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Terrorist Recognition Handbook
Ben Rothke writes "There
are two types of writers about terrorism, experts such as Daniel Pipes and
Steven Emerson who write from a distance and others that write graphic tales
of first-hand from the trenches war stories.
Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for
Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities, is unique in
that author Malcolm Nance is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. intelligence
community and writes from a first hand-perspective, but with the organization
and methodology of writers such as Pipes and
Emerson. Those combined traits
make the book extraordinarily valuable and perhaps the definitive text on terrorist recognition."
Read below for the rest of Ben's review
Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities, Second Edition
author
Malcolm Nance
pages
480
publisher
CRC
rating
10
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
978-1420071832
summary
Perhaps the definitive text on terrorist recognition.
You don't need any book to identify terrorists.
You mean they don't all wear those funny towel hats on their heads? :)
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
1. Describe middle eastern people
2. Find Publisher
3. ????
4. Profit!
This appears to be a rather intelligent look at the issue, but the sad part is I have to wonder how many TSA employees are actually going to read it, especially at airports.
I always thought that terrorists were anyone designated by the United States State Department, or Department of Fatherland Security as being opposed to US foreign policy.
im sure this will come in handy if any terrorists ever invade my mom's basement.
"of leaders that were not as knowledge as possible"
Mr. Rothke needs to learn the English language. I won't bother to point out all the similar gaffes.
All you have to do is convince someone very high up in government that the person is a terrorist, and *poof* he's suddenly a terrorist.
It's just as easy to get someone declared a non-terrorist.
If you want to know who the terrorists are, just ask the government. Just don't ask about yourself: If you aren't a terrorist, asking about yourself makes you one.
Amazon.com promo image
I'm an established hand model. My agent never told me that my famous "cash from wallet" 8x10 would be cropped and used to represent terrorists! MY CAREER IS RUINED!
The only thing that guy's an expert on is hating Arabs and Muslims. He's a radical, bigoted putz. Fuck him.
Posting anonymously to avoid having to deal with all the Slashcons who will pile on to tell me that all the Mooslimes are TEH TERRORIZTS!
If they weigh the same as a duck....
A must-read for anyone concerned about the direction our nation is heading.
Here's an excerpt that's very relevant to the topic in question:
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Now that it's published, it is no longer valid.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
We should be happy that a high percentage of Americans do not read books. There would be people who read this book, think they are an expert in terrorists and carry out the law in their own hands. People would shoot "suspected terrorists" because they showed characteristics that were defined in this book.
I'm sure if the TSA reads this it will be better for most people in general but it does not solve the core problem of terrorist. You catch or kill one and there is ten more to replace him.
Its like the problem with Vietnam for the US and Afghanistan for the Soviet. Sometimes you cannot win by force. Either it has to come to understand, negotiation, or at least putting them at arms length such as building a massive security wall like Israel.
Having military bases in these people's lands, other throwing legitimate governments for over 50 years, and backing unpopular dictators is what causes them to attack us. Not because we believe in freedom or a different religion. We stop messing with things over there and when we do that the common man who currently supports the terrorists and their Jihad will be more apathetic and the popular support base the terrorists enjoy now will go away.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
But now that Iraq is a terrorist training ground, it sounds like it'd be a good book for the Bush Administration to read. If only this were the kind of Administration that reads.
Wanna talk about terrorism? Watch it fully: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ The most amazing it's really academically correct. >> Now, if you wanna hear about a good terrorist story: holy terrorists! They are closer than you think ;;;;;))))))))))
Catching a terrorist is like catching a hacker.
You never catch the good ones without an insane manhunt. Sometimes not even after that. All you are able to catch are the idiotic average high school level dorks who bloast their achievements in the Interwebz.
Academically correct? Yeah right... I wonder whether there's a single major proven argument in that film.
There are nuts out there that pretend both things to be the same, but Pipes surely isn't among them.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
it is put in comic format. I have found a few that are intelligent, but most are just connie cheerleader. Most of the ones that I have met are idiots.
...is that the TSA is 100% ineffective, because no government, regardless of how brutal they are to suspected terrorists, or how many secret police they employ, or how many phones they tap, can prevent one person from committing a terrorist act.
The only thing the TSA does is reduce the likelihood such an attack will occur on a plane. It's a huge waste of money that's simply a security blanket for the uninformed.
Attempting to judge someone by physical appearance or a quick observation of behavior is completely ineffective.
This book is the biggest load of cruft I've had the displeasure of pursuing in a long, long time.
Nearly a complete, waste of time and money and is more than likely bound to spark more than a few more uber-paranoid people locking themselves up in their trailer with a shotgun pointing out the window.
The only perks about this farce was the netural informational aspects such as how individual terrorists as well as terrorist groups and cells form, operate and work as well as the mind-set, cultural and historical information presented.
As a "guide" it's practically useless, as a source of information about the how and why terrorists operate and think, it IS fairly interesting.
Too bad that information is often available (in bits and pieces) via other sources on the net.
This signature is lame.
One sobering correction. It was noted above that had we not gone to war in Iraq, we would have saved "thousands" of lives.
The Iraqi death toll due to US invasion stands well over one million.
I'm guessing you meant "thousands of US lives", but please don't forget about those who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He is George W. Bush.
Terrorists are labeled by the party in power. Each country has its own 'terrorists'.
Terrorist: An agent of a sub-national group who uses premeditated, politically motivated violence against non-combatant targets
I would add "violence" or "physical harm" to that defition.
I am strongly opposed to many laws and the politics of many countries including the US. I have YET to use violence against any target, including civilians.
In my opinion war should be fought against the military and exclude civilians, if at all possible. I understand collateral damage, but I don't approve of it as just an excuse.
Belonging to my particular faith is seen by treason and/or terrorism by some governments.
Daniel Pipes is a racist moron and an Israeli apologist. His politics are atrocious and he is not viewed as a serious scholar by serious scholars.
This is how to spot a terrorist:
1) Look for clothing masking the face
2) Carries AK-47
3) Burns American flag
Now not every body described like this is a terrorist but be careful and vigilant.
