Note on Ferguson, The War of the World

In his fussy, The War of the World, Niall Ferguson presents a moral view of the twentieth century reviewing mostly secondary sources to declaim the savagery of the 20th century. Ferguson shows primarily how not only financial difficulties as well as economic progress, in short, economic volatility of any sort, along with decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, and social violence resulted in the wars, and the genocides of what he calls "History's Age of Hatred."

The book was widely acclaimed, Ferguson was interviewed and on podcasts, The New York Times Book Review named War of the World one the 100 Notable Books of the Year and acclaimed by many in 2006.

I am uncomfortable with his moralizing historical analysis which evaluates as much as it relates historical events. He seems to write a fuddy-duddy analysis of repellent dictators and economic troubles. One part of the subtitle, the Descent of the West, seems cloying or perhaps he means the phrase in an ironic nod to Darwin. I'm not sure.

Woman Stoned to Death

The Islamic State of Iraq swears vengeance on those Yazidis who killed a woman, Dua Khalil Aswad, who converted to Islam. In a brutal killing a crowd stoned her to death all the while filming or recording the event on cell phone cameras. The tape, which circulated on the Internet, provided graphic details of the violence but when the woman's garments reveal too much, the editors tactfully covered it up. Apparently graphic violence is acceptable to the Islamic avengers but a woman's skin is censored.

Yazidis [also Yezidi, Azidi, Zedi, or Izdi] are a syncretistic religious group (or a set of several groups), with ancient origins and comprising Gnostic core belief structure with other elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Manicheism, and Islam. Yazidi do not intermarry with outsiders or accept converts. Many Yazidi now consider themselves to be Kurds, while others define themselves as both religiously and ethnically distinct from Muslim Kurds. Most of the 700,000 Yazidi reside in the North of the country. The group remains secretive even today and its teachings are obscure and may not even be fully known even to its own adherents.

Free Stanford Education

Stanford University is beginning this terrific new program in which parents with incomes of less than $100,000 will no longer pay tuition. Parents with incomes of less than $60,000 will not be expected to pay tuition or contribute to the costs of room, board, and other expenses. Under the plan, students will still be expected to contribute their earnings from work during the summer and academic year. In order to access one of the best universities in the country simply contributing their spare time efforts is not a high price to pay. This would be an incredible deal for lower-income parents and a great boost for smart, but poorer students.

Iraqi Order of Battle Released

With the new month, the Iraqi Order of Battle has been revised.

Do You Recognize the Biker?

Police officers, one of them in a hazardous-materials suit, examined the military recruiting station in Times Square after an explosion damaged the front of the building early Thursday morning. Graphic source: Chip East/Reuters.

This may well be a dry run for a subsequent attack but video reveals a man riding on a bike who set off a small bomb at a recruiting office. The accounts are frustratingly vague on how similar the attack is to previous attacks on U.S. embassies. The bomb is also similar to attacks on recruiting centers elsewhere. On 3 May 2006 for example insurgents embarked on deadly attacks in Baghdad killing 16 people at a police recruitment center in Falluja, an American civilian contractor near Nasiriya and a police officer in Baquba; on 31 May 2007 a suicide bomber killed up to 25 people at a police recruiting center in Fallujah, though the estimated number of number of dead and injured have varied.

Al Qaeda Operatives Eliminated in the North

Graphic source: Long War Journal.

US and Iraqi security forces have killed or captured 26 senior leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq's terror network over the past several weeks. Eight of those killed were emirs, or leaders responsible for "a geographic or functional area," five were cell leaders, and 13 were facilitators "involved in supporting the network of foreign terrorists, organizing the movement and security of senior leaders of the terrorist cells, or the making and use of improvised explosives and suicide vests." Those identified highlights how al Qaeda's operations have shifted from Anbar and Baghdad provinces to the northern provinces of Diyala, Salahadin, and Ninewa. Of those al Qaeda leaders identified, five operated in Mosul, two in Tikrit, one in Sharqat, and one in Baqubah, all in the north. Only two of those identified as killed or captured came from Baghdad.

Point of Contrasting Candidates, Historically

The point of contrast between today's Presidential candidates and the past could not be clearer.

