Commentary: Cultural Correctness and National Security

    Outside of the law school, where I taught for many decades, each morning there was one of those short aluminum food carts that sold the right type of softy bagels and large containers of great tasting coffee. I would buy my fix as I entered the building early each day of my work life.  Now, today in retrospect, I should not have bought my bagel from him. Nor the coffee.

Why, you ask? My reasoning today is that I should have mounted a protest and picketed his stand until I drove him into oblivion.  How dare he sell bagels, let alone good Columbian roasted coffee?  Was he welcoming each morning? Was he polite to my sleepy mumblings? Were his prices appropriate? Did I get the right change each morning? Yes, yes and yes.

So why my seemingly incoherent and inappropriate rant?  My tongue-in-cheek answer is: “He was from Egypt!—Look at him– He is an Arab.  Racist! “– you say! Me? A racist? And why these thoughts in a Commentary devoted to security and counterterrorism issues. Obviously, how we view and treat our neighbor is part of our national security, and we presently are witnessing the rise of what I view is a dangerous “Portland” syndrome: a clash between cultural correctness and National security. Let me explain.

We live in a dangerous world. And that danger grows exponentially. “Manchesters” are akin to wildfires. Where next? How to respond? How do I protect my family? Must I point a finger of blame? Should I point a finger of blame? There is a group of American billionaires who have purchased tracts of deserted land and abandoned military missile silos only to spend millions of dollars more to transform them into homes—self-contained shelters—so that when disaster strikes this country, they will be safe and secure.   I live in a high rise apartment building, and periodically our children council us to have gallon jugs of water on hand– “just in case”. Just in case of what? And all they do is roll their eyes at me.

Now, in Portland they understand what diversity means. Portland would like you to revert to segregation. Maybe that’s an overstatement. What a group of socially misguided so called activists believe and have been able to enforce (pathetic) is that white people should cook white food and only those with an appropriate cultural-DNA attachment can be allowed to cook food of their “ own culture”. Two white women set out to learn how to cook the best Mexican food possible. They picked the brains of as many Mexican women who would talk to them. And in time they assembled what they believed to be the best of the best of Mexican cooking. Then the cultural food Gestapo stepped in and closed them down. They were co-opting the culture of others and for profit, no less! They were white; white people do not cook Mexican food for public consumption.

Both sides of my ancestral chain come from the Ukraine and both sides cook an eastern European “Jewish” pot-roast. Trust me, they don’t cook it the same way in Naples. My wife can trace her linage to the 1400s, and they never made pot-roast from the Ukraine. My wife’s pot roast, learned at my Ukraine mother’s side, leaves my mother’s version in the dust. Why—my wife took the recipe (and I am keeping that secret) one step further.

I fear now that the Portland food segregators will descend upon our New York City apartment and demand my wife stop cooking her pot roast. I fear now that what MLK fought for, what all civil rights activists died for, is being buried in regression. We condemn white police for shooting black people. We demand more integration in our local law enforcement, greater education, greater understanding of the culture of others so that we can understand and accept the norms of others. Understand: This is all part of national security. Nothing less. The further away we push our neighbor, the less secure we are.

I spend most of my waking day reading and researching issue that I believe is necessary for us to understand the world we inhabit. The word “world” has different definitions for me depending upon the context of their use. “World” could be the apartment house where I live, or a city, or even the globe we spin on our desk. “World” can also be a neighborhood and, this is where I return to my “bagel guy”.

Trump doesn’t want to let the “bad dudes” in, ICE wants to throw everybody out, sanctuary cities want to let everyone hide– and then there is me.

The thing I love about my country is I don’t have to travel too far to see and feel and –most important – eat all things that are found in some faraway-distant land. It’s all here; we can all participate; we can even try to make some of these foreign “things” ourselves.

Think about it~~ these opportunities strengthen our security not diminish it. How marvelous it is that we can have at one moment both the commingled and separated segments of the lives’ of others absorbed in all aspects of our own daily life. This cultural embrace not only enriches us but binds us together, providing not only a perceived ‘sense’ of secure but real fact-based security. It is called–National Security.

Richard Allan,

The Editor

 

 

 

Commentary: Coming To Your Neighborhood — ISIS

Today it is hard to keep up with the headlines and to form rational responses. Though neither you nor I are making decisions that will affect our government; we are seeking information to regulate our emotions and intellectual responses to events as they unfold. Do we moan, do we cheer; do we reach out to text? Do we rant on Facebook? And in the midst of the United States’ political-constitutional-tornado there is international violence. ISIS is high on that list.

As you turn to any map of the turmoil created by ISIS, the very first thing you will notice is that on the ground their control has diminished and continues to do so drastically. Yet their attacks and battles rage on—on two fronts, as I will later discuss. A year ago it was reported that ISIS had lost at least three Syrian cities and towns within a short six weeks. That trend has escalated. On the ground, nearly three years after the resurrection of its caliphate, the Islamic state is on the cusp of complete dislodgment from Iraq, and in Syria its remaining centers are faced with imminent destruction. But, please, do not stand and cheer. The dangers they pose are not over, not by “a long shot”.

It is important to remember how ISIS morphed into the power it exerts. It did not merely create itself one day when a couple of jihadists decided they needed a vehicle to attack all non-believers. History teaches us (if we listen) that with the demise of one terrorist group, there is so often a small number within the embattled group that decides it must fight on. Or within a movement there is a divergence of views, and one segment decides it must go “its own way”. Their “cause is too important”, the dying group was “mismanaged”, or their focus was “misdirected”. Find a reason and you will find the creation of a terrorist group in a different form and, in many instances, more deadly.

For ISIS it began in late 1999, and became more deadly than al-Qaeda. In an excellent 2014 article written by Aaron Y. Zelin for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “The war between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement”, we are introduced in great detail to the social, economic and educational backgrounds of both groups. Although they ultimately become fierce competitors in their war of terrorism, my conclusion is that they are really two ends of the same stick: Destroy those who do not “believe”. Who is ISIS– initially they were called the J Amaat al-Tawhid WA-i-Jihad (JTWT) who in late 1999 were the forerunners who command today’s headlines.

We have all seen the words: Caliphate and Caliph. In Arabic Caliphate means “succession” and, as an institution, it came into being upon the death of the prophet Muhammad. The “succession”, or who was to succeed the prophet Muhammad was the issue that split the Arab world between the Sunni and Shias. The nasty politics of control. One writer has said that ISIS is a “charter member of al Qaeda in Iraq”. Another writer has called ISIS a franchise of al-Qaeda. Not quite true. Two very different men, with very different social and educational backgrounds, were pressed to create groups propelled by violence and vision with the same goal: destruction of the non-believers. The caliph embodies both a political and religious leader and, it is he who becomes the successor (caliph) to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Once appointed, his power and authority is absolute.

Although I am sure that President Trump in the months ahead will claim credit for the demise of ISIS, it was military operations planned and placed into execution during the Obama era that started its destruction. And while ISIS may be described as terminally ill in Iraq and Syria, please let us not celebrate too soon.

Visualize this: the antlers of deer have the amazing ability to grow back, and this is one of the most extreme examples of regeneration. With ISIS, although they may be in the process of defeat on the ground, they will and have already regrown their “antlers” (far beyond Iraq and Syria), and evidence of that has been its attacks in Europe. Think of an octopus whose bulbous body has been killed but whose severed tentacles live on as separate deadly arms. Think last night in Manchester, England

John Esposito, a professor of religion and international affairs, correctly noted that the caliph, as the successor to the prophet, is the head of the early transnational Islamic empire. The word “transnational” has important significance– it reflects that the Caliphate and Caliph transcend national boundaries and are supreme throughout the world—they govern by erasing national boundaries. Do not doubt for a moment that ISIS does not have exit plans in either Iraq or Syria and will carry their movement through its franchises and believers in Europe and, at some moment in the not distant future, here in the United States. They have already demonstrated that ability and their terror. Manchester, England. To conclude otherwise is sheer folly.

As I was about to review my initial draft of this Commentary, two things occurred. First, I came across a must read article  posted on- line in Politico magazine written by Bayan Bender ( Letter from Israel –5.22.17) and, second, as I finished rereading Mr. Bender’s conclusions, my screen flashed the initial reports of the Manchester bombing . I felt as if I was reliving the horrors of the Paris attacks in 2015.  I became more convinced of my initial thoughts and expanded my conclusions.