Although 911 had a high death toll, groups like Al Qaeda couldn't possibly hope to match states when it comes to killing civilians. The Indonesian government used widespread terrorism against it's own people and those of East Timor with a death toll of several hundred thousand. Of course, today we are interested in not only the perpetrators of the terror, but those that support them. In the case of Indonesia under Suharto, the supporters were countries like the US and UK who supplied arms knowing full well what they were being used for.
Then of course there is the famous case of US support for terrorism in Nicaragua, for which the country was condemned by the World Court. The death toll was around 50,000. One of the things the US was condemned for in that case was the mining of Nicaraguan harbours, putting civilian shipping in danger. If Al Qaeda did the same thing, it would be immediately recognised as a terrorist act.
called Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson experts.
The interesting thing is there is no such thing as absolute security. Never has been and never will be. Hitler and Stalin tried it. Got them nowhere. Even now W. and his ppl are pushing the universal ID card for everyone, but will it stop Spies, Illegal aliens, or Terrorists? Nope. Interestingly, nearly all of the terrorists and spies are here legally, and the illegal aliens will buy docs that prove that they belong here (saw a few recently; they appear to be real docs; I am guessing that some federal employees are getting extra money).
Even with that said, it is important that some profiling take place. We have limited resources and must try to make the most of them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is the same Pipes who advocated oversight of left leaning academics in case they poison their fragile students after 9/11? People to advocate such things are the truest enemies of the state. I saw him speak at my school, and he had to be hustled out of the room by his hosts after failing to respond to valid criticism of his borderline racist/fascist agenda.
I suspect the above poster, and the person he's quoting are not doctors.
Um...I have never claimed to be...and to the best of my knowledge, neither has Cory Doctorow.
Neither am I, for that matter...
So...what was your point, then?
but my wife went through several classes on statistics...
You're kidding, right?
their approach to statistics is not so simple as "accuracy" only. They have several different terms, all more or less seeming similar to the layman. I don't recall the words, but they more or less correlated to concepts such as:
False positive rate.
False negative rate.
Overall rate of accurate test.
Your objection does not invalidate the argument in my OP, it only strengthens it. The other concepts you listed do not mitigate the problem of false positives - on the contrary, they only exacerbate it.
The argument in the OP assumed (for argument's sake) that while the false positive rate was 1%, the false negative rate was 0%. If you want to make the false negative rate a non-zero number, go ahead, but you'll quickly find that it makes the overall results even worse, not better.
Using the correct, field-specific term may eliminate some of your objection.
Actually, the terms are quite correct, and your argument only succeeds in raising additional objections.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
It's been some time since I read Pipes and I didn't remember some details, so I must make some corrections to my above post.
Actually, although Pipes recognizes pretty clearly the distinction between, on one side, the moderate religious Muslims, and on the other the radical authoritarian pseudo-religious political nuts we all despise, he doesn't like the term "Islamofascism", as what they pursue isn't a fascist regime proper.
Basically, fascism was/is always nationalistic, and bound to the concept of a totalitarian central government ruling society. What these guys pursue, on the contrary, is a kind of stateless internationalistic decentralized totalitarianism. Thus, not quite the same thing. Both authoritarian, both totalitarian, but in very different ways.
He has some suggestions for naming this thing, basically variations around the word "Islamist", "Militant Islam", "Militant Islamism" etc., but I don't think any of those sound right. "Islamofascism" might not be accurate, but I guess we'll have to stick to it for se simple lack of a better alternative.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
I saw Daniel Pipes speak once at my university and he spent a lot of his speech going on and on about how we need to reach out to moderate Muslims, yet when it was opened up for questions after his speech, he was incredibly verbally hostile to every Muslim who asked him a question. I know many of the Muslims who asked him questions and they were largely all very moderate, apolitical and with a very modern interpretation of Islam. At the end he was just downright hostile towards the entire audience, even turning off many of the conservatives in the room.
What Daniel Pipes really is a hack writer and pundit for the establishment. His role is to lay an ideological foundation for US foreign policy that is already being carried out. His father was one of the main hawks against Stalinist Eastern Block style Communism during the 60's. He makes a living creating "boogeyman" stereotypes of the people who resist the imposition of neo-liberal economic policies and foreign meddling.
The fact that he runs a group that systematically harasses left leaning university professors in the United States only adds to the fact that he is a rightwing political opportunist who profits off of demonizing cultures and creating racist stereotypes. His group Campus Watch specializes in taking anonymous unsubstantiated claims of conservative students who are upset over their grade. He's not a legitimate academic and has no place in the culture of discussion that academia should be. If all he did was just advance a position, no matter how much I disagreed with it, that would be fine; but intimidating and harassing one's political opponents is not free speech.
Just so we know who we are labeling with the sterile description of "expert."
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
See spotter's post.
What you (and Doctorow) don't understand is how to use your test.
If such a test existed, and were used, it would simply set flags on those 10,000 people to collect additional data, which would feed into some other, more specific, and higher cost, test to reduce it further.
If you want to reduce everything to a single scalar, you're always going to fail.
Does the word knowledgeable not exist for either the writer OR the editor of this article?
Pipes has been a scared little bedwetter for the entirety of his foreign policy career, a career that has been distinguished only by the number and magnitude of inept judgments. Examine his role in inflating the Soviet threat, reinvigorating the thermonuclear arms race, and derailing arms control talks during the 1980's if you'd like some perspective. Or keep sleeping in your own dried-up pee if being scared all the time makes you feel better.
If you want to spot a terrorist, Look for someone that has a hat like this or this. If he has a shirt like this he's not a terrorist, but if the shirt looks like this he is.
If he's drinking this look out for car bombs!
this guy would have ME calling the Department of Homeland Cowardice in a New York minute! And how about this guy?
Look at da bomb in that terrorist's hand!
this asshat is not a terrorist.
SCARY TERRORIST! ANOTHER SCARY TERRORIST! EVEN SCARIER TERRORIST! And OMFG the scariest one of al!!!!
RUN! RUN! RAISE THE THREAT LEVEL FROM YELLOW TO "SCARED SHITLESS!"
The fact that 40,000 people that die on the American highways every year tells me some of that damned Homeland Security money should go to highway safety improvements. You want to spot a terrorist? Look in a tobacco company boardroom; half a million Americans die every year from cancer.
Terrorism is a tool of the US government to take away Americans' liberties. You, sir, are part of the problem.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
See spotter's post.
