Yeah OK That Sounds Bad
Security studies uberblogger Cori Dauber says that the New York Times has today's mustread:
Although some senior intelligence and law enforcement officials said they began to recognize the mutating threat at the time of the train bombings in Madrid in March 2004, the London bombings have reinforced the lesson that, by all accounts, the centrally controlled Al Qaeda of 9/11 is no more.
"We are seeing a terrorist threat that keeps changing," said Pierre de Bousquet, the director of France's domestic intelligence service, known as the D.S.T., in an interview in Paris. "Often the groups are not homogeneous, but a variety of blends... Some are European-born or have dual nationalities that make it easier for them to travel. The networks are much less structured than we used to believe. Maybe it's the mosque that brings them together, maybe it's prison, maybe it's the neighborhood. And that makes it much more difficult to identify them and uproot them."...
"If we take one or two leaders away," he added, "very quickly they are replaced and the network is reformed."
Sounds pretty scary, but you'll feel much better once you realize that Juan Cole has, as of this morning, declared that we are no longer at war and that Western defense and intelligence budgets should be dramatically cut. But don't you dare imply that his recommendations would undermine US security - that would be McCarthyist.
And before we forget:
A confidential British government assessment of the emerging threat from young British Muslim radicals, prepared last year for Prime Minister Tony Blair, concludes that poverty is not an indication of radicalism, that students and young professionals from working- and middle-class backgrounds "have also become involved in extremist politics and even terrorism." Those recruits, the report warns, "may have the capability for wider and more complex proselytizing."
Who knew?
Although some senior intelligence and law enforcement officials said they began to recognize the mutating threat at the time of the train bombings in Madrid in March 2004, the London bombings have reinforced the lesson that, by all accounts, the centrally controlled Al Qaeda of 9/11 is no more.
"We are seeing a terrorist threat that keeps changing," said Pierre de Bousquet, the director of France's domestic intelligence service, known as the D.S.T., in an interview in Paris. "Often the groups are not homogeneous, but a variety of blends... Some are European-born or have dual nationalities that make it easier for them to travel. The networks are much less structured than we used to believe. Maybe it's the mosque that brings them together, maybe it's prison, maybe it's the neighborhood. And that makes it much more difficult to identify them and uproot them."...
"If we take one or two leaders away," he added, "very quickly they are replaced and the network is reformed."
Sounds pretty scary, but you'll feel much better once you realize that Juan Cole has, as of this morning, declared that we are no longer at war and that Western defense and intelligence budgets should be dramatically cut. But don't you dare imply that his recommendations would undermine US security - that would be McCarthyist.
And before we forget:
A confidential British government assessment of the emerging threat from young British Muslim radicals, prepared last year for Prime Minister Tony Blair, concludes that poverty is not an indication of radicalism, that students and young professionals from working- and middle-class backgrounds "have also become involved in extremist politics and even terrorism." Those recruits, the report warns, "may have the capability for wider and more complex proselytizing."
Who knew?