The “transnational” component of ISIS and the Caliphate in particular is not understood by most: the extent of its mission. Its mission reaches far beyond the Mideast. Each attack outside the Mid East is not a mere thrust to test either its own capabilities far from home or our resolve or our ability to resist its movement. Second, understanding the transnational aspect of ISIS and its caliphate is fundamental to our combating its force and presence. ISIS, notwithstanding its loss on the battlefield, is in the process of weaving is presence into the very frabric of our daily life and is doing so with the force of each explosion. Do you go or allow your child to go to that concert? Do you spend an afternoon in Trafalgar Square? Do you walk the Boulevard St. Germaine in Paris? And at the very same moment how do we plan our next moves? Fear, it is claimed, allows ISIS to win. But bombings and death are real.

Upon rereading Mr. Bender’s article in Politico, my focus has shifted a bit. Both the Trump and Obama administrations have been myopic and appear to be able to focus on one threat-object at a time and fail to understand the entire peril we, as individuals and nation, face. Iran is a formidable enemy—nothing less. Its capabilities and influence overshadow that of North Korea. Iran should be more than in our vocal condemnation of its action but also in our gun sights. Iran’s present and future plans clearly evidence their ever present involvement in the violence in the Mid East. They are a major player in the chaos in that part of the world. At the very same moment, we should be planning our engagement in Syria and Iraq with a greater understating of the combination of fighting forces in those war-torn countries. Mr. Bender writes: “the United States has failed to understand the competing interests and constantly shifting alliances among what the IDF estimates are between 400 and 500 different groups fighting in the Syrian civil war—including underestimating the level of local support ISIS actually has. Take Mosul, for example. Mosul is a million-citizen city and the largest estimate said [there were] 8,000 militants. You can’t control a million-people city with 8,000 people if you don’t have some support within the population.”

This is a powerful indictment of what we do not understand in the terrorist we face today. Which threat is the more potentially deadly for us as a nation and individuals? Mr. Bender writes that the Israelis believe it to be Iran. We should allow, they claim, ISIS and al-Qaeda to destroy each other in their fierce competition for domination. But then we must recognize that Israel has more to fear from Iran than ISIS or al-Qaida. We, though, live thousands of miles away from Iran’s weapons, and we do not have the internal security systems in place as does Jerusalem. We need to stop both the bombastic, uncontrollable language pouring out of the White House and the escalation of forces and, stop for a moment and to reassess what is actually happening and the interplay of the various tribes on the ground in Syria and Iraq. Could we be competing with ourselves?

There are some 12,000 ISIS foot soldiers that remain in the Mid-East. How many of them have made their way to the European continent? How many of them have crossed the boarders from rural areas in Canada and live quietly in the United States? How many of them are men and women who were born and raised in the United States but who have an affinity to their cause? How many have become motivated to carry that belief, to wear vests of bombs or fill their pickup truck with bombs and drive through Times Square, or deliver saran gas to the subway lines of New York or attend a concert at Madison Square Garden or any other city with a congested area of “just people” ? And the answer is not how many of these persons do in fact exist, because it does not take too many to create deadly havoc. One man, some help and with one vest, Manchester, England. Where Tomorrow?

So by the end of this year, when it is announced, by whoever is president of the United Sates, that ISIS has been defeated, keep two things in mind: However defeated they may be on the battle field now raging in the Mid-East, they are far from defeated in the death and destruction they are capable of inflicting here at home. And, second, please let us not ever forget in the 21st Century: terrorism is and will be a fact of life for us and generations to come.

Richard Allan,

The Editor

 

 

 

 

Commentary–A Moral Response to Violence

Arab Spring: In December 2010 it all began. But the scenes that remain vivid in my mind begin in January 2011 and Tahir Square, Egypt when the wave of Arab Spring came into my home via CNN on an hourly basis. As the Arab Spring movement grew across northern Africa and Middle East, the Syrians rose up on March 15th against their minority masters– one of the many in the Middle East. The man at the center in Syria had the right DNA as a dictator-president. Medically trained Bashar Hafez al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad before him have ruled Syria with an iron fist and cold heart.

Politics in the Middle East had finally exploded. The political will of the majority across northern Africa and the Middle East was grabbing for its part of the political pot. Arab Spring protesters were met in many cases by a violent governmental response. In Syria it became a “civil war”, in Egypt there was a “coup”, then there was the Libyan and Yemen “crisis”. In these movements there was a call for a new form of government and recognition of rights. And that power struggle continues.   In Syria, as I write this commentary, the fighting has gone on for more than six years with over four hundred thousand dead and counting and untold numbers in the millions seeking shelter however and wherever it may be found. Some found floating dead at sea.

In Syria, the dictator Assad emulates his father’s core philosophy: you meet a demand for a voice at the ballot box by the force of a bullet. Clearly, Assad could not win at the ballot box if he had been open to the idea of a referendum, and so he would try to murder his way to control and his sense of “victory”. His simple plan to victory became politically and strategically complex for the United States.

It started in July 2011; defectors from Assad’s regime formed an organized militia called the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to protect protesters and strike back at Assad. By January 2012, the Syrian “uprising” had disintegrated and fragmented into a full-blown civil war pitting the FSA and other assorted rebel groups against Assad and his supporters. It is the “assorted rebel groups” and Assad’s supporters that make this war both a humanitarian blood bath and an international nightmare. Today, The United States is in the middle of this conflict facing its modern historical enemy: Russia. How we got here starts much earlier than the Arab Spring.

In 1980, Iran was using its deep financial resources to further not only its regional control and power but also to destroy Israel. To accomplish its objective it needed to supply its proxies Hezbollah (in Lebanon to control that troubled government and gain control of its common border with Israel in the south) and Hamas (in Gaza bordering in the southwest corner of Israel) with its military and financial needs. To further accomplish this object Iran needed a transfer point for all of this aid. Syria would be that transfer vehicle for conveying whatever military needs and supplies its proxy militias/allies –Hezbollah and Hamas –might require. Assad, in return for his help, would receive enormous military and political largess from Iran. Iran became the Assad’s regime benefactor. Then things changed; the minority population in Syria began their demands. A revolt in Syria is a revolt against Assad, and that clearly would upend Iran’s grand plans for the region. The logical result was that Iran sent Hezbollah to fight alongside of Assad against the rebels. Thus, the beginning of a maze of interventions on both sides.

In early 2013, the Arab League gave its member organizations permission to arm the Syrian rebels; in May of 2013, Qatar alone provided 3 billion dollars in aid to the rebel forces. The rebel pushback against Assad then became a “proxy war” between Iran and Assad on one side against those Gulf states that sided with the United States’ interests. By simple extension, the   “proxy war” morphed into a conflict between Russia, who had financed and in fact built the Syrian army in the 1960s, and the United States.

We have witnessed thousands of airstrikes with American pilots along with United States Special Forces on the ground to accomplish cutting the supply lines to ISIS and to assist the Kurdish army in its fight with ISIS. Notwithstanding the disabling politics (the number of assorted supporters fighting for each side requires a complex chart to understand the dynamics of the situation) and the airstrikes, the on-the- ground reality is that the rebels are far from toppling Assad’s regime. In truth, the rebels could be in crises mode. A major rebel stronghold fell to Assad, and although they are not at the precipice of defeat, they are a long way from any victory against the dictator’s hold on his country.

Then there was a sarin gas attack and a United States’ response– April 4th gas attack by Assad and Trump’s one-shot Tomahawk response against a Syrian military airport. Has anything changed? The short answer is: No. Don’t forget Assad has used Sarin gas in the past against his people. Has it changed Trump’s tweeting tone regarding Moscow? Yes. Does it really matter in the scheme of things, and remember Trump’s reasons for authorizing the air strike are totally irrelevant.   The pressing question is – Was the strike permissible under our laws and morally responsible?

I will leave the constitutional questions of a single air strike to others more qualified than I to discuss that issue. I am more concerned with those who now condemn the strike as involving us in a battle not on our own lawn. And these very vocal people are on both the left and right of the political spectrum.

