Not Much New for Osama

Bin Laden didn't have much to say. There is a new tape of a 9/11 terrorist but the same old tired rhetoric. The audience for this tape is Middle Eastern. I can't see how many people in an American context are fearful as one of the points of the attack seemed to be.

With nothing compelling to say, al-Qaida will wait to strike in a bigger and bolder attack. They are patient.

Progress Petraeus

Graphic Source: BBC.

I know he said "working" but I think he should be called Progress Petraeus. Petraeus has more to say tomorrow but as readers on this blog would have noted, I predicted what Petraeus would say.

I don't believe Petraeus is simply putting a Bush spin on the numbers; I believe in the essential substance of what he is saying: the military made the surge work.

He stated that the military objectives of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq "are largely being met." Although improvements were "uneven," violence had declined significantly since the surge began in February.

In his testimony before the joint hearing by the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, Petraeus said "security incidents," had declined since the start of the surge; he anticipated the withdrawal of around 30,000 U.S. troops by the middle of 2008, beginning with 2,000 marines in September.

However, the situation in Iraq remained "difficult."

A record 168,000 US troops are now in Iraq after 30,000 arrived in the surge between February and June.

Petraeus told the committees that troop numbers could be eventually reduced to pre-surge level without jeopardising the security situation.

But he warned that a premature reduction would have "devastating consequences."

"It is possible to achieve our objectives in Iraq over time, although doing so will be neither quick, nor easy," he said. If this is a gradual draining of our resources, then this point was not addressed.

The objective of the surge was to buy time for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to end sectarian violence and secure a political settlement between sectarian groups.

Maliki failed. Iraq has not produced leaders who want to lead, and leaders who do not want to end the corruption, waste, and stop sectarian violence.

The U.S. military did their part; the Iraqis failed themselves.

Grim Statistics: Military deaths

Less than 3,800 Americans have died in Iraq. Every death is a tragedy but this is a reflection on the numbers of American deaths in past conflicts.

The bleak summary of numbers illustrates a point of clarity.

Civil War - At least 618,000.

WW II - 405,399

Since the Iraq conflict began, around 170,000 Americans died in automobile accidents.

WW I - 116,516

Vietnam - 58,209

Korea - 36,574

Mexican War - 13,283

Philippine-American War - 4,324

War of 1812 - 2,260

Spanish-American War - 2,446

In the latter two wars, the involved military forces were less than a tenth of the size of our current military. Likewise, American deaths might be expected to have more of an impact given the smaller population of the country at the time.

Since the Iraq conflict began, around 170,000 Americans died in automobile accidents. Yet, no one is outraged with automobile deaths and no one is seriously calling for an end to driving.

Whatever one feels about the misguided notions and wrongful thinking of how the U.S. entered the war, simply citing combat deaths as a reason to withdraw seems misplaced. Relatively speaking, the numbers are significantly less than most American conflicts.

If you throw out the in many ways non-comparable internal Civil War, and WW II, automobile deaths are a huge tragedy that few are outraged about, and the fact is the U.S. has been relatively unscathed. Our deaths are low relative to the size of our population.

Canterbury Coach

A motley group of travelers are thrown together to reveal and contrast their backgrounds and ideas:
The Canterbury Tales and Stagecoach.

The bare bones description seems to fit both. The thought occurred to me while screening John Ford's classic film.

Osama Ho Hum

Graphic source: Investigation by FBI, public domain graphic of Adam Yahiye Gadahn.

The world will little note nor long remember this message but for the time being he has the attention of the media. The far more important Osama bin Laden tape is the one where he got away.

Before Bush was President, and well before Iraq, the primary bin Laden hunter in America, Michael Scheuer claims that Clinton was given 8-10 chances by sound intelligence to take bin Laden out but Osama got away. Scheuer states that by late 1999, bin Laden could have been a "smoldering memory." Tennant and others in the intelligence community deferred to the law enforcement arm of the U.S. government. This was a mistake. The U.S. faced an international terrorist and a Clintonesque law enforcement strategy was not adequate.

Meanwhile, Osama drones on.

The new video message from bin Laden appeared on militant Islamist Web sites Saturday, a day after it was released by the U.S.-based SITE Institute, a terrorist monitoring organization. Television was the chosen medium although Web site posting had been the usual means used by bin Laden.

The video portrays bin Laden as a rather restrained preacher, he makes no overt threats, and he does not call for the spectacular type of attacks which seems to characterize al-Qaida. The message is more direct, addressing Americans and telling them the Iraq war has failed and urging them against capitalism, multinational corporations, globalization, democracy and finally, "I invite you to embrace Islam," he states. The message is: Islam is the answer to the evils of America.

American intelligence agencies are still studying the video for authenticity and hints about bin Laden's health.

There is a Marxist twist to the terrorist understanding of the West as bin Laden notes: "as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the . . . capitalist system."

