And, unsurprisingly, they are not pleased. Even more unsuprisingly, it is not Al Qaeda in Iraq or Al Qaeda from a cave in Pakistan that responded but Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and for Islamic Maghreb we can read Former French Colonies, particularly Algeria, and the country of origin for a good number of France’s Muslim immigrants. Perhaps least surprising of all is CNN’s choice to put ‘Al Qaeda’ in the headline and to leave ‘in the Islamic Maghreb’ for the body of the text, thus illustrating why the group probably assumed that name in the first place.

Christopher Boucek at Carnegie discusses the rubrics by which we can measure the success of terrorist/jihadi rehabilitation programs, given the recent revelations on recidivism among graduates of the Saudi's efforts in this regard. (Mentioned on this blog in November). Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal takes the a strong stance against releasing prisoners; if you have strong opinions either way, join the discussion on Stephens’ op-ed at Meedan (you’ll have to register - learn more about the site here). Karen Greenberg, Director of NYU's Center on Law and Security and my former employer, offers a different perspective.

It seems pretty clear to me that, while the discussion of rehabilitation programs and repatriation of detainees and appropriate vehicles for trial is important, it is somewhat secondary to the symbolic importance that Guantanamo has taken on both domestically and globally. The moment to rationally evaluate whether Guantanamo Bay is an acceptable place to detain ‘enemy combatants’ is long since passed - the administration should have had answers to these questions before they brought a single individual to Cuba. There are arguments, and maybe even some intelligent ones, in favor of offshore detention, but they ring hollow now because Guantanamo has become a flashpoint for all the upsetting elements of the war on terror. If I had to guess, I would say Obama will probably deal with the intractable 60 or so hardened terrorists that no one wants in a way that's pretty secretive and pretty unsavory and will involve something less than the American standard of due process. Those who think that full transparency is imminent are going to be disappointed. But he won't do it at a place whose name has become synonymous with the tarnishing of America's reputation, so it will be easier to stomach.

Blog readers (this one specifically and readers of blogs more broadly) have probably noticed FP's slew of new weblogs. (There are many - read the full list here). One, Shadow Government, features a group of conservative thinkers, and their collective bios are full of phrases like “the McCain-Palin 2008 campaign” and “the 200something National Security Council”. Philip Zelikow posted at the end of last week and over the weekend on the successes of the Bush administration as well as the failures; his insights are, at least for the most part, candid and informative and make for interesting reading, though you may not find them necessarily convincing. I found his points about the way that rhetoric and strategy has changed with regard to the way the US approaches nascent threats in the so-called war on terror illuminating. He argues that the Bush years nudged attitudes in the direction of pre-empting dangerous situations by addressing problem areas (e.g. Afghanistan under the Taliban) before they become disastrous. I would agree that generally, that seems to be the case; he offers pretty persuasive evidence in this bit:

In the initial debate over “preemption,” thesis met antithesis, but — despite the disastrous failures in the war against Iraq that was launched in 2003 — a constructive synthesis has emerged. As the dust settles, the bar has clearly moved forward, against terrorist safe havens and against proliferators.  The international burden of proof has clearly moved against would-be proliferators, as is evident from the UNSC resolutions passed against both Iran and North Korea (there is no precedent for counter-proliferation resolutions of this kind being passed under chapter 7 of the Charter).  

And consider this statement:

“This century's threats are at least as dangerous and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past….[detailing terrorist and rogue state dangers]…I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.”

George W. Bush? No. It's none other than President-elect Barack Obama, from his carefully considered policy manifesto during the 2008 campaign.

However, it's important not to decontextualize an idea like “preemption”. An attitude of “preemption” can lead to more humanitarian aid and a proactive approach in places like Afghanistan, which in principle seems difficult to contest. I also don't have trouble following this preemption argument to justify practices like monitoring the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities, and wiretapping the phones of terrorist suspects. Those practices might be more objectionable in principle; they have definitely been objectionable in practice in the recent past. And, while failed state Somalia continues to be, um, troublesome, evidence that the preemption idea has taken root with respect to things like surveillance is abundant.

Nonetheless, Zelikow's point stands: preemption as an attitude gained credibility during the Bush years, and we can expect to see that reflected in Obama's approach to foreign policy and national security. It remains to be seen how he navigates the high potential in a doctrine like that for both constructive and problematic developments.

Martin Indyk, of the Brookings Institute and numerous other institutions of repute, and the equally credentialed Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations co-directed a research initiative called Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President. You can read summaries of their work from Brookings here and from CFR here, or purchase it from Brookings here. From what my cursory reading of the summaries tells me, they focused on the big-ticket items: reconciliation and rebuilding in Iraq, defrosting diplomatic relations and stifling nuclear ambitions in Iran, resolving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and combating Islamic terrorism. Numerous scholars from both institutes (and possibly outside) contributed, so I am not sure whether they advanced a philosophical strategy for the region or simply stuck to policy recommendations for the individual challenges. I’m wondering whether it would be better NOT to advance a broad doctrine with respect to the Middle East … should each of these issues be treated individually? My thought is no, they are all related and need to be understood as such. School responsibilities are between me and perusing the reports, but my thoughts will be up here when I do.

The LA Times has an interesting Q and A up today with Farhad Khosrokohavar on his work interviewing inmates in a French prison who were detained for terrorism.

