England Proactive in Protecting Young Against Al-Qaeda

Graphic source: Wikipedia Commons

Yorkshire is a fairly ordinary and representative area of England but interestingly enough, Al-Qaida is grooming Yorkshire pupils for terrorism. In the classroom, young people are "falling prey to extremists," according to Sir Norman Bettison, chief constable of the West Yorkshire Police, in a story published by the Yorkshire Post. Who would have thought the same general area that spawned the Beatles and rock guitarist, Mick Ronson, would produce AQ?

According to the constable, the force referred at least 10 youngsters, and two of them only 13 years old, to a programme designed to counter those who are prey to radicalism. The kids most prone to extremism are the brightest, those who had just entered senior school, and who had developed a penchent for extremist material from internet chatrooms. The Channel Programme employs five full-time community field officers who talk to kids who demonstrate an unusual interest in violent, extremist material. The programme only began four months ago but it identifies impressionable younger people from 13 to 27 years old. The idea is to get the younger people involved in alternate activities such as sports and it holds classes in citizenship. According to the constable, those engaged in grooming the young people are among the 2,000 suspected terrorists who are being monitored by police and MI5.

The efforts are not confined to terrorist groups but has included any violent extremists. For example, two 13-year-old boys, one Asian and one white, have been identified as reactionary right-wing types.

In England, forty people were convicted last year and 160 are awaiting trials (for alleged terrorism offences). The police work is intended to be proactive.

Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham denounced extremists stating: "As a Muslim I am even supporting the death penalty for those people who prey on innocent minds and where we can prove people are preparing to use innocent, vulnerable people."

Despite Significant Progress: Iraq Not Ready

Iraq seeks to have American troops in Iraq confined to bases and private security guards would be subject to local law. In the status of forces agreement (SOFA) under discussion several points come to mind. The sovereignty of Iraq is an important consideration but the country is in no position to be play a card with this point about sovereignty. Iraq's sovereignty, at this time, is guaranteed by one factor: the U.S. military.

The 150,000 or so U.S. troops in Iraq who live on scores of bases across the country, from little 30-men outposts to sprawling camps often built around old Iraqi army barracks, arises from the fact that this was the only military manner to ensure Iraq's security. To dismantle this system, post-surge, is unrealistic since the country would quickly descend into the maelstrom that characterized the poor military arrangement that was previously in place. Unless Iraq is ready now to completely take over its security, then the U.S. military should remain as it is now.

The second main point is even more troublesome, whether private security companies working for U.S. forces will continue to enjoy immunity from Iraqi law. Herein lies the problem. What Iraqi law? The rule of law came as a result of 1) the U.S. military; and, 2) private security companies. If Iraq is ready to handle the responsibility of the rule of law then indeed private contractors should be subject to Iraqi-American law. With significant terrorist opposition, the U.S. military and private contractors would be operating with a severe handicap that the insurgents are not subject to.

At this point, and despite significant progress, Iraq can not handle its own security and the law has not penetrated deeply enough, not yet anyway.

Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, stated (about the Americans): "They have to be there in the back and . . . in their camps. Whenever we ask them they will be ready to support and help.” So let me get this straight, `don't call us, we'll call you.' That is a policy that is fraught with failure.

The outrageous incidents involving Blackwater, the largest private security company in Iraq, are really regrettable but unless Iraq can secure the country and ensure the rule of law the private contractors should remain.

The U.S. has a status of forces document for more than 80 countries, including Japan, Turkey and Singapore, and these should provide the model with which the Iraqi accord can conform.

