Affordable Terrorism Act

 The truth is incontrovertible. 
Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, 
but in the end, there it is 
--Winston Churchill
 _________________________

It is reported this month that the cost of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is approaching $4 trillion. It is a number hard to conceptualize. Few federal programs are funded to this figure (over a 12-year span). 

Moreover, we do not know what we are buying, or for or from whom. The expense is buried in secret budgets, state and local costs and the expenditures of the Departments of Defense and State. We cannot evaluate either the intent or capabilities of the terrorists, yet we throw mega dollars at the concept. 

The benchmark of a viable project is that it defines the problem and the subject (population), and from this it formulates an approach. We have fallen short in the PWOT.

Pretend for a moment that the United States took no military action following the attacks of 9-11-01, as we did following the attacks in Beirut (1983) and Iran (1979). Let us say we realized that that war is not the correct response to a low-level terrorist attack.

Now fast-forward to 2015: Can we say with any certainty that the lavish expenditures of the PWOT minimized future attacks on the homeland? 

It was Ranger’s position following the attacks that there would be no follow-on scenarios because the group lacked the capabilities to do so. The opposing camp says that it was the ensuing expensive military campaign which has thwarted any such potential events. In making a judgment, it is important to consider the quality of the piddling, pathetic efforts made by the sad sack terrorists manqué here at home, i.e., Jose Padilla, Richard Reid (the “shoe bomber”); Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the "underwear bomber"), the Ohio bridge bombers, et al.

We need an Affordable Terrorism Act (ATA). But to agree to such a thing, we would have to believe in ourselves and in an observable world order.

We would have to accept that:

• The Taliban were and are not a threat to our internal security
• The Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the U.S.
• Islamic State is not a high-level threat. However, if they are we must acknowledge that their existence is due to our actions in their country of origin. We must accept that we have no Arab friends, and that calling any Arab nation an ally is a lie
• The threat facing Europe is not the same threat facing the U.S.

If we accepted these things, Ranger’s suggestions would include:

• Eliminate the NSA focus on collection of data from U.S. citizens. Have them focus instead upon foreign threats, per their charter.
• Put the Central Intelligence Agency back into the CIA business
• Put the Defense Intelligence Agency back into the DIA business 
• Cease world-wide drone strikes. Focus on international and police and intelligence interplay. 
• Reinstate the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the sole counter-intelligence terrorist agency in the continental U.S. 
• Let the DoD concentrate on war-fighting, rather than police-oriented efforts
• Respect the sovereignty of all nations, to include Syria

We cannot afford an open-ended war of such extravagant spending when our social welfare system struggles to provide services to needy Americans. We can ill-afford this ongoing distraction.


When 40 million Americans got to bed hungry each night it seems superfluous to say terrorism is a threat to our way of life.

[cross-posted @ MilPub.]

Explosive Exit

--Lights by Lane Patterson

I believe that if we had and would
keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers
out of the business of these nations
so full of depressed, exploited people,
they will arrive at a solution of their own.
That they design and want.
That they fight and work for.
[Not one] crammed down their throats by Americans
--General David Monroe Shoup

Success is relative:
It is what we can make of the mess
we have made of things
--The Family Reunion, T. S. Eliot

Failed … like an old hanging bridge
--Marge Piercy
__________________

Ranger knows what he knows, and avoids writing about what he doesn't. Although not an expert, he has a good understanding of explosives and their use in terror and military applications.

His training as a Special Forces officer included military demolition techniques necessary in Unconventional Warfare - Guerrilla Warfare scenarios (UW/GW). This included things like blowing bridges, improvising and booby-trapping, exploding shells from 60 mm mortar to 8" artillery rounds as IED's and improvising incendiary devices. One-Zero school added specialized techniques to the suite.

Captain Zach Watson, Ranger's mentor, added Old School advanced techniques to the mix, like blowing engine blocks with with a 35 mm film canister of C-4 and PETN. The explosion was minimal but the hole created was so neat that it wouldn't cut a finger upon examination. SF was not flashy: It aimed for low-visibility success versus the activities of the terrorist, who aims for maximal press coverage.

