Category: Terrorism

Dangerous Dennis

Dangerous Dennis

by Arusha ♥ 3 Comments

norwegiansuitShould a paid aid worker in a dangerous part of the world be able to sue his NGO for not protecting him well enough?

Steve Dennis sued his employer, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), for gross negligence that resulted in his kidnapping in 2012. Dennis refused more than a half million dollars out-of-court settlement, and a Norwegian judge will now soon decide the matter.

Dennis and several others were kidnapped from the Dadaab Refugee Camp on the Kenyan/Somali border by Somali insurgents. They were freed four days later by a commando raid of Kenyan and Somalia government forces.

He contends that his PTSD syndrome and continuing physical ailments that resulted from the kidnapping were all preventable had NRC better security procedures in place.

I think this is nuts.

Everyone – even soldiers and aid workers – should have redress through the courts for being abnormally maligned or mistreated, but Dennis was not.

The NRC is one of the most respected NGOs in Africa. The 100+ recommendations the NRC generated from its own internal investigation into Dennis’ kidnapping have all been implemented and are being widely considered by all NGOs in the Dadaab area.

I suspect there is much more to the story than has reached the media.

Just after the actual incident, the then 37-year old Dennis told his home-town Toronto Globe and Mail:

‘[that] he remains committed to aid work despite having just gone through “a very bad long weekend. I’m still going to be engaged somehow. How, I don’t know. For now I think my job is to take a couple months off and then, if I feel good, take a couple more maybe,” he said with a laugh.’

Dadaab is one of the most dangerous refugee camps in the world, and if I know this I imagine that aid workers do, too.

There are about 22 million refugees living in camps around the world, the majority in United Nations’ organized mini-cities. There are nearly a million in Dadaab alone.

The 10,000 UNHCR employees overseeing these facilities are assisted by an estimated 50,000 other aid workers of the sort Steve Dennis was, persons who are actually working in refugee camps. (Altogether there are around a quarter million humanitarian aid workers worldwide.)

Aid workers are characteristically the most dedicated, moral and upstanding individuals you can imagine. I’ve often pondered why these incredibly intelligent and motivated individuals give up traditional lives with usually greater compensation for such hazardous work.

About a year after the July, 2012, incident Dennis began issuing more and more serious allegations and complaints: his mood had obviously changed. In court documents he chalks this up to his PSTD.

Also about a year after the incident, NRC changed CEOs. In a letter introducing himself, Jan Egeland concluded, “And finally. Be careful, take the necessary precautions and wear a seatbelt. We cannot afford to lose any of you.”

The NRC media arm that issued the letter featured a picture of a smiling, handsome and weathered Egeland holding a large hand-written sign that read, “Listen to Locals And Stay Safe.”

As Dennis’ legal wrangle starting taking shape, he asked the public for $50,000 through FundRazr. The $20,000 that the Guardian newspaper reported he finally raised was apparently sufficient enough to attract ambulance chasers now working on speculation.

I don’t doubt that Dennis suffers from PTSD or that he has other lasting infirmities from his kidnapping. I’m not even sure I approve of the half million dollar settlement NRG offered Dennis, but at the very least it strikes me as incredibly generous.

But if aid organizations are now sued by employees who work in the most dangerous conditions in the world, it would be like soldiers suing the Army for sending them into war!

Norwegians are among the most dedicated aid workers in the world, and Norway among the most committed countries on our planet to making the whole wide world better. So it’s not surprising that they will find fault with themselves.

But I hope the judge notes that Dennis used crowdfunding to attract ambulance chasers. This is not how to save the world.

Terrorism Today

Terrorism Today

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

CGTerrorismFour countries in sub-Saharan Africa are at increased risk of terrorism: Uganda, Ethiopia, Burundi and the Central African Republic.

The warning is issued by the 2014 Global Terrorism Index, a massive compilation of each year’s terrorist incidents.

The report is good news for Kenya, continuing good news for Tanzania and all the rest of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Although the index has only been produced for the last five years, its track record so far is good.

Uganda and Ethiopia’s increased risk is linked directly to their increased authoritarianism. Burundi is essentially an ethnic conflict.

In fact last week Uganda’s principal opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, was arrested and put under house arrest to end his organizing protest rallies. This stands in marked contrast, for example, with Tanzania’s heated up but very free presidential election and Kenya’s exceptional transparency in government.

The GTI is by some measure overly thorough and as a result some of its lesser predictions might be seen as premature, but the overall index suggesting increased or decreased terrorism will be used in critical decisions by many global businesses including tour companies.

The index is not without controversy, since it refuses to view Israel and Palestine with the same parameters as the rest of the world. The much less used but competing British index, the Verisk/Maplecroft Terrorism Dashboard actually suggests an increased terrorism risk in Nairobi.

The GTI report is less of a chronology of terrorist events than it is a measure of those events’ impact on the country. In other words larger economies more capable of shrugging off terrorist incidents, like the United States, will be less impacted by terrorism than smaller economies like Kenya.

As a result Kenya continues to be seriously impacted by terrorism, because the index is a 5-year weighted average, and Kenya’s terrorists incidents in 2008-2013 included severe attacks like the Westgate Mall.

From this perspective Kenya ranks the 13th most impacted in the world of the 162 countries studied, compared to the U.S.’ 30th, even though there were more actual deaths and injuries in the U.S. considered terrorism than in Kenya.

Terrorism as defined by the GTI includes such acts as school shootings.

The bottom line is that mayhem from terrorism is increasing substantially, although localized and heavily a result of the ongoing conflicts in the Mideast. GTI dissects nine organizations it has determined are the main terrorist organizations worldwide:

Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Al-Qaida in Iraq & Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, ISIS, The Taliban in Pakistan, Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Al-Shabab and Boko Haram.

