The four elements of counterterrorism policy -- attacking the roots, capabilities, intentions, and defenses of terrorist groups -- the most important in my mind is capabilities. While not as easy to enact as others, there is something to be said for effectively staving off a terrorist's capability to destroy and kill. Capabilities are the terrorist's abilities to carry out attacks or to conduct them effectively. This is an incredibly difficult facet of terrorism to address but incredibly...
Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, has announced that he has left the Republican Party and become an independent. Or I guess I should say: Independent (note the capital "I"). This is so he can run as a third-party candidate for President of the United States in 2008. He even plans to pony up his own money, claiming that this makes him beholden to no special interest groups. Bloomberg has made some savvy but bald-faced political decisions in the past. A lifelong Democrat, Bloo...
This story is about a month or so old, but I did a Google search on JU and found that this little gem had fallen through the cracks. One of Sunni Islam's most prestigious institutions is to discipline a cleric after he issued a decree allowing women to breastfeed their male colleagues. Dr Izzat Atiya of Egypt's al-Azhar University said it offered a way around segregation of the sexes at work. His fatwa stated the act would make the man symbolically related to the woman and preclude any ...
The Palestinian Authority has purged itself, at least temporarily, of the influence of Hamas. Hamas, for those of you JUsers out there who don't know, is a terrorist organization funded largely by Syrian, Lebanese, and Iranian interests against Israel. From Australia's The Age : Whatever one's perception of Hamas and its activities, it has risen as a credible alternative to the secular Palestine Liberation Organisation, which led the Palestinian nationalist movement from the middle o...
The existing law enforcement is there: along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), many government agencies work long hours to keep Americans safe. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), US Customs, and the Coast Guard have been rolled into the nascent Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Though not intended to be a domestic intelligence service as such, the inclusion of the organizations mentioned have made intelligence part of DHS' daily operations. Ironically, t...
Call this the "Non-Binding Congress." They have an incredible willingness to spend inordinate amounts of money (time is money, people!) on the Non-Binding Resolutions of our time: Iraq, Alberto Gonzales, blah blah and more blah. This "vote of no confidence" in the Attorney General (which failed, BTW) is the latest in a string of ineffective parliamentary procedure. The Democrats received a mandate from the people for change, which Pelosi and crew gladly took up. They claimed their tenur...
TIME Magazine's Joe Klein recently wrote an article decrying the Far Left Blogosphere's attempts to shout him down over another article he'd written. A strange thing happened to me the day the House of Representatives voted to pass the Iraq-war-funding bill. Congresswoman Jane Harman of California called as the debate was taking place. "Look, I would love to have cast a vote against Bush on this," she told me. "We need a new strategy, and I hope we can force one in September. But I flew...
My recent job change has also lengthened my commute time... and also changed my waking time every morning. Got me thinking about sleep, and I discovered this article from a sleep research project sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: 40 FACTS ABOUT SLEEP YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T KNOW... (OR WERE TOO TIRED TO THINK ABOUT) -The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinat...
My recent job change has also lengthened my commute time... and also changed my waking time every morning. Got me thinking about sleep, and I discovered this article from a sleep research project sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: 40 FACTS ABOUT SLEEP YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T KNOW... (OR WERE TOO TIRED TO THINK ABOUT) -The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinat...
I don't want allowances to be a handout. I want to teach my children the value of work while also teaching the value of saving versus spending. Hopefully I can instill in my children a good attitude towards money, something that both my wife and I didn't get in our own childhoods. I give my kids an allowance, based on their participation in household chores. The chores are leveled in difficulty for the age of the child: I don't require my 5-year-old to perform the same chores my 11-ye...
In what ways, if any, do you think that US policymakers can do a better job apprising the American public of the long-term nature of the Global War on Terrorism and he sacrifices that struggle will continue to entail? Certain members of Congress and the White House articulate the importance of staying in the fight quite well. It is just a matter of whether or not the claims fall on deaf ears or are taken seriously. Supporters of the War on Terror are seen as Bush's shills or cronies, as ...
In reading Locamama's excellent article , I started to respond. But then the short, spiritual, and resonant response became far longer and I decided to post it on my own page. I feel that everybody has to find their own path through life. Whether that path is towards God or away from God, that's one's own choice. Since I can't really speak for the atheist and agnostic of the JU audience, I will focus on my particularly circuitous route I took to God. I freely admit there are many ...
Well, my brothers and sisters... it's been several months since I posted anything substantial on JU. I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle these days. What with work, graduate school, home life (wife and four kids), and church responsibilities (including singing with the Mormon Choir of Washington DC, totally voluntary) -- it's been very impossible to free up enough time to be vocal and frequent on my blog. I still have allegiances to the blog and all it stands for, b...
Why hasn't Al Qaeda attempted an large CBRN attack, given the group's M.O of "spectacular" mass casualty attacks against symbolic targets? I have my ideas, but they are speculative. Could be any one of a number of factors: 1) They can't get one into a strategic location. Since 9/11, security around high-value American targets has increased many-fold. Metal detectors are almost ubiquitous in Washington DC these days. I've never felt safer riding the Metro. Even airliners transiting...
What are the most significant technical constraints, political constraints, and psychological inhibitory constraints against CBRN use by terrorist networks? How might these be enhanced? So, what's stopping the terrorists? Holding them back from doing the unthinkable, the devastating, the inevitable? The biggest factor is the damage caused. CBRN weapons inflict mass casualties upon a large area, and the psychological damage is even more widespread. CBRN give a huge payoff with minim...