Times of London reports that terrorists and child pornographers overlap in the recesses of the internet, using some of the same tactics to transmit incrimination information without being caught. Quote:

The realisation that there might be something in common between violent Muslim fanatics known for their supposed piety and sexual deviants who prey on children has only slowly dawned on officers. Cracking the mystery of how these worlds overlap is expected to improve understanding of the mindsets of both types of criminals and has been hailed as a potentially vital intelligence tool to undermine future terrorist plots. "A way of finding who the extremists and terrorists are", an anti-terror source said, "is to go through the child-porn sites."

The surprise with which this is met indicates that the “war of civilizations” paradigm can be limiting as it shapes how we think about terrorism. The War v. Crime debate has certainly raged in America at a higher pitch than it has in Europe, but Europeans are certainly not immune to letting cultural stereotypes dominate their thinking about terrorists who use Islam as justification for their actions:

Stefano Dambruoso, Italy's anti-terror magistrate, said: "In our experience in investigating Islamic cells linked to al-Qaeda, they use pornographic images simply to camouflage the content of their messages. They use the images ‚ of men, women and children ‚ as an instrument to hide messages of quite a different content.

"I would exclude the idea that they have paedophile tendencies. The most you can attribute to them is a relationship between men and women different from that of us Westerners, in which ‚ as in many parts of the Arab world ‚ wives are often very young girls of 11, 12 or 13 who because of family negotiations are given in marriage to men much older than them. But that is not paedophilia, it is a question of Arab culture."

Pedophilia is a facet of Arab culture. Wow. In addition to being obviously offensive, these sorts of enforced boundaries between different types of criminals will make it more difficult to make connections between groups like pedophiles and terrorists. Conceiving of criminals as being outside the boundaries of social morality more generally, rather than adhering too closely to the social prescriptions associated with a religion of over 1 billion people. Construing terrorists as a unique, Muslim kind of criminal may make it more difficult intellectually to realize the following similarities:

One area that British anti-terror investigators are now keen to look at is the startling similarity in the way that jihadis and paedophiles target vulnerable young people, first befriending them and then slowly introducing them to warped behaviour that comes to be seen as normal. "What we were starting to see was a similarity in grooming that goes on in paedophilia and grooming that goes on in extremism," said the anti-terror source.

The source explained that both types of criminal also share a need for great secrecy and indeed it is the paedophiles’ status as outcasts as well as their expertise in encryption techniques that may have first attracted the terrorists. Hardline Muslim recruits are often given passwords and keycodes to terrorism sites via internet chatrooms, although sometimes they come from sympathisers in local mosques. But recently British police have managed to crack some of the codes that prohibit outsiders from accessing the more hardcore jihadi sites. Using child porn sites might be one way round this.

The Hoffman/Sageman debate over whether terrorism/jihad - pick your term - is best combated through a paradigm of local crime or organized global crusade certainly comes to bear in this issue. In the words of Balthasar Garzon:

"The danger of this "either-or' argument could lead us to the mistakes of the past," said Baltasar Garzon, Spain's leading antiterror investigatory magistrate. "In the '90s, we saw atomized cells as everything, and then Al Qaeda came along. And now we look at Al Qaeda and say it's no longer the threat. We're making the same mistake again."

Thinking of terrorists as either typical criminals or typical Islamic fundamentalists may lead to the same sort of limiting thinking.

The BBC interviews a Palestinian woman who recently completed training to become a suicide bomber.

According to MSNBC's correspondent, female suicide bombers in Iraq are sort of old news.

OIJ (my acronym, re-use at your own risk) is a part of the al-Qaeda network. Yemen has taken 25 men into custody as suspects.

The US embassy in Yemen today was attacked by car bombers. 16 people were killed, none of them Americans. US officials are blaming al Qaeda.

Daughters of Iraq is a program run in the model of the Sons of Iraq, insurgents-cum-policemen that have been instrumental in minimizing violence throughout the country. The DoI program is a response to the rise in female suicide bombers in the country. The Monitor has an interesting piece on the women who have taken on this task, and the ways that it has challenged accepted gender roles, et cetera. Conflict and war present all sorts of obstacles to maintaining the status quo and gender norms are, in many cases, one of the casualties.

I have one small (ok, not small) criticism of the treatment of female suicide bombers in this article. One of the major issues of the war on terror is defining our terms: who, exactly, is the enemy in this war? The framing is frequently vague and as a result, the cohort of possible opponents is constantly expanding. (Moustafa Bayoumi's book articulates the struggle of one group that has been unwittingly included in the opposition camp, young Arab Americans). Here, the author describes the motivations of female suicide bombers in the following terms:

While the motives of each bomber varies, US military officials say most female suicide bombers share at least one of the following characteristics or circumstances: dishonor through sexual indiscretion, loss of a family member and a desire for revenge, desire to attain heroic status, inability to produce children, or an interest in demonstrating gender equality.

Ok, their data is their data, and I am sure that this isn't fabricated. But an inability to produce children? An interest in demonstrating gender equality? As a motivation for terrorism? Please, be a little more discerning in the way you frame these issues. Try not to include barren women and feminists in the “threat” category with so little acknowledgment of how complex these issues really are.