Many years ago, I was visiting a friend in a high-rise in Manhattan, and in looking out his window across a one block construction site I noticed what appeared to be a Christmas tree on fire in an apartment two blocks away. I called the fire department, and within seconds I could hear the sirens of the fire engines. It took another three seconds to realize that what I was seeing was a reflection in the apartment window of a Christmas tree on fire in the construction site. The fire department told me that I had done the right thing. The “right thing”. Not what was legally right but what was morally right. It was the responsible thing to do, even though it was not my apartment on fire, not the building I was in at the moment, not my life in danger. I thought there was a fire.

I have never been to Syria, I know no one from that country, and I buy no items made in Syria. I can argue either way that what happens in Syria has no effect on my life in Manhattan. It is not a fire on the next block in New York. The issues are more complex, but the logic remains. One person—a stranger to me — is using an illegal weapon causing horrendous death and injury against another—also a person I do not know. The question is: do I, should I, must I intervene in some manner, or do I just “mind my own business”, and walk away. Animals kill for food. Human beings kill for territory and hate. Neither reason is acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to walk away.

In the late 1930s, the world walked away, and in doing so millions of people died that need not have. The world was a moral coward. American, until it was attacked, did little if anything. Had it acted morally, and when Hitler’s message was clear and unambiguous, cities would not have been left in ruins, millions of people would not have been displaced across the globe, and millions whose lives were destroyed would have lived. The question is not how you could possibly permit Assad to gas his own people. The question is how do you allow anyone to gas anyone else, anywhere in the world? The answer is: You don’t. Period.

Richard Allan

The Editor

 

 

 

 

Commentary: Targeting the Enemy and Non-combatants Causalities

One thing is clear in life:  You know your enemy.  At least, you think you are sure. But there are times when you are caught off guard and blind-sided. But that is usually the rare occasion. The next question is obvious: If you know your enemy, are you legally and morally entitled to eliminate that threat before you are attacked?  Or rather, are you legally “or” morally entitled to move forward?

What is also interesting within this sensitive topic is the world’s reaction to preemptive strikes. And that generally follows the useless saying that one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.  To place that issue permanently aside– it is clear who is a terrorist by the simplest of definition. The moment you attack a civilian target –a bus, a school, a shopping market, a café, a housing project you are, by definition, a terrorist. Period.  But: What if civilians are within the proposed targeted area? The answer to this question was changed in part from the moment I started to write this Commentary to the time of its final edit.

When civilians are within a targeted area, the “rules of war” or “rules of engagement” fall into place. And here, it is easy to turn to the international promulgated rules and treaties. In 1859, a Swiss business man, for reasons unknown, visited wounded soldiers after the Battle of Solferino in the second war for Italian Independence. He was shocked by the physical and medical conditions of the soldiers and, in particular, the lack of medical help on the battle field. The battle itself was horrendous and resulted in thousands upon thousands killed and tens of thousands wounded in only a nine hour battle. In particular, there were scores of reports of dying and wounded soldiers shot or bayonetted while they lie injured on the battle field.  He went home and wrote of his experience of the horrors of war. His book propelled the acceptance of international treaties to provide relief during war and won him the first Nobel Peace prize in 1901.  During the past 70 years, the main victims of all forms of war have been civilians.

In today’s world of horrific air and drone strikes and bombings from miles high in the sky what of those who live in a battle zone and wish to merely survive the violence of war. They are not combatants; they are caught in the colloquial cross-fire of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  You’ve seen their pictures. And you get angry.

These people are “non-combatants,” and that word is considered a “legal term of art” “in the law of war”. A non-combatant is generally described as a civilian who is not taking a direct part in the hostilities, not aiding the combatants in any form and who is not willing being used as a shield for one of the combatants. These civilians have been recognized as protected since the inception of the First Geneva Convention of 1864. To illustrate the extent to which protection is afforded a “non”-combatant: A pilot or any military aircrew member (a combatant!) whose plane is shot and crippled, and thus forced to parachute to safety, is no longer a combatant and cannot be attacked (shot at) while parachuting to the ground notwithstanding whether the landing area is hostile or not.

The International Humanitarian Law looks to the protection not of combatants but of those civilians caught in the midst of conflict or who are living under the rule of the enemy’s forces. They must be protected against all forms of violence and this means not only by the enemy under which they live but by those attacking the enemy. All care must be in place to protect the innocent civilian within a war zone, who is not aiding the enemy in any form or fashion.  Thus, when we or any other country attacks its enemy, one condition of the armed attack is protection of the civilian population not “engaged” with the enemy.

Hundreds of women and children were killed in west Mosul March 17th. The Americans bombed the area as part of their cooperation with the Iraqi army against the Islamic State. The tragedy did make the headlines. The question then becomes are we—the United States—war criminals?  Not to be callus—“mere” civilian death during combat does not justify that charge. What were the circumstance of the planning and execution of that bombing raid?  Was the bombing “a disproportional response” to what was transpiring on the ground? Did we know of the civilians in the area and how close they were to the targeted area?

The top US commander in Iraq said “there’s a fair chance” that a U.S. airstrike in west Mosul killed civilians on March 17. Evidence also reveals that there were multiple strikes in the area. As I began to write this commentary, an internal U.S. investigation is ongoing to determine why and how the deaths of civilians occurred. More of this in a moment to show the problem with air strikes, however pinpointed they may be with non-combatants in the vicinity. As with Mosul, the residences in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa live in a trapped ISIS environment.  Raqqa is the ISIS de facto capital.  ISIS has laid a belt of land mines circling the city. Inside the city all men have been directed to wear jihad clothing so as to make it almost impossible to determine who is and who is not an ISIS member. In effect, ISIS has created a massive human shield.   How do you target your enemy?

What we do know at this moment –March 31st  — there is an investigation into the March 17th    air attack; and that air surveillance reveals that ISIS was smuggling civilians, sight unseen into buildings within the City, then bait the coalition forces to attack. In this instance, the civilians were not used as traditional shields—equally despicable.   It has been admitted that civilian casualties are “fairly predictable” given the densely populated areas where the ISIS fighters have dug in. One thing has changed as of March 31st.  Last week, it was announced that the American rules of engagement have not been loosening when it comes to accepting the concept of civilian fatalities.  Lt. General Stephen Townsend publicized that the military has not decided to tolerate greater risk of civilian casualties in its airstrikes.  That changed on March 31st at least in the shielding of civilians in Somalia.  President Trump has sign-off the Army to “prosecute targets in a more rapid fashion.”   There must be, the Trump directive describes, a permitted airstrikes if there is “a reasonable certainty” that no civilians will be hurt. This is less stringent than the “near certainty” standard issued by President Barack Obama in 2013 as a Presidential Policy Guidance that is still applied elsewhere. The Obama standard requires high-level, interagency vetting of proposed airstrikes and the target has to pose a direct threat to Americans. Under the Trump guidelines, as described in the press, Somalia would be considered a less-restrictive battlefield and the target chosen would be based upon the target’s “status”  “without any reason” that this particular target would give rise to a direct threat to Americans and  that some civilian bystander deaths would occur even if the attack was proportionate.

And then the conundrum in world politics kicks in. The United States conducts a strike and the world “discusses” the appropriateness of the strike and whether it comports with the accepted norms of warfare and engagement. When Israel targets a terrorist (not a freedom fighter!), the world discusses “war criminals”.  The United States Joint Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey has sent his senior officers to Israel to study the methods to which that country has gone (quoting his words: “extraordinary lengths”) to limit civilian casualties, and yet his strong military approval did not lower the “the level of hostility toward Israel”.   This anti-Israel hostility continues, notwithstanding the openly published Hamas guidelines ordering its members to “operate from within civilian populations…to increase the number of innocent casualties.”  The reason is obvious.  The political conclusions are obvious.