See my response to spotter's post.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
For some odd reason, even they are in USA, they always carry AK47, and I always wondered if it would be much easier to find some US made weapons instead of imported ones.
No sig today.
Counter-terrorism == work to stop terrorist operations
Anti-terrorism == work to kill the terrorists themselves
Perhaps the usage has changed since I went to my CT training courses in the U.S. Army, but I really, REALLY hope that the TSA isn't conducting anti-terrorism operations! "Sorry, you're on the no-fly list, please step into the euthanasia chamber to your right..."
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
I would agree with parent. I read his blog now and then a few years back. Overwhelmingly negative stories on muslims mixed with the occasional writing on what he means by "moderate islam". He's also the founder of an organization called Campus Watch that seems more than a little sinister.
He absolutely is a hack, and his primary agenda is disenfranchisement and marginalization of American Muslims. He thinks every mosque in the US is infiltrated with radicals and "Islamists" who want to overthrow our government. Doubtful Pipes has ever set foot in a mosque, though he's been invited.
His idea of a moderate Muslim is someone who calls himself Muslim but doesn't practice Islam, e.g., people like Irshad Manji -- the heroine of the anti-Muslim bigots in our country. (sorry if you like her -- she has nothing to do with mainstream Islam in the US or anywhere else).
Pipes is fine as long as the conversation is one-way with him spewing propaganda and fear-mongering -- challenge anything he says and he resorts to hostility (see other posts in this thread).
The author seems to be implying that you just ought to give up on developing standard testing procedures altogether. That seems like it would be a useful meme for the people who brought you Guantanamo Bay, Inc.
The glaring problem with his logic is that if you repeat the test your accuracy will tend to go up, and if you apply complimentary tests, you get even better accuracy. The original writer assumes that you test, then you execute, then you forget... Well that happens, to be sure, but it's a problem of rigor.
I mentioned Guantanamo Bay because it's a fine example of a willful failure to be rigorous. Shrub, Inc.'s only concern was to generate perceived results and delay further testing as long as possible. To fill up space and create the appearance that (a) there are lots of terrorists and (b) we caught lots of them. And they got a bunch of useful political prisoners - not really imprisoned for their beliefs or affiliations - but as pure fodder for use by the political class.
Had we applied more rigorous testing there never would have been a Guantanamo Bay prison. And if we ever begin to do so, the place will evaporate in a black cloud of oil smoke.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Once you stop calling them "terrorists" and call them what they really are, it usually helps to suggest a more rational and workable approach to dealing with them. Bundling all of the above into a single category of "people who may endanger innocent bystanders" in the hopes that this will make the problem more manageable, will in fact do the opposite.
Depending upon where in the world you are, this person is considered one. And yet the State Department doesn't haul him in...
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
...would be to know how not to be seen!
-- thinkyhead software and media
there already is a well known, very accurate terrorist recognition handbook! look here
short summary: hooknoses
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
You don't know Daniel Pipes.
http://www.mpac.org/article.php?id=72
Um, no, that's something we all knew about before. I've never heard anyone classify homicide bombers as "insane," or unintelligent, or irrational in the classic sense of the word.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Daniel Pipes is hardly an "expert". He's as much an "expert" as any of the commentators you see on Fox news. He clearly has an agenda, and is more a propagandist than anything else.
The TSA stands around, making sure the people in line aren't terrorists. Now, I'm no criminal mastermind, but given the security around most US airports, all it does it make the regular citizens feel warm and fuzzy about all the gadgets they have to walk through to get on their plane. A terrorist would make a few friends at the airport, lift a few IDs, and before you know it, he can walk around the tarmac for weeks on end without being bothered, and walk right past a security line with the flash of his counterfeit badge and a smile.
Really effective security would be to bring every last troop home, and place them in every port and border crossing into the US. Even more effective than their inspections would be the fact that they aren't in foreign countries blowing stuff up. It's very difficult to recruit people to kill the infidel when he's across the ocean behind hundreds of thousands of highly trained Marines, minding his own business.
Unfortunately this would require leaders in government (Republicans and Democrats) to do an about-face on how they deal with terrorism, and as anyone knows, getting a politician to admit a mistake is harder than getting one to tell the truth in the first place. But we're the ones to blame - when the greatest threat to our way of life, according to Sean Hannity, is that "we may be driving around in Yugos," you wonder if the society is worth saving in the first place.
He invented and promulgates the cognitive dissonance that is summarised by the phrase: "Islamofascism."
He's a real Israeli, dual-loyalist and "newspeak" maker of the first (lowest) rank. Pipes was teh founder of The Middle East Forum - purportedly a 'think-tank', really a propaganda and media policing agent for radical Israeli military/political objectives.
Who's next on teh
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
War for Israel - not oil.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Has Pipes made mistakes, yup!
Does EVERY analyst makes mistakes, yup!
Is Pipes correct where it matters? YUP!!!
Security is only achieved when you have a multi-faceted, reactive and proactive system designed to detect anomalies and investigate them, EVEN IF THEY DON'T HAPPEN IN AN AIRPORT.
We have hundreds of millions of tons of cargo coming in and out of the country with zero inspection.
We have hundreds of miles of unprotected borders.
Where is our military force, sworn to protect us against all enemies, foreign and domestic? Across the ocean bombing infrastructure that we have to rebuild, because Americans don't want to drive small cars, or practice sane environmental conservation, or god forbid, live in more humble housing structures. We'd rather kill people who have never threatened us to maintain ground control near oil reserves.
Real security for the US would involve compromise, sacrifice, and hard work. That's why it will never happen.
Why the focus on "Islamofascists" (a lazy and Godwinite term if anything). There are hundreds of terrorist organizations all over the world, Maoist, Catholic, Protestant, Anarchists etc. The only reason that I can make out is that the author of this book is pandering to the current US government's scare mongering tactics using the current boogeyman, Muslims (China is fast supplanting us, though). I am a Muslim and here is what I see. The majority of Muslims do not support terrorism (it is actually against the teachings of our Prophet to harm non-combatants, even crop plants and the Quran specifically prohibit carrying destruction of the world). The majority of Muslims wants peace and the freedom to get on with their lives. However, the majority of Muslims are not happy with the way US has meddled in the Middle East, Palestine and Iraq and soon, Iran. Remove this meddling and I am sure the terrorists will lose support and sympathy from Muslims. Iraq was the US own undoing and you will end up like the Mongols, British and Soviets in Afghanistan. Many Muslims believe that the "al-Qaeda" as the James Bond-villain is a myth, cooked up by the people like the author of this book since we never heard of it until the Western media started to hype them up. That is not to say it doesn't exist but we believe the West potrays them that way so that you can have a defined entity to hate. It is hard to get people to enlist when you are fighting an amorphous foe.
