almost invariably, some sense of outsider-dom and/or alienation.
This is especially true of modern Islamic terrorism which, in the West at least, seems not to be actively commissioned and organised by any centralised heirarchy. If only it were - well-defined organisations (even those that use a cell structure) are a lot easier to identify, infiltrate and eradicate.
In some ways, these spontaneous eruptions of fellow feeling among radicalised Muslims seem to have more in common with the spontaneous eruptions of suburban violence we see in school or workplace mass-shootings. There's rarely a defined money train or command structure; it's more that the perpetrators seek out and congregate with like minds (on the net and in real life) and plan their own little (or not so little) atrocity.
Maybe we can stretch the analogy further and say that Islam itself has as much (or as little) to do with Islamic terrorism as nu-metal (or whatever the sub-genre) does with mass shootings in high schools. I'm not being facetious - both are perfectly harmless for most of their fans/followers, but for certain susceptible people they seem to both feed and feed on isolation and other-ness to produce homicidal consequences. Heck, there are even similarities in the sources - mostly men, usually dressing unusually for the cultural surroundings, hectoring about death and mayhem in shouty voices which few outsiders can understand or relate to but which speak huge volumes to those that want to be spoken to.
2) Do you believe we are doing enough (domestically) to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil? What can other cities in addition to NYC do in response to this information? What should national/Federal intelligence agencies do in response to this report?
Maybe the parallel I've drawn between school shootings and Islamic terror plots would be a useful adjunct to existing anti-terror precautions. Not least because banning Islam or ejecting or interning all foreigners because some among them are or could be dangerous would be as heavy-handed as banning metal and ejecting or interning metallers just because they're dangerous, and would achieve little except drive the problem subsegments and subcultures further under ground.
3) In a post-9/11 U.S., does radicalization of a particular group in this country become sufficient cause (probable cause) for monitoring and surveillance, even in religious houses?
Well, mosques and internet chatrooms are public places; there's nothing to stop agent infiltration there, so the religious houses argument is moot, I think. Monitoring or surveillance of more private forums (telecommunications & email traffic) is more problematic, and I think should be used more sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. The doctrine of probable cause here is a good one.
Ted
Aug 16 2007, 05:15 PM
Questions for Debate:
1) Do you find the report credible? Why or why not?
Certainly. And you can bet that the AQ folks will try to use theses folks to further their goals as well.
2) Do you believe we are doing enough (domestically) to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil? What can other cities in addition to NYC do in response to this information? What should national/Federal intelligence agencies do in response to this report?
We can never “do enough” but certainly NY, which has its own security force, could do more. Notice that many of the “homegrown” threats are from ILLEGAL aliens. Match this up with NYC ludicrous policy of being a “Sanctuary City” and you see the problem.
3) In a post-9/11 U.S., does radicalization of a particular group in this country become sufficient cause (probable cause) for monitoring and surveillance, even in religious houses?
Absolutely but not universally since this would be nearly impossible. Certainly if a group was identified they should be monitored wherever they go and those they frequently contact should be screened as well.