(Currently, the Tamil Tigers have signed a peace agreement in Sri Lanka, Al-Shabab is almost gone and Boko Haram is retreating in Nigeria. That leaves today’s principal terrorist organizations all from the Mideast.)

Terrorism is as old as time itself. Were the GTI Index to be applied to all the years since the American Revolution, it’s likely that America would vie with the Mideast for the most terrorism overall.

Our revolution, Indian wars, Civil War, presidential and other political assassinations and today’s contemporary school shootings would likely add up to as much all the trouble over that same time in Africa.

What’s changed is technology and the likelihood that every person with a smart phone knows what bad things are happening where and when. That’s good for the possible resolution of bad things, if you believe as I do that we are all basically good.

But it causes us great angst when forced to try to understand such wanton harm. My novel, Chasm Gorge, tries to help you understand that.

There was a time when those who considered themselves good easily sheltered themselves from those they considered evil. Today, what is “good” and what is “evil,” as well as the ability to “shield” onself, are no longer quite as certain as in the old days.

Terrorism is as much an intellectual challenge to understand as a political challenge to stop.

The darker the red, the more impact from terrorism.
The darker the red, the more impact from terrorism.

The Rise of The Have-Nots

The Rise of The Have-Nots

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MaliErruptsThe deteriorating situation in Mali this week made me realize the crises throughout the world aren’t clashes of ideologies or religions. It’s so simple: the Have Nots are rising.

Mali, you might remember, was the final joint success story of the Obama/Hollande alliance to defeat terrorism in Africa.

Since the Kenyan invasion of Somali on October 16, 2011, I have chronicled in my blogs the slow but methodical Obama/Hollande alliance that pushed the Afghani/Iraqi bad guys to Yemen, to Somalia, through East Africa and to Central Africa, thence finally to Mali.

Where, I wrongly presumed, they were finally clobbered to death by the French foreign legion in January, 2013.

I should have read more carefully my guest blogger, Conor Godfrey, who so passionately described the shock of a Mali suicide bomber which followed in February, 2013.

I mostly ignored that piece by Conor, who is now with the State Department and then as now has one of the finest analytical minds about Africa. That was a mistake. I jumped the gun. Mali was not pacified.

The insurgents that I believed were swept up into a single pile and ultimately defeated by the French Foreign legion that scattered the few remaining fugitives to doom in the Sahara, is now threatening central Mali.

Conor’s piece in 2013 expressed the surprised horror that a suicide bombing had taken place in Mali.

If you asked a random American if there were any suicide bombings here, what percentage do you think would say “None?”

To date this year alone, there have been 285 mass shootings in America, and while I have not had the time to go through them one by one to determine how many ended with the shooter killing himself, I know it was more than several.

That is simply a more modern consumer society’s suicide bomber. It’s easier in America to get a gun than make a bomb.

America is not yet threatening to implode like Mali, even with today’s announced resignation by John Boehner. But the acts are identical, across radically different cultures and historical time zones.

Whether Charlie Hebdo or Boston or Chechnya or a Finish island, people are blowing themselves up in order to kill others.

Conor knows what suicide bombing doesn’t mean:

“Maybe somewhere where life comes a little cheaper, and craziness prevails. This is nonsense…”

He suggests that it might be “blowback from our global war on terror.”

But folks, there has to be a common thread among all these seemingly disparate places and peoples, something that as horrible as it sounds, connects the bomber in Mali with the bomber in Colorado.

In ancient history legions of soldiers knew they were headed into sacrificial battles. But not really until the age of kamikazes did “suicide war” become an individual act.

There has always been desperate dissatisfaction with life by individuals, but the kamikaze, the suicide bomber seems fundamentally screwed up, totally irrational.

Unless you really embrace the concept of hopelessness. Everything is then lost. There is no more morality. Vengeance is the only possible success.

People become hopeless for a lot of different reasons. Many are obvious, like hunger. But many are more complicated, like losing a job. (US 2015 Mass Shooter #246, Vester Flanagan.) But certainly this isn’t just a feature of our modern age. So what is?

Guns and bombs. Never before has such powerful destruction been so easily obtained by an individual.

Hopelessness. There really seems today to be an unusual amount of this worldwide.

Anger. Today we worship and encourage anger like never before.

Hopelessness curls the finger around the trigger. Anger pulls it.

All three are needed for the tragedy. We gotta work on them all, and quick.

Egypt No-Go

Egypt No-Go

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Four-wheel drive cars cross the Egyptian western desert and the Bahariya Oasis, southwest of CairoLast week EWT promoted an Egyptian trip. The killing of a tour group by Egyptian security forces Sunday mandates that we now withdraw that offer.

Tourists deaths, kidnappings and violent injuries are way down in Egypt compared to the “good ole days.” A decade ago 12-15 million people annually visited Egypt and about 250 were killed or violently injured each year.

Many of these were horrible terrorist attacks but no one seemed to care or report about it.

Last year ten million people visited Egypt and less than 20 were killed, kidnapped or violently injured.

Sometimes, though, the numbers don’t speak for themselves.

The attack occurred about 220 miles southwest of Cairo in the Western Desert near an oasis called Bahariya (in some reports, shortened to “Bahyira.”) This is an adventure tourism area popular with backpacking tourists.

The Wall Street Journal reported that four tourist vehicles “clearly marked” with “tourists luggage on roof racks” had stopped for a lunch break.

