We Really Are Not Prepared For Terrorism... And The Problem Is Chronic
U.S. V. TERRORIST FINANCING: Stop Payment
I taught school about 36 kilometers from the Khobar Towers and had been in Dharan just a few months before the blast. During my tenure as a teacher in Bahrain I made a few trips to Saudi Arabia. I also witnessed minor terrorist incidents in Bahrain related to the "rabble-rousing" of a few popular Shi'ite clerics from Iran stirring opposition to the Bahraini Royal Family (Al-Khalifa). While the response to these incidents in Bahrain was swift and overwhelming, those of us living there got the sense that the "rabble-rousing" was not limited to Bahrain, but was being spread to many places in the Saudi Kingdom, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE (Dubai) and Iraq. The antics of Saddam Hussein were nothing compared to the underground network of tapes created by Shi'ite clerics from Iran. Although these tapes were officially illegal and those possessing them were subject to arrest, the barber shops in Manama had many people gathered outside the shop doors listening intently and nodding their heads in approval. These terrorist activities, small and ineffective for the most part, caused the US Navy base in Manama to close its gate and restrict the movement of US personnel. On at least one occasion the US Embassy was closed as well.
The intelligence gathering of US agents was active. Many Americans living in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and elsewhere in the "Gulf Coast" were interviewed as a means of collecting basic intelligence... a means of gathering local information from the ex-pats living in the area. On one occasion a small group of young men accosted me on my weekly visit to the local village laundry, and this was motivated by the fact that I was obviously a Westerner. But, even though there was heightened intelligence gathering by US, British and other agencies, there never seemed to be any action taken on the gathered info.
The point the TNR author is making is that we seem to have a cycle of reacting to terror and terrorist actions, but no solidly effective plan or policy on how to deal with the matters at hand. We seem to lack the stamina to really deal with the problem or seek action in the wrong operational theater (i.e. Iraq). We tend to chase shadows of terror rather than hunt down the real terrorists. We spend billions upon billions on regime influence and regime building, but ignore our own infrastructure, response readiness and security.... and this is a repetitive problem that seems to be getting worse. We are always in the position of knee-jerk reactionary.
The US has a record of appeasement, conciliation and bending over backward for regimes that do not follow basic rules of human decency. We have supported despots like Marcos in the Philippines, Noriega in Panama, Bautista in Cuba, the Shah in Iran, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan during Russian occupation, the generals grabbing power in Pakistan, as well as a multitude of other around the world. We kowtow to the Chinese because of their economic might. We practically ignore the North Korean antics and posturing because they are allied with China. We appease the Saudis because of their control and influence over oil. We supported Saddam when he was engaged in a war with Iran. We ignore genocidal regimes if they do not seem important enough to our own interests.
And the Bush gang is no better than any other administration, except that it has used our own fears to convince us that we need to abdicate many of our basic liberties and freedoms. For all the recent hubbub about tracking terrorist financial transactions--which has been going on for at least three different presidential administrations--not once have we seen the freezing of assets, the seizure of cashflows, or the announcement of the sources of these funds. This is odd since that is the number one methodology of the government in terms of illegal drug trafficking... an organized criminal activity that has many of the dynamics as the networking of terrorists.
The point is that we have had access to information and have had numerous opportunities to strike back at terrorists but haven't done so... even after 9/11, the attack on the USS Cole, the attacks on US Embassies in Africa, minor attacks on Embassies in the Middle East, the bombing in Dharan, the bombing in Beirut, etc.
What does this say about our leadership that keeps telling us how bad the problem of terrorism is--even to the point of scaring us into believing we have to sacrifice in order to win the fight. It tells me that our political leadership is both fraudulent and incompetent, preferring the appearance of action over genuine and effective action. And our troops are still being killed in the field because these leaders are defrauding us and leading us into incompetent situations. That is shameful for both our leaders and ourselves.
I read a few days ago a letter in the Wall Street Journal (June 30) by Bill Clinton's last chief-of-staff, John Podesta, in response to an op-ed in the WSJ (June 22)--which I had also read--by Clinton's and for a time also George Bush's FBI director, Louis Freeh. Freeh's focus was the Khobar Towers bombing in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, after which 19 American airmen were dead and literally hundreds wounded and maimed. The underlying theme was the urgency, if any, in the American response to Muslim terror against the United States. There wasn't much urgency at all, alas. Still, charges and counter-charges, claims and counter-claims, self-righteous, for sure, but not borne out by the facts, Podesta's missive especially. At least not by the facts as mustered in the 9/11 Commission Report. The report very decorously but devastatingly points out the tremendous flaccidity of both administrations in responding to the threat of Islamic jihad from 1993 on. The bureaucratic and technological rigor mortis of Freeh's FBI in taking on the wider barbarism unleashed by hyper-pious Arabs and Iranians was particularly appalling. (It is true that the FBI director was otherwise obsessed: He was in diligent pursuit of Vice President Gore's phantasmagorical wrong-doings at the Buddhist temple in California.)