"His father was one of the main hawks against Stalinist Eastern Block style Communism during the 60's."
And this was a bad thing because... ?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
...that were not as knowledge as possible and ignored the advice of those that were as knowledge as possible.
Next time, you might want to run your review by someone who is as grammar as possible.
Mr Ad Hominem.
Step1: Use account #1 to post a funny joke to go over heads of dense /. readers /. reader to post correction /. is
Step2: Wait for dense
Step3: Use account #2 to create informative post about how dense the dense
Step4: (Karma) Profit!
"he had to be hustled out of the room by his hosts after failing to respond to valid criticism of his borderline racist/fascist agenda."
He probably had to be "hustled out" because some of the little brownshirts-in-training wouldn't let him speak, which seems to be a favorite tactic of leftist protesters at schools. Why argue when you can simply overwhelm a speaker and his audience with your friends... often physically taking over a speaking hall... and gamble that the university administration will be too cowed to do anything to you about it? It seems to work that way a lot lately. From the sound of it, it seems like your commitment to free speech ends at those that agree with you.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
He came to my university too. The situation there is so opposite of what you describe that I think you're full of crap.
Here's a video clip of the full lecture so you can judge for yourself:
http://www.rit.edu/academicaffairs/etc/gannett/videos/2005-04-14.ram
Are you actually willing to substantiate your claims?
We don't a book to identify terrorists, we just need Clutch:
You can always tell a terrorist
By his cologne and the watch on his wrist
It says, "I'm the kind of man
Who can take off anywhere, take off anywhere."
Clutch - Power Players
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
I agree. (I'm the AC parent)
The Chinese, Iran and N. Korea all rank under "terrorist organizations" in my book.
Nope, that doesn't pass the logic smell test either.
/. AC, I know.
If you reduce the list of vulnerable targets, you reduce the probability of being hit ipso facto. For example, terrorist methodology is not equally adaptable to any target whatsoever. A lot of the reason airplanes are hit are because they're high in the sky, which means (1) even a small amount of damage can bring them down, killing everybody, and (2) they're very isolated from effective and timely outside help. The same kind of methodology that will work against an airplane is not going to work against, say, an oil terminal. So if, for example, you were able to completely forestall terrorism against airplanes, it would not all just shift over to oil terminals, because some of the people and methods focussed on airplanes just can't transfer. You might say that terrorist methods are not perfectly fungible.
Part of the problem is that both you and the OP are arguing by the (bogus) methods of extremes: either this extreme (terrorism is 100% preventable) or that extreme (terrorism is 0% preventable) must hold, and so if one extreme doesn't hold, the other must, QED. The problem is you've ignored (deliberately or otherwise) the many middle positions, e.g. terrorism is somewhat preventable and its frequency or severity can be economically reduced by some methods (but not others). Of course, you need a lot more subtle and well-informed POV to argue which methods are economical. A lot to expect from a generic
The book calls itself a "A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities," and I didn't hold a gun to their head and force them to call it that.
So, it's fair to ask: regardless of how much interesting background it on how terrorist groups function, does the book
1) give specific guidance on predicting and identifying terrorist activities?
2) present any evidence at all that these methods are effective? More effective than graphology, or trial by ordeal, or the use of witch cakes?
It's quite one thing to say that (say) "suicide bombers are rarely insane. They are most often intelligent, rational individuals."
It's quite another to say that if wiretaps on an organization show that it is rife with intelligent, rational individuals, those organization should be targeted as a likely terrorist group.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Call it the "hygiene hypothesis" of political discourse. The original hygiene hypothesis explained the recent rise in auto-immune disorders like Crohn's and lupus, where the immune system attacks own's own body, by theorizing that the much better hygiene of modern living deprived the immune system of more legitimate targets (invading germs and viruses) to attack. Lacking more appropriate targets, it turns on itself. Perhaps, then, the lack of real serious threats to security and liberty makes people turn on minor and even nonexistent threats.
The strenght of political movement is to adapt strategies. If Canada had taken over your democratic institution, and you started a group of resistance and thought about suicide bombing, you would fucking read a book about how does the canadians think terrorist looks like before doing anything.
It's tough out there! we all have to make a living!
Will this book help me increase my frag rate in Counter Strike?
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
A bunch of untrained citizens that think they are experts because they read a book.
"look mommie, thats a terrorist according to chapter 3, lets call the police"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I would assume the last should read knowledgeable. Anyhow, you assume that our "leaders" didn't know what they were getting into. I present to you, Dick Cheney. This video of Dick, is him right after the first Iraq war, saying how bad of an idea it is to invade Iraq, citing multiple religious sects and other interesting knowledgeable ideas. here. So in fact, our leaders are very much on top of things, but have alternative agendas to run, either in our interest, or not, but either way they give us lies...
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
"experts such as Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson"
How pathetically laughable. They are no where near being experts and anyhow what does an expert on terrorism mean?
Okay, after reading this I can identify terrorist activities. So what does one actually do about them? Read "The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual" (FMI 3-7.22) to see. There are a great many things that can be done that don't need soldiers, at all. We should actually be increasing the number of personnel in Iraq (note I wrote personnel, not troops) who teach Iraqi police, help administer infrastructure projects, teach in schools, administer micro loans to startup businesses, support the Iraqi equivalent of "Neighborhood Watch," the Sons of Iraq, advise Iraqi citizens how to get their system to work without corruption and how to deal with corruption within the system, etc. Note that none of the above listed activities require military training, but our troops are successfully doing most them.
Actually, many, but not all, of the things that work in a counterinsurgency situation are things we should be doing here in the U.S. of A. to prevent the growth and spread of gangs, but aren't.
Insurgencies and gangs survive and thrive where the population is favorable or indifferent to them. FMI 3-7.22 is about the things that must be done, not so much to make a population unfavorable to the terrorists, but more favorable to their own government, and intolerant to terroristic insurgents.