The Journal further reported that there were 21 people in the convoy, including 14 Mexicans, an American, four Egyptian drivers, an Egyptian guide and a police officer along to guarantee that “The convoy was on the route agreed upon with the authorities.”

London’s Guardian newspaper also reported that the group had permits in their passports which were displayed on Facebook.

Al-Jazeera said helicopter gunships fired on the convoy.

It seems clear to me the Egyptian military made a mistake and that the government is now trying to cover for it.

ISIS and offshoot rebel groups are active in the Egyptian deserts, especially after the catastrophe in Libya and the current Cairo crackdown on Muslim extremists.

Ten years ago in the literal carnage that occurred to tourists in Egypt in its heyday, when everyone was going to Egypt carefree and seemingly unconcerned with the mass political killings of tourists that were regularly occurring, it was the bad guys against the tourists.

Now the problem is we won’t know who the bad guy is.

ISIS, for sure, and one way of avoiding them is to not go into the desert. Most tourists should know this.

But now what about the Egyptian government itself? So paranoid that it presumes any four-wheel drive vehicle is an insurgent?

The uncertainty and reactionary paranoia of the Egyptian government radically alters the prospect of tourism in the country. Remember, it’s not just the facts, it’s how people perceive the facts.

And I for one perceive Egypt at the moment like an over zealous fanatic with too much caffeine holding weapons that are far too dangerous for protecting me.

Smiling Terrorists

Smiling Terrorists

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mamoutdouadIf you’re an American, you probably don’t understand terrorism. Your egoism’s unique fears cloud your rational analysis. Two excellent examples of this, today:

The first is simple. On a not-very-left but not-right morning TV show, today, Morning Joe, a quick mention of the ISIS beheading of a Croatian oil worker who was kidnapped in Cairo elicited the following conclusion : “…shows the increasing reach of ISIS.”

The correct take on what happened is exactly the opposite. Terrorist groups that are failing at normal warfare, as ISIS is in the Levant, break up into individuial guerillas undertaking easier, simpler acts.

It’s a clear demonstration they are becoming weaker.

It’s equally true of the other major terrorist organization in Africa: al-Shabaab. Both BH & Shabaab were large-scale military organizations that have been routed leaving no well organized terrorist armies left in Africa.

BH’s long time leader, Abubakar Shekau, who at one point controlled nearly a fifth of Nigeria, has apparently been killed or exiled and replaced by Mahamat Daoud who the Chadian leader said yesterday wants to negotiate peace.

There’s no reason to negotiate with Boko Haram, now. There’s little of it left.

According to Reuters, BH now controls hardly anything in Nigeria except a small, remote forest.

Mahamat Daoud smiles. Find me another picture of a major terrorist smiling.

The remarkable turnaround in Nigeria this year is linked to several factors. First, the newly elected president is a former general who has successfully consolidated Nigeria’s civil administration with its military, not seen before.

Like former times in several South American countries, the military and civilian sects of society never got along. Civilian rule was corrupt and inefficient. Frequent military coups returned stability to the country but also resulted in massive human rights violations.

Nigeria’s current president, former general Muhammadu Buhari, who won the March presidential election seems to have changed this … at least so far.

The other factor is widespread presumption of massive U.S. military aid. In fact the sudden and productive delivery of U.S. weapons to Nigeria seems to have become an issue locally.

The Christian Science Monitor reported last week that Buhari is himself concerned that defeating BH depended upon outside military support, and has called for the creation of a Nigerian military-industrial complex so the country can produce its own weaponry.

(A topic of its own, of course. Whatever else can be said of ‘supporting your allies’ it becomes undeniable that the world becomes further militarized.)

The new conciliatory face of BH is quite unlike what happened to Shabaab. Shabaab splintered and fled in face of Kenyan troops and U.S. special services on the ground in East Africa. Shabaab never offered to negotiate.

In Kenya and Uganda it devolved into guerilla attacks such as the Westgate Mall. That now has all but ended as what’s left of Shabaab evaporates outside of Somalia. Within Somalia the remaining militants are struggling to retain small areas of control.

For good reasons or bad ones, whether the current state of affairs will be lasting or short-lived, terrorism in Africa is way down.

Many American’s problem is that they demand 100% of everything. Something that’s bad, like terrorism or back problems or faulty car brakes, gnaws at them virtually until there is no problem left at all.

And that rarely happens.

So their ability to calmly consider the problem and enthusiastically work towards a best if partial solution is compromised by their fear that that itty-bitty 1% not taken care of, will take care of them.

Only in movies is this a meaningful way of life.

OnSafari : With The Family

OnSafari : With The Family

by Arusha ♥ 1 Comment

kidsonrover.operationsIt’s been nearly a decade since I’ve encountered so many families on safari – is the midmarket coming back? Is it time, again, to travel to Africa for a family vacation?

Yes, and yes. For several years, now, I’ve wondered if the midmarket would return. The Great Recession clobbered disposable incomes, especially for families, and it dove-tailed horribly with the election troubles in Kenya then increasing terrorism there after the October, 2011, Somali invasion.

Enough time has passed, now, that our economy is returning to a semblance of normality (even as much of Europe has not) AND terrorism in East Africa is way down.

Family safaris have returned: From Serena to Sopa to lower market family group safaris, the circuit we just completed in Tanzania was jam packed.

I’ll be in Kenya in a few weeks and will be able to assess that as well, especially as the British government has removed its travel warnings on Kenya’s so popular coast.

It’s a definite generalization, but it seems to me that terrorism is moving out of the Third World and back to the western world in some bold attempt by the bad guys to prove they can penetrate western security.

Needless to say, a terrorist incident like occurred on the Tunisian beaches and may have occurred at the Naval Yard yesterday would represent much greater victories for the bad guys than closing a few beach hotels in Kenya.