For example, John F. Kennedy was interviewed on 3 January 1960 for the "Meet The Press" show once he announced he was running for President on the Democratic ticket. The interviewers are serious, sober, and ask numerous substantive questions. Kennedy is articulate, has a grasp of history, bases his thinking on sound reasons, he discusses and supports a foundation of thought on constitutional issues, and finally, he does not mince words on even the tough questions posed to him. The questions are directed at the candidate and they get out of the way. The overwhelming numbers of words come from Kennedy.

On the other hand, in a recent disagreement Obama and McCain spout off sound bites vapidly. Yet, the commentators, who dominate the issue, blather on blissfully about how the candidates have finally reached a point of policy and they seem thrilled that the disagreement is dealing with one issue, at least, seriously. Its just pathetic. They are gleefully mugging for the camera and note how exciting and interesting the debate is. They spew out an abundance of words, and no one seems to note that both Obama and McCain seem ignorant of the issue they are discussing. The commentators only seek to heighten the conflict.

Isn't it just by coincidence that the Meet the Press clip are all male interviewers, although it should be noted that the show included females as well, and the contemporary clip is all women?

And now a word from our sponsor.

In short, this is the focus, not any sort of issue or choice that a voter could consider. Its teletainment.

Saleh the Intended Victim of the Airstrike

The U.S. airstrike was in fact targetting Al Qaeda leader Saleh in the southern Somalia action. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a senior operative for al Qaeda's network in eastern Africa, was "found, targeted, and killed" along with an unspecified number of al Qaeda operatives in the town of Dhobley along the southern border with Kenya.

Nonetheless, although news reports have run the story, the U.S. military has not confirmed Saleh's death with DNA and other forensic evidence to confirm the identity of those killed in the attack.

Nabhan is also wanted for involvement in the 1998 suicide attacks against US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The attack in Nairobi, Kenya resulted in 212 killed and more than 4,000 wounded. The attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania resulted 11 killed and 85 wounded. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, al Qaeda's operations chief in East Africa, and Abu Taha al Sudani, the leader of al Qaeda's network in East Africa were also behind the attacks.

Pakistani Censorship Technically Explained

At the risk of sounding overly technical, I tried to understand how Pakistan could shut down the Internet as the government objected to what it considered disparaging to the Prophet Mohammed. Pakistan used a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) injection. In lay terms, Pakistan changed its Internet routing information for YouTube so that requests would go to Pakistani servers, not YouTube's. But the changed information was also sent to Pakistan's own Internet provider, Hong Kong's PCCW, which accepted it and passed it along to the rest of the world. And the result was that almost instantaneously, YouTube disappeared, for you and I.

The nefarious Pakistani deed took about two hours to correct.

BGP injections won't be fixed nor will they likely be. At times it is by accident, other times spammers or hijackers are sabotaging an address. More ominously, governments keep attempting to censor Web sites, and in the climate we are in, that kind of sabotage is likely to happen more and more.

The basic issue is that for the big network providers, relations between them still runs on trust. And as long as one of them sends out routing information to the others, we presume it to be true.

IronKey Secure the Best Stick

Computerworld surveyed 7 secure USB drives and concluded that based on features, price, security, and similar concerns, the IronKey Secure was the best of the lot. The item tested, a 4GB version, also available in 1GB and 2GB sizes, is listed at $149.99 with 128-bit AES encryption.

U.S. Airstrike in Somalia May Target Fazul

With news that a U.S. airstrike hit an al Qaeda safe house in Somalia the speculation is that the launch targeted Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, among others.

I am pleased to see that the U.S. did not check with Europe for permission before launching the strike. At least I do not know that we asked for permission. This is another individual that would not be a loss for humanity to lose.

The airstrike targeted an al Qaeda safe house in the town of Dobley in southern Somalia, just four miles from the Kenyan border.

The target of the strike has not been identified, but it may be Fazul, and the military believes the strike was successful. At least eight were reported killed and six more are reported to be trapped inside the rubble of the safe house.

This is the fourth known US-led airstrike against al Qaeda operatives in Somalia since the Ethiopian operation to drive the Islamic Courts from power was launched in late December 2006.

The US targeted Fazul Abdullah Mohammad, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, and Abu Tala al Sudani during the early 2007 strikes. Fazul was again targeted in June 2007. They are believed to be sheltering in Somalia, and one or more of them may have been the target of today's strike.