American Soldiers Embrace Islam in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan American troops are engaged in "Operation Embrace Islam." Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment are expanding the program started by its predecessors in the province, the 10th Mountain Division’s 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, to include refurbishing mosques in Paktika province. About 300 mosques have benefited directly through the program: new paint, solar-powered loudspeakers to announce prayer times, copies of the Quran, and new carpeting. The battalion hands out prayer rugs, turbans, shoes, teakettles and water jugs to local mullahs. These donations are expensive by Afghan standards, between $150 to $200, and the mosque refurbishing kits are even more expensive, sometimes costing several thousand dollars. There are about 35,000 villages and about the same number of mosques. The Americans have their work cut out for them to win hearts and minds by promoting religious objects in the province.

Note on The Naked Olympics

The boxers pictured here are engaged in the most lethal of Olympic sports. Greek athletes wrapped their fists in leather thongs and pummeled one anothers heads until one contestant surrendered. The head was the only fair target since hitting the body was against the rules.

Quite a romp through the ancient Olympic games is Tony Perrottet's The Naked Olympics. Although based on sound historical research he entertainingly describes the social and the more humorous aspects of the Olympics. For a brief but soundly researched and thoroughly entertaining volume you would do well to read this work. The work is timely now that the Beijing Summer Games are upon us.

Offensives Throughout Afghanistan

Graphic source: The Long War Journal

In some of the worst and violent anti-government activity to date, Afghan and Coalition forces launched separate offensives throughout most of the insurgency-plagued areas of Afghanistan: Badghis, southwestern Farah province and central Uruzgan province, southeastern Zabul province; Kapisa province, and in the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

June 2008 Order of Battle

Graphic source: The Long War Journal

Events have gone so well in Iraq after the surge I've only listed the significant weaknessess as noted by the best accounts of ground action as reported by The Long War Journal.

Significant weaknesses are:

• Logistics and intelligence are weak.

• The army will not start to aquire its first field artillery until 2009.

• Additional corps and support elements are being built and is needed for current force, but the force does need further expansion of line elements. The Iraqi Security forces are currently adding their fourth corps level joint command, Anbar Operational Command.

• Major increases in armored vehicles, especially tanks, are needed.

• The Iraqi Air Force is a decade from independence. It takes two years to train a pilot compared to only three months for an infantryman.

Military Occupation and a Positive Precedent by the Heroic Generation

The Iraq fiasco has been widely lamented although similar situations

have worked out more positively and provides a precedent for the nay-sayers to consider.

Lucius Clay states:

This government was established under Military Government and it was timely that our remaining task in Germany be transferred to civil authroity. An occupying army had taken the lead in restoring self-responsibility to the German people and in encouraging the formation of democratic government. It was something of which the Army could be proud and which might well set a valuable historical precdeent.

The U.S. military has been a successful occupation force after an invasion in the case of both Germany and Japan that Richard J. Barnet admirably describes.

So what did the heroic generation have that we don't have? Clay describes the difficulty of seizing, managing, and making productive a key industry. In Germany it was the energy resources and in Iraq its oil. He makes it crystal clear that no opposition would be tolerated and notes small examples of resistance that were crushed. The problems of post-war construction were as seemingly as insurmountable as an unilaterally-governed Iraq but Germany was perhaps an even more intractable situation. The additional complication that Clay resolved was multilateral governance in particular given the truculence of the French and of course the hostility of the Russians. Religion was given free reign and Clay was reluctant to interfere in this matters with the U.S. belief that government should be neutral in religious matters.

One main accomplishment may be noted Iraq with the emergence of Maliki and somewhat competent government. This is a recent positive goal that I thought nearly impossible just over a year ago. We are on the right track.

One other striking difference is true in contrasting Germany and Iraq. The incredible good will and personal involvement by ordinary Americans is almost completely absent today. There has been a dearth of activity by ordinary Americans in outreach and in humanitarian efforts and without this type of personal interest it is no wonder that Iraqis find it difficult to believe that Americans have strong values. Democracy does not flourish without involvement and Americans in many ways participate much less in their own democratic affairs much less take an interest in exporting democracy elsewhere. We do not have the leaders of the heroic generation nor do we have the same quality of Americans who would not consider themselves heroic but more simply just being who and what they are.