The turban, the hook nose, the dark complexion, the funny accent.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I'm by no means an expert, but I feel slightly uneasy when I see this sort of book appear on Amazon. I tend to get the impression that it's quite a valuable resource for the discerning terrorist or terrorist instructor.
After all, having a systematic and handy compendium of how people are going to be looking for you is of great use when you're trying not to be found, right? And when you're trying to write the manual for a terrorist's course, yes?
Why is it really necessary to put this sort of knowledge in the public domain? I mean, does Joe Public really need to know? Will our net security be increased if he does know? Did anybody ever make a trade-off between informing our (admittedly rather uninformed and clumsy) officials by making this knowledge public versus the danger of informing would-be terrorists about how people will be looking for them?
I wonder. Is there anyone knowledgeable able to comment?
Are we that paranoid already? Do we really see a terrorist behind every tree? Don't we have more important things to do with our lives than look for terrorists?
What's so new about terrorists anyway? It's the buzzword of the decade(s to come)! Where were the handbooks, when the IRA was most active? Or the German RAF or the Italian Brigardi Rossi? Nowhere! Terrorists have been around pretty much since the beginnings of society. But nowadays we need handbooks to identify them? Sorry guys but this sounds like a big wank to me.
If you want to see terrorists, look towards your capital city. That's where a lot of them are. They are called politicians! They fan the terrorist paranoia and the fear in the people for their own agenda. Or do you really, really think, that all these anti terror laws and surveillance programs would have stood a snowball's chance in hell, if it wasn't for politicians putting fear in our minds? Would you have accepted laws like that without fear? Have you ever noticed that there's always a new message from Osama, when there's new laws to be pushed through and it is clear that people will resist?
If you think about it, the terrorists have already won. We're scared and we give up our freedom. Yes, our freedom. Or do you call it freedom, if your every move is watched, logged and whatnot? Do you call it freedom, if all the information about your flight, including your dietary needs on the plane and your religion(!), are not only recorded but transmitted to authorities in other countries and stored for decades? Do you call it freedom, if you visit a foreign country and get treated like a criminal?
Sorry guys but we really don't need a handbook to recognise a terrorist. What we need is to bloody wake up, kick our politicians in the arse and give these pricks the finger.
A guy who believes in "Al Qaeda" and calls himself a veteran in US intelligence is a clown...or he is a Minister of Propaganda clerk... Come on...who heard about a group calling himself "Al Qaeda" before 9/11? Where are the hi tech caves? where are the AMDs? You tell me...
the was a 20 year domain expert called bernard gui, who published a book on how to identify heretics and witches for the holy office of the inquisition. now we think his work was rubbish, which is what history will think of this garbage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Gui
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/bernardgui-inq.html
Your example is correct, but there is even MORE subtlety involved.
The question here is framed as the test being accurate 99% of the time. In practice, though, you usually examine the test from two different standpoints - the false positive and the false negative.
Going back to the example at hand, you can think of it in the terms of the probability of identifying an innocent person as a terrorist (false positive) and the probability of not identifying a real terrorist (false negative). It is extremely hard to pick a test that can give you a low false positive and a low false negative, whereas it is very easy to maximize one or the other.
For example, if the government wanted to make the statement, "We have a method of identifying 100% of terrorists," that's easy - just assume that everyone is a terrorist. * insert sarcastic political jab here *
On the other hand, you can also easily design a test that will never wrongly accuse an innocent person - just assume nobody is a terrorist. Actually, this last test is very effective. If we use the numbers from the parent, where terrorists are 0.00005 percent of the population, I can trivially construct a test which is 99.99995 percent accurate just by assuming everyone is innocent.
Obviously, both of these tests are useless, but they help illustrate the difficulty here. If you are going to institute any screening method, you are pretty much guaranteed to seriously fuck up, either by wrongfully accusing a great number of people or by missing one or two very dangerous people.
The solution - don't do random screening. Period. You will not catch terrorists and/or you will seriously erode personal freedoms. The terrorism problem is much more difficult (and no, I don't think I have the answers, even though I'm posting to slashdot).
Terrorist = Bogyman be afraid and we will protect you. This is a very very old tactic, thousands of years old.
... eh'.
There are no terrorists. Just people who hate the US and there are a shitload of them.
Have a nice decade
Daniel Pipes founded Campus Watch an organisation dedicated to making sure that Americans only get a rabidly pro-Israel view in a McCarthyesque way, i.e. lists of those who disagree with his own fascist views.
He favours profiling and internment of Muslims in the United States.
The Daniel Pipes entry at sourcewatch is quite a read.
Are you what the government calls a terrorist? Well...
Are you an American citizen who believes in the Constitution and that the government has no business interfering in our personal lives?
If you answered YES, congratulations! You are a terrorist!
Fascism is a terrible way of describing Islamism.
Fascism is a very specific political ideology from Italy, based on a mixture of extreme loyalty to the nation and a hybrid economic system which combines some elements of socialism with some elements of captialism.
Right Wing historian Niall Furgason argues that Islamobolshevism is a better term, as the terrorist tactics persuded by Lenin's Bolsheviks in the years leading up to the 1917 revolutions have far more in common with modern Islamist terrorists that the highly structured, state based opression of fashism. I'm not totally convinced.
Can we just say totalitarian Islam? Extremist Islam? Islamism? I would argue there are no really strong parallels to the terroism we think of today, apart from maybe the IRA, hense fasism, bolshevism, it doesn't really help understand the issue.
Any model that is built on 10 or 20 positive examples from a population of 6,000,000,000 is going to suffer from overfitting. Not just a little overfitting... I mean it's going to overfit like a mo-fo. There's just no way, and I mean NO way, to create a statistically significant test based on the data we have on who is and who is not an ACTUAL terrorist. Books like this are pure speculation.
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
...if the Islamofacistfragilisticexpealadocious' (or whatever the PC term is nowadays) have an Arabic-language equivalent of The Anarchist Cookbook.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
What, you mean the terrorists aren't those guys with the goatees and the french accents?
Well sink me!
Ok, but without the book, will you method be as effective as spotting the pedo-smile ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The version of the book I would give out would have a chapter at the end of the book on what the US considers the No1 Terrorist, when they open up the chapter they would find a mirror showing the readers reflection.