I taught school about 36 kilometers from the Khobar Towers and had been in Dharan just a few months before the blast. During my tenure as a teacher in Bahrain I made a few trips to Saudi Arabia. I also witnessed minor terrorist incidents in Bahrain related to the "rabble-rousing" of a few popular Shi'ite clerics from Iran stirring opposition to the Bahraini Royal Family (Al-Khalifa). While the response to these incidents in Bahrain was swift and overwhelming, those of us living there got the sense that the "rabble-rousing" was not limited to Bahrain, but was being spread to many places in the Saudi Kingdom, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE (Dubai) and Iraq. The antics of Saddam Hussein were nothing compared to the underground network of tapes created by Shi'ite clerics from Iran. Although these tapes were officially illegal and those possessing them were subject to arrest, the barber shops in Manama had many people gathered outside the shop doors listening intently and nodding their heads in approval. These terrorist activities, small and ineffective for the most part, caused the US Navy base in Manama to close its gate and restrict the movement of US personnel. On at least one occasion the US Embassy was closed as well.
The intelligence gathering of US agents was active. Many Americans living in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and elsewhere in the "Gulf Coast" were interviewed as a means of collecting basic intelligence... a means of gathering local information from the ex-pats living in the area. On one occasion a small group of young men accosted me on my weekly visit to the local village laundry, and this was motivated by the fact that I was obviously a Westerner. But, even though there was heightened intelligence gathering by US, British and other agencies, there never seemed to be any action taken on the gathered info.
The point the TNR author is making is that we seem to have a cycle of reacting to terror and terrorist actions, but no solidly effective plan or policy on how to deal with the matters at hand. We seem to lack the stamina to really deal with the problem or seek action in the wrong operational theater (i.e. Iraq). We tend to chase shadows of terror rather than hunt down the real terrorists. We spend billions upon billions on regime influence and regime building, but ignore our own infrastructure, response readiness and security.... and this is a repetitive problem that seems to be getting worse. We are always in the position of knee-jerk reactionary.
Podesta has now been assigned the miserable chore of defending his (indefensible) former bosses who were, for many and different reasons, never truly engaged in the struggle against an enemy which the commission characterized as "sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal." What are these reasons? Monica, for one. The anything-and-everything-for-Yasir fixation to get him to sign again on the dotted line--in Clintontime, of course--for another. The conviction deep in the Clinton administration that every enemy can be conciliated or bought off, yet another. Could terrorists be found guilty in an American court of law? You can't bring them in dead; they have to be brought in alive. If you bomb them, there might be collateral damage and maybe even a mosque struck. (Damaging a mosque was General Zinni's special phobia. Mosques, you understand from everyday's news in Iraq, are especially sacrosanct to Muslims.) And, my gosh, an emirate prince might also be a casualty. (What was this royal doing in Osama's camp in the first place?) Peruse the report again and be reminded of how the Clintonites were looking for an excuse, almost any excuse, to do nothing: "Only congressional opposition prevented ... Secretary of State Warren Christopher from merging terrorism into a new bureau that would have also dealt with narcotics and crime. ... The coordinator under [Christopher's successor] Madeleine Albright told the commission that his job was seen as a minor one within the department." Urgency, indeed. Alas, at least until after September 11, the Bushies were no more riveted on terror than their predecessors.
The US has a record of appeasement, conciliation and bending over backward for regimes that do not follow basic rules of human decency. We have supported despots like Marcos in the Philippines, Noriega in Panama, Bautista in Cuba, the Shah in Iran, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan during Russian occupation, the generals grabbing power in Pakistan, as well as a multitude of other around the world. We kowtow to the Chinese because of their economic might. We practically ignore the North Korean antics and posturing because they are allied with China. We appease the Saudis because of their control and influence over oil. We supported Saddam when he was engaged in a war with Iran. We ignore genocidal regimes if they do not seem important enough to our own interests.
And the Bush gang is no better than any other administration, except that it has used our own fears to convince us that we need to abdicate many of our basic liberties and freedoms. For all the recent hubbub about tracking terrorist financial transactions--which has been going on for at least three different presidential administrations--not once have we seen the freezing of assets, the seizure of cashflows, or the announcement of the sources of these funds. This is odd since that is the number one methodology of the government in terms of illegal drug trafficking... an organized criminal activity that has many of the dynamics as the networking of terrorists.
The point is that we have had access to information and have had numerous opportunities to strike back at terrorists but haven't done so... even after 9/11, the attack on the USS Cole, the attacks on US Embassies in Africa, minor attacks on Embassies in the Middle East, the bombing in Dharan, the bombing in Beirut, etc.
What does this say about our leadership that keeps telling us how bad the problem of terrorism is--even to the point of scaring us into believing we have to sacrifice in order to win the fight. It tells me that our political leadership is both fraudulent and incompetent, preferring the appearance of action over genuine and effective action. And our troops are still being killed in the field because these leaders are defrauding us and leading us into incompetent situations. That is shameful for both our leaders and ourselves.
posted by Jim Downey at 5:29 PM
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