News & Opinion on Terrorism & Strategic Communication — October 26, 2007

AQ Mad at AJ. “Al-Qaida sympathizers have unleashed a torrent of anger against Al-Jazeera television, accusing it of misrepresenting Osama bin Laden’s latest audiotape by airing excerpts in which he criticizes mistakes by insurgents in Iraq.” (AP via Yahoo, 10/26).

It’s the Ideology, Stupid. “It can, but only if U.S. officials start to think clearly about what success in the war on terror would actually look like. Victory will come only when Washington succeeds in discrediting the terrorists’ ideology and undermining their support.” (Philip Gordeon, Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2007).

Reforming the State Dept. “We pour billions of dollars into the Defense Department, while we trickle about one-twentieth of that into diplomatic and foreign-assistance programs. Moreover, since 9/11 and the Iraq War, we’re asking the military to do jobs for which civilian agencies should be better suited–reconstruction assistance, budget support for allied countries, etc. Worst yet, integration of national security planning and resource allocation across agencies is almost nonexistent.” (The Bulletin Online, 10/22).

How to Foil Nuclear Terrorism. “Yet as a consequence, we fail to understand how best to defeat it. Michael Levi takes us inside nuclear terrorism and behind the decisions a terrorist leader would be faced with in pursuing a nuclear plot. Along the way, Levi identifies the many obstacles, large and small, that such a terrorist scheme might encounter, allowing him to discover a host of ways that any plan might be foiled.” (Council on Foreign Relations).