Your left wing campus activists sure seem to think so.
Terrorism must first be defined prior to detecting it. There is no clear definition of it so I don't know how one can test for it. Most definitions have geo-political agendas behind them so testing will always have to change accordingly.
as per my previous comment:
Focus on the book!
Focus on the book review!
Forget a silly intro sentence!
( btw, http://www.allafrica.com/ is a good site to
a) keep one's perspective objective, unlike all the "urgent" nonsense in our local news, and
b) be reminded of what really is important. )
China sent a ship of arms to Robert Mugabe,
evidently so that he could continue to run things the CCP's style.
Zimbabwe: Minister Claims Controversial Chinese Arms Now in Country
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805061078.html
South Africa: Dock Workers Smarter Than Their Leaders
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805050803.html
Zimbabwe: Ship of Shame Leaves Luanda
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805070779.html
Zimbabwe: Arms Ship Waits Off Luanda, Say Unionists
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805010397.html
No government will tolerate "human rights" interfering against its authority, not US ( extraordinary rendition, anyone? ), not China, not any of them.
Why these governments don't just murder all independent persons, and enforce to their hearts contents, without pretending to do otherwise, I don't understand.
They are proud of their actions, aren't they?
Or do they pretend they aren't, like the executioner who wears a hood, to hide their identity, when they aren't bragging about doing it?
I have to agree totally. Pipes is racist of the highest order. He cloaks his vile hatred in language designed to both lull and lure the reader into thinking his point is reasonable. Personally I dislike all religions but Pipes has an agenda.
The parent post is not flamebait. While it's debatable that Pipes actually has fascist views, there is enough evidence to have the debate. The rest of the post is simply based on well-documented behaviour and statements.
Damn those pesky terrorists
By the look of it this book doesn't really address the fundamental issues underlying terrorism. I realise that this is outside the scope of the book and that it would be controversial, to put it mildly, in the US; but sooner or later we are going to have to tackle the issue of 'why'. We have at least since 9/11 had our heads stuck firmly in the sand, with fantasies about how terrorists are completely different from us, how they are 'evil', 'envious of our freedom' or at least 'insane' - this book goes some way to puncture that myth, at least.
The truth is, we are not going to win any war against terrorism - it's like the 'Gumby Brain Surgery'(ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumbys). We have to understand why something so utterly irrational as terrorism can not only exist, but spread rapidly; really, I would have thought that much was obvious. The good news is that it isn't impossible; as the book suggests, these people are rational, often intelligent, and if they can arrive at the conclusion that they have to go and blow themselves and other people up, then we can follow their logic. I should think that there is a good chance that we will discover one or two points that we can address intelligently, thus breaking the rationale of their reasoning. This is all about popular support - the terrorists have popular support because they can argue strongly for their goals; we can make their arguments weak if we know what we are doing, and once they lose popular support, they will soon cease to be a threat.
The above poster has clearly stated some unpopular truths about Islam.
It is an unfortunate truth that Islam is basicly incompatible with many of the freedoms of the Western world - all the best wishes and desires of the multiculturalists will not change this basic truth.
Daniel Pipes is just stating unpopular truths - do not kill the messenger, challenge the message if you must.
Ed
It is a sad fact of life that Jihadis and Middle East Oil Money permeates Middle East Studies in most US universities and colleges. For example, Prince Taleel (the Saudi Prince Rudy told to stick it when the $10 million donation bashed America for "causing" 9/11) has funneled millions into Georgetown's Middle East Studies Dept. Taleel has been linked by the State Dept (itself banning the use of the words jihad and jihadi) with financing terrorism.
... the worst deconstructionist nonsense around.
Most of the Middle East Studies is nothing but a giant America bash, with "blame" for 9/11 affixed to the US. And justification for terrorism based on a list of grievances going back to Ferdinand and Isabella kicking the Moors out of Spain. Coupled with an extra helping of anti-semitism, justification for polygamy and beheading, and lurid anti-semitic tales of "Jewish Doctors" that "harvest" Arab babies for organ donations.
There is no real scholarship on Arab language, culture, Islam, religous thought and tradition and so on. Edward Said's views that "stupid Westerners" cannot and should not study Muslims much less hold critical views of them holds sway.
It's really bad
Pipes is right, the Middle East Studies in the current setting is nothing more than oil-terror sheiks funding bash-America/Jews justification for terror.
Are simple. We do not wish to profile based on religion, ethnicity, or other easily identifiable characteristics that allow scrutiny to be directed to likely terrorists.
Thus we make granny take off her shoes while ignoring angry, threatening Middle Eastern Men.
The ticket agent who sold Mohammed Atta his ticket wished to flag him for extra scrutiny, but did not, fearing he would be fired for "profiling."
No system can check everyone. But Al Gore, or grandma do not need to be scrutinized. [Gore was flying commercial back in 2002, and underwent security screening because he bought a one-way ticket.]
Yes it's sad and distasteful, as many things in life are, to force Muslim or Arab men and women to undergo scrutiny just because they are Muslim or Arab. Doing so however is critical to preventing a bombing on airplanes. No government can always be lucky and stop plots before terrorists get to the airport (the UK "Skybombing Plot" with liquid combined explosives).
We don't wish to do what will work, i.e. focus on Muslim and Arab Men and Women, who are after all, the terrorists (Methodists and Buddhists are not flying planes into skyscrapers). Most Muslim and Arab men and women are not terrorists of course. Those to blame for their having to undergo extra scrutiny are men like Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahari, or Khalid Sheik Mohammed. This would be the sensible thing, and Muslim and Arab men and women should not object to it as long as their fellows are blowing stuff up and causing widespread terror across the globe.
But we would rather be dead than un-PC, and sooner or later some of us will be.
It's not TSA's fault. They are just carrying out the PC policies that most here on Slashdot approve of.
And by that I mean, these times are not the only ones to have faced the "threat" of "terrorism".
... and I doubt seriously that that book pays any attention to such obviously unimportant matters.
... and ... and ... and now they're Muslims and copyright infringers and Free-and-Open-Source-Software distributors and peer-to-peer networks users and ....
Can we classify the various Haiti independence movements during the 1700s as terrorists? Do we?
