Explosives at MAF?

Oh, this is not good news.

Me in ESPN the Mag (Self Indulgence Alert)

A while back something I wrote a few years ago was quoted in an ESPN the Magazine article on stadium security in the 9/11 commemorative issue. I had been quoted in an AP story on the same topic that got pretty wide distribution so I missed this one until recently.

AP & Me on Stadium Security Post-9/11 (Self-Indulgence Alert!)

I was interviewed by a writer from the Associated Press on the issue of stadium security ten years after 9/11 largely on the basis of this piece for The Public Sphere that I wrote about three years ago. And when you get quoted in a story by AP it ends up appearing everywhere. (My personal favorite is Sports Illustrated via SI.com).

Airport Security and Privilege

Can someone please explain to me why there is a special security line for first-class passengers in (at least some) airports? I can understand why airlines provide special perks, including devoted lines, for their monied customers. But the process of security, which is operated by the United States government, is not supposed to be eased by privilege. Paying more to fly in better seats on American Airlines should literally have nothing to do with the treatment one gets in passing through TSA's gantlet.

This is yet another example of how the whole security apparatus is largely theater. After all, Osama bin Laden could afford to fly first class. Affluence is hardly indicative of virtue and flying coach is not a sign of jihadism.

Some Perspective

Hat Tip.

Trouble(s) Brewing?

It is easy to forget just how intractable the conflict in Northern Ireland once seemed. There was a time not long ago when The Troubles were on par with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of intensity and seeming hopelessness. I am not certain that the typical informed observer in, say, 1985, would have said that the Troubles would be settled first.

That is why stories such as this, in which the Real IRA threatens to resume the way of the bomb and the gun, are so galling. I am overwhelmingly sympathetic both to Catholic civil rights claims and Republican leanings in Northern Ireland. But I loathe the IRA and its Unionist counterparts. And there have been lots of hints of late that Trouble might be brewing in the Six Counties.

Wieseltier's Mosque Notes

Leon Wieseltier, someone who cannot ever be accused of being soft headed or weak spined, has what is hands-down the best piece on the Cordoba Mosque controversy I have yet read.

Herf Wows the State Department

Friend of dcat Jeffrey Herf recently gave a talk at the State Department on progressive foreign policy and radical Islam. The New Republic has republished his provocative speech.
As with everything Jeff writes this is smart and provocative. I have my qualms, especially with regard to the idea that the Obama administration does not talk enough (or loudly enough) about the dangers of radical Islam. Eight years of Bush administration bombast was damaging enough, thank you very much. It's not what you say so much as what you do as you say it. Nonetheless, his piece is very much worth reading.

Links Deluge

As often happens, I see a bunch of stories that interest me and want to write about them, and the next thing I know I have ten tabs open and they just sit there because it all seems too much. So it's time to clear out some of those tabs:

Jane Mayer's absolute hammering of the insufferable Mark Thiessen's new book is a thing to behold. The review is all the more damning because The New Yorker tends not to traffic in withering reviews.

A couple of weeks back the New York Times Book Review had an essay on the venerable presidential election campaign book, which seems to have made a comeback just a few years after having been left for dead. I may as well use this time to point you all to the University Press of Kansas' fantastic new series on presidential elections. There are a dozen or so books already out. I have used the ones on the 1980 and 1912 campaigns in classes with a great deal of success. This is one of the rare series (including the one that Freedom's Main Line is in) for which I plan to own every single book, and I hope they eventually cover every presidential election in US history.

Recent events (and the tone of some political discussion) should remind us of the long strand of anti-government (generally) right-wing violence that too many people conveniently elide in discussions about terrorism.

Ezra Klein reminds us that the recent health care legislation is not especially left-wing and uses that to pivot to the point that the current Republican stance has been politically driven, not policy driven. The Republicans have decided that being the party of no is their path back to power. I suppose we'll see if that works. It might be the path to power. It is definitely the path of irresponsible governance.

Northern Ireland's Peace

Well, this is alarming news, especially as there are signs that it may not be a one-off, isolated incident. I began talking about Northern Ireland in my Global Terrorism class today (I always start off with "Sunday Bloody Sunday" from Rattle & Hum in order to have them hear Bono's awesome speech that is all the more powerful because it came on the day of the Enniskillen Bombing in November 1987) and had to try to convey to my students that the Troubles once seemed every bit as intractable as the Israel-Palestine question. The peace has held in Northern Ireland for more than a decade now (and really ought to be seen as the signature foreign policy accomplishment of the Clinton administration) and so presumably is strong enough to weather the occasional flareup. But if the IRA is determined to return to the way of the gun the way of the gun will prevail.

Me on TV Re: Terrorism (Self Indulgence Alert)

On a couple of occasions in the last few weeks I have been featured in stories on terrorism at our local ABC affiliate. You can see the first of these stories (with both online text and the videos) here (in a story on terrorists using technology such as Facebook for recruiting). I am still waiting for the second, on my Global Terrorism class this semester, to go online. .

Herf v. Wolin: Heavyweights Square Off

This article on "the long, toxic afterlife of Nazi propaganda in the Arab world" by my friend and former professor Jeffrey Herf in The Chronicle of Higher Education prompted a, let's say "spirited" rejoinder from the historian Richard Wolin. The Chronicle then brought the two together, in a manner of speaking, for an "exchange." Read it all.

Slow News Day in the Permian Basin (Self Indulgence Alert!)

You know it's a slooooooooowwww news day in West Texas when this is on the front page of the Midland Reporter-Telegram!