I think families know this, now, and as their finances stabilize they understand what wonderful memories a family safari creates.

At Rivertrees Country Inn a few weeks ago in Arusha I was talking to one family of a very typical composition: grandfather and grandmother, plus two families of their two children with six grandchildren in total, all under 13 years old.

That is the perfect composition for a family safari, and as I was talking with the adults one of the 9-year olds saddled up to Bibi (Grandma) to tell her that this was the best family vacation he had ever had!

It was only their second day but the colobus monkeys were calling from the ground’s high fig trees and mongoose were scampering over the beautifully landscaped gardens.

Kids love a family safari because of the wildness. Imagine being a kid who lives his day with one rule on top of another. It must be absolutely liberating to experience a situation where his parents are as restricted as she feels: Nobody, not even adults, can walk out there with the lions!

I think, too, like learning languages at an early age facilitates greater language skills as an adult, immersing yourself in the wilderness at a young age primes the spirit not just to be adventuresome but to refresh the natural link every person has with the organic world.

Saying it more simply, it’s one of the few things for which they lower their phones.

By the way, I did discover an interesting drawback to the summer family safaris now returning to East Africa. Once back in the camp or lodge where civilization returns, the enormous drain on the internet system from kids’ phones is causing data congestion.

Gerd, the manager at Gibb’s Farm, is so worried about this that he’s researching software that would clamp the data availability per device, ensuring for example that his own office emails would work normally while ending streaming and photo sharing of his clients.

If that bothers you, imagine how it bothers Africans who have a much greater use of cell phones than Americans.

There are 26 satellites carrying cell phone data over North America. There are only 2 over the entire continent of Africa.

That can’t last for too long. There’s a lot more that Africa needs from the global internet network than Facebook.

My McGrath Family Safari ended yesterday. It was near perfect, and I don’t say that lightly, because such things are avoiding car breakdowns or camp booking glitches in the high season is often a matter of luck, not skill.

So Ngei was with us, I guess! As it was with the many other happy families I encountered so far this season!

Stability at What Price?

Stability at What Price?

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freedomprosperityAre freedom and prosperity at least somewhat mutually exclusive? Why is Africa so stable, today?

There is serious turmoil in Burundi, but in the major hothouses of death and destruction, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan, right now there is a remarkable level of peace.

Tuesday, Secretary of State Kerry became the first high American official to visit Somalia since Blackhawk Down in 1993. Kerry justified his visit because Somalia “is turning around.”

There are many wonderful indications to suggest this is true.

There is worrisome fragility in the current Mali government, and troublesome weakness in a number of West African governments probably due to the prolonged ebola outbreak, but governments in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa (other than Burundi) look strong and stable.
Why?

The answer is becoming clearer and clearer. Very strong military assistance mostly from the U.S. and France has propped up existing governments and laid to waste many areas of terrorism.

The starkest of the stark is Nigeria.

Literally for the last 5 years Nigeria was decimated by Boko Haram, at its worst situation (hardly a few months ago) ceding nearly 20% of its territory to terrorists.

Today Boko Haram is absolutely on the run. The explanation from one of Nigeria’s best media outlets:

“Unlike a year ago, when Nigerian troops would run away from Boko haram militants after running out of ammunition or for possessing inferior weapons, the Nigerian soldiers are now better armed, better equipped and better motivated.”

‘Better equipped’ is the understatement of the decade. The list of new equipment in the hands of Nigerian soldiers is astonishing, particularly when compared to the situation less than a half year ago.

It was not for wont of giving. The western powers were ready, as clearly demonstrated by the current situation, to arm the Nigerian military sufficiently. But a mixture of local politics and western hesitation because of the equivocal politics kept the ammunition in warehouses until now.

Legitimate concerns with protecting human rights were front-and-center in the paradigm that kept the previous Nigerian government of Goodluck Jonathan weak. These have been cast to the crows by the current president Buhari, a former general nearly imprisoned by his own society for human rights’ violations.

Ditto in South Sudan, the more “peaceful” Somali and ever more stable Kenya.

In addition to arming Africa to the teeth, Obama’s militarism these last six years has decimated terrorist cells and American drones have wiped out more than two dozen terrorist leaders.

Media freedom is a great barometer of authoritarian governments, since there has never been a government in the history of mankind that wasn’t vain.

Press freedom is under serious attack in … Nigeria, South Sudan and ever more stable Kenya.

So that’s the reason it’s safer than ever for you to travel to Africa: growingly authoritarian governments infused with western military might.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m troubled by this. I’m delighted that Africa is a calmer, safer, more stable place, but troubling if at the expense of freedom and the sanctity of human rights.

It seems that this age-old paradigm is near inviolable. Freedom and prosperity are at least somewhat mutually exclusive.

But wait.

Didn’t we try this, once? Weren’t there horrible South American generals and racist American governments and horribly cruel potentates that ruled the world for a long time not too long ago.

Did things get better? For whom?

Coastal Conundrum

Coastal Conundrum

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coastaltourismTourism is collapsing in East Africa. It began with terrorism but terrorism is down yet it continues to collapse.

Today you can get breakfast, dinner and a decent sea-view room in Zanzibar for $27.50 per night per person sharing.

These absolutely ridiculous prices can be found for a thousand miles from northern Mozambique to Lamu in Kenya, among some of the finest and most beautiful beach properties in the world.

“Officials on Friday warned that tourism at the Coast was on the verge of collapse with 30,000 to 40,000 staff set to lose their jobs,” Kenya’s main newspaper reported today.