Fazul is al Qaeda's operations chief responsible for planning the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as the 2002 car bombing attack in Kenya and missile attack on an Israeli airliner.

He needs to go.

The Hunters Are Now the Hunted

The word out on the Marines is that big game hunters are now providing training for Marines sent to Iraq.

Combat Hunter is the name of the program begun at Camp Pendleton which is now being rolled out nationwide. The program is designed to help Marines more keenly become aware of their senses and instincts while stalking and killing insurgents. The Marines are trained to be better observers while accumulating meticulous knowledge of their foes' habits.

This is a primal skill that with the enormous growth of technology in warfighting we may have lost.

On the one hand, the Marines are simply being re-trained to recognize our animal nature. We are animals, even if we are not nothing but animals. And two, they are trained killers anyway so they are no more likely to be a problem adjusting to normal live upon their return. These are two concerns that have been expressed but I believe them to be misplaced.

Although I may share concerns about an erosion of liberty, which I do, I don't see how developing a more lethal military to eliminate our enemies, is a problem.

Furthermore, viewing an enemy, as an animal as we are ourselves, does not lessen the humanity of any Marine. In response to this story, "Anonymous Hollywoood Blacklist Dodger" stated: "Finally an admission from an official goverment agency (the Marines) that we are in fact, bipedal, semi-domesticated, mostly hairless primates." Now, that's funny.

Friedman Tells Insurgents to "Suck On This"

Thomas Friedman, of "Flat World" fame, is interviewed by Charlie Rose while relating the "bubbles" of the '90s to his thoughts on whether it was worth it to get involved in Iraq.

U.S. Combat Deaths Decrease

Graphic source: Photo: Danfung Dennis/WPN.

Any casualties are regrettable but what can be stated positively is that U.S. casualties dropped last month.

The official U.S. troop death count in Iraq stands at 29, the third-lowest monthly casualty toll for the U.S. military since the American-led invasion in 2003. The count includes 3 non-combat deaths.

40 were killed in January, a year ago the count was 81. There has been a dramatic decrease in American troop deaths.

Although various criteria measuring violence confirms that there has been a downturn, Iraqi casualties increased which no doubt reflects the greater role that Iraqis are playing in reconstruction.

The three key factors which are widely credited with reducing violence in Iraq over the past six months are: an increase in U.S. troop levels; a cease-fire by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia; and the decision by tens of thousands of Sunni fighters to accept U.S. funding and turn against al-Qaida in Iraq.

U.S. Rolls in Mosul

U.S. and Iraqi security forces are removing al Qaeda in Iraq from its last urban stronghold in Mosul. Multinational Forces Iraq killed two senior Saudi al Qaeda operatives there. The two, Abu Yasir al Saudi, and Hamdan, were eliminated during a helicopter strike.

Abu Yasir al Saudi was al Qaeda in Iraq’s emir, or leader, of southeastern Mosul. Hamdan was a close associate of Yasir who helped foreign terrorists enter Mosul and led a regional anti-aircraft ring.

142 al Qaeda leaders and operatives have been killed or captured in Mosul since January in this last urban outpost of AQ.

In what is surely a harbinger of disaster for Saudi Arabia, and more importantly for the U.S. unless we cut our ties with the oppressive regime, Saudi nationals make up the largest element of the foreign al Qaeda fighters. Based on documentation found last October, 41% of foreign fighters were from Saudi Arabia. Libyan nationals accounted for the second largest group entering Iraq with about 19% of the total, followed by Syrians and Yemenis each at 8%, Algerians with 7% and Moroccans at 6%.

Universal Gossamer

You really have to love the interaction possible with the Internet and in this example, specifically YouTube. I was watching a good interview with Michael Scheuer about his latest book, Marching Toward Hell, and I see the commentary and interpretation of the interview from a guy who claims to be a former UAE Undersecretary, of what exactly, it is not clear on his biography page. What we have here is an original production, then analyzed and elaborated upon in a subsequent format, and which then can be commented on and posted as I am doing here. It is like an endless gossamer of spinning, commenting, analyzing, and reacting.

Have We Learned Anything About Warfare in Iraq?