Trusting America

I simply do not understand the outcry against exposing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to a criminal trial in New York City. Indeed most of the arguments are either irrelevant or overstated (and of course not a few of them are the result of the fact that if Obama said it was day at noontime, the vast swath of the right would proclaim it to be night). Charles Krauthammer sums up the argument as well as anyone -- which is to say, not particularly well -- in today's Washington Post:

September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.

I have no idea what "September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself" means, and neither do you, because it is nonsense, words that are intended to be portentous and meaningful but that are instead empty and useless. But that's not the point. The point, it seems, is that Charles Krauthammer and his ilk have no faith in the very things that make us better than the KSMs of this world. They have no faith in our ability to protect a courtroom in New York City. They have no faith that our truth is better than the jihadist's propaganda. They have no faith that our judicial system can prevail.

For many on the right -- and Krauthammer is only exhibit A -- the only real factor in terrorism is that it is a useful cudgel with which to whack those they disagree over the head. In the wake of that awful tragedy on 9/11 conservatives and Republicans were quick to point out that the failures of intelligence and security were the fault of no party and no politician, or rather, of all parties and all politicians, a useful conceit for them when they occupied the White House and both houses of Congress. But ever since that moment when suddenly accountability was so difficult to glean the right has been looking for ways to paint Democrats and liberals as soft on terrorism and weak on foreign policy. And if that means disparaging the American system, so be it. When Democrats and liberals criticized foreign policy during the staggering run of incompetence that was Bush years, the right was quick to play the un-American card, so quick to impugn the patriotism of those who disagreed with them. But apparently patriotism, like everything else, is contingent upon the prevailing political winds.

I think our truth is better than the jihadist propaganda. Clearly conservatives do not. That's a shame. There was a time when he seemed to love this country. It's amazing what Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill will do to a man's patriotism. Who knew that conservative love of country was only skin deep?

Put Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on trial. Give his poisonous rantings the widest audience possible. Not only is it the right thing to do in terms of upholding America's values. It also is the right thing to do because unlike Charles Krauthammer, I believe both that our ideas are better than the jihadists' and that any public airing of those ideas is a win for the United States of America.

Containing the Radicals

Via Andrew Sullivan, Andrew Bacevich has proposed a policy of containment toward radical Islam. It's a policy you might suspect that I would agree with. Why might you suspect this? Because I made a similar argument in an op-ed piece for History News Network. In January 2006.

Stadiums and Terrorism

The government has expanded a terrorism warning from transit systems to include US stadiums, hotels, and entertainment complexes. I have long believed that stadiums are incredibly vulnerable sites for potential attacks. But I have also argued that we need to be smart about our approach to potential attacks at sporting events. Identifying stadiums as logical locales for attack is merely the first step. What comes next is, in the end, what really matters.

Torture: Still Does Not Work

Let's repeat it again: Torture does not work. On a rare occasion, someone might extract something from an individual they have tortured, but as policy, it is terribly inefficient and does not work. Oh -- and it violates both the law and every sense of morality that the country is supposed to represent, not to mention that it undermines the argument that we are better than our enemies.

9/11 +8

This morning at UTPB we had a ceremony in commemoration of 9/11 at 9:11. It was brief but apropos ceremony. The color guard raised the flags of the United States and Texas, the University Chorus, of which I am a member, sang the National Anthem, our VP for Academic Affairs gave a short speech that was fitting for the occasion, the chorus and band performed and arrangement of God Bless America, a local clergyman (who appeared to be Indian or Pakistani) gave a prayer, the color guard lowered the flags, and it was done.

Our ceremony was done right -- it was tasteful, respectful, and lacked the bombast that so many think is a substitute for true commemoration. No politicians spoke and no causes were advanced. It is hard to believe that it has been eight years since that terrible morning. Take time to remember.

The Somali Terrorism Connection

Are terrorists recruiting Somalians living in the United States? It appears so. And if so, for what purposes and to what ends? There is not enough here yet to draw firm conclusions, but there is enough to recognize that instability in the Horn of Africa has created ripe conditions for terrorist recruitment.

Claiming Credit While Not Taking Blame

The Bush administration and its advocates like to point out the lack of any terrorist attacks on American soil after 9/11 as evidence of a crowning success in President Bush's Global War on Terrorism. Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen argues as much in today's Washington Post. The argument is fine as far as it goes. In the wake of 9/11 many observers -- myself included -- expected other attacks to follow. They did not. Whether this is the result of Bush policies or an inability of al Qaeda (or anyone else) to follow up on their massive undertaking on that awful September morning is up for debate. But it is true that no attacks followed the terrorism of 9/11.

However, it seems rather shortsighted to simply look at that fact and claim it as a major accomplishment. After all, the Clinton administration went even longer without an attack on US soil from foreign terrorist groups after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Furthermore, how is it possible to take credit for a lack of attacks after 9/11 without at the same time acknowledging that the administration did not stop the worst terrorist attack in American history? Bush's advocates cannot possibly have it both ways, denying any responsibility whatsoever for not preventing 9/11 but claiming a lack of attacks after 9/11 as the result of successful policy. 9/11 happened during the Bush presidency. That is an immutable fact. The failures on 9/11 were systemic, to be sure, and blaming Bush, or blaming Clinton, would be largely pointless. Until you start using the lack of attacks as a political chit. At which point, the rules of the game change.

Finally, the United States has allies. In part as a nearly direct result of their coordination with American policies, Spain and England suffered terrorist attacks after 9/11. (I was in England on the 7th of July, 2005.) Shallow triumphalism on terrorism needs to take into account that the Global War on terror (Bush's titular creation, not mine) was, well, global. To declaim an attack in London or Madrid because it does not fit the narrative qualifies as rank opportunism (and pretty crass abandonment of the significance of our allies). It hardly meets the standard of rigorous political analysis.