Occupancy at most coastal hotels is hovering around 20% and major properties are closing down weekly.

Kenya and Tanzania’s white sand coral coast is also one of the most pristine in the world. Yes it is suffering the same coral destruction that climate change has foisted on the oceans around the world, but it’s better here, for example, than in most of East Asia.

What’s going on? Should you go?

Well, that’s the problem. Every western government in the world, plus Australia, says, ‘No, you shouldn’t go’ because of potential terrorism.

The northern border of this paradise is Somalia, and real trouble began there when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2002 sending all its most vicious criminals into Somalia.

Things weren’t so bad in the beginning, because it seemed like all the bad stuff happening in Somalia was staying in Somalia.

But then there was the election debacle of 2007 in Kenya with widespread violence that took nearly a half year to settle down. When it finally did, the U.S. began drone strikes in Somalia.

Then in 2011 Kenya, acting as a proxy for Obama’s growing wars against fleeing terrorists, invaded Somalia and all bets for a stable coastal tourism industry were off.

More drones killed more Arabs from Dar to Lamu, internecine warfare among the Arab sects in the coast heated up, prominent Arab leaders were assassinated in Mombasa and Zanzibar, and if ever there had been a stirred up cauldron of discontent and chaos, it was the East African coast.

Didn’t somebody say on TV this weekend that we’ve learned an important lesson from Baltimore? Didn’t someone say that we’ve got to do something more than just add police to stem crime?

Is that why Secretary Kerry is in Kenya, today:

to “discuss ways to more effectively deal with threats posed by the militant group al-Shabab”?

To get permission to fire more drones? To give Kenya more personal armored vehicles?

There haven’t been any serious terrorist incidents for months on the coast. (The Garissa University attack was considerably inland, far from tourist areas.)

But that’s the Catch-22: bring in more tourists and that will attract more terrorists, because terrorist attacks on tourists are always more powerful than local attacks.

I wonder if there were any businessman who invested in Belfast apartments in the late 80s? If so they’re making a killing, today.

Boko Bust Not Enduring

Boko Bust Not Enduring

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badboyLike all terrorist groups Boko Haram cannot be eradicated but it looks like they are being massively defeated, replicating what has happened to al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab.

Reuters reported yesterday that “Nigerian forces invade last known stronghold of Boko Haram.. n an effort to finally defeat their six-year-old insurgency.”

Once nearly a fifth of Nigeria was controlled by Boko Haram. Today the rebel group has retreated to Nigeria’s vast undeveloped jungles.

Like al-Qaeda in the Levant and al-Shabaab in Somalia, organized government military operations, covert or otherwise, have firmly routed avowed terrorist groups in the last decade. Even ISIS has been stopped, although ISIS and the intertwined war in Syria remain the most problematic.

Why?

Terrorists can never be totally defeated: One individual with the right video program and a suicide belt constitutes a terrorist movement.

The last vestige of terrorism is protected by basic human rights. By this I mean that the “freedom” of one’s actions, much less the freedom to acquire deadly weaponry or the freedom to expound provocative speech, aren’t easily curtailed. Few societies – much less our own – ban citizens from obtaining weapons, for example.

Even fewer are successful in banning provocative speech, no matter how hard they try. Censorship in China is becoming progressively impossible.

There is nothing that a political leader can do that is more popular than suppressing terrorism, but to succeed many human rights have to be suppressed. Obama and Hollande’s covert war in Somalia is at least extra-legal if not illegal. Arbitrary drone assassinations which have been so instrumental in this war’s success are hardly humanitarian.

The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq blow to smithereens centuries of fairness in conflict. The Russian policy of years ago in Chechnya applied now to the Ukraine violates all sensibilities of human rights. China’s suppression of Tibet exceeds even its own universal suppression of all its citizens.

Yet that is where today there is the least on site terrorism: U.S., Russia and China.

Strong quasi-legal brute force absolutely suppresses terrorism.

Since the Nigerian presidential election which ousted the moderate pro-democracy president for a much tougher, conservative and Muslim former general, the Nigerian army has racked up success after success in defeating Boko Haram.

The Nigerian military has always been able to suppress Boko Haram, it just chose not to do so under the current out-going administration. Progressive democracy and conservative strong-arm government often actually run by the military is the ying and yang of Nigeria.

The ying is out. The yang is in. Boko Haram is being suppressed, and expect in due course that many other things will be suppressed in Nigeria, too: like freedom of speech in the media and public demonstrations.

But .. the mantra will be that Nigeria is now “at peace, again.”

Here’s the rub, folks. Each time terrorism is suppressed by force it returns more powerful. Terrorists learn by experience. The disaffected of the world who survive being eradicated learn new, more powerful ways to reemerge.

Force suppresses but cannot eliminate. A single highly refined ounce of uranium is infinitely more powerful than a pound of uranium ore.

That is what we are doing with terrorists, today. We are making them better and more powerful and entrenching antithetical restraints on our human rights to do so.

When will we ever learn?

Terrorists Are Not Religious

Terrorists Are Not Religious

by Arusha ♥ 2 Comments

TerrorismNoReligionThe terrorist attack on a remote Kenyan university last Thursday that massacred more than 150 students is a terrible blow to what had been Kenya’s much improved security.

About a quarter of the university population was killed or injured mostly by suicide bombers who overpowered four front gate guards, then ran into the dorms and libraries where students were congregated, then pulled their bomb triggers.

Like the kamikazes of World War II, this unbelievable desperation is hardly an act of war. It reeks of the vengeance of those who expect to lose.

Kenyan security agencies had advised universities across the country a week ago that they suspected al-Shabaab would launch just such an attack on a university.