It is difficult to reconcile or accept the loss of civilian lives —those very innocent people that get caught in the center of a military conflict.  It is easy to say: but that is the “cost of war”.  As I mentioned earlier, in the last 70 years the loss of innocent lives in our wars and the wars between other nations has cost unacceptable large number of civilian, non-combatant lives. Shall we, along with the Israelis, continue the strikes against those who would harm us? The “preemptive strike.”  The airstrike against an enemy.  Do we send a drone to eliminate a terrorist or ISIS leader? Do we have a legal right to do so? The answer is clearly: Yes. Is there a moral obligation that prohibits us from engaging in an activity that puts civilians at risk? The answer here is not a simple yes or no. The answer is that as long as we have in place the mechanism that can identify the non- combatant in the strike, that the strike is not over-kill or disproportionate, that we take all reasonable precautions to protect the non-combatant– then we have both a legal and moral right to protect our citizens and those that depend upon us for their lives.

Richard Allan
The Editor

Commentary—When Enough is Enough—Our Military Needs in Combat

We need more funding for education in the United States, not less. The arts are at the foundation of our soul and need financial support from our Government, not less. There are diseases that will only be conquered with more financial support from our Government, not less. And diplomacy is the string that connects the world. And you can, at this point, add your own items of concern to the list that need the government’s financial attention. The President wants to slash all non-military expenditures in favor of building up an armed America. Part of that is wrong; the other part needs examination.

Notwithstanding Trumps attempt to set a new tone with Russia, history has taught us that men like Putin are not on the same wavelength as democratic philosophies, ideas and values. Putin will wait for the most opportune moment to strike a blow to our wellbeing both domestically and internationally. To think otherwise is to be naïve. Russia is not our friend; has never been. Russia is not our partner on the world stage. And I am not a hawk.

I do believe in being prepared to meet all challenges both domestically and abroad. Whether that challenge is an unknown disease from Africa or a military strike from a potential adversary.

This bring me to a security issue without a political agenda…namely without embracing President Trumps’ unhinged military and world view. How prepared is the United States’ military to defend (notice I used the word: defend—not the grabbing of oil fields that do not belong to the U.S.) American interests domestically and abroad? “I’m signing an executive action to begin a great rebuilding of the armed services of the United States, developing a plan for new planes, new ships, new resources and new tools for our men and women in uniform, and I’m very proud to be doing that,”

The scrutiny must lie in the assessment of each branch of our military, separately. This examination is not how well there is integration of our military services but to examine each component of the whole. My thought is: you are as strong as your weakest link. The same is true of our military.

The “U.S. Armed Forces” consists of the five armed service branches: Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy. There are two general categories of military people: active duty (full-time soldiers and sailors) and reserve & guard forces (usually work a civilian job, but can be called to full-time military duty), The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief, who is responsible for all final decisions concerning our armed services. The Secretary of the Department of Defense (DoD) has control, subject to the President’s approval, over each branch of the military – except the Coast Guard, which is under the helm of the Department of Homeland Security. And, what I never realized until writing this piece, is that with over 2 million civilian and military employees, the DoD is the world’s largest “company.”

The Navy: The Navy measures its strength or capacity to undertake a mission interestingly enough not by the number of sailors but by counting the number of ships—“the fleet”. On reflection it is clear and most importantly, in assessing the necessities for the Navy we just do not merely count ships because the obvious is that “not all ships are counted equally”. The Navy focuses mainly on the size of its “battle force,” which is composed of ships considered to be directly related to its combat missions. Fascinating is the reality that when you examine “where the fleet is normally stationed at any given moment”, the majority of our ships (not sailors) are at anchor in the continental U.S. (CONUS) to undergo routine maintenance. This time at home also provides the navy time for training and to provide for time at home for their crews.

However, given the reality of our present needs and that of our national security, there requires our core naval power to be at their stations in regions around the world. This requires that the navy have as many ships forward at sea/deployed as possible, and creates a delicate balance in its operational demands (getting the ships in fighting readiness and sailor with “shore leave”) and the necessity of forward command posts.

The Navy, not the President, presently assess its readiness as it pertains to providing global presence as “strong. Namely, to maintain its ability to forward deploy a third of its fleet and “stave off immediate readiness challenges”. And there is the crux of the dilemma— without further recapitalization and without more hulls entering the fleet, this level of readiness cannot be sustained.

We do not need a Navy to take on the world at the expense of all else. But we do need a Navy, when we view what appears to be an ongoing upward trend of military engagement around the world, to have an increase in a “capacity or readiness funding”. If not, the Navy’s overall score could degrade in the near future. Trump told an audience that our Navy is now “the smallest it’s been since World War I.” This is a misleading statement. The U.S. Navy may be smaller than it has been for 100 years, but its power — relative to the navies of the rest of the world — is still enormous, even after being worn down by the past decade and a half of constant engagement in conflicts.

The Army: In March of 2016, top U.S. military leaders warned Congress that years of combat combined with budget cuts and personnel reductions have left the Services stretched so thin that they may not be able to adequately respond to an unexpected crisis.  The admissions take place amidst growing uncertainty about a constrained defense budget and increasing global instability. That was a year ago.

The Marines–– The Marines have informed a congressional committee that if they were called upon today to respond to an unexpected crisis, they might not be ready to deter a potential major conflict and could incur more casualties because of their short fall in preparedness. “I worry about the capability and the capacity to win in a major fight somewhere else right now,” the marines reported, citing a lack of training and equipment. To further complicate their preparedness, the Marines are most risk because of fewer training opportunities with their best equipment which has been deployed with their forces overseas. The picture doesn’t get better when it was revealed, in their report to Congress, that their communication, intelligence and aviation units are the hardest hit at the same moment that roughly 80 percent of Marine aviation units lack the amount of ready aircraft that they need for training and to respond to an emergency.

The Airforce has a different spin on its readiness: They do not discount the need for additional funds—“money is helpful for readiness”, but it is the number of men and women who fill their ranks that provides the “worrisome” issue in their equation. And because the Airforce personal is stretched so thin that Air Force describes itself as “so small”, caused by the extended deployment of troops and the lack of material to execute the necessary training. This is especially true as new equipment is placed on the flight line. The Secretary of the Airforce said just one year ago “if you go into a high-end conflict with a great power and you’re not sufficiently ready, history teaches me, you lose more lives and it’s a prolonged conflict. And it’s very worrisome.”

When you look at the armed services as a whole, it is the Navy that has a more unique role in our national defense. The peace-time Army and Marines have a much smaller contained role in peacetime. We do not need either the Army or the Marines to be stationed or present—a show of force– in many parts of the world. The Navy’s role in peacetime is to be “present” around the globe, and that is the driving force behind the idea of “ship counting”. But during conflict, the navy must be—the expectation—is to be able to fight and win. In this sense, ship counting is not the benchmark. What is necessary is strike groups of carriers, amphibious ships, submarines and support ships that are necessary to ensure success.

What is a given in any discussion, at a time when entities come with hat-in-hand looking for funds to satisfy their own budget demands, is some puffing and hand-wringing in an attempt to increase the urgency of their burdens. Taking the previous sentence as true and reviewing the demands of our armed forces, the picture that they paint does not require or demand that we discount their needs with a slashing sword. Their requests are modest when placed against the framework proposed by President Trump.

No President within my memory or research, who sought funds for massive military expenditure, did so at the expense of our non-military, national or international commitments. The framework of Trumps budget envisions massive cuts across the government’s civilian spending while increasing spending on the military by an additional 10 percent or 54 billion additional dollars. What is hard fact at this moment is that this country spends more on its military then the next seven largest military complexes combined.

Trumps budgetary demands make no sense. They make no sense militarily. They make no sense when reviewing the protection necessary for all of the other needs of our society. This makes no sense in defining the position of the United States as a leading world power. And by itself, his military budget demands will not “Make America Great Again”. To contrary, they will weaken our internal social structure and fracture our international relations.

We must have enough troops of all description. We must have enough equipment of all description to support the military at war. We must have enough ships to permit us to win any conflict–anywhere. We are not and should not be a military empire.

Richard Allan

The Editor

 

 

 

Commentary: Freedom of the Press, National Security and the Right to Know

Although the great Barnum and Bailey Circus is folding its tents, American politics under our new President is opening its and I fear for our society—at least the lions at the circus were in cages. Please, let me explain.