Would similar procedures apply to Tsarist Russia? When Tsar Alexander II had been killed in a bomb blast in Nevsky Prospekt on March the third, 1881?
In post-Krakatau-eruption Dutch East Indies? When there where a significant number of disaffected Javanese?
What about the Moro resistance to the US annexation of Mindanao? The Cebuan resistance to the US annexation of Cebu?
In the south of China around the time of the Long March?
During the Mau-Mau in Kenya?
You see, as they say, "One man's terrorist is another man's guerilla/Freedom Fighter/useful idiot/Republican senator/US President" etc, ad nauseam
At various times, apparently terrorists were obviously Jews and homosexuals and Catholics and Protestants and Poles and Marxists and voodun priests and
We have some downright brilliant people in power, and they won't stop until everybody's been fucked up the arse with curare-tipped depleted uranium-covered thermonuclear fenceposts - themselves excluded, naturally.
"I his bow, and spun and wove, likes you." Vere de Vere out of my mould's mouth dragged me of the voluntary apes.
It's not a bad thing.
But people should remember that out of the legitimate concern and appropriate opposition to Stalinist communism came a lot of rather opportunistic people who were willing to sacrifice *anything*, including basic principles, for the sake of their own political or personal agendas (*cough*McCarthy). Whipping the general population into a frenzy can serve a lot of political goals.
That has not changed, only the nature of the boogeyman has. And some people make a living out of making it as scary as possible.
Justifiably scary it may be. I'm not suggesting that either Stalinist communism or extreme Islamist terrorism shouldn't be opposed. But the people peddling Pipe's kind of hyperbole aren't the guys you want setting policy. They aren't balanced in their approach, and they have a tendancy to fall into the "at any costs" range of solutions. This isn't a healthy approach for a democracy founded on the rule of law (witness the excesses of the last few years, such as illegal warrantless wiretapping being authorized by presidential fiat). People like Pipe have way too much self-interest invested in exaggerating the threat and maintaining fear of it. It's their job. It's how they sell books and go on paid speaking tours.
And as far as I'm concerned, the fact that he started and runs the "Campus Watch" witch hunt is more than enough reason to question everything the guy says.
Really, I've asked everybody, and NOBODY considers themselves a terrorist ;)
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Seriously, it'd make more sense to have Bat Ye'or listed as an 'expert'. That way you might get to some of his ideas at source.
Sheesh. Is this what we've come to now?
The most vile sort of terrorist on the planet... it's not mentioned in this book because generally it's seen as a separate category to terrorism, but it acts in the same way as a terrorist. That missing category is State Terrorism, or more precisely, when one nation attacks another without provocation - it happens all over the world all the time and IS a terrorist act (targeting civilians and infrastructure, using propaganda to build support for it's cause), yet is overlooked mainly because we don't like to see ourselves (not just us of course, but we do carry out this kind of act with impunity) as the 'bad guys'.
This sort of terrorism is far more dangerous than any other and also happens far more regularly. So an easy way to spot those who are very likely to consider carrying out terrorist acts is just to watch out at election times and make a note of who is running for power - the higher the seat of power, the more likely that person is a terrorist-in-waiting. Fact!
Actually, although Pipes recognizes pretty clearly the distinction between, on one side, the moderate religious Muslims, and on the other the radical authoritarian pseudo-religious political nuts we all despise...
...you mean Neocons?
Thanks, folks, I'll be here all night.
I am the man with no sig!
..."it is a specialized subject that requires serious study and requires that those in the front line of defense be as knowledge as possible.
In a later chapter, Nance gives the Iraq war as an example of a group of leaders that were not as knowledge as possible and ignored the advice of those that were as knowledge[able] as possible."
In the McCarthy-led Red-hunting frenzy of the 1950's, the State Department purged itself of all people who knew what was going on in southeast Asia. Being knowledgeable, the experts said things like "the Vietnamese have a long unfriendly history with China and won't turn into a puppet state, but most of their citizens are being sorely treated by the current regime, and so Communism is very appealing to them." People that made remarks were seen to have Communist sympathies and driven out of government. A few years later the USA was surprised when the Vietnamese civilians provided assistance to the Viet Cong as they carried out the guerrilla warfare that bogged down the USA in a no-win quagmire. The State Department experts who could have predicted it were all gone.
If you only hear what you want to hear, you're clueless to many truths. Look at the post 9/11 backlash towards those thought that it provided an opportunity for the USA to look at aspects of it's society and foreign policy that stir up hate, and milder forms of disapproval, among other cultures. Those who sought knowledge out of the incident were immediately suspected of being, somehow, part of the enemy efforts.
"Know thyself" often involves looking at the ugly, not just the beautiful. Never underestimate the tendency of both individuals and cultures to come up with some serious bullshit rather than admit that they don't know everything. The meek shall inherit the earth, but the arrogant will make life miserable for them in the meantime.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
And the winner of the al Qaeda logo competition is ...
http://www.gumtree.com/london/89/23478889.html (scroll down)
RR
I flew from LA to Boston two weeks after 9/11. On my return trip, I noticed that there were many visible soldiers with M16's on patrol throughout Logan and especially at security. By contrast, when I was outbound in LAX security I saw some TSA employee on the other side of the metal detectors READING THE F*CKING NEWSPAPER!!!! WAS THIS A**HOLE LIVING UNDER A ROCK FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS?!?!
Seriously, can you point out any successes? After all, if I put on a bulletproof vest, and spend the next few hours without someone shooting at me, that cannot be taken as proof that the vest can successfully stop bullets.
No offense, but that's a small-minded statement that doesn't really help anyone and fudges the issue at hand. There are people who are not happy to put security measures in place when they don't see any terror activities taking place and those same people rail against the system for not stopping terror when something does happen. I don't think the government is going about mitigating the risk of terrorist activity in the most efficient manner, but I'm in favor of stopping it where we can. Pick a side, don't be one of those soap-box carrying mofo's whose aim in life is to always have a sharp word for people while taking little to no responsibility of their own.
To piggyback on your example, if you knew someone would shoot you if they had the chance, you're advocating not wearing a vest at all because you haven't seen it succeed to date. Feel free to do so. I'll take the vest.
But I think that you've just proven my essential point: the american 'hegemony' is founded on some astoundingly well-crafted pervasive propaganda at home, with the theme of being a global benefactor.