There are now a couple dozen substantial universities in the country and all of them went onto high alert. Garissa is among the newest, most remote, and nearest to Somali. It’s quite a distance from Nairobi or other populated areas of the country.

Clearly al-Shabaab – or whatever might be claiming to be al-Shabaab – was incapable of anything closer to the heart of Kenya.

As horrible as this is, it remains notable that terrorist attacks in places like Nairobi or even Mombasa have not occurred now for nearly two years. I still believe Kenyan security is better than ever.

As was Boston for the marathon. Bad stuff happens.

American media reaction was not healthy or rational: “The gunmen who attacked Garissa University College on Thursday singled out Christians for killing,” Fox News lied.

There was no attempt to determine the religion of those who were killed. After the massacre other al-Shabaab hoodlums entered the university and tried to kidnap non-Muslims, according to a report put out by al-Shabaab after the attack. News agencies have been unable to confirm the claim, although several dozen students remain unaccounted for. Those who gave interviews to the press said it was too chaotic for anyone to know if anyone else was a Muslim or not.

The bulk of the Garrisa student population, in fact, is likely secular. There are also many Sikhs, Hindus and even old fashioned animists. It was not a religious attack.

If America and others feeling besieged by terrorists continue to frame this struggle as a religious one, it will grow not diminish.

“I got an email from Anne Thompson, a journalist working with NBC News,” respected journalist and college dean, Luis Franceschi said.

“Ms Thompson’s questions reflect…most of the western world: ‘We are working on a story about today’s attack at Garissa University and are trying to understand what appears to be the religious roots of this incident… Are Christians safe in Kenya?’

“I would tell Anne Thompson a thousand times that the matter is not religious. The terrorists may say so and they are lying. If the matter were religious they would have been attacking us since independence, but they didn’t.”

The Muslim population in Kenya may be nearly a third of the avowed religious population. Muslim leaders hold prominent positions in the government and have since Independence.

Franchesci explained in an article for Nairobi’s main newspaper that the attack is linked to Kenya’s occupation of Somali, to corruption and to organized crime.

It was not a religious attack.

“I can confidently say that some of my very best friends and most impressive colleagues and students are pious and dedicated Muslims. In them I have always seen a wonderful example of virtue, humanity, sincerity and dedication, which I wish many of us Christians could imitate.”

Terrorism succeeds when it strikes irrational fears in those it challenges.

Fox News has been terrorized, and Fox News is losing. Let us hope the sane world knows better.

Jim posted this blog from Arusha, Tanzania.

The Cold Out of The Spy

The Cold Out of The Spy

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letsnotpaythemToday’s spy scandal in South Africa, CitizenFour and my own novel, Chasm Gorge, all show that the old spy isn’t all that he’s cracked up to be.

And that, my friends, is why not funding Homeland Security could be the greatest security threat the United States has faced since 911.

This morning South Africa is raked by still another controversy, but this one is more sexy because it’s about spying.

Calling South Africa the “El Dorado of Espionage,” the Guardian newspaper and Al-Jazeera jointly announced they had collected hundreds of secret documents from South Africa which revealed the identities of 78 spies working in the country, plus an additional 65 foreign intelligence agents.

(A subtle difference: a “foreign intelligence agent” is a credentialed foreign officer usually associated with an embassy or consulate who ostensibly works in a non-security area. A “spy” is your Johnny-down-the street.)

Both the Guardian and al-Jazeera are in the forefront of today’s investigative media, and both have agreed to not release the actual identities of those discovered.

Which is a shame because I rather think that most of these 143 people are pretty inept when considered in the context of our classic Cold War spy heroes. What’s been unearthed by these so-called spies seems either highly technical and something that a normal third grader facile with the internet could do, or kind of comic.

“South Africa … relied on a spy … to find out details of its own government’s involvement in a … joint satellite surveillance programme with Russia,” was how the [South African] Mail & Guardian described what it felt was the most significant story of the investigation.

Did you get that? South Africa used a spy to figure out what it was itself doing.

The two outstanding and aggressive news agencies characterize their investigation:

“The continent has increasingly become the focus of international spying as the battle for its resources has intensified, China’s economic role has grown dramatically, and the US and other western states have rapidly expanded their military presence … in a new international struggle for Africa.”

I agree. I just don’t share the belief that spies or foreign intelligence agents are the movers and shakers of this information.

As CitizenFour demonstrates all it takes is a geek. The world is so transparent, today — relative to the Cold War — that the skills required to uncover information have long since changed.

In my novel, Chasm Gorge, I portray African spies as old, pudgy and easily manipulated by nonspies: the politicians who are today’s real movers and shakers.

Which is why if we don’t fund Homeland Security, and since I’m scheduled to leave America on an airplane this weekend, and since there’s now a good chance the people manning security aren’t going to be paid … well, have you noticed some of those TSA folks?

Many don’t strike me as material for the Boston Tea Party militia. I didn’t feel in the beginning that their services would be very useful, but now that their services are institutionalized, they can very easily become compromised, too.

We have achieved a sort of stasis in preventing terrorism within America. By throwing everything and the kitchen sink at anything that wiggles, the marauding cats have been sequestered at the dumpsters.

If TSA doesn’t get paid, if all the tens of thousands of others throwing kitchen sinks don’t get paid, what’s going to happen?

Maybe exactly what Congressman Steve King wants: “It’s the only leverage that we have,” King told NewsMax yesterday.

I.E. The leverage to blow ourselves up.

Seems to me that’s exactly what a suicide bomber believes.

Listen to Africa

Listen to Africa

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notpropagandaAfrican critics are condemning the Oscars for validating American Sniper, which they charge is little more than propaganda.