The press, and I am referring to both the newsprint and electronic mode of expression, in the United States is under attack, and at the same moment we are all aware that our national security has been and is under attack. There is an additional impediment to our daily living and there is developing disconnect in our daily language between truth, lies and distortion. There is a distinction unless, of course, you are George Costanza who aptly told Jerry Seinfeld: “it’s not a lie if you believe it.” The issue today is the press, its place in our daily lives and its impact on national security.

The press has a twofold mission; to inform us of the facts and to have a place where people may discuss their opinions. Nothing new in that thought but it bears repetition.

The press has always been a vital instrument in American history and its development as a strong and lasting democratic society. As a matter of law, the press cannot be censored by the government. And yet the press is subject to libel laws for infringement upon individual truth. All else is fair game “but for” the rules of common decency.

For myself and my education and to find insight and overview in the thinking process, I read the foreign press, and foreign opinion magazines such as Prospect from the UK and the newspapers of record in the United States.

With the presidential election, I find we have we have three types of politically oriented people in the U.S.: the Democrat and two types of Republican. The first type of Republican who in any conversation listens, discuss and doesn’t call either you or the press liars when they disagree. The other type of Republican, doesn’t know or care how to enter into a civil conversation, and finds his or her facts in an alternative means of information gathering and employs an alternative use of the English language. I have one such Republican friend and relative on each side of that equation. Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s chief White House strategist, has just told the press “to shut up”. And Kellyann Conway said that calling out President Trump’s lies is –“Dangerous to the democracy.”

Actually, there is a fourth type of person in this country: the person who believes that he or she is above it all, who disdains all, who thinks they have no choices worthy of their most vaulted vote. So they sit back, do not vote and then complain when their secret choice is not victorious. A Republican member of Congress has informed us that it is probably “better to get your news directly from the President. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.” And, the silencing of the press continues with the Trump administration mandating that any studies or data from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public. Political review of data from scientists, not scientific review, and not objective review before any data is shared with the public. Why?

My charge today is not to argue a brief on the historic heritage of freedom of the press. I never taught a constitutional law class, and only litigated one major constitutional issue in all my years of practice. My fear…not concern…my fear is for our security and that our national security is in jeopardy when the press cannot report to us what they see, what they learned, who is manipulating our lives and facts so that our physical well-being is placed on a dangerous path.

Because we are a nation in jeopardy—the terrorist cares less of our democratic process– it is crucial that the press has the access that makes news gathering and reporting transparent so that we – the people who ride the subway—are fully informed. There is a trite saying: if you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will. That is true when it comes to whom we trust with our security, how they function and what are their motives. In the end it is our lives. The secret service does not protect me, nor does it protect you.

Today our security is being placed in jeopardy in more than one area of our lives. Not merely the potential bomb on the truck or subway. The NATO Secretary General warns of a sharp increase in cyber-attacks against our military alliances that will have profound effect if fully effective and that will breach into our daily lives. It doesn’t end at the military front. He announced that in ” the latest evaluations, there was a monthly average of 500 threatening cyber-attacks last year against NATO infrastructure that required intensive intervention … That’s an increase of 60 percent compared to 2015. “

Our newly elected president calls NATO obsolete. They, he alleges, are “not paying their fair share” of the cost for defense. BUT can we, as a country, go it alone in a very dangerous world. The answer clearly is: no. The answer historically has been no.

The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have not been our walls of national defense for decades. A wall along the Mexican border will not protect us from the terrorist only the Mexican day laborer. ISIS employs other paths. It is not a question of NATO and its financial support (a profit and loss statement of who pays what) it is about lives, yours and mine and not the cost for us and our children to “live” to tomorrow. NATO is a real, not imaginary line of defense to an historical enemy of the United States who is not a supporter of democratic action. Russia has a present history of “internationally destabilizing” activities. That is reality. A collapse of NATO because of our failure of financial support would be a security disaster for the people of the US.

 

A second reality that must be kept under national press vigilance is that it is almost certain that this Administration will ultimately have to turn the spotlight away from a serious domestic issue and will, given its history, do so with a grand gesture or as the commentator Edward Lucas said—a “grand bargain with Putin”. An announcement of a “deal” with Putin only to be revealed and unveiled to the press by the President at the time of a self-congratulating signing ceremony and, not during any period of discussion or negations. Lucas has suggested that President Trump will enter into a “grand bargain” – a deal– to distract the American people from a domestic failure and agreeing to “a Russian troop removal from its western military district in return for America pulling its forces out of a strategic European frontline of defense.” “I think” he wrote “that would be absolutely catastrophic.” The “Art of the Deal” does not work with a known dictator who has no sense of international integrity. Only an open and free press is our hope of protecting the American people from the misadventures of any administration. A press that is unafraid of an Administration, who is unafraid of asking questions, is unafraid of stepping on bureaucratic toes including that of the President of the United States. And who will not “keep its mouth shut and just listen”.

With a management style that has been describe by one GOP strategist as “deliberate chaos”, one can only wonder what tomorrow will bring. Therefore, once again, it is the press that will bring us “the facts”, and must do so at a time the President has said he was in a ‘running war” with the media calling journalist “among the most dishonest people on earth”.

A final thought: I have intentionally stayed politically neutral when discussing security issues in my commentaries, whether they be domestic or international. With the election of Mr. Trump as president, security issues take a 180 degree turn. The security question is: To what direction will the President ultimately turn when viewing the rest of the world. “History” appears to make no difference in his equations and he appears to approach life on an ad hoc basis. The fear then becomes in the “not knowing” and the further fear is does he himself know which way he will turn and, last, the fear of our partners not knowing what he will do or say and that will impact our and their national relations and security.

Will he bail on NATO, will he stop talking to China and merely employ our naval guns, and will he allow his new friend and our historical enemy Putin to move in any direction he chose in the hope of getting some sort of deal that will appeal to his base supporters?

The ultimate issue is: what strategy is The President of the Untied States taking to the White House, and how do we, the people, know without a press reporting?

             Richard Allan,

                          The Editor

 

 

 

 

Commentary: A Look Back With a Bleak Future

Although we are in a New Year, I would like to look back. The reason seems so clear to me. The facts we face today are so stark that they portends what the future holds. Life will undoubtedly be more difficult on all fronts in the many months to come.

Trumping up a nuclear rivalry with Russia’s Putin, our new president is being goaded by a dictator who is cash poor but more than anxious to anti-up the stakes in a nuclear armament race. This bravado will create greater chances for a deadly error, and clearly the cost of this fatal game is better spent on other issues. This is especially true with a president-elect who evidences more respects WikiLeaks then our own national intelligence capability.

With a trade war on the horizon, not with Putin who does not have the stakes to come to the financial table, but with a much more powerful financial giant who has enormous assets and investment in our country — China. In the past I have written of China’s control of a segment of the U.S. economy. It would be best to partner with this foe than the one that controls Siberia. Turkey deploys more weaponry to its border with Syria to face the innocent young, old and injured that flee from its dictator. Turkey a lynch-pin in that region of a hostile world is not our friend and certainly an enemy of democracy. Today it partners more with Russia then the U.S. The mid-East and North Africa is home to 22 countries all but one is a democracy. We have just finished a year with horrific attacks on humanity in Syria and beyond. The world merely looked on. “Looking on” in unacceptable silence or, worse still, with empty words is deplorable. No animal in the wild kills with the same velocity and scope as the human. It has been said a million times fold, an animal kills to feed itself and its family. Humans kill, at times, for reasons anchored in ancient history and not present reality. How much more barbaric can we become.

I have been reading about the Reformation period in England and I am horrified not by the poverty, inequity and base cruelty that existed and was then reinforced, but that we have not come very far in man’s-inhumanity-to-man in over five hundred years. Cruelty committed beyond any definition — thru nonfeasance and malfeasance, by inaction and by action.   All committed by the hand of man.

We draw lines in the sand and then ignore our own threats. We permit others to act barbaric, as we respond with bravado rhetoric, sit on our own hands, and then shake our heads in disbelief. Tantrums (both Democratic and Republican) with no long-range thinking prevail at the highest levels of our government. And I predict, because of what I will describe below, the situation will only be worse in 2017.