Anonymous Commentators Weigh In On Latest OLPC

What's an educator to do? On the one hand, we have the gushy optimism of Mike Elgin, technology evangelist, who tells us the OLPC's latest incarnation will transform the world. On the other hand, there are all those nasty commentators who immediately dissed the project. I quote them (anonymously):

Submitted June 6, 2008 - 08:09.

I think the OLPC 2.0 is what the UMPC's should be. I agree, it is the future of notebook computers and computing in general. Even if it costs $200, IMO - it will be worth it.
future?

Submitted June 6, 2008 - 08:32.

A few years back the floppy drive on a laptop the school owned failed. I contacted the maker and was told 750.00 for the floppy drive replacement. That was excessive so I purchased a recertified one from a firm in Tx. That floppy drive also failed in about 45 days. I called the firm in Tx and I was told that there was only a 30 day warranty on the 500.00 recertified drive. They decided not to replace the floppy and instead upgrade the memory. The memory upgrade cost close to 750.00. Then they passed the laptop off on another user who promptly called me and wanted the floppy drive replaced. I told them about the money already spent and they still wanted the floppy drive replaced. I found another floppy drive from another vendor in Ca. and that only was 450.00 but that floppy lasted longer then the recertified one and it had a year warranty.

Submitted June 6, 2008 - 08:44.

Give up the mouse and an actual keyboard? I wonder how long that will last...

Submitted June 6, 2008 - 08:47.

I suspect that as long as people continue to use tactile -- and therefore separate -- keyboards, they will continue to use some physical mouse equivalent distinct from the screen. A mouse near the keyboard rather than a foot away on the screen is much more ergonomically acceptable and faster to use. Therefore I do not expect the mouse to disappear before the keyboard.

But in a few decades I don't expect separate keyboards to be common at all. Rather, I think vocal or subvocal speech recognition or some other more direct technology will have replaced using the fingers to enter text one letter at a time.

Submitted June 6, 2008 - 10:23.

The OLPC is probably a footnote at this point in time. Why?

They decided to, effectively, abandon their revolutionary Sugar OS for--Microsoft. This has resulted in a loss of support from the FOSS community and necessarily changes a unique, hardware-light foray into new territory into an underpowered just-another-box.

It's clear that our entire model has to change to give us anything really new--face it, a programmer or user from 1950 would recognize today's character-by-character keyboard entry. A mouse wouldn't be any real shocker, either.

But the entire paradigm of Windows is going to be a real stretch to a kid in the third world--which was a major premise of Sugar.

One step forward, two steps back.

The comments indicate an immediate, visceral reaction on the part of people who have vocal, detailed, and emotional responses; and yet, the original inspiration and dream of the project is a sound humanitarian, and fascinating endeavor.

What is the reality?

The OLPC project is a wonderful dream and a worthwhile project that I've been interested in consistently over time. If the aims of the OLPC group could be realized it would be a fabulous accomplishment. The commentators have sound points to make though. The project never realized its cost limitations and a healthy part of their vision was lost with the decision to abandon open source technology.

While we debate whether the glass is half empty or half full the kids who could benefit from the technology are helped enormously. That is why I remain hopeful that at least some of the less grandiose but realistic plans of the OLPC project can be realized.

The different modes of the next-gen OLPC laptop.

Graphic source: One Laptop per Child

International Examples of Counter-Terrorism

The balance in the war on terrorism is vigilance tempered by a respect for civil rights. This is not the case worldwide. Foreign Affairs ran an interesting piece about the worst places to be a terrorist.

France is repressive but not for the reasons that the journal notes. It is true that France first dealt with international terrorism with the Algergian situation in the 1950s. The real reason France has effective prosecutions though is that the Napoleonic tradition is more prosecutorial as opposed to English common law in the first place. Not surprisingly, in the war on terror France is a bad place to be a terrorist.