Ranger had another mentor in the 1980's -- Ron Ball, a Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad expert known as "The Wizard". Ron used to travel on airplanes while habitually carrying ceramic detonators on his person just to demonstrate the absurdist and futile nature of airport security. That was the mid-80's (Ball was killed in 1986 along with Detective Arleigh McCree while attempting to defuse a pipe bomb in Hollywood.)

A simple Google search of "ceramic detonators" gives all the information a specialized bomb maker needs to make a significant device aimed at air traffic. Since we are 10 years into a phony war it is safe to assume that al Qaeda et. al. lack the sophistication to exploit this knowledge; if they could have, they would have.

Ranger also knows, for example, that the bridge in a recently-foiled Cleveland, Ohio, plot could not have been dropped by explosives alone. Several ear muff charges would have been required using large quantities of military-grade explosives properly placed high on the bridge and detonated at precisely the same time, which means that an advanced operative would have needed a lot of det cord to ensure the detonation. Perhaps they could have taken out an old covered bridge (surely an aesthetic crime) but not the Ohio 82 bridge. A lot of explosives alone does not = bridge destruction.

Like all the dupes and wannabes in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), they did not know the basics of destruction, to include testing your materiel. Having the intent does not necessarily result in a successful operation.

Further, would scenarios like these or that of the latest underwear (non) bomber ever have reached an execution phase without the presence of Federal agents or informants? These outside agents have often facilitated bringing these non-attacks to non-fruition. Absurd as they are, they fuel the imaginative fires of the true believers, who use them as examples of imagined even bigger and better destructive scenarios which they imagine Feds have staved off and which, for some reason, never did make it into the news cycle.

The argument is one from nothingness: If the little fish were caught, the bigger fish were caught two steps back in secrecy, and so we never hear about them. Mystery systems like religion and the National Security Administration (NSA, or "No Such Agency") allow for this belief on faith alone.

Operationally unsound plans are treated as though successes in the United States, where getting some Front Page qualifies one as winning. The story of two guys with ill-conceived explosive underwear wouldn't even provide the fodder for a lesser Tom Clancy intrigue.

We are not the Israelis and al Qaeda is not Black September. The U.S. has never seen a significant device here in the Homeland. We mistakenly combine these group's bomb-making expertise in-theatre as being relevant to our security here in the States; however, the two capabilities are mutually exclusive. Our security here in the States has no relevance to their abilities in theatre.

As a nation, the U.S. has lost its ability to be objective, rational and realistic. Until we get reality-oriented, we will spend billions to neutralize devices that can be best-described as jokes played on a fearful public being sold a bill of goods by an entrenched security conglomeration which sells fear as the only growth industry on our horizon.

At this point, please reach down and grab your balls and try to remember why they are there and what a man is supposed to do with them.

Amps in Their Panties, II

My first duty is to France.
I cannot shed French blood in a foreign cause
--Napoleon, in a letter to
Countess Maria Walewski (1807)

You keep hearing about these-a these-a terrorists masterminds
that get killed in the middle east.
Terrorists masterminds.
Mastermind is sort of a lofty way to describe
what these guys do, don’t you think?
--Underwear Goes Inside the Pants, Lazyboy

When the bully, gives a wedgie
Pray that they won’t ever tear
God bless my underwear, my only pair
--God Bless My Underwear,
Boy Scout tune
____________________

Yesterday Ranger postulated that foreign intelligence is a key weakness in any war project, but especially in the Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) and Counterterrorism (CT) realms.

Let us look at the facts surrounding the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:


FACTS:

1. The attacks of 9-11-01 were not conducted by Afghanis or Iraqis
2. Saudi Arabians played a major role in planning, funding and executing those attacks
3. United States policymakers ignored these inconvenient facts
4. Saudi Arabia has an economic interest in controlling the price of their major commodity, oil
5. S.A. acts in the interest of S.A
6. U.S. intel in S.A. and Yemen is weak at best; faulty, at worst
7. The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) keeps the oil market unstable and funnels cash to S.A.
8. S.A. wishes to remain autonomous S.A.
9. S.A. intel will favor S.A. interests

Now to the 2nd Underwear Bomber Manque (UBM), so toothsome a story that the Feds were not sure how they wanted to spin it. For the first two days, it was a major foiled plot. Then, it became another undercover coup, the double agent providing most of the wherewithal to make the dastardly plot (not) happen.

