Richard
01-18-2010, 08:15
An interesting background read on the evolution of our current national policy.
And so it goes...
Richard
Obama’s War Over Terror
Peter Baker, NYT, 17 Jan 2010
<snip>
For all of the attention on the Nigerian underwear bomber, some experts say they believe the more insidious threat will be a new generation of homegrown extremists. In recent months, authorities have arrested a number of American citizens and legal residents, including Najibullah Zazi, an airport-shuttle driver who is suspected of plotting to attack New York after receiving training in Pakistan, and David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American accused of aiding terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Just a week ago, authorities arrested two associates of Zazi’s. And then there is the Fort Hood shooting rampage, as well as a group of Somali-Americans from Minnesota who reportedly wanted to fight in Somalia and five American Muslims from Virginia who traveled to Pakistan supposedly to join the jihad.
If they are the next wave, American extremists are going to be hard to track and stop. The Internet makes it possible for Al Qaeda and its allies to reach out from the dusty villages of Waziristan all the way to Illinois and Colorado. “Although no one wants to admit it, I think a watershed has been crossed in the terrorist threat in the United States,” Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University terrorism scholar, told me. “It’s way different than it was in the Bush years.”
The Obama administration has been trying to figure out how to counter it. In October, Obama secretly ordered a review of the ways different agencies track travels between the United States and places like Pakistan to look for holes to close. Napolitano told me: “We can’t operate in the paradigm that if they attack us, they would be coming from other countries into the United States. We have some that are homegrown. That is a change.”
After all the lawyerly focus on Guantánamo and the rules of war, the latest threats put more focus on Obama in the role of commander in chief. It did not go unnoticed that when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he declared that “evil does exist in the world.” After the Christmas Day plot, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, consciously or not, used the term “war on terror.” The White House then dispatched Brennan for a blitz of four Sunday shows, the first such foray for the C.I.A. veteran.
Obama made almost as many statements about terrorism in the two weeks following Christmas as he did in the 11 months preceding it, not counting those focused on Afghanistan. “Our nation is at war,” Obama declared on Jan. 2. “We are at war,” he said five days later as he released reports on the Detroit plot.
The war goes on, abroad and at home.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=print
And so it goes...
Richard
Obama’s War Over Terror
Peter Baker, NYT, 17 Jan 2010
<snip>
For all of the attention on the Nigerian underwear bomber, some experts say they believe the more insidious threat will be a new generation of homegrown extremists. In recent months, authorities have arrested a number of American citizens and legal residents, including Najibullah Zazi, an airport-shuttle driver who is suspected of plotting to attack New York after receiving training in Pakistan, and David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American accused of aiding terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Just a week ago, authorities arrested two associates of Zazi’s. And then there is the Fort Hood shooting rampage, as well as a group of Somali-Americans from Minnesota who reportedly wanted to fight in Somalia and five American Muslims from Virginia who traveled to Pakistan supposedly to join the jihad.
If they are the next wave, American extremists are going to be hard to track and stop. The Internet makes it possible for Al Qaeda and its allies to reach out from the dusty villages of Waziristan all the way to Illinois and Colorado. “Although no one wants to admit it, I think a watershed has been crossed in the terrorist threat in the United States,” Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University terrorism scholar, told me. “It’s way different than it was in the Bush years.”
The Obama administration has been trying to figure out how to counter it. In October, Obama secretly ordered a review of the ways different agencies track travels between the United States and places like Pakistan to look for holes to close. Napolitano told me: “We can’t operate in the paradigm that if they attack us, they would be coming from other countries into the United States. We have some that are homegrown. That is a change.”
After all the lawyerly focus on Guantánamo and the rules of war, the latest threats put more focus on Obama in the role of commander in chief. It did not go unnoticed that when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he declared that “evil does exist in the world.” After the Christmas Day plot, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, consciously or not, used the term “war on terror.” The White House then dispatched Brennan for a blitz of four Sunday shows, the first such foray for the C.I.A. veteran.
Obama made almost as many statements about terrorism in the two weeks following Christmas as he did in the 11 months preceding it, not counting those focused on Afghanistan. “Our nation is at war,” Obama declared on Jan. 2. “We are at war,” he said five days later as he released reports on the Detroit plot.
The war goes on, abroad and at home.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=print