Jordan has enjoyed one of the quietest experiences, and lack of terrorist activities despite its easy access to some of the world's worst places for terrorism, but at what cost? The November 2005 al Qaeda hotel bombings in Amman provoked King Abdullah II so much that he has stopped the infiltration of terrorists from neighboring Iraq and Syria. Jordan’s intelligence service, the General Intelligence Department, is close to Sunni tribes in Iraq’s Anbar province. It also has a first-rate specidal forces unit and special operations training center.

Egypt has also been one of the most adamant about shutting down terrorists but for the U.S. our relationship with Egypt has done little other than providing terrorists with another reason to despise the U.S. The Muslim Brotherhood began in Egypt, and they have directly confronted the Egyptian Islamic Jihad so the country is no stranger to its dangers. Hosni Mubarak ruthlessly represses terrorist activity routinely tortures prisoners.

Singapore, 15% Muslim, has effectively combatted regional terrorist groups such as the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah. Since 2003 though the government aimed to rehabilitate arrested militants with volunteer clerics who counsel detainees and rebut extremist arguments. This is a potential area for the U.S., who is reportedly studying the idea, to explore more fully.

Russia has brooked no opposition since Vladimir Putin rose to the fore and counterinsurgency and counterterrorism have been his forte. Russia has ruthless attacking terrorists in Chechnya. Oddly, they promoted former rebel Ramzan Kadyrov to the presidency of the now largely peaceful region. The Russian tactics include the sacrifice of civilians if need be when attacking terrorists which would not work for Americans. Next to the largely pacified Chechnya, the neighboring regions of Dagestan and North Ossetia remain hotbeds for militants.

The U.S. can learn little from other countries and has to prosecute terrorists with fervor while protecting American liberties. This is no easy task and the road is long and difficult. None of the areas that are troublesome for terrorists provide a legal framework for the United States to build on. We are more concerned with the liberty of citizens, the safety of hostages, and even when dealing with international terrorists, we are more adamant to rule with the law than the governments of these nations are. Singapore provides the only possibility of a place where the U.S. could learn a thing or two.

More Iraqi Refugees Enter U.S.

The U.S. accepted 1,141 Iraqi refugees in May which is the most the U.S. has taken in one month. 4,742 Iraqi refugees have entered the U.S. since the fiscal year began in October. May's number was more than half of the total for all of 2007: 1,608. But the U.S. needs to accept about 7,200 more Iraqi refugees over the next four months to meet the State Department's goal of 12,000 that I've noted before.

Extreme IT On the Frontlines: Literally

IT support in Afghanistan (clockwise from upper left): Specialist Wood tests a satellite communications trailer before deployment to a combat outpost in Afghanistan; PFC Cuellar configures a server in a remote forward operating base; two soldiers install a phone box; Chief Warrant Officer 3 Hooser tests one of the small satellite terminals used throughout Afghanistan.

Graphic source: Computerworld

Computerworld ran an article entitled, "Extreme IT: Battling dust, heat and bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq." The picture provides a sample of how the troops are coping with the extreme IT conditions on the ground. This is really inspirational about how IT professionals, as soldiers, are coping with conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ohio Man Guilty in Bomb Plot

Christopher Paul, 43, of Columbus, Ohio, is accused of plotting to bomb European tourist resorts and overseas U.S. military facilities and pled guilty to a single terrorism charge as part of a deal that could result in a 20-year prison sentence, according to federal court documents. Graphic source: AP Photo/Franklin County Sheriff's Office