The threat of violence today has escalated by waves of mass migration—uncontrolled mass migration that cumulated in 2015 and is an intensifying brewing-pot of viciousness. The number of illegal migrants reaching Europe’s border jumped sharply in the first four months of 2014, suggesting then that year’s total could be on track to overtake the 140,000 refugees who arrived during the 2011 Arab Spring. The story became far worse and more critical with time. A quick look at the past 20 years of illegal immigration have confirmed to many that unknown numbers will and are attempting to reach Britain by crossing the continent and using Calais as a staging post. This, as French authorities continue to demolish squatter camps near the Channel, as immigrants attempt to cross to the UK.

Since the American intervention in Somalia in 1992, the more developed nations have had the ability to quickly organize and put into place sufficient ground forces to overrun territory in chaos. As reported widely, the problem more than often was there was no credible group to replace the faulting government, and what ensued were frustration and anger that led to the rise of splinter groups of the defeated terrorist forces.

Europe today is experiencing its worst refugee crisis since the end of the Second World War. In 2016, hundreds of the continent’s overtaxed, overextended border guards (of whose work we read very little) travelled to Warsaw for their yearly review. The issues—today– how do EU border guards and they management forces face its biggest challenge in two decades– with hundreds of thousands of refugees that pour over weak boarders into France, Greece, Germany, Italy and Hungary. All at the same moment, these countries are more than inept in their negligent attempts to deal with those with violence and terrorism agendas. Those who have already arrived are integrating deeper into the population and executing their deadly plan: Bastille Day in Nice and Christmas in Berlin. In December, the Islamic State claimed that it had carried out 1,034 suicide attacks in 2016. That number, as reviewed by experts, is impossible to verify, but they did agree that the total has been climbing for several years now. The number of people willing — even eager — to sacrifice for the “cause” is staggering. Mass integrated planning by the EU is now beyond merely necessary but vital across Europe.

ISIS has learned to accomplish what al Qaeda could never develop—a simple terrorism act to capture a bold print international headline: a truck, a willing driver, a mass of un-expecting citizens brought together violently can produce a killing of countless persons within seconds and without a single explosive or shot fired. To digress for a moment, as noted by Kakov Lapin in a special report to IPT News: “Hamas launched a public relations campaign in recent days, aimed at capitalizing on a deadly truck attack in Jerusalem. The campaign sheds a light on Hamas’s plans to encourage and launch jihadist atrocities, but also on its vulnerability to the arrival of ISIS as an ideology and movement.” A “movement” that is engulfing all of Western Europe, as I write this sentence.

In December, the WSJ published a magnificent in-depth analysis written by Matthew Dalton, describing the critical situation across Europe. He writes, and supports with hard facts, that the latest attacks “has laid bare multiple failings in Europe’s security apparatus, including poor cooperation between national governments, porous borders and lack of biometric data to identify people who use false identities.” This monumental indictment cannot be misconstrued to fit any positive conclusion. In early January, the WSJ again published a devastating article detailing “Belgium’s Botched Hunt for ISSI”. It can read almost as a parody of the famous film “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight”. The authors of this article describe the botching, by the Belgium police, when they had multiple chances to catch the ISIS terror cell that carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks –“and muffed every one”. Their source: a confidential report prepared for the Belgium Parliament.

Compounding these problems is the rise of Islamic State ability to strike almost at will in Europe although being beaten on the traditional battle field. At year’s end, we find security services, across Europe, overwhelmed in their ability to follow and track not merely the jihadist presence but the potential threats among the newly arrivals. Islamist groups employed, as was the general published belief, the surge of refugees to smuggle their operatives into Europe. It has been described in countless articles that most of the terrorists traveled from Syria through the Balkans and then Central Europe, moving with the hordes of refugees in the summer and fall of 2015.

To understand a crucial part of the migration and terrorism issues in Europe, one must understand the border controls in Europe and in turn to be aware of the Schengen Zone. This part of Europe is composed of 26 European states that have officially abolished passport and any other type of border control at their mutual borders. This large geographic zone functions as a single country for international travel purposes and is named after the Schengen Agreement, which for a time eliminated border controls with the other Schengen members and strengthened border controls with non-Schengen countries. With the terrorist attacks and migration crisis in late 2016, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden temporarily imposed controls on some or all of their borders with other Schengen states. Previously, in 2015, after the Paris attack, France declared a state of emergency which stepped up its boarder control measure with other Schengen states.

A quick review of the history of the Berlin attack suspect Anis Amri, who arrived in Europe in 2011, will underline the depth of the failure of European intelligence at this moment. The authorities in Italy and Germany have tried multiple times to send Amri back to Tunisia. They failed. Around the same time, he was released after four years in an Italian prison for starting a fire at a refugee shelter; he was allowed to leave Italy (with a criminal record). Nonetheless, he applied for asylum again in Germany. This “underscores the disorder of Europe’s refugee system.” Although the authorities ordered him to return to Tunisia, he headed to Germany, where he roamed freely, using a series of false identities, and sought asylum. Since the authorities don’t routinely fingerprint migrants or check their fingerprints against national criminal databases (freely discussed in the press and with what little facilities there are) he was able to travel as he desired. Evidence, however sketchy, has established that the Islamic State has sent dozens of operatives to Europe, over the past two years, and to Germany in particular. And, is simple to deduce, is that with the unraveling of ISIS strangleholds of Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq, the obvious will occur–that many potential terrorists will disappear from the scene and attempt, one way or another, to enter Europe.

Aside from the security issues the humanitarian questions such as in Greece, wintry conditions have imperiled thousands of refugees in overcrowded camps, as described in the New York Times, prompting the E.U. to declare the situation “untenable.” While thousands displaced person from Mosul are in desperate need of life-saving aid, the security concerns and gloom are layer upon the humanitarian apprehensions and present a desperate picture ahead.

European security services race against time to detect the terrorist threats among the millions of refugees who arrived in recent years. But that is like closing the barn doors after the cows have fled. What is clear is that the Schengen border restraints remain sparse; the creation of “hot spots,” where officials conduct security checks of migrants, using high-speed internet connections to security databases, do not cover the porous country-side where both the migrant and terrorist can move freely and without detection. How many have arrived in the United States?

We live in a time with Western Europe in disarray both politically and socially. Their population is living in the shadows of constant and increasing terrorism. We live in a world struggling with the rise of an increasingly dark populist cloud, both at home and abroad, as we witness the plummeting of civility, diversity acceptance and truth.

For me, a defining moment was the day after the United States presidential election and one month before the first WSJ laid bare the state of the European deplorable security apparatus— helplessness to cope with its crisis of terrorism and immigration, we cancelled our trip to London and Paris.

Richard Allan,

The Editor

 

 

 

 

 

Commentary: Terrorisms and The Coming New Year

 

On a grainy photograph taken after a cold November rain, we see the President of France laying a wreath– not at some French memorial monument or battle field but a normal, ordinary looking Street in Paris. The ones I usually stroll. It was the anniversary date of the slaughter of dozens of ordinary people during a terrorist rampage in Paris on the night of November 13th 2015. When the last shot was fire that night a total of 130 persons died at the hands of terrorists. In one instant there was whole-sale murder of people not running in the street or cowering in a café but being held hostage in a concert hall. In all, Islamist militants killed 17 people in Paris in January 2015 in an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Another 130 people were killed when gunmen and suicide bombers attacked the capital in November 2015, and 86 more were killed when a man drove a truck into crowds watching fireworks in the city of Nice the night of Bastille Day, France’s national holiday. A few weeks later, two men pledging allegiance to the so-called Islamic State slit the throat of a priest in Rouen. The attacks continue as I write this blog, and our State Department has issued a travelers warning for travel in Europe.

The Islamic State, whose strongholds in Syria and Iraq are being bombed by French jets, has urged followers to continue attacking France. If one scans a map of ISIS occupied territory in a 21 month period from January 2015 to October 2016, you understand the sharp reduction in land occupied by these terrorists. But that has not stopped the attacks; it seems to have escalated its response in other areas of the world. Somewhere between 900 and 1,500 French citizens are believed to have joined ISIS, according to International Centre for Counterterrorism.  In September, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that, while plots are being foiled “every day,” 15,000 French Muslim youth are still radicalizing. France’s national police spokesman Christophe Crépin  told Time, “We have the means now, but it is not sure that [there] won’t be further attacks. There is a savagery that is very, very strong now.”