Calling it a “highly dangerous and simplistic film,” respected Kenyan author Rasna Warah claimed this morning that American Sniper will reenforce the lies that many Americans believe regarding the Iraq War.

Popular South African movie critic, tha-bang, called the movie Clint Eastwood’s “biggest propaganda film ever.”

Warning her African readers that “though it may be hard to believe,” Warah explained that many Americans still think Saddam Hussein was involved with the Twin Towers bombing and that he harbored weapons of mass destruction.

Kenyans were drawn into this controversy, because director Clint Eastwood used documentary footage of the bombing of the Kenyan Embassy (in 1998) as part of sniper Chris Kyle’s motivation to become a Navy Seal and go into combat.

There is of course no connection whatever between those who organized and blew up the Kenyan embassy and those who were later fighting in Iraq.

“The fact that the weapons of mass destruction lie is so conveniently skipped in this movie as the rationale for the invasion of Iraq instead of the Twin Towers, just shows what kind of film this is,” tha-bang concludes angrily.

“The film has not only angered Arabs but fueled anti-Muslim sentiments,” Wasna warns.

Warah knows her stuff: she’s a Kenyan expert on African terrorism. Her books include “War Crimes” and “Mogadishu Then and Now,” two essential reads for persons interested in understanding Somalia.

I think we need to heed these voices, and of course critics of American Sniper for being propaganda are not confined just to Africa. There have been many similar critiques here at home and from respected critics abroad.

The better a production a movie is, the more dangerous it becomes if its message is unreal or untruthful.

American Sniper carries a message which is a lie, “American avengers are honest souls.”

They are not. American soldiers were no less tricked than me or you into thinking what they were doing was right.

It was wrong, and the film pulls that reality back into the fictionalized grandeur of a nonexistent America.

So whether or not the acting is superb, or the cinematography is near perfect, or the music splendid and dramatic, a message … which is a lie … is carried into the watcher.

We pride ourselves in America for allowing any voice short of one untruthfully screaming “fire” to enter our collective consciousness.

But if critics here at home condemn Obama because he won’t say “Islamic terrorist” then they better endorse Warah and tha-bang, too, for condemning Eastwood for not just rehashing but promulgating the biggest lies of my lifetime.

The Season Change… Again

The Season Change… Again

by Arusha ♥ 5 Comments

bokoharamleaderThis week’s aggressive attacks against Islamic extremists by Egypt, Jordan and now Nigeria is a significant turning point in the wars against ISIS and Boko Haram.

That’s not to say it’s a significant turning point in the “War against Terror.” But we’ll never get to figuring that one out until we start dealing in realities and admitting that the current western mission against ISIS and Boko Haram appears to be working.

It’s now been a day or more since countries in the region of Islamic terror have begun to fight back, and the response from the terrorists indicates they’re worried.

I believe the many seemingly disconnected events that happened this week in Africa and the Levant indicate that Islamic terrorists for the first time believe they are losing.

Al-Jazeera reported this morning that the Taliban and America are exploring “peace talks” in Qatar. The Taliban has had an office in Qatar for several years, and there have been other rumored meetings with America to no avail.

But in light of the much more extreme ISIS and affiliates, the Taliban now seems like Switzerland, very much worth talking to – or through – in times of travail.

Egypt bombed Libya, and Jordan bombed Syria and Iraq, to retaliate against ISIS’ beheadings of their nationals. In Nigeria a new offensive by the army claims to have killed hundreds of terrorists and reclaimed villages that had long been under Boko Haram’s control.

For so long Obama and other sane minds have explained that the war against Islamic extremists in the Levant will only improve when the countries in those regions actually pick up the fight.

Normally Boko Haram and ISIS would never the twain meet. The raw racism that exists between Arabs and Africans is something westerners can’t understand. It exceeds the antipathy of tribalism within Arabs (mostly Sunni versus Shiia) and Africans with their multitude of different ethnic groups.

If things weren’t going badly for radical Islamists as a whole, there would be no collaboration between the African Boko Haram and Arab ISIS. Yet that is exactly what is suggested today.

In a video released by Boko Haram vowing to disrupt the Nigerian election, the Boko Haram leader shows himself for the first time. That together with the professionalism of the production has all the markings of ISIS propaganda.

Recently the two groups released photos of each other’s flags and praised each other’s fighting. That’s hardly collaboration, but even if it’s a stretch to conclude anything more than empathy among villains that’s a significant change.

Almost exactly two years ago a similar new fight was happening in Mali. That represented the last hurrah of al-Qaeda. I predicted as such, and I think that is now what is happening to ISIS and Boko Haram.

Obama/Hollande’s strategy of chasing terrorists and wearing them down works, especially when countries in the area actually begin fighting.

As with al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab, they never disappear altogether and they fracture into new thugs, but they lose their original power and focus.

I’m not suggesting that’s enough, and I’ve often written how short-sighted this strategy is:

ISIS emerged from the fracturing of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Boko Haram emerged from the defeat of certain Tuaregs and other Islamic groups. So theoretically we’ll spend eternity squashing one group that emerges in the pyre of the previous.

Yet call a spade a spade, folks. The single greatest threat today to the specific if questionable mission to defeat ISIS and Boko Haram is to deny they are being defeated, that the mission is succeeding.

So the single greatest threat is ourselves, those of us who thrive on the need to be threatened: The McCains and Grahams, the Righties and Fox News who can’t see beyond their nose and believe they’re threatened from all sides until the room is nuked.

It’s exactly what the terrorists want. It is, in fact, their only hope: turning America into the quintessential suicide bomber.