Paul joined al-Qaida in the early 1990s and taught fellow Muslims to bomb U.S. and European targets. Paul is a U.S. citizen born and raised in Ohio. He was indicted in April 2007 and had been set to go to trial early next year. In 1999 Paul traveled to German to train members of an alleged terrorist cell knowing the group planned to make bombs and car bombs to use against Americans vacationing at overseas tourist resorts. The German group also planned to use bombs against Americans in the United States and against overseas U.S. facilities. The Justice Department had also accused Paul and two other men of discussing terrorist attacks during an August 2002 meeting at a coffee shop in suburban Columbus. The other two pled guilty and were convicted: Nuradin Abdi in connection with an alleged plot to blow up an Ohio shopping mall, and Iyman Faris in connection with a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Paul converted to Islam in the late 1980s and joined al-Qaida after traveling to Afghanistan in the early 1990s. He fought in Afghanistan against the pro-Soviet Marxist government. He was a recruiter and taught martial arts at a local mosque.

Note on Wissner-Gross

Easy read but a helpful book especially when coupled with Wissner-Gross' other work, What High Schools Don't Tell You.

Note on Mapping History Battles and Campaigns by Malcolm Swanston

This is quite servicable as a discount book. The illustrations are well made and mostly instructive. The text is spare but adequate. There are minor battles, e.g., Ap Bac in Vietnam, and when coupled with major battles such as Waterloo the presentation appears flawed and out of proportion. The major appeal of a book such as this is its oversized maps and material which make it easier to see and enjoy in its own right. The text and contents should not be accepted in and of itself without supplement by more extensive works.

History of MS

Richard M. Swiderski reports in his Multiple Sclerosis Through History and Human Life that the disease was unknown in ancient or medieval times. He does though provide evidence that certain historical figures, saints and nobility, did appear to suffer from what we can recognize, in hindsight, as multiple sclerosis (MS). It is not until the groundbreaking period in 1868 when Jean-Martin Charcot, a professor of neurology at the University of Paris, who has been called "the father of neurology," really observed first hand the symptoms of MS; nonetheless, he had no sure process of diagnosis much less a cure. More recently the history of MS has been described in later works such as Multiple Sclerosis The History of a Disease by T. Jock Murray, MD. and A History of Multiple Sclerosis, by Colin L. Talley.

Note on Napoleon As Military Commander

This work does not claim to be definitive but is more simply a brief review of Napoleon as military commander. To that end, it is certainly serviceable. The illustrations and maps could have been more deftly placed and integrated better with the text but the work is clear enough. In addition, although it does not claim to be about Napleon the man, the quotations from private letters and notes about his relationship with his family and early private life is instructive.

Insurgents Had Enough: Tired of Fighting

An estimated 1,000 former insurgents turned themselves in during Balad, Iraq negotiations. The insurgents were simply tired of fighting and with a written pledge to the Iraqi constitution they promise not to pick up arms again. Most did not receive any punishment, only 76 faced trial dates.

Navy Lags Behind, Stuck in the Cold War Expense

The MQ-4 Predator controlled by the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron stands on the tarmac at Balad Air Base, 50 miles north of Baghdad, Iraq. Graphic source: AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File

The Navy is lagging behind the Air Force and has limited the future of drones in that service branch just for spying but not fighting. They Navy favors the "Top Gun" fighter pilots of the past. The Navy remains tied to its anachronistic view of modern warfare with plans for the F-35 fighter jet. The Air Force, by contast, has used armed drones for years and is more in line with the Pentagon trend to encourage drones as a way to reduce costs and consolidate personnel.

The Navy lags behind the Air Force, which first used an armed version of the Predator drone in combat in Afghanistan in 2001. The Air Force's latest version, the Reaper, can carry up to 14 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles or alternately, four Hellfires and two 500-pound bombs over Iraq, Afghanistan or other war zones.

The mobile air attack is required in complex air missions but these situations are less likely with the demise of the Soviet Union or even perhaps in the case of hard-charging Chinese threat.

Airstrikes will presumably be done by the next-generation F-35, which the Navy is expected to receive in 2015.

Experts have noted that a drone carrying the same weapons payload as the F-35 would have two and a half times the range of a manned aircraft without refueling, and could remain over the battlefield 5 to 10 times as long.