Ask around: "why do we perpetually have half a million troops overseas in over 100 countries?" The reasoning of the american public in justifying such a massive permanent deployment in so many bases is very thin, if not jingoistic and naive, or outright frightening to citizens of other countries. Americans just don't believe in the scale of clandestine maneuvering through their history, and they have an essential sense of manifest destiny.
21C hegemony (shorthand for empire) does not resemble victorian Brittania, in the way that late post-industrial capitalism doesn't resemble feudalism.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Another subject in which the brilliant electrogeek minds of the average Slashdot posters are revealed as inadequately informed, and when informed, are so done by fear and ignorance.
If someone who has worked "intel" on "terrorism" for 20 years writes a book, there is no question that the book will be slanted by the "intel" that this person amassed and analyzed during those 20 years. Most Slashdotters probably don't know this, but "intel" is just like Jr High School rumor mills. It's not reliable info. It's gossip. Gossip from well-placed people, perhaps -- but still, it's gossip.
Machiavellians would urge that gossip is a weathervane for public knowledge and opinion. Such a callous, misinformed view probably prevails among those who wish to use any given item of gossip -- and this creates a problem of outcome-directed bias, something that is very commonplace in the "intel" world. "Intel" is gathered to confirm policy directions and support decisions. The cart is well before the horse -- the horse pushes the cart, it never pulls the cart.
There is nothing valuable in this new book. Of course, the politically ignorant electrogeeks here at Slashdot won't be likely to understand this, though. Once again, this site proves that the type of intelligence that makes one a good coder or bug-killer isn't the same type that helps someone understand politics, social dynamics, or the motivations of those in governmental authority positions.
"In a later chapter, Nance gives the Iraq war as an example of a group of leaders that were not as knowledge as possible and ignored the advice of those that were as knowledge as possible. Had the Bush administration consulted Nance, a trillion dollars and thousands of lives could have been saved in the Iraq debacle."
Oh fucking please, enough already with the BDS. The Iraq war is about WHO RULES, US the Good Guys or Them, The Bad Guys Inc. Nothing less than the fate of the future and if you dont understand how, then fuck you, you dont deserve an explanation but the answers can be found in Tsun Tzu or Machielvelli.
And fucking enough already with idiocy like "oh more terrorist hype from x, y or z"
Fuck You and Tell it to the victims below for starters you Slashtardian Dimwit-
Munich 1972
Achille Lauro 1975
Lebanon 1983
Lockerbie 1988
WTC 1993
Oklahoma City 1995
Kenya 1998
USS Cole 2000
WTC 2001
Bali 2002
Moscow 202
Madrid 2004
London 2005
As I stated in the post the more effective part of the plan is that there aren't bunch of marines killing hundreds of thousands of people in Arab territory. However...
Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, there are about six thousand miles of US border. You could take the roughly quarter million troops worlwide, divide them into three shifts, and have 13 US soldiers every mile, or about 1 every four hundred feet.
We are already paying these people. I'm sure they would be happy to take the same money, and actually defend their country instead of serving the interests of a few deranged politicians.
There is zero successful recruiting within the borders. FBI provocateurs have even failed, because the "terrorists" they pick up are poorly educated people who are angry and delusional, but have no ability or intent to actually commit terrorist acts.
You don't hear about domestic terrorism because there isn't any. The angriest cleric in the world has a hell of a time convincing a person with a job, a safe place to sleep, and the opportunities that every American has to strap a bomb to himself and kill innocent people. Maybe he could convince a sociopath, but these events would certainly be rare if they even occurred at all (and haven't yet.)
Now, take a young Iraqi kid who has lost his entire family to American military "collateral damage," or who's seen his sister raped and murdered because we can't even offer basic security after we destroyed their country, and show him a target that's in his neighborhood. That's an easy sell, and one that works in any cultural situation.
The point is that terrorism, like any other crime, isn't preventable. It's going to happen. You can reduce the likelihood through diplomacy, foreign policy, and security measures. All military action does, especially when there is no clear military objective, is make more people dead, and in my opinion, creates more terrorism than it destroys.
You are right about making people not want to do it, but the problem is violence isn't a part of that solution. Israel has been torturing Palestinians, destroying their homes, and assassinating suspected terrorists since the 60s, and the violence has gotten worse.
70% of Israelis believe that direct talks with Hamas are appropriate to achieve peace. Unfortunately, this does not fit in with the goals of their government, just as US politicians don't pay attention to what their constituents want if it happens to conflict with their own.
Western democracy at it's finest.
He has some suggestions for naming this thing, basically variations around the word "Islamist", "Militant Islam", "Militant Islamism" etc., but I don't think any of those sound right. "Islamofascism" might not be accurate, but I guess we'll have to stick to it for se simple lack of a better alternative.
Well, on one hand, in Europe and in most muslim countries, there's a very clear distinction between "islamist" and "islamic": someone is islamist, if he aims to mix religion to politics; while he is merely islamic (or muslim) if he doesn't strive to impose charia law on society. In muslim countries, the term "islamist" or "islamism" is generally referred to as a problem and islamists are perceived as a danger to society.
On the other hand, in Europe and in muslim countries, the term "islamofascism" is considered a very bad pejorative Bushism intended to cast a bad light and hatred on all muslims (be they islamists -- in which case it is justified, or non-islamists alike, in which case it is deeply offending to them). Perhaps it's different in the US, where people are more used to that term... but should you visit Europe or muslim countries, it may be wise to stick to the technically correct term "islamism" and avoid "islamofascism". "Islamism" is strong enough, and everyone knows whom you'd be referring to.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Anonymously posted breathless accusations. Can you give some reference to back up your opinion or is hurling insults the top of your game?
It's common to throw out "bigot" and "X-cons" and just assume you don't need to actually formulate a cogent argument. Everyone will no what you mean, right?
Answer
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
Wow, what a puff job review. It's almost as though someone was trying to push an agenda or something. It is good however that even the rat-bags that cooperatively decided to pull the wool over the American publics eyes with regard to Iraq are now admitting their error in print. And I suppose they don't think they are rat-bags either. Let's just call 'em security industry spooks with a weighty conflict of interest, with their collective hands caught in the cookie jar.