France has suffered a disproportionate and disturbing number of terror attacks in the past two years: “There will be new attacks, there will be innocent victims … it is my role to tell this truth to the French people,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. But with over 400 would-be terrorists off the streets, is France at least safer than it was a year ago? Some say yes, it is my feeling that the answer tilts to: no. And my answer would be “no” for the rest of Europe –with the advent of right-wing, nationalistic governments on the steady and strong rise.

The struggle by the French government, one year later, has not become easier for a country looking to make advancement in a fight against a group of people who vow its destruction by violence. And of course the question is “why”? As ISIS is losing on the traditional battlefield, its movement, unlike the Taliban, has an “unhinged” mentality with extreme horrific violence. As it dies in one place it will arise in another. France faces a combination of threats, making it difficult to develop a wide-ranging strategy to combat them. First and foremost ISIS sends trained operatives into Europe. It was these fighters who carried out the November attacks. Second, there are people unaffiliated with the group who carry out attacks on its behalf or in its name. Third, are the lone wolves, the person who drove his truck into the celebrating crowd on Bastille day in Nice. And fourth, is the historic tension and total lack of integration and social connection between the French citizen and its immigrants, 10 percent being Muslims.

France’s parliament investigated last year’s terrorist attacks on Paris and determined that there was a “global failure” of French intelligence. But it is so much more than that. The government has instituted a “series of administrative and legislative reforms aimed at adapting to the new paradigm,” with De-radicalization centers. But they have not been totally successful. One commentator said that it’s like treating drug addition:” Yes, people will leave jihad, but people cannot be forced to leave it, they have to make their own choices.” And clearly, many that went through the “treatment” are back working for terrorists organizations. It will get worse as the extreme right political structures move into greater power, and that will only create a greater counter-push against nationalistic governments by the extremists.

With the rise of nationalistic movements that take control of any government, it will be harder to eliminate the social tensions that divide a population. But France has and probably will be resistant to the approach of social integration. There is no indication that there is any real movement to some sort of “internal social cohesion” in France, because of the ingrained idea that France is for only French-people, and only those born in France are French.

Across the Channel in England, at the same moment, an extreme surveillance bill becomes the law. This took place without a moment’s hesitation by any of the lawmakers or serious public outcry. The Dutch parliament has approved a ban on face coverings in public; the rule covers ski masks as well as burkas and niqab face veils. The fine is up to 410 euros, which is about $435. Was all this a response to the French lack of significant success in its fight against terrorism?

In the UK, its new law gives both their intelligence agencies and the police what one person described as “the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world.”   The fear in its general population allows the government to move that fast and that far into that type of surveillance territory. That fear is being propelled not merely by the extremist in their Araba communities but, as a top UK counter-terrorism officer has said – they “fear the threat of far-right violence is growing and poses a similar danger to communities as other forms of extremism.” The far right neo-Nazis is described as a fractured, unpredictable and violent group and has been accused, indicted and convicted of politically motived violence. What will happen in the United States with its new extreme right-leaning- neo-nationalist rational administration?

And although we in the United States passed a “modest” bill curtailing bulk phone data collection, our new President will easily and certainly move around it by having the UK supply us with their treasure trove of information collected under their new laws. Jim Killock, the executive director of Open Rights Group, said: “The UK now has a surveillance law that is more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy.” Only fear allows that, fear among the general public

It has been said: “Understanding the drivers of terrorism is crucial if we are to develop counter-terrorism strategies that help combat radicalization.” While the military maps clearly indicate that the military operations are obviously contributing toward restraining and diminishing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, they have not dented the continued appeal of its organization, evident in the ISIL-inspired attacks in Europe. This demonstrates the limitations of a purely military approach. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that “violent extremism” — that is, jihadism — demands more intelligence collection and analysis now “than at any other point in history”. But what are we doing with that information? If it is for military purposes only, we lose the war on terrorism.

What is clear is that if the West – and France especially – is going to protect itself from the Islamic jihad today and in the future, it will have to find new ways to prevent the violence. The answer seems abundantly clear: it’s to reach out to the Muslim youth before they radicalize, not after. And again this is especially true in France and Western Europe. But so far, no one seems even to be trying.

In the United States we have just placed an entire group of our citizens on notice: “we don’t trust you”.

Richard Allan,

The Editor

 

 

China’s Trojan’s Horse in Your Neighborhood.

Several weeks ago, before the massive onslaught of election-living hell, I was starting to think about my next post. As often happens, it started with an unexpected news report concerning the purchase of an entertainment empire. I did some minor research. As more and more information unfolded, a newspaper ( in this case the WSJ) wrote what I consider a naïve column. Then all stopped – the reporting stopped and I stopped and became an obsessed watcher as the election a terrified roller-coaster ride (I hate them). I was no longer able to breath until November 8.

You know the Greek tale of the Trojan horse and its creator, the Greek hero Odysseus. He built a large, hollow wooden horse, shoved a bunch of armed Greek soldiers inside and ran it up to the Trojan gates and left it as a gift. The Trojans opened the gates, rolled in the horse and went to sleep, awaking the next morning to the Greeks at their breakfast table and promptly surrendered. Much like a real Trojan horse, in a 1936 radio address, a Spanish nationalist commander during the siege of Madrid announced that he had a “fifth column” (that Trojan horse again) — a group of his soldiers hidden within the city’s population ready to attack and aid his four columns of armed soldiers outside the city and about to attack .

Today, China has slipped a powerful Trojan horse into your neighborhood, and you don’t know it and it is growing. Let me explain:

If you are as old as I, or not too far behind, you will remember or at least you might have been told about “Dick Clark “and his “American Bandstand” television program in the late 50’s. Dick Clark, with his white buck shoes and perennial boyish charm, held sway for one of the longest running television programs on what was then a very small television tube. Unknown to most of us, he not only fronted this program but with a lot of imagination, foresight and backing built an enormous entertainment production empire. That empire, Dick Clark Production, produced or owned dozens upon dozens of televisions programs and scores of musical copyrights and, became the world’s largest producer and proprietor of televised events. Long after his death, his production company remained in your home and life until one day, recently, his production company was in negotiations to be sold to Dalian Wanda. Dalian Wanda you ask? This blog of Terrorism and Security you wonder?

And here is the saga of a Chinese Trojan horse in your neighborhood – a foreign country’s Trojan horse, not friendly and aggressively anti-U.S., who will control an immense portion of your life without a shot fired and with no overt sign informing you of its invasion or takeover. The magnitude of its invasion and growth is beyond the point of merely being interesting to observe and can now be said to be of important security interest.

Dalian Wanda is a Chinese conglomerate corporation and, as such, is the world’s largest private property owner and developer, and the world’s largest movie chain owner and operator. They are also heavily engage and invested in sports, luxury hotels and department stores. At the head of Dalian Wanda is its billionaire chairman Wang Jianlin. He not only holds the title as Chairman of the Board of Wanda but stands at the important political juncture of China’s economy, its political ruling class and its non-democratic government. Admittedly, he is a key advisor to the ruling communist party. It is claimed that foreign prime ministers send him notes, and Hollywood’s stars run when he summons them. However much may be true or not, what is true is that his power is monumental, and thru that power he and his corporation have been able to amass an overwhelming portion of the United States’ entertainment interests that hold our daily attention and pocketbooks. A short list:

  • The Dalian Wanda Group has bought a stake
  • in a Hollywood film studio (Legendary Entertainment) valued over $3.5 bn. They are the producers of Jurassic World, Dark Knight Batman trilogy and Godzilla.
  • The Wanda Group has purchased AMC Theatres (formerly the Loews’ Theatres), who in turn purchased the Carmike Cinema who in turn purchased Robert Redford’s Sundance Cinemas.
  • It owns or has a major interest in Magic Johnson Theatres, Starplex Cinemas, General Cinema Corp, Odeon Cinemas, and the list goes on.
  • Viacom, the media company that owns cable networks and movie production businesses, is in talks to sell a 49% stake in its film studio, Paramount Pictures, to China’s Dalian Wanda Group.