Those factors make it the weapon of choice, timing, and budget.

Mars Hacked Twice

Not once but twice the Phoenix Mars Mission site got hacked. First, a Ukrainian web site defacer posted a message at the site’s blog, and hours later,

the Turkish “sql loverz crew 2008″ redirected the official mission’s site, as well as the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory site to a third-part location serving the defaced page.

These crews employ publicly obtainable remote SQL injection scanners that each site could have downloaded and performed a self-audit.

Hey Bo Diddley! "bonk-de-bonk-bonk, de-bonk-bonk..."

Graphic source: Mark Summers

Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), born Ellas Otha Bates], aka "The Originator," influenced American rock 'n' roll as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was perhaps best known for his distinctive rectangular guitar and as the creator of the "Bo Diddley beat."

He changed his "name in search of fame, to find the Midas touch (Copyright: "Ballad of Mott" Ian Hunter, Overend Watts, Mick Ralphs, Dale "Buffin" Griffin and Verden Allen) and adopted a stage name which is most likely a Southern African-American slang phrase meaning "nothing at all," as in "he ain't bo diddley." He possibly first used the nickname as a teenage Golden Gloves boxer. Finally, the nickname is also associated with the diddley bow, a two-stringed instrument that was used in the South by black musicians working in the fields.

In late 1954 he recorded "I'm A Man" and the A-side "Bo Diddley" at Chess Studios and as released in March 1955 "Bo Diddley" became a #1 R&B hit.

Diddley is best known for the distinctive "Bo Diddley beat," a rumba-like stylistic device similar to "hambone," a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes.

Some of his best-known songs, "Hey Bo Diddley" and "Who Do You Love?" often have no chord changes and the song centers on the rhythm. He influenced later guitarists with his early experiments with special effects and other innovations in tone and attack. Bo Diddley's trademark instrument is the rectangular-bodied Gretsch, nicknamed "The Twang Machine," a guitar that he developed himself around 1958.

His lyrics often freely adapted folk music themes. The song "Bo Diddley" was based on the lullaby "Hush Little Baby." Likewise, "Hey Bo Diddley" is based on the folk song "Old MacDonald." The boasting and booming of "Who Do You Love" is a wordplay on hoodoo.

On November 20, 1955, he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show but only infuriated the host when instead of singing the arranged song, Tennessee Ernie Ford's hit "Sixteen Tons," he instead substituted his own "Bo Diddley." He was banned from further appearances.

His other hits in the late 1950s and the 1960s, included "Pretty Thing" (1956), "Say Man" (1959) and "You Can't Judge a Book By the Cover" (1962). One of his lesser known hits is the controversial "Love Is Strange" for Mickey and Sylvia which was written under a pseudonym.

Diddley's distinctive beat influenced many later rock artists, notably Elvis Presley ("His Latest Flame"); Bruce Springsteen ("She's The One"); U2 ("Desire"); The Smiths ("How Soon Is Now?"); Roxette ("Harleys And Indians (Riders In The Sky)"). Dee Clark - A former member of the Hambone Kids ("Hey Little Girl"); Johnny Otis ("Willie and the Hand Jive"); George Michael ("Faith"); Normaal ("Kearl van stoahl"); The Strangeloves ("I Want Candy"); Guns N' Roses ("Mr. Brownstone"); David Bowie ("Panic in Detroit"); The Pretenders ("Cuban Slide"); The Police ("Deathwish"); Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders ("The Game of Love"); The Supremes ("When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes"); Jefferson Airplane ("She Has Funny Cars"); The White Stripes ("Screwdriver"); The Byrds ("Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe"); Tiny Letters ("Song For Jerome Green") and The Stooges ("1969"). The early Rolling Stones sound was strongly associated with their versions of "Not Fade Away" and "I Need You Baby (Mona)."

Diddley died today at 79.

Graphic source: Rolling Stone