Bin Ladenism fails to appreciate liberal democracies which eliminated many of the worst abuses of untrammeled capitalism. In this regard, bin Laden seems trapped in an antiquated understanding of how capitalism works. He seems to still view capitalism as a pure Adam Smith variety of capitalism which no longer exists. The only rapacious form of capitalism still alive in the Middle East. With the discovery of oil, fabulous Middle Eastern wealth was created for the fortunate few with the resulting decline of any progressive and upwardly mobile lifestyle possible for the unfortunate.

This would also explain why bin Laden's appeal is to the most downtrodden in Iraq and Afghanistan who have little chance of improving their lives through education, a democratic political process, or equitable, liberal economic reform. Globalization has impacted the Middle East severely, as the Middle East suffers from repressive regimes, a lack of capital investment, low rate of education, and a non-innovative business climate. All of this makes bin Laden's violent appeals all that more dangerous. It is an expression of Middle Eastern backwardness and frustration.

Interestingly, some analysts believe an American, 28-year-old Adam Gadahn, may have authored at least part of the speech.

The intelligence considered reliable about Gadahn includes:

Adam Yahiye Gadahn, born Adam Pearlman, grew up in rural Southern California [near Riverside California] and had frequent contact with Muslims. He converted to Islam in the mid-1990s and moved to Pakistan to study a few years later. He was apparently radicalized there.

Between October 2004 and September 2006, Gadahn appeared in five videotapes in support of al-Qaeda.

U.S. officials labeled him as a propagandist for the organization. He is not charged with taking part in any terrorist operation.

The Rewards For Justice Program of the U.S. State Department, is offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to the arrest of Gadahn.

He speaks English and Arabic.

He is the first American to be charged with treason since the World War II era. The counter-terrorism site Global Security is the source of information about Gadahn.

Gadahn has been charged with treason as an al-Qaida propagandist, and while making insider American references, he has attacked capitalism and globalization while appearing in several al-Qaida-produced videos.

The age-old communist cabal against warmongering corporation reappears in a theistic Islamic cover.

On a fashion note, bin Laden's trimmed beard is shorter than in his last 2004 video, fully black and clearly dyed while having dark bags under his eyes, speaking softly, as he usually has.

This is the first video since 2004, and he had not put out an audiotape in more than a year, his longest period without a message. The message is pretty much outdated, absurd, the only real significance is that he is still alive.

The video must be recent since he mentions that "several days ago" Japan marked the 62nd anniversary of the 6 August 1945 atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He also refers to last year's Democratic Party congressional victory and to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected in May. If authentic then, the tape was apparently recorded in early August.

Petraeus: Progress, Redeploy in Spring

Petraeus favors a troop buildup until next spring. He stated: "Based on the progress our forces are achieving, I expect to be able to recommend that some of our forces will be redeployed without replacement," according to the Boston Globe.

Survey of Globalization

The video summarizes some important points.

Sources: Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod: Globalization and The Information Age.

Music Credits: (1992) "The Last of the Mohicans" off the soundtrack the song is (Elk Hunt/The Kiss.

China, No to Wikipedia, Again

China has blocked access to Wikipedia after an almost uninterrupted two months. The Chinese government blocks sites deemed questionable but with no explanation.

Bush Mum On Chinese Hacks

Bush did not discuss recent allegations of the Chinese hacking Pentagon computers but The Financial Timesis still reporting additional hacks. Beijing is also suspected of hacking British government networks as well as earlier reporting that the Pentagon and German targets were also hit by China. China is engaged in hostile intelligence activities based not on Cold War methods but on hacking.

Recently, MI5--Britain's security service--warned that the biggest cyberattacks may arise from China and Russia.

Stonebraker Turns Over a New Rock

Relational database pioneer says his technology is a dinosaur but by chance he has a new product to offer.

Michael Stonebraker researched relational databases, or RDBMS,' at UC, Berkeley in the early 1970s but now with a new product he has more to offer.

Ingres and Postgres technology is the foundation for many leading relational databases such as SQL Server, Sybase Inc.'s Adaptive Server Enterprise, Ingres Corp.'s product, IBM's Informix, among others.

The new product is column-oriented databases which just happens to be built by Stonebraker's latest start-up, Vertica Systems Inc. which store data vertically in table columns rather than in successive rows.

Maybe he has a vested interest in the adoption of the new column-oriented databases.

Chinese Deny Hacks of Two Countries

China denies that the type of hacks it has been working on, military intrusions, is not what it has done to the Pentagon network.

Yesterday, China denied that in June it had attempted to access the Pentagon. This is not the first accusation.

Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, denied the charges.

The Financial Times quoted American officials who said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was behind the June hack. American officials interviewed clearly thought China was responsible.

The Pentagon network had been taken offline in response to the attacks.