A quick look at this empire and you can easily see that Wanda is the largest motion picture theatre owner in the United States. Its aggressive move into production will enable it to control and direct not only the content of films being produced in this Country but its local distribution throughout the United States. When I go to the movies on Broadway and 68th Street, the AMC movie complex, it will be the Chinese Government through Wanda who decides what films will be shown in that theatre. And I mean the Chinese Government not merely the Wanda company owner.

The Communist Party ties to Wanda and Mr. Wang were the subject of a New York Times investigation in April 2015. The report found that relatives or business associates of four members of the party’s ruling Politburo, including relatives of President Xi Jinping, were among the company’s earliest outside investors. All appear to have earned spectacular returns, as they tie the company to the government. The Justice Department has been asked to look into these investments. So when the Wall Street Journal writes that “Chinese investment in the U.S. movies isn’t a security threat “–and that we shouldn’t “send the wrong message about U.S. openness”, its conclusion is worse than naïve, it is dangerous. It should be noted, and if my research is correct–it has been more than a decade since a Hollywood studio made a major movie critical of China’s authoritarian and oppressive government. Obviously, from this point on, there is certainty that it will not.

But, the story and destruction of competition does not end there: In September 2013, a group of Hollywood elite attended (summoned?) the launching ceremony of Wanda’s 900 acre Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis. In attendance –in China—was the head of the American Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the top four entertainment talent agencies and a bunch of A-listed American movie stars. The Wanda Group announced that the studio complex will be completed 8 months from the writing of this blog and will have more than 20 studios , one of them will be the world’s largest and another will be a fixed underwater facility. In addition to an Imax research laboratory (Wanda already owns the Imax theatres in the US), it will have a theatre that can accommodate as many as 3,000 people.

Obviously, the Communist Party, thru Wanda’s purchases, is the government’s move to expand its global influence to ensure several scenarios: First that any portrayal of China in a Hollywood production ( for local or world-wide distribution) will meet the criteria set in Beijing not Hollywood. And second, to control that favorable portrayal of China by directing the place and time movies are shown to the American public. Third, the ability, by the shear financial force of its ultra-modern studio complex and seemingly unlimited funding, to reposition the making of motion pictures from a Hollywood studio to China.

What all this boils down to is quite simple: It would be naïve to believe that an attack on one’s security arrives only in the form of a bullet, bomb or kidnapping or even the crashing of an airplane into a skyscraper. Propaganda, the deliberate dissemination of information or ideas in all its forms, is a powerful weapon that has deadly and lasting influence. There is “advertising” so you purchase one soap powder over another, you vote for one candidate, and there is ISIS and its propaganda on the other end of the pendulum. They have all employed the lessons of propaganda – to direct your pocket book, your mind and your conduct to only their advantage.

The motion picture—“going to the movies”– has always been thought of as entertainment, but history has shown that Hollywood has for good and bad utilized it as a powerful weapon of propaganda. Now, though, when you go to the movies you can thank China for your choices on the big screen!

Richard Allan,

The Editor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commentary— Wake Up– China is Awake!

At a family dinner this week, the conversation turned first from domestic politics to fear and then to the Mid-East. I suddenly felt very much in the minority. We were becoming myopic in our view of the world’s present and potential disasters. As much as I tried to steer the conversation from Mid-East to the West and Asia, I was rebuffed on all sides. We have such an emotional and intellectual investment in the Mid-East that we are losing sight of a very dangerous geographic confrontation that is quietly playing itself out on the far side of the Pacific Ocean and what may morph into a dangerous confrontation in that part of the world.

The most recent news that bombards us from ISIS is their latest video released online touting a shari’a school that attempts to instill in its very young pupils the desire of martyrdom—“the cubs of the Caliphate” . The voice-over video announces that it is these children who will be the vanguard of a new army who will conquer Rome, Jerusalem, and Baghdad among other major cities.

It is not easy, after so many years of focus, to move away from those types of threats and focus on a different part of the world, but we must or suffer the consequences. We have done just that in the past. Let us not repeat that error again.

If you look at your map and find the southern tip of Japan, the Philippine Islands is to the south-east, then move in a circular clock-wise direction to Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and finally China you will notice these nations form a large oblong circle, some miles 1,400,000 square miles creating the South China Sea (SCS). This Sea, and its mostly uninhabited islands, have been subject to competing claims of sovereignty for decades by several countries for a number of strategic reasons. Among them: one-third of the worlds shipping ply thru its water, and there are huge oil and gas reserves in its sea beds.

If you google “China” the first thing that will pop-up is that there is a new home buying boom and all the banks in China are in hot pursuit of those new customers. What does not receive the attention it deserves is that China is once again creating new islands out of old coral reefs. That is not a typo– these man-made large islands, sitting upon coral reef, are not being advertised as the new tropical island tourist attraction for those tired of the Caribbean. China is building a major, powerful war machine far from its mainland to control that part of the world.

As we passively watched Europe in 1938, 39 and 40, we are once again almost passively watching the growth of a powerful armed threat against the sovereignty of a number of nations in the South Pacific that will have a direct impact on the economics of world trade and security. If nothing else, remember that one third of the world’s commerce flows thru this area.

Thanks to a series of excellent articles including one by Steve Mollman, we gain additional insight into the present military importance of this area, which we are ignoring at our peril. In the past, I wrote about the Spratly Islands in the SCS, where China, through massive dredging of more than 2,000 acres at three main reefs (reefs!), created a substantial military base of operation. This military complex has sea port facilities, military buildings, and multiple high density airstrips. China then unilaterally announced that it had indisputable sovereignty over the reef/islands and its nearby waters—12 nautical miles. All this announced in clear violation of settled international maritime law. And then the leaders in Beijing angrily called the world’s arbitration court process a “farce” for rejecting its claim.

To the north west of the Spratly Islands and about 200 miles from the coast of Vietnam lies the Paracel Islands. Here too, the Chinese have claimed ownership of disputed territory and then, thru the massive reclamation by dredging, have greatly expanding their acreage. On several of these islands, intelligence photos reveal the building of military garrisons, radar domes, and on one of the islands in the group, a concrete manufacturing plant with an enlarged sea port with reinforced seawalls. What appears to be developing along with new island acquisition, which I will note in the next paragraph, is that an anti-submarine(ASW) helicopter base of operation is being developed that could morph into an enormous ability for massive surveillance without the necessity of supply and surveillance support from main land China.

How that vast area is quickly moving under controlled by China is evidenced by their present illegal adventures to annex the Scarborough Shoal, a large coral atoll with a reef-rimmed lagoon. It encompasses 58 square miles and lies less than 150 miles from the Philippine coast.   If you take that next look at the map of the South Asia Sea you will notice that these three sets of islands (the Spratly Island and Scarborough Shoal and the Paracel Islands) form a formidable strategic triangle that covers just under a million and half square miles and provides China with a superior air dense identification zone. In effect, China controls the air space over this international and vital portion of the world—where more than five trillion dollars’ worth of trade pies its waters each year and is the main passage for Mid-East oil to Japan and South Korea.

China has set a rapid and high urgency agenda to build a sophisticated naval deployment with supporting structures in the South Asia Sea. They are accomplishing this with sophisticated radar equipment, ASW anti-submarine strength facilities, deep water ports, military grade runways, along with building additional aircraft carriers to increase its naval strength with a support fleet all superimposed upon illegal claims of maritime sovereignty. Within the last week, elements of the Chinese and Russian navies concluded an eight day joint war games exercise in the SCS. And today, amid increased tensions over the disputed territories, Beijing announced it is preparing to launch stealthy UAVs to protect and map the contested islands.

It is clear from all of China’s activities, aside from the naval war games with Russia, that there can be no question regarding its strong commitment to its ever increasing territorial claims and the accelerated building of its armed/naval strength and presence. This has caused both military and diplomatic confrontations with the United States in what a former Japanese admiral has called a “game changer.” We must call China’s behavior what it is –unadorned overt military aggression. We must draw a real line in the sand that will be enforced — not by name calling but by concrete military intervention and economic sanctions. Our message must be conveyed in clear and unambiguous terms to China and the international community.

Silence and inaction is an act of capitulation to an international bully and can only lead to damaging both our economic and direct security interests. With China, from a reef to an island in less than a year, is reality. What next?

Richard Allan

The Editor