DARPA's Urban Mapping technology seems to provide proper support for the complexities of modern warfare and current challenges for the street level fighter in Iraq. The new technology--called the Tactical Ground Reporting System, or TIGR--is a map-centric application that junior officers can study before going on patrol and add to upon returning. This reminds me of a Google Maps mash-up on steroids and allows a soldiers to get up close and personal to their environment. By clicking on icons and lists, officers can see the locations of key buildings, such as mosques, schools, and hospitals, and retrieve information such as location data on past attacks, geotagged photos of houses and other buildings (taken with cameras equipped with Global Positioning System technology), and photos of suspected insurgents and neighborhood leaders. They can even listen to civilian interviews and watch videos of past maneuvers.

Et Tu, NetBrute Scanner?

The NetBrute Scanner is a handy tool because it surveys your network for a vulnerable point of entry: shared folders or open ports. There are three simple security tools that will put your network through a basic security check, looking for shared resources and open ports. In addition, you can also use it to test the security of any Web servers on your network.

The tools can be checked on any individual PC on the network by using its network name or IP address. There is also the ability to scan an entire range of IP addresses. I find the latter more difficult to apply and use successfully.

The program lists all shared resources and lets you connect to those resources and browse them from the program as well. The program also scans the PCs on the network for open TCP ports, so you'll be able to find out what Web servers, FTP servers, Telnet resources and the like are installed. For security, it will identify your port vulnerabilities.

The third utility in the suite checks the Web servers on your network and sees whether it can break into them using a "dictionary attack" by trying combinations of user names and passwords to gain access to the webmaster's account. The feigned access replicates a brute force attack.

Support for Wikileaks Grows

I find it ironic, and frightening, that in the same week the Pakistani government censors YouTube is the same time that an American Court disabled Wikilieaks.org, a whistle-blower site.

Fortunately, a number of privacy and civil rights advocates are calling on a federal court to reconsider its decision.

A motion was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union, the Project on Government Oversight, and a Wikileaks user asked the court for permission to intervene in the case.

The groups asked the court to dissolve its permanent injunction disabling the Wikileaks.org Web site. They claimed that the court's action violated their First Amendment right to access the contents of the Wikileaks Web site.

Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society's Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) is also sympathetic towards Wikileaks and the center filed a brief opposing the court's injunctions against Wikileaks and its domain registrar Dynadot LLC. The brief that they filed also cited First Amendment concerns.

The new found support for Wikileaks comes in the wake of two injunctions issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White on February 15. The injunctions were in response to a lawsuit filed by the Julius Baer Group, a Swiss bank that, according to documents on Wikileaks, was involved in offshore money laundering and tax evasion in the Cayman Islands for customers in several countries, including the U.S.

The rulings elicited vociferous criticism from privacy and civil rights groups that saw it as an unprecedented violation of First Amendment rights.

An additional hearing takes place tomorrow.

Predicting the Next Big One

Want to predict terrorist behavior?

The prediction of terrorist behavior is the goal of a new initiative at the University of Maryland. The University launched a data mining portal for counter-terrorism research.

The researchers consider that the unpredictable groups are useful for policy analysts and counter-terrorism groups who can use past behavior to forecast terrorist behavior.

The University of Maryland's Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), specifically, the SOMA Terror Organization Portal (STOP), uses publicly available data on more than 110 terror groups from around the world. In addition, it uses a real-time data extraction tool called T-REX to scour and extract data from more than 128,000 articles a day on an average of 180 news sites in 93 countries. The data is then organized into columns by year, variables associated with the group, such as an attack it might have carried out, or any counter-measures taken against it by a government. As a result, each variable then gets a numeric code representing its relative importance.

SOMA, or Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents, then creates rules about the various terrorist groups, thus predicting their behavior, in its database.

The conclusions are worth considering. Hezbollah is demonstrated then to show that when it was involved in electoral politics, the chances it will attack civilians outside of Lebanon was in the 69% to 87% range. On the other hand, those chances dropped sharply when Hezbollah is not involved in electoral politics. The conclusion seems to be counterintuitive. Hezbollah is more violent as it is involved in democratic politics.

SOMA proved to be accurate in predicting an outcome about 90% of the time. This accuracy rate would be invaluable if consistent. The researchers had inputted ten years of data on each group and as a result turned out an accuracy rate over 90%. While the tool could not predict any specific target or time line the data could be invaluable for increasing security.

Nonetheless, the tool is a promising beginning for generally baffling human phenomenon.