Editor’s Note: Josh Mull send this in on Thursday night, 15 hours after the bombing in front of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. We were caught up with other stories, and we also wanted to see if developments supported his theory. An hour ago, this emerged: “Afghan Ambassador to the US, Said T Jawad has claimed Pakistan’s spy agency ISI was behind the suicide bomb blast at the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Thursday, which claimed 12 lives and injured over 80 people. Jawad said that there is enough evidence at the ground level to suggest that ISI was behind the attack.”
Could Pakistani intelligence be linked to this attack? First we have some clues on the operational capability of the perpetrators: “The assailant in a car managed to enter the neighbourhood despite stringent security arrangements put in place. The 500-metre road stretch has been barricaded for a year in the wake of a deadly suicide assault on the Indian Embassy.”
Last week the New York Timespublished an article detailing the Pentagon’s plan to shift focus away from international terrorism, known under the previous administration as the Global War on Terror, towards larger strategic threats to the United States such as destabilized governments and mass refugee crises provoked by climate change. Most in the defense establishment welcome this shift in strategy, but the threat from terrorism still remains.
This time, however, there is a difference. The terror threat comes largely not from foreign nationals but from Americans.
In 2009 almost 70 Americans, including police officers and medical personnel, have been killed by domestic terror attacks. This is a breathtakingly sharp rise from 2008, when only two people lost their lives, both of whom died at the hands of anti-Liberal terrorist Jim D. Adkisson in Tennessee. The first attack in 2009 was in Samson, Alabama, when Michael McLendon went on a cross-county shooting rampage that killed 11 people including himself. The most recent was on June 10, when James von Brunn opened fire inside the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, killing one guard and wounding several others.
While each of these attacks is unique, they can be roughly broken down into a handful of categories. In this piece, we will explore these terrorist archetypes, the ecosystem that produced them, as well as common tactics, both harmful and helpful, used to counter them. The intention is to provide students, analysts and researchers, with a sound and coherent image of the domestic terror threat facing the United States.
UPDATE (7 July, 0800 GMT): There is still a lively debate over what Joe Biden “really meant” with his words on Sunday. That seems to miss the point that the significance is what others think he meant or how they turn his words to their advantage. The latest reaction comes from the Iranian Government. where Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani issued a stern warning at a meeting in Qatar on Monday:
We will consider the Americans responsible in any adventure launched by the Zionist entity….No politician or person in the world can imagine that the Zionist entity can lead an operation without getting the green light from the United States.
Marc Lynch, always perceptive and well-informed, shares my concern with Joe Biden’s Sunday statement that “Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else”. He is especially concerned with how it is being interpreted by Israeli and regional media. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m still looking for the video of CNN’s discussion with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, but apparently interviewer Wolf Blitzer combined the patronising and the surreal. Enduring America’s Josh Mull commented, “Zardari is…trying to remain calm and classy while the anchors explain to him how his country works,” while Dana Milbank of The Washington Post has a darkly entertaining account:
Blitzer directed him to look at a video of a CNN “iReport” from a Pakistani college student in Florida. “Turn around and you can see him,” Blitzer ordered. Zardari, looking bewildered by Blitzer’s arsenal of plasma screens, obeyed.
“Are you going to send your troops in,” Blitzer demanded, “and clean out that area from the Taliban and al-Qaeda?” “Most definitely,” Zardari promised. Blitzer was satisfied. “Mr. President,” he said, “good luck.”
The transcript bears out the impression that Pakistan is going straight to hell and Zardari better know his place in rescuing it. It’s titled, “Nuclear Nation Could Explode”.
BLITZER: One of the worst fears of the Obama administration right now, that Taliban extremists will seize control of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal, threatening the region, the United States, indeed the entire world.
President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, he’s here in Washington right now for talks with President Obama, along with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. President Zardari joined me just a short while ago here in THE SITUATION ROOM for an exclusive interview. Read the rest of this entry »
Matt Benyon Rees of Global Post offers a useful reminder today that very little of the $5.2 billion promised to rebuild Gaza after the December/January war has made it into the area. He could have gone farther, reflecting on Josh Mull’s recent post in Enduring America: “Only a slice of the money is even allocated to the Gaza Strip, under the control of the democratically elected Hamas government, while the majority goes to the West Bank, held in the iron grip of Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.”
Still, Rees provides a direct answer for the non-reconstruction: “‘Keeping the money out of the hands of Hamas is a challenge,’ says one Israeli official.”
Billions promised, but Gazans still waiting
RAMALLAH — Money, wrote the English philosopher Francis Bacon, is like manure: of very little use unless it is spread.
Since an international aid conference in March promised $5.2 billion to rebuild Gaza, the stink of un-spread money has been strong in the nostrils. That’s particularly unpleasant for the people of Gaza, who also have to deal with a largely destroyed sewage system, thus giving them a double-helping of manure.
International diplomats, Israeli officials and leaders of the Palestinian Authority haven’t been able to figure out how to rebuild Gaza while keeping the cash out of the hands of Hamas, which runs the narrow strip of land. Food aid can get in, but substantial reconstruction hasn’t begun.
Yesterday Tristan McConnell of Global Post and Enduring America’s Josh Mull offered analyses of Somalia, and the response to its political, paramilitary, and social situation, which went far beyond “Kill the Pirates” rhetoric. Writing for URB Magazine, K’Naan, a Somali-Canadian poet and musician, offers this perspective with the context of recent Somali history and ongoing “Western” activities off the Somali coast:
Why We Don’t Condemn Our Pirates in Somalia
Can anyone ever really be for piracy? Outside of sea bandits, and young girls fantasizing of Johnny Depp, would anyone with an honest regard for good human conduct really say that they are in support of Sea Robbery? Well in Somalia, the answer is: it’s complicated. Read the rest of this entry »
Josh Mull is working on the idea that the Obama Administration’s strategy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, to be unveiled later today, draws substantially from proposals put forth by now-Vice President Joe Biden almost 18 months ago.
As a Presidential candidate in November 2007, Biden gave a talk at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire on “re-engaging America in the world”. His demonstration of US leadership (others in the world might not like us, but they recognise that we are the country that can make a difference) focused on a solution for the internal difficulties in Pakistan, linked to an escalation of the US military intervention in Afghanistan. Biden, in particular, offered a mix of American “soft power”, reaching out to the Pakistani people, while emphasizing good governance and finding a way forward with Pakistan’s military.
While I think the US plan in it specifics will look far different from Biden’s 2007 conception, the general tenet of “engaging” with Pakistan while stepping up the Afghan campaign — as well as the (superficial) mix of military and “soft power” programmes — does underlay this Obama strategy.
And now an enlightening tale of the Internet and how to substitute an exaggeration for the real story:
This morning there are stories flying around the Web that Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, may have stopped a military coup in Pakistan through a series of phone call to General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, through a series of phone calls.
It is being reported by more reliable sources like Al Jazeera that Kiani and President Asif Ali Zardari have clashed in the last 24 hours, but Mullen didn’t intervene to stop a military takeover. Here’s how the rumour, and distortion, started.
On Thursday night, Mullen was interviewed by Charlie Rose of the US Public Broadcasting System. Here’s the video and transcript of the key exchange in the discussion:
Editor’s Note: Josh Mull send this in on Thursday night, 15 hours after the bombing in front of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. We were caught up with other stories, and we also wanted to see if developments supported his theory. An hour ago, this emerged: “Afghan Ambassador to the US, Said T Jawad has claimed Pakistan’s spy agency ISI was behind the suicide bomb blast at the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Thursday, which claimed 12 lives and injured over 80 people. Jawad said that there is enough evidence at the ground level to suggest that ISI was behind the attack.”
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UPDATE (7 July, 0800 GMT): There is still a lively debate over what Joe Biden “really meant” with his words on Sunday. That seems to miss the point that the significance is what others think he meant or how they turn his words to their advantage. The latest reaction comes from the Iranian Government. where Speaker of the Parliament 
I’m still looking for the video of CNN’s discussion with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, but apparently interviewer Wolf Blitzer combined the patronising and the surreal. Enduring America’s Josh Mull commented, “Zardari is…trying to remain calm and classy while the anchors explain to him how his country works,” while Dana Milbank of The Washington Post has a darkly entertaining account:
Matt Benyon Rees of Global Post 
Yesterday 
Josh Mull is working on the idea that the Obama Administration’s strategy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, to be unveiled later today, draws substantially from proposals put forth by now-Vice President Joe Biden almost 18 months ago.
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