The attack was against an unclassified email network in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

A month previously, the Department of Defense claimed that the PLA maintains first-strike cyberwarfare units whose arsenals include computer viruses.

Although Jiang denied the charges, just last week, Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, accused China of the same type of hacks. Der Spiegel reported that government ministries as well as Merkel's office, had been infected with spyware planted by Chinese hackers.

Denmark Not Laughing Over Terror

According to the AP, Denmark arrested eight al-Qaida suspects planning an attack using explosives.

The suspects included six Danish citizens and two foreigners with residence permits who had been under surveillance for some time.

Denmark had participated in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

The suspects ranged in age 19 to 29, and, although not identified by name, are of Afghan, Pakistani, Somali, and Turkish origin.

Germans Do Not Kowtow to New Threats

Graphic source: Michael Probst, AP.

Germany arrested three suspected Islamic militants on charges of alleged "imminent" acts and plotting "massive" attacks on U.S. military sites.

U.S. military installations, such as Ramstein Air Base, as well as "soft targets," such as nightclubs visited by American service personnel and German civilian targets were identified.

German federal prosecutor Monika Harms stated that the suspects had trained at terror camps in Pakistan and assembled 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives. The attacks could have been timed for anniversary of 9/11.

The potential to make bombs would have more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings, according to Joerg Ziercke, head of Germany’s Federal Crime Office.

The three suspects range in age from 22-29 and were considered suspicious by authorities since they had been observing a U.S. military facility. The trio included two German nationals and a Turk.

Their training at Pakistani camps were run by the Islamic Jihad Union, Sunni Muslims, arising from Central Asia and an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

The band were drawing unemployment benefits since they had no gainful employment.

Germany’s elite GSG-9 anti-terrorist unit arrested the suspects in a large-scale investigation that included 300 agents.

Police had been monitoring their email for six months.

A pattern is emerging with these threats, as parliamentary debates were being undertaken in regards to continued involvement in Afhghanistan, this plot heated up, just as the Madrid bombings occurred to influence Spanish debates about Middle Eastern involvement.

Germany's attempt to stabilize Afghanistan against Islamic insurgents made it a target.

Germany is expected to keep troops in Afghanistan for several more years, despite the terrorist threats.

WeBWork, Web-based Interactive Homework Site

"WeBWorK is a web-based interactive system designed to make homework in mathematics and the sciences more effective and efficient."

I glanced at this which seemed worthwhile, although I am totally out of my bailiwick with the subject matter. It seems worth investigating though.

Video Glut

I read this recent report by a UC, San Diego professor who has warned that the U.S. economy may stall because of the massive upsurge in video posting. Unless the Net expands, according to the report, innovation may stall.

The report, "Point of Disconnect," by Profesoor Michael Kleeman a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Communication, seems counter-intuitive. Who is to say that videos do not add to efficiencies, and lead to more productivity. Many businesses are expanding into video and YouTube makes for an inexpensive video delivery mechanism.

Kleeman though seems to think that compression technology should be used more frequently, especially for video files, to reduce demands on the network.

The number of new videos uploaded daily to YouTube.com jumped from 20,000 at the beginning of 2006 to 65,000 daily at the beginning of this year.

But, if I were a SMB, I would employ YouTube for my training provider. I wanted to learn about Vista recently, and I found a number of handy Vista videos out there, all readily accessible on YouTube.

Its there, I'd use it.

Bush in Anbar

Graphic source: AFP

The fact that Bush visited Anbar province seemingly unconcerned about security and the insurgents is significant. Anbar is widely considered to be the heart of the Sunni insurgency but Bush came and went without incident. Petraeus must feel the U.S. has greatly reduced the threat from Sunni Arab militant groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Bank of India Hacked

The Bank of India site was hacked while displaying 22 malware exploits. Analogous to the January Super Bowl site hack, suspects are from a Russian group.

Sunbelt Software Inc. posted details of the hack once they found rogue code embedded in the site's HTML. The code, an IFRAME exploit, covertly redirected users to a hacker server with 22 pieces of malware installed then onto vulnerable PCs. By Sunbelt's tally, the malware included one worm, three rootkits, five Trojan downloaders, and several password stealers.

Roger Thompson, CTO of Exploit Prevention Labs Inc., posted a video of the hack (.wmv file download) that showed the massive infections and resulting system changes in a debugger window.

Alex Eckelberry, Sunbelt's CEO, thought this was the work of the Russian Business Network (RBN) gang. The RBN is characterized as "the baddest of the bad" by VeriSign iDefense.

The malware was installed through an exploit framework -- Webattacker, Mpack, Icepack -- as it was encrypted in the same way as Webattacker," Eckelberry stated.

Time For the World to Step Up to the Plate

The American surge has provided breathing room for the Iraqi government which has been in the news of late.

What I have been thinking about of late though is the role of diplomacy. The Iraq Study Group Report recommended diplomatic efforts, and the Democratic contenders have been stressing diplomacy in their criticisms of Bush's handling of the conflict in Iraq.

What successes have the Democratics had in enlisting foreign governments to get involved?

Which countries have jumped into the breach?

The Group recommended the U.N.'s involvement with Iran and the nuclear issue. Are there any developments on that front?

The Security Council, plus Germany, was to be involved. Has there been any progress since 2006?

If you haven't guessed by now, these are rhetorical questions.

I, like you, have not heard the Democratic contenders address the issue and the U.N.'s response has been tepid.

YouTube Emirate Founded

Graphic source: the Armoury of St. James. The unfolding emirate features a graphic of Saladin, who I picture here, but since the site does not credit a source I don't know if its borrowed or not.

Here is one of the ideas that can only happen in the wonderful, zany world of the Internet.

A hardy band of 'Netters, no, I didn't say nutters, announced that they are beginning a YouTube Emirate.

What is an emirate? This is the quality, dignity, office, or territorial competence of any Emir (prince, governor etc.). These folks think on a small scale apparently: the opposite of "if I were Emperor of the world," and then the person fills in the gaps of what they would do.

An emirate designates a political territory ruled by a dynastic Arab Monarch styled an emir. They are not too popular in the modern world as most emirates dissipated or were integrated into larger modern states. These are small time thinking folks.

The Arabic etymology suggests the term is generalized to indicate any province of a country that is administered by a member of the ruling class, e.g., a Sheikh of the royal family.

The basics of the idea then are to create a cyber small-time monarchical Arab state in YouTube-ville. Are you with me?

The group has gone so far as to write up a constitution, and by constitution they don't mean the French Revolution variety but an agreement to accept authority as Mohammed did some centuries ago.

Authority is a major point to this group: to wit, "There is to be one single leader of the Muslims on YouTube" (#2).

Sexism is important for this band as well since of that one leader it is stated to: "honor his authority" (#2).

The one authoritative leader has help though because there are two advisory committees. And what, pray tell, are the two top priorities that are needed to fill those committees? The "Disciplinary Committee" and the "Religious Consultants" are required (#3).

But perhaps the laws of the emirate are the high point of constitutional thinking here. From whence do laws of this mighty band arise? Of the laws governing the band it is stated: "All laws of the Qur'an and Islam must be followed and given precedence to this document. . . . The YouTube Terms of Service must be followed and given precedence to this document" (#5).

So let me get this straight: the Qur'an, and the YouTube Terms of Service, are held in equal regard as laws of this emirate?

Good thing this statement is still in draft form. I am no expert on statements like this but I suspect there are difficulties when any group maintains that a religious book and an American company's agreement with its customers are equal.

We do have a problem when folks are so inspired by past failures, Islamic Empires, but try to wed those notions to 21st century technology.

Is it just me or am I alone in appreciating the irony? Thanks to the U.S.A., and specifically an American company giving away free technology--based as it is on Western research in an open, free, scientific, and secular society--some people have allowed their fantasies to spiral exponentially.

I hope the emirate enjoys the blessings of the U.S.A.

Egyptian "Students" Nabbed

Mohamed with Megahed behind him in court. Graphic source: AP.

Most likely, this is another cell nabbed but they will have their day in court. The Egyptian "students" at the University of South Florida were indicted on explosives charges and carrying pipe bombs across state lines. One of the Egyptians also did some teaching to the other "student" apparently; he faces terrorism charges for allegedly teaching the use of explosives.

The pair was speeding 4 August in South Carolina when they were stopped near a Goose Creek, South Carolina Navy base. The men also possessed pipe bombs.

Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, is an engineering student; Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, is an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant, he faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

The indictment alleges that Mohamed taught and demonstrated the making and use of an explosive and destructive device with the intent that such information be used for . . . an activity that constitutes a federal crime of violence, according to the written federal prosecution statement.

Enemy combatants had been held at the Navy base so the FBI is investigating whether there was a terrorism link.

Mohamed was charged with distributing information relating to explosives which seems like a non-offense to me. Information should be available, and is, to anyone who seeks it out. The possession of destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction, is something else, and rightfully is a terrorism-related statute. The crime carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Both indictees face with charges of transporting explosives in interstate commerce without permits, which carries a 10-year prison penalty.

Local authorities carried the ball here initially and their suspicions resulted in a more vigorous case.

The local sheriff in South Carolina said the explosives were "other than fireworks."
The four-week investigation resulted in charges that followed several searches in Tampa, including a storage facility, and a park where the explosives might have been tested.

Both Mohamed and Megahed are here legally on student visas. Neither of their names though appear on USF's engineering website for students.

This looks like astute local police enforcement if the indictments hold up in court.