The reports agree that "an asset who is a Saudi works for the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Saudi intel presented the U.S. with a compromised model of the and improved 2nd Generation underwear bomb." The dud bomb is then played up to the extent that it causes as much fear as an Iranian and North Korean missile launch.

Ranger's analysis:

1. How much did the U.S. pay the agent?
2. For whom does he work?
3. To whom does he claim allegiance?
4. How do we know the origin of the dud device?
5. Did S.A. intel fabricate this piece to keep the U.S. in Yemen to protect S.A. dominance in the grid square?

These are key questions that need answers prior to the release of any intel claiming to be authentic. Are we being played like foolish amateurs? It seems a bit strange that the U.S. cannot find one single bomb maker in a place like Yemen.

The question of why the bad guys can't seem to get past airplane bombing attempts is a provocative one; it seems to show a poverty of imagination . . . or could it be something else? The U.S. is routinely played by foreign intel producers -- are we too stupid to even ask ourselves if the product we are consuming is even reality-based? Allies -- like adversaries -- should be constantly evaluated. All is fair in love and war.

Never trust foreign intelligence. This dictum applies to any country standing to benefit from playing us against ourselves.

Amps in Their Panties

A lady removing her scanties,
Heard them crackle electrical chanties.
Said her beau, "Have no fear,
For the reason is clear:
You simply have amps in your panties
--Limerick

There's the way things ought to be,

and the way things are

--Platoon (1986)

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,

we blended with the crowd

We got computer, we're tapping phone lines,

I know that ain't allowed

--Life During Wartime,

Talking Heads

__________________

This is about the new-and-improved underwear bomb (not) and a brief analysis thereof. Intelligence is the focus, but first, some history.

The major deficiency of U.S. policy and operations since World War II has been intelligence; WWII could be viewed as a failure of strategic intelligence. The intel breakdown in pre-World War II scenarios was not in the collection cycle but in the policy application phase.

It is safe to say that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Secretary of State Cordell Hull interpreted intelligence to reflect outcomes that were aligned with their goals. In short, the intel was a tool to be bent to their will, much the same as we saw with President G. W. Bush's actions in 2002.

WWII intelligence was largely a U.S. product with input from the British, Dutch and other major players. Historically, however, we realize that the input from other nations was often self-serving, designed to play U.S. policy-makers.

Korean War intel was largely a military product that was sufficient at the Division and Corps Level but broke down at Theatre. This was because the command structure (=MacArthur) totally misread the battlefield reports as they did not fit into his conception of the field forces reality. The problem was not external. The military collected, interpreted and disseminated the product in a correct manner, however, it was largely ignored.

This shows failure may happen at many points along the intel cycle, from gathering through application, and the failure may be one of incorrect input (intentional or not), or one of human bias. [Ranger has discussed Human Intelligence (HUMINT) versus Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) in the past, and one is not preferable to the other, nor may one exist successfully independent of the other. However, bias is always problematic.]

In Vietnam, the U.S. in country depended largely upon reports that were generated by the South Vietnamese government, data that was often faulty and self-serving. Unfortunately, this fact was largely ignored since an ally is always believed to be honest and trustworthy. As a result, projects like Phoenix were based upon faulty and misleading intel provided by a foreign power.

In the 1980's, when U.S. doctrine attempted to assimilate the experience of Vietnam, it failed to recognize this key deficiency in the Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) and Counterterrorism (CT) arenas since the only intel available was often foreign-based and produced.

Which brings us to 2012, and questionable intel is still chewing on our shorts. I will use the case of the second underwear bomber as a template for the problem, beginning with the facts, ending with an analysis. Put on your thinking caps.

Tomorrow: Amps in Their Panties II