Fight of the Hyaenas

Fight of the Hyaenas

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fightofthehyaenasEgypt’s bombing yesterday is proof positive that we have to get completely out of the current fight before something horrible happens.

The Egyptian president’s decision yesterday to bomb ISIS targets in Libya is a massive escalation of the current conflict. It turns it almost into something closer to the conflict in Ukraine, where tanks and SAM missiles replace swords and horses.

King Abdullah of Jordan sends a half dozen planes daily towards Syria, and now President El-Sisi is poised to send in tens of thousands of soldiers.

Egypt’s bombing was not just revenge for the ISIS beheading of 21 Egyptians several days ago. El-Sisi is just using that as a pretense.

It was not the actual beheadings that aroused El-Sisi’s attention as much as the backdrop: the Mediterranean Sea. ISIS was announcing that it had emerged from the southern deserts of Libya where it has been maneuvering to coalesce radical Islamists for more than a year.

ISIS wanted the world and especially el-Sisi to know that it is not a dumb desert phenomenon. There is little use in controlling an oil field if you can’t get the oil to port. ISIS beheadings made it to the port.

Neither was this a surprise to el-Sisi. He has been an ardent supporter of anti-Islamists in Libya, especially for General Khalifa Haftar. Haftar is an old and duplicitous face in Libyan politics who el-Sisi dusted off of the old generals’ shelf to become his proxy in Libya last year.

But despite Haftar’s several announced and only one partially successful coup against the powerless Libyan Islamic parliament, the old fighter suffered several military loses to ISIS in the last several months.

“Let those near and far know that the Egyptians have a shield that protects and preserves the security of the country, and a sword that eradicates terrorism,” the Egyptian military said.

El-Sisi is no Mother Theresa. Egypt today suffers a repression not unlike during the days of Mubarak. So whether El-Sisi’s action in Libya is good or bad or moral or immoral it’s the fact that many of us have been shouting to Americans for years:

It’s not our war. It’s theirs.

And if “they” take it up, then we can debate the sides we’d like to support, and I hope that will restrain any involvement we deem worthy because…

… there is no good side. ISIS is bad. El-Sisi in Egypt isn’t particularly good. King Abdul in Jordan isn’t your model of democracy and King Salman of Saudi Arabia stones adulterers and tears the skin off bloggers.

Al Qaeda is a grumpy old if still dangerous demon. Iraq has fallen completely apart as Sunnis and Shiias fight even within Baghdad. Afghanistan is ready to implode.

And not one of these – not all of these allied could bring the battle back to the Twin Towers. Don’t let the terrorists play on these latent fears. Not even they truly believe their religious hyperbole. America is a symbolic punching bag for all struggles, because we have nothing left to conquer than our self.

The fight in the Mideast is now distinctly, definitively not ours.

How many westerners have been beheaded? How many Egyptians?

I learned long ago as a guide in Africa that you don’t go into a hyaena fight, no matter how good the pictures might be.

Muddled America

Muddled America

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banksblockmeAnother bank stops money transfers to Somalia as American business continues to foment terrorism in The Horn of Africa.

As of this morning Merchant’s Bank of California will no longer process customer wire transfers to Somali .

This leaves fewer than a dozen mostly small banks left in the U.S. that still process wire transfers to Somalia.

I don’t know if it’s uncontrollable fear, explosive ego or just abject stupidity, but it’s so clear that this action will increase terrorism and any threats to America as a result.

According to Oxfam, $215 million annually is sent by Somalis in the U.S. to relatives in Somalia, equaling or exceeding the total annual U.S. foreign aid to the country.

“… millions of Somalis … are dependent on this for their daily lives,” Degan Ali, the founder of a Somali support group in Kenya told Reuters today. “We’re talking about food, shelter, medical needs, education …” she explained.

I remember my own grandfather each Saturday wiring much more than my grandmother thought appropriate to his relatives in Croatia.

Large banks like Wells Fargo and Citibank stopped the service a decade ago, citing U.S. government regulation as the reason.

In a message last week to its intermediary agents, Merchants said it had received a “Consent Order” from the Department of the Treasury requiring new procedures to ensure that the wires did not end up in terrorist’s hands, and that the procedures were either impossible to comply with or to expensive to pursue.

So which is it? Is it the U.S. government incapable of managing a regulation that determines the numbers of zeros after “$5” used either to buy a month’s worth of cornmeal or a SAM missile, or is it the banks who just don’t want to be bothered by a few more checklists?

Last April two Congressman from Minneapolis where America’s largest Somali community resides, one Democrat (Keith Ellison) and one Republican (Erik Paulsen), introduced legislation in The House to clarify and simplify these regulations.

Guess what? Boehner and company dumped it as increasing government involvement in the banking industry.

In December Oxfam published a timeline of American regulatory agency involvement in this, documenting so clearly how confused and contradictory it is.

So whether it is messed up self-destructive ideology, or messed up poorly created regulation, or both, once again America is shooting itself in the foot.

There’s no question that too much money is getting into the hands of terrorists. But the significant conduits are Saudia Arabia and other of our allies! Not expatriates in Minneapolis or Los Angeles sending chip change to struggling relatives!

That presumption is the success of terrorism. There are so few American expatriate Arabs and Muslims who feel anything less than outrage against terrorism that I feel embarrassed every time I write this sentence! Americans don’t – or don’t want to – believe this.

So the system on all sides gets muddled, we make the situation worse and worse with cockamamy wars and stops on bank transfers.

We act against our own best self-interest. Isn’t that terrorism’s first objective?

Terrorists will never